ReFocus: The Films of William Friedkin, by Steve Choe. University of Edinburgh Press, 2023, 210 pp.

Abstract

The era of New Hollywood ushered in a revolutionary epoch in cinema. Film directors in the late 1960s and 1970s created cinema that challenged rules and conventions around form and content, particularly as the studio system and censorship apparatuses collapsed, while also contributing art that participated in and reflected the tumultuous social, political, and generational shifts underway in American culture. At the same time, the cinema of New Hollywood planted the seeds of its own demise, wherein the duality of its excesses and commercial success opened the door to the era of the blockbuster and corporate conglomeration, which ultimately supplanted it.

Keywords

• film
• politics
• society
• william friedkin
• exorcist