The French Connection

All Popeye - No Spinach

5/5

Spoilers

There are some great films that many people imply to have seen though over-exuberant conversations on the ills of cinema. An inordinate amount of people have strong views on films like Gone with the Wind or Citizen Cane, yet, when pressed for detail, reveal they have seen bits or, worse, merely read about them. These people leap into conversations for which they are ill-prepared, wielding naught but a borrowed observation and an out-of-place reference. They like to inflate their arguments on the classics like a helium float in summer - stuffed full of nothing but hot air. I, good reader, am one of those people.

Quite frustrated by my own shame at being outmatched by well-watched film buffs, I made a conscious decision to start ticking off the classics a few years ago. But what are the classics? This article is not going to tackle that weight argument, at least, not in any real detail. Ultimately I settled on three lists to follow as a guide: the IMDB 250 (as accessed some point in 2017), the AFI 100, and the BFI 100. They can be summarised as such: IMBD hosts 'the 200 films average people liked most plus 50 films people claim to have seen', AFI gives you 'the films popular culture notes as great', and the BFI leave you with 'the hundred films that only critics have seen because you're not a real cinema fan'.

After some time of very slowly chipping away at these commandment-esque tablets of stone, I realised some films were slipping through the cracks. Good films that maybe are only a little bit great. Thus I added on the list of historic Big Five winners at the Oscars, because the over-300 films I had set myself the challenge of watching wasn't enough. The French Connection is a film that has benefited from this additional list, or, more so, I have benefited from its inclusion. It is currently No. 93 on the AFI list and not on either of the other two. But, it won four of the major Academy Awards in 1971. A worthwhile film to prioritise the watching of then!

The French Connection is an unusual sort of detective movie. Firstly, there is no obvious crime to which the detectives are solving to begin with. Gene Hackman's Jimmy 'Popeye' Doyle, a NY detective working in narcotics, goes out for drinks after work with his partner. But Popeye is never 'off' and soon spots a suspicious character, a man spending a lot of money. Obviously, he and his partner decide to start to follow the fellow. During the remaining hour and a half they learn that there actually is a criminal connection and a plot to bring lots of heroin into the US from France via a small car.

This unconventional set up, to what appears to be a police procedural on the tin, goes to the heart of Popeye's character and what makes him different to most screen cops. Like a lot of detectives he is obsessive, but I would characterise his obsessions as focused on the task of police work rather than caring about the crime. He finishes one case and launches into another on a whim. Most of the film is spent tailing potential criminals on foot for hours, often in the freezing cold. He stands still whilst the two antagonists eat a slap up lunch in a high end restaurant, course after course wending their way past the windows while he sips barely drinkable coffee.

His obsessions lead to one of the most imitated car chases in cinema history. Initially begun on foot, a crook catches the train before hijacking it, leaving Popeye to follow underneath the rail line in his car, accidentally crashing into several stunt vehicles on the way. He seems unmoved by the chaos caused in his pursuit. At the climax of the film, he mistakes a FBI agent for the French drug baron and shoots him dead. This same agent had been initially reluctant to work with Popeye for previously causing an officer's death. So relentless is his chase of the case that he barely bats an eye as he surveys the body of the lawman he has gunned down.

In many ways, Popeyes obsession with work at the costs of a social life, comfort, and the lives of others, is reminiscent of a drug addict. Alain Charnier, the French supplier, not only is providing physical drugs for the people of New York and beyond, but he is also feeding Popeye's addiction. The compulsive way Popeye orders the destruction of a car to find the hidden heroin seems much the same as if a heroin addict were undertaking the same task. His failure to ultimately capture Charnier, and his subsequent removal from the narcotics division, show how this addiction has ruined his life. His work, though bringing some benefits, is destructive as all addictions are.

The pacing of the film is engaging and the modernist score moves between 70s funks to angular dissonances. Often the musicians seem to be out of tune and out of time. My suspicion is this too ties in with the unsteadiness of Doyle's character. The chromaticisms and unwieldiness of the score almost track Popeye as he chases his own dragon. An enjoyable classic nonetheless and another one 'ticked off'!

The French Connection, 1971

Director: William Friedkin

Writer: Ernest Tidyman, based on The French Connection by Robin Moore

Composer: Don Ellis

Starring: Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider, Fernando Rey, Tony Lo Bianco

Available on DVD