William Friedkin

"YOUNG and edgy?" William Friedkin rolls the words around and decides they taste just fine. "I'll ascribe to that description. Youth is something that you feel. You can feel old at 30. And from time to time I did." William Friedkin -- everyone calls him Billy -- is 71 now, but with his smooth complexion and lively manner he neither looks nor acts his age. "It's clean living," he says, grinning at the absurdity of the thought. "Clean mind, clean body, take your choice."

William Friedkin's film of Tracy Letts' play"Killer Joe" is nasty, brutish and just short enough to concentrate its fiendish energies for maximum wincing effect. As enthralling as it is repulsive, the movie seized hold of my attention with the ferocious tenacity of T-Bone, the pit bull chained to a neighboring trailer home in the trashy Dallas outskirts where the story is set. But when the brutality was finished and the lights came up, I had to wonder about the point of sitting through so much casual bloodshed and prolonged sexual humiliation.

IN "Bug," paranoia is a bug. The bugs themselves -- little, tiny aphids burrowing into the skin, growing in egg sacs under teeth, spawning welts across chests -- may or may not be real. But that's a moot point for Agnes, a sad sack honky-tonk waitress (Ashley Judd) who finds the visions of her laconic drifter lover, Peter (Michael Shannon), utterly contagious -- an intoxicating vision of reality that leads into a hellish biosphere of tinfoil, Raid and homemade bug-repellent chandeliers.

IN DIRECTOR David Cronenberg's 1986 movie "The Fly" -- remember "Be afraid. Be very afraid"? -- scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) commits a fatal error when he combines his own genes with those of a common housefly. At Los Angeles Opera these days, another dicey blending of species is taking place: Film directors are mutating into opera directors -- with, it's hoped, less alarming results. The Cuisinart that mistakenly mixes Brundle's DNA with that of an insect in "The Fly" is a "telepod," designed to teleport objects and, occasionally, living beings.

SAN FRANCISCO -- In many ways it was a typical night at the Castro Theatre, the venerable 85-year-old revival house in the heart of San Francisco's gay and lesbian district. The house organist opened the show with renditions of "I Get a Kick Out of You" and "That's Entertainment" before being lowered into the pit to the strains of Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy's "San Francisco," as audience members sang along.

Private home security services have become a staple in L.A. neighborhoods both wealthy and modest. But now, two Hollywood power players -- Oscar-winning director William Friedkin and his wife, former Paramount Studios boss Sherry Lansing -- contend that one system offered little protection and might even have been an advertisement for burglars.

If audiences watching the murder mystery "Jade" think they can sense plot twists ahead of time, that may be because of the "subliminal" clues director William Friedkin says he has inserted throughout the Paramount Pictures film. By inserting images that flash for only a split-second amid the film's normal sequencing, Friedkin says he hopes to induce a jarring effect in the audience, as well as portend certain clues.

Long before "Batman," before "E.T.," before "Star Wars," and even long before "Jaws," there was "The Exorcist." Buzzing with word of Linda Blair's head spinning full circles on her neck and those repulsive streams of green vomit, moviegoers lined up on the streets of 1973 America like never before, just for the chance to feel their stomachs turn flip-flops in the dark. "The Exorcist" broke house records in theaters everywhere. In some towns, fevered fans shattered glass doors to get in.

"It was right in this room," William Friedkin says, easing himself into a wing chair and waving an arm about the elegantly comfy wood-paneled study in his brick Tudor Bel-Air manse. "Placido and Edgar stopped by and gave me their offer: 'What do you think of doing "Ariadne auf Naxos"?'

'Billy,' Meet 'Barbie' By referring to William Friedkin as "Billy" in his article on Hollywood ageism ("Directing Against the Age Curve in Hollywood," June 19), Patrick Goldstein knocked 20 years off Friedkin's age and probably extended the veteran director's career by a decade or two, long enough for him to crank out a few more sequels to "The Exorcist." Maybe Goldstein could give a nip-and-tuck to the names of other filmmakers who may be getting long in the tooth. How about "Little Stevie" Spielberg?

Private home security services have become a staple in L.A. neighborhoods both wealthy and modest. But now, two Hollywood power players -- Oscar-winning director William Friedkin and his wife, former Paramount Studios boss Sherry Lansing -- contend that one system offered little protection and might even have been an advertisement for burglars.

SAN FRANCISCO -- In many ways it was a typical night at the Castro Theatre, the venerable 85-year-old revival house in the heart of San Francisco's gay and lesbian district. The house organist opened the show with renditions of "I Get a Kick Out of You" and "That's Entertainment" before being lowered into the pit to the strains of Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy's "San Francisco," as audience members sang along.

IN "Bug," paranoia is a bug. The bugs themselves -- little, tiny aphids burrowing into the skin, growing in egg sacs under teeth, spawning welts across chests -- may or may not be real. But that's a moot point for Agnes, a sad sack honky-tonk waitress (Ashley Judd) who finds the visions of her laconic drifter lover, Peter (Michael Shannon), utterly contagious -- an intoxicating vision of reality that leads into a hellish biosphere of tinfoil, Raid and homemade bug-repellent chandeliers.

"YOUNG and edgy?" William Friedkin rolls the words around and decides they taste just fine. "I'll ascribe to that description. Youth is something that you feel. You can feel old at 30. And from time to time I did." William Friedkin -- everyone calls him Billy -- is 71 now, but with his smooth complexion and lively manner he neither looks nor acts his age. "It's clean living," he says, grinning at the absurdity of the thought. "Clean mind, clean body, take your choice."

Kent Nagano, who is leaving his post as music director of Los Angeles Opera to become music director of both the Bavarian State Opera in Munich and the Montreal Symphony, is not the only L.A. Opera veteran headed for Munich.

William Friedkin, the Academy Award-winning movie director and also director of the L.A. Opera's "Ariadne auf Naxos" last year, will stage Tracy Letts' "The Man From Nebraska," a 2004 Pulitzer Prize finalist, at South Coast Repertory's Argyros Stage next season. Also announced on a partial list of South Coast's 2005-06 season are Brecht's "The Caucasian Chalk Circle," which will open the Segerstrom Stage season on Sept.

Steve Weinstein's Nov. 19 interview with director William Friedkin was not only a bore but a large wasted opportunity. Friedkin has always been a film maker of incredible depth, in his visuals and characterization. Weinstein's obsession with "The Exorcist's" "repulsive streams of green vomit," spinning heads and large box office, misses the film's story about a modern crisis of faith. This is an apt metaphor for his article. Weinstein's relentless harping about why don't Friedkin's movies make money spoiled what could have been an interesting article about the man and his movies.

Los Angeles Opera confirmed Thursday that Hollywood film directors William Friedkin and Garry Marshall have been tapped to direct upcoming productions. Friedkin, whose pairing last year of Bartok's "Duke Bluebeard's Castle" and Puccini's "Gianni Schicchi" delighted both critics and audiences, will direct Wagner's "Tannhauser" in 2004. He also has been invited by New Israeli Opera and L.A. Opera to direct Saint-Saens' "Samson et Dalila" in 2005.

In his correspondence with Richard Strauss, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, the high-minded librettist of "Ariadne auf Naxos," had to keep reminding the composer that the opera was ultimately about fidelity. Fidelity to art and, above all, to love. The medium-minded Strauss never quite got that virtue, however. He devotedly loved his difficult wife and difficult operas, no doubt.

"It was right in this room," William Friedkin says, easing himself into a wing chair and waving an arm about the elegantly comfy wood-paneled study in his brick Tudor Bel-Air manse. "Placido and Edgar stopped by and gave me their offer: 'What do you think of doing "Ariadne auf Naxos"?'