The Hip Pocket #48: TO LIVE AND DIE IN LA
William Friedkin didn't have anything to prove to anyone in 1985, but he did it anyway.
There is no single canon.
We all have movies we love.
Some of them are great movies. Some of them are terrible movies. Love does not care. Love is unreasonable. Love is blind. We love what we love, and the louder you love it, the better.
One of my favorite things is sharing a film I love with someone. Even if they don't love it the same way I do, that experience imparts something about you to that person. When you share something you love, you are sharing a part of yourself, and there is nothing more vulnerable or personal than that.
I don't think of these movies as the canon or the official library or anything that formal. These are all just movies I keep in my hip pocket, movies I've filed away as part of my own personal ongoing film festival as worthwhile and notable.
This is an ongoing list, one without an ending. This is The Hip Pocket.
To Live and Die in LA
William Petersen, Willem Dafoe, John Pankow, Debra Feuer, John Turturro, Darlanne Fluegel, Dean Stockwell, Steve James, Robert Downey Sr., Michael Greene, Christopher Allport, Jack Hoar, Valentin de Vargas, Dweir Brown, Michael Chong, Jacqueline Giroux, Michael Zand, Bobby Bass, Dar Robinson, Anne Betancourt, Katherine M. Louie, Edward Harrell, Gilbert Espinoza, John Petievich, Zarko Petievich, Rick Dalton, Richard L. Lane, Jack Cota, Shirley J. White, Gerald H. Brownlee, David M. DuFriend, Ruben Garcia, Joe Duran, Bufort McClerkins, Gregg Dandridge, Donnie Williams, Earnest Hart Jr. Thomas F. Duffy, Gerald Petievich, Mark Gash, Pat McGroarty, Brian Bradley, Jane Leeves, Cherise Bates, Michael Higgins, Chris Latanzi, Shaun Earl
cinematography by Robby Müller
music by Wang Chung
screenplay by William Friedkin & Gerald Petievich
based on the novel by Gerald Petievich
produced by Irving H. Levin and Bud Smith
directed by William Friedkin
Rated R
1 hr 56 mins
A Secret Service agent becomes obsessed with hunting down the counterfeiter who killed his partner.
Most filmmakers would be lucky to make one film as good as The Exorcist. Once they had, they wouldn’t feel like they had anything to prove to anyone.
William Friedkin was not most filmmakers.