Something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is “the zeitgeist.” One of my favourite filmmakers of all time, William Friedkin, passed away recently. I’ve been reading his autobiography, and it’s a word that comes up often when he discusses his career/various successes or lack thereof. The way Friedkin talks about it makes it sound like a mysterious force of nature you can’t really plan for — it can work against you or for you, regardless of the content of your project. The French Connection, is an example of the zeitgeist embracing a movie because it was the perfect fit for that time. Its documentary style, gritty cinematography, and completely uncensored scenarios/language hit a world that was more than ready to see it. It showed people the real world that was actually happening outside the movie theatre, in a way they probably hadn’t ever seen depicted in a Hollywood movie before. It was the perfect film for an audience that needed it, and didn’t even know they needed it, because it was unlike anything else.
And on the opposite end of the spectrum, Friedkin’s Sorcerer was completely inappropriate for the moment it was released. The word zeitgeist literally means the “spirit” of our times, and in 1977 the spirit and times were changing. Sorcerer was the gritty, dark 70s movie that came out slightly too late, as audiences and the culture in general shifted towards Hollywood Blockbuster type of films. While Sorcerer is easily one of the greatest films ever made (and is now rightfully considered to be great), it was received very poorly at the time of its release. It didn’t help that Star Wars came out at the same time, and it also didn’t help that Friedkin felt the need to give the film such a weird title (especially after doing The Exorcist shortly prior; it gave the movie an unnecessary supernatural vibe that didn’t fit the content of the film at all, and probably turned people off). For whatever reason, the zeitgeist embraced The French Connection, and it shunned Sorcerer a mere 6 years later. Both great movies, both from the same director, one won Oscars, and the other was critically panned.
It’s very interesting to think about life and success, and Friedkin’s case with the zeitgeist is a great example. The truth about success/what does well and what doesn’t has less to do about the thing itself, and more so about the era and context the thing lives in. It’s important to re-iterate here that Sorcerer is easily one of the greatest films of all time (I would go further and even make the case that There Will Be Blood wouldn’t exist without Sorcerer), there is nothing you could say about it that really makes it a “bad” film. When you read criticism of it from its day, people make it sound like it was some horrible misfire, which is dead wrong. It wasn’t a bad movie, it was just not the right fit for its time.
In fact, I bet if you rereleased it in theatres today it would probably do really well. And yet, it was a box office and critical disaster in 1977. It’s almost shocking when you read about how poorly received Sorcerer was in retrospect, because the movie is so goddamn good (and highly revered by people like Tarantino). In some of my film classes over the years, I’ve had professors even screen the film for us, and sing its praises. It’s really that good, and it makes no sense when you think about how badly received it was. The only thing that explains it is the zeitgeist. When people talk of films from that era, they say the same titles over and over: Jaws, Star Wars, Rocky. Almost no one says Sorcerer.
Ironically, Friedkin has said the title was given because he thought of the “Sorcerer” as an evil wizard, and the evil wizard in this case was fate. It’s a fitting way to think about the trajectory of the film: you can do all the work in the world, you can make a truly great film, but if it happens to come out at the same time something like Star Wars does, you are fucked. What if Friedkin had called the film something goofy, cooler, or more accessible to dumb people, like The Jungle Adventure? Would that even have made a difference? Probably not, and that’s the scary thing to remember: sometimes it’s your time, and sometimes it’s not. Either way, you have very little control about how well something will go for you. After a certain point it’s up to the zeitgeist, the wizard, the sorcerer, fate, or whatever you want to call it.