Car Chases: A David-Jeremiah Film Series - The French Connection

The Clark screens three films inspired by the public spaces installation David-Jeremiah: I Drive Thee. Like David-Jeremiah’s work, the films are meditations on performance, drive, and specific ideas of masculinity. They are also watershed moments in film history—moments of technical virtuosity and revolutionary performances—during massive changes in the film industry.

The second installment in the series is The French Connection (1971). Director William Friedkin’s documentary-style account of a 1961 smashup of an international heroin-trafficking ring by two New York cops—played by two then-little-known actors, Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider—is a real-time thriller about staking out criminals, the bureaucracy of crime-fighting, class differences, and the ugliness of bigotry (especially when it wears a plain-clothes uniform). But it’s also about the thrill of the chase. The French Connection won Best Picture and Director. (Run time: 1 hour, 44 minutes)

Free. Accessible seats available; for information, call 413 458 0524.