What were your overall reactions/responses? Were you confused? The New Biographical Dictionary of Film states that “time and again it becomes incoherent or impossible to follow.” Did it do that to you? Why is the film doing that to us as viewers? What might be its point in doing that?
Historical Context and the Production of The French Connection:
Script from Rubin Moore’s best selling book about real events surrounding the greatest drug bust in U.S. history as of 1961. The director, William Freidkin, called on Ernest Tidyman, director of Shaft, to write the screenplay for the film. Before that they got two other guys to write a script which they did not use. Tidyman’s script was written and then revised scene by scene. (Freidkin directed The Exorcist two years later). Eddie and Sonny, the two cops who in real life made the drug bust, were there saying this is what happened and this is what we said.
Filmed on location in New York city in lower East side, Times Square, Grand Central Station, and other on site locations. Documentary experience of Freidkin and his approach. Subtitles, on site filming, etc.
The film received eight nominations for academy awards and won in five categories: best director (Friedkin), best actor (Hackman), best adapted screenplay (Ernest Tidyman), best editing (Jerry Greengerg), and Best Picture. (The other three nominated for were best supporting actor (Roy Scheider), best cinematography (Owen Roizman) and best sound.
Civil Rights and Police Brutality: 1969 Black Panther Party emerges. One of its ten central goals as stated by their website is “an immediate end to police brutality and murder of Black people.”
Chicano Mortatorium in Los Angeles: August 29, 1970: Thousands of Chicanos/as protest the disproportionate numbers of Chicano deaths in the war (Chicanos made up 6% of the population but represented 20% of the deaths in the war) while still not having access to equality in terms of education, employment, and other civil rights. Hundreds of men, women, children and elderly people were beaten, tear gassed, and arrested. Three Chicano men were killed by the police, (including LA times journalist Rueben Salazar).
Discussion:
Clip: opening scene
Baguette scene—this prop function?
Representation of violence? Look at facial expressions.
Our confusion as to what’s going on: what is this French connection?
Image of the detective with bloody face.
This scene juxtaposed with next one:
Santa Claus chase scene—talking to children again? Effect?
Landscape with city in background?
How does the Santa Claus costume function in this scene?
Good cop// bad cop—what does picking your feet mean? Pokipsie?
Facial expressions?
Race and Racism:
Considering the context of civil rights and police brutality against people of color
what does the film’s position seem to be on this?
How would the film be different if the Santa Claus detective and buddy were black and the guy with the knife were white?
Doyle in beginning of film says “Never trust a nigger.” Buddy Russo replies, “He could have been white.” How did you react to this, and the beating of the African American man? How do you think the film wants us to react?
Bar Scene: Harassment of small time drug users. Power, authority, how represented? Does the film suggest it’s justified, horrifying, or something else?
Doesn’t have a didactic message. Both original Shaft, 1971, and current one with Samuel Jackson do. What is the effect? Ending of Shaft, recent version. Detective genre—often times detective must take law into own hands. Dirty Harry, right?
Clip: Train Scene—
Note the framing in phone booth, graphic match with columns
Deep focus, Alain sipping cup so slowly elegantly
Looking and gaze and focus of camera
Charnier goes offscreen, which becomes onscreen space
How do props function in this clip? Apple, umbrella, the woman who gets off the train.
Tunnel at the end?
As an action/crime film how does this hold up today for you? Exciting?
Clip: Car crash dead teenagers followed by sniper:
What’s going on here with the dead teenagers?
What is the film doing with this in relation to Hackman’s character? (Graphic close up of faces, while Doyle talking about drug bust; quick editing cuts between dead teenagers and Doyle).
How is it representing violence here? Close ups on their faces?
Mother killed by sniper—baby carriage. Why do we never find out about this? Doyle never returns, and nothing more is even said about it.
Did you notice the motif of children, either in strollers or on playgrounds? How might this motif be functioning in the film? Interpretations?
Clip: the end
What do we make of the ending?
Who gets punished? Joel Weinstock is indicted and dismissed for lack of evidence; Angie Boca is guilty of misdemeanor and her sentence suspended; Lou Boca guilty of conspiracy/possession and sentence reduced; Henri Devereaux conspiracy sentenced to 4 years; Alain Charnier never caught; Doyle and Russo transferred.
What does the film then say about the law and drugs? Does the film comment on wealth, race, and other hierarchies in this drug world? Or does it simply perpetuate stereotypes that all Black people do drugs?
What about Doyle killing a cop? How is that represented? How is the legal system represented?
How would it be different if Alain had been caught?
Are the detectives, especially Doyle, represented as heroes?
Phillipa Gates’ “A Breif History of Detective Film” from crimeculture.com/contents/detectivefilm
The Crime Film genre has subgenres that often overlap one another. These subgenres are the detective film, the gangster film, the thriller, and the social problem film. A detective film basically follows an investigation and the protagonist is the detective. These films offer a “specific kind of image of American masculinity that includes manliness, perseverance, and heroism.” The protagonist is usually male.
Before the 1940s cops were “bumbling and in the way” and it was the detective who solves the crime. He was a hero who was organized and driven by “duty.” In the 1960s the Vigilante cop emerges with the changes in the Production Code. This cop, according to Gates, was a “tough and angry hero who annihilated crime at any cost.” He had to break the law to get the job done. He was tough, independent, violent and successful in the “war on crime.” Then in the 1980s the cop as action hero emerges. An example is 48 Hours. These films often had cops who were people of color, subordinate to a white hero, to help fight crimes committed against white Americans (Chico to Dirty Harry, for example). In the 1980s the male body becomes “hypermasculine” and the emphasis on the muscular body becomes part of the spectacle and spectacular. Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, Rambo, etc. American masculinity is now violent, independent, and victorious while NOT displaying emotions. In the 1990s the films allow for more intellectual heroes, and women and people of color as heroes.
Given the “hypermasculine” films of the 80s, where does The French Connection figure in? Does Hackman’s character display emotions? How does his depiction compare with more recent images of masculinity? (Usually older white heroes get younger women—not probably why Ruth and Sonny were hard to comprehend).
We don’t see sex in this film! What do you make of that? How does The French Connection represent masculinity? How is it defined in the film? How does Doyle’s character compare with action films today? How does Hackman’s character compare with say Eastwood?
Aside from the recent re-do of Shaft, can you think of detective films where a woman or a person of color is the hero/heroine and uses her or his intelligence to solve the crime//bust the criminal?
Further questions for discussion and “connections” to other films in the course:
How would you compare the male relationships in Midnight Cowboy with the male relationships between “Buddy” and Doyle in The French Connection? Does The French Connection count as a buddy movie? Compare the male relationships between the men in Dirty Harry with the men in Midnight Cowboy, Bonnie and Clyde, Butch Cassidy, and The French Connection.
Reviewer Tim Dirks refers to Doyle as an “unsympathetic character.” How does his portrayal as a cop compare with Clint Eastwood’s character in Dirty Harry? How does the representation of the law in these two films compare with Bonnie and Clyde?
How does the representation of violence in this film compare with other films we’ve seen this semester?