"Style is something that's extremely important, but it must grow naturally out of who and what you are and what the material calls for. It cannot be superimposed"
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Style, to Friedkin, is a byproduct, not a branding strategy. Coming from a director who moved between documentary grit, procedural realism, and operatic shock, the line reads like a warning shot at filmmakers who treat aesthetics as an overlay: pick a look, slap it on, call it vision. His best work suggests the opposite. The French Connection feels like it was shot on the run because it was, in spirit: impatient, corner-cutting, alert to the city’s ugliness and luck. The Exorcist lands its terror partly because the camera behaves like a skeptic. It reports. It doesn’t pre-signal the supernatural with decorative flourishes until the story forces that door open.
The key phrase is “what the material calls for,” which shifts authorship away from ego and toward a kind of craft humility. Friedkin isn’t saying directors shouldn’t have a signature; he’s saying a signature that arrives ahead of the drama is counterfeit. “Superimposed” is telling: it evokes postproduction, a layer added after the fact, the cinematic equivalent of a personality graft. In an era that increasingly rewards recognizability and “aesthetic coherence” across projects, Friedkin argues for a tougher standard: style must be earned by situation, character, and tension.
Subtextually, it’s also a jab at prestige mannerism - the slow, self-conscious shot that signals importance rather than discovering it. Friedkin’s cinema insists that form should feel inevitable, as if the story itself is dictating where the camera stands, how long it waits, when it flinches. That’s not anti-style. It’s style with consequences.
The key phrase is “what the material calls for,” which shifts authorship away from ego and toward a kind of craft humility. Friedkin isn’t saying directors shouldn’t have a signature; he’s saying a signature that arrives ahead of the drama is counterfeit. “Superimposed” is telling: it evokes postproduction, a layer added after the fact, the cinematic equivalent of a personality graft. In an era that increasingly rewards recognizability and “aesthetic coherence” across projects, Friedkin argues for a tougher standard: style must be earned by situation, character, and tension.
Subtextually, it’s also a jab at prestige mannerism - the slow, self-conscious shot that signals importance rather than discovering it. Friedkin’s cinema insists that form should feel inevitable, as if the story itself is dictating where the camera stands, how long it waits, when it flinches. That’s not anti-style. It’s style with consequences.
Quote Details
| Topic | Art |
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