William Friedkin’s final masterpiece was the perfect farewell
2023 was an influential year for film when it came to blockbuster filmmaking and art cinema. At the Oscars, we saw the best lineup of nominations in years. Although the selected cultural canon of great cinematic work from the past year is diverse in terms of social inclusivity as well as cinematic mode, there are always films that don’t quite break through to the zeitgeist. One film that didn’t receive the recognition it deserves is “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial,” which would come to be the final film of one of the great American filmmakers of the twentieth century. William Friedkin died in August of last year, just 22 days before his 88th birthday and a month before the film’s release.
Friedkin had a long and treacherous relationship with Hollywood over his career spanning over six decades. He had incredible highs, including his win for Best Director at the Academy Awards for “The French Connection” (1971) which won five Academy Awards in total, including Best Picture. He is best known for having directed “The Exorcist” (1974), a film whose production was plagued by deaths, fires and a litany of technical difficulties that led the cast and crew to believe that the set might be haunted. The film, however, would be hailed as a masterpiece by critics and audiences and established Friedkin’s position as one of the leading American filmmakers of the 1970s.
Even with his accolades, Friedkin often struggled within the Hollywood system and was infamous for his perilous relationships with producers and executives. Among the auteurs that emerged within the wave of New Hollywood cinema in the 1970s, he remained an outsider, seemingly proud of his reputation as an enfant terrible, although many of his films were critical and commercial failures.
When his career seemed to be in jeopardy, Friedkin tended to right his course through adaptations of stage plays. After a string of failures in the 1990s, it was his adaptation of “12 Angry Men” (1997) that steadied his career. When he was starting as a filmmaker, it was “The Birthday Party” (1968), an adaptation of Harold Pinter’s play, that helped him find his cinematic voice. When he was forgotten by the industry, written off in the late 2000s, it was his adaptations of “Bug” (2006) and “Killer Joe” (2011) that proved to the world that he was still more than capable as a filmmaker. His blunt, minimalistic and procedural style as a filmmaker was a perfect fit for adapting theater.
After a 12-year hiatus from feature filmmaking, Friedkin blessed us with one more masterful adaptation before he left. Based on Herman Woulk’s play “The Caine Mutiny,” the film concerns a naval officer (Jake Lacy) standing on trial for mutiny after taking command of a ship from its captain (Keifer Sutherland) who he believes was acting in an unstable fashion, endangering the lives of the crew.
The film takes place entirely within a few interior locations, set almost in real-time as the walls close in on the characters wrestling with their morality, masculinity and the chains of bureaucracy. The material is perfectly within Friedkin’s expertise.
Sutherland’s quiet performance as a desperate leader whose downfall is a direct result of his ego and insecurities is one of the best of the year and was entirely ignored by any award ceremonies. Friedkin’s death is not the only thing that gives the film a bittersweet feeling; it was also the final performance from actor Lance Reddick – best known for his work in the “John Wick” film series – who died due to heart failure on March 17, 2023, at the age of 60. “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial” is now available with a Showtime subscription and is a fitting farewell for one of the great American cinematic voices.
PHOTO COURTESY OF PARADE
