Damien Chazelle pays tribute to William Fiedkin at Venice Film Festival

Damien Chazelle paid a moving tribute to the late William Friedkin at the Venice Film Festival on Sunday (03.09.23).

The 'Exorcist' filmmaker passed away last month at the age of 87 but was able to complete his final movie, 'The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial', before he died and it premiered at the event over the weekend.

And Damien praised the legendary director for his passion for cinema and his visionary way of working.

The 'Babylon' filmmaker, who is presiding over this year's Venice jury, said: “When I first became aware of the name Billy Friedkin I was a child, and the name itself filled me with fear.

“I probably had ‘The Exorcist’ in my mind. I hadn’t see the film yet, but I’d seen the letters written in that typeface, and the sound of the word “Fried-kin” seemed to suggest to me the darkest, most forbidden recesses of the imagination. The kind of things that inspire nightmares for the rest of your life.

“So to me William Friedkin meant fear. But today I think of his name, and I think of love. I think of love of cinema, love of all art, and a vision of how the arts can intersect and inform each other. A vision of cinema that is not separate, but inextricably linked to music, to literature, to painting. Of course, to opera."

Damien went on to praise William's "kindness and generosity" when he was starting his own career and told how the director invited him to his house when he had just made his 2014 film 'Whiplash'.

He said: "I will never forget the experience of discovering that a man responsible for movies that punched me so mercilessly in the gut, like 'Sorcerer', 'French Connection', 'Cruising', and 'Killer Joe', was in person so warm, so welcoming, so sweet, humble, loving.

“Getting to know Billy and to spend time with him and Sherry [Lansing] – and their marriage in itself was one of the all-time love stories – this was one of the great honours of my life.

“But returning to the idea of fear. There’s been a lot of it in the world of cinema lately, especially in Hollywood. So it seems we lost Friedkin when we needed him more than ever. He was fearless in every sense of the word. You get a sense in his movies of a filmmaker and his characters pushing up against the boundaries of what is possible and finally stepping past them.”