Sorcerer is one of the films Tarantino has used to gauge the ambition of action cinema. His admiration for William Friedkin is understandable in the face of a suspense that makes you feel the weight of the vehicles, the fragility of bodies and the possibility that any effort may end badly.
Sorcerer as a benchmark of rigour
The oral history of Sorcerer published by the Cinémathèque française on 29 March 2024 includes a comment from Tarantino: when he feels he is pushing his own limits, Friedkin's film reminds him of a standard that he finds hard to reach. The publication preserves the testimony, although it does not set out the original date of the statement in that passage.
The 1977 film also appeared among his Sight and Sound choices in 2012. Taken together, these two details document a specific admiration without turning it into a full ranking of Friedkin's filmography. The interest lies in a work that continues to function for him both as a viewing experience and as a measure of cinematic ambition.
Sorcerer, also known as The Wages of Fear, brings together men who have reached a state of economic and personal entrapment. The job they accept promises an escape, but requires them to transport unstable explosives across terrain that threatens to destroy them. The danger is not a secondary obstacle within the journey: it is the condition of the contract.
The groundwork matters because it prevents the characters from being reduced to anonymous drivers in a grand set-piece. They arrive with different pasts and with reasons why they cannot easily return to their former lives. The audience does not need to admire them in order to understand the pressure that makes a desperate task acceptable.
The suspense of moving a few feet
In Sorcerer, moving forward can require more tension than a fast chase. Every vibration of the vehicle and every irregularity in the road becomes important because we know the load. The film teaches us to look at movement through a logic opposite to speed: what matters is that the journey continues without an unexpected jolt.
The crossing of the bridge concentrates that experience. The water, the rain and the unstable structure make it impossible to think of the landscape as decorative background. The surroundings alter decisions and reduce the margin of control. The viewer's attention shifts from the whole vehicle to a support, a wheel or a gesture, because any of those details could decide the outcome.
Cooperation has practical value here. The men may distrust one another, but the work demands coordinated action and the acceptance of help. The film does not turn that necessity into instant friendship. It keeps the friction between the obligation to collaborate and the desire to protect an individual interest.
It also manages exhaustion. Overcoming one obstacle does not reset the initial conditions: there are fewer energies, fewer resources and less certainty left. Accumulation means that a new difficulty bears down on what has already been lived through. Suspense includes bodily memory, even though the viewer remains seated.
The noise of the engines contributes to that pressure. It can sustain a sense of continuous effort, of a machine working at the limit. Its interruption changes the meaning of the space because moving and stopping present different dangers.
This sense of materiality does not require romanticising the filming conditions or inventing risks taken by the crew. One can describe what the images produce without claiming that everything happened without preparation or without safety measures. The construction of danger on screen and the concrete history of how it was filmed are related matters, but they are not the same.
Friedkin, the city and the cost of the pursuit
The French Connection, from 1971, allows us to observe another side of that energy. The police chase unfolds in an urban space occupied by people who are not part of the protagonist's target. Movement has consequences all around. The tension also comes from the sense that the pursuer may put far more than his own life at risk.
As a critical comparison, both films give weight to friction with the physical world. The character's will is not enough to organise the space in his favour. Streets, traffic, mud or decayed structures resist. The capable hero may act decisively and still remain exposed to a reality that offers no guarantee of success.
That changes the audience's relationship with effectiveness. An action may seem admirable because of its difficulty and questionable because of its cost. Friedkin does not need to pause the story to state that contradiction: he can make it visible in the very sequence that generates excitement. The viewer shares the impulse and perceives its consequences.
Sorcerer adds a dimension of wear and tear that extends the danger beyond a spectacular moment. The journey can consume the ability to imagine what comes next. Reaching a point does not guarantee a return to the life that was sought. The financial promise that set the action in motion grows ever smaller in the face of the experience endured.
The testimony from Tarantino collected by the Cinémathèque finds a particularly clear meaning there. The film offers something harder to reproduce than a single image of danger: a progression in which every effort leaves a mark and the world seems to keep pressing even when a sequence has ended. His admiration can be measured in that desire to confront the film again.
See the selection of filmmakers and actors admired by Tarantino.