Friedkin Retrospective Coming to Brooklyn Academy of Music in May

BAMcinématek/Photofest William Friedkin on the set of his film “The Exorcist.”

The filmmaker who taught moviegoers to be terrified of the New York City subway system (and also made Georgetown seem like a pretty horrific place) will be getting a warm welcome from Brooklyn. William Friedkin, the Academy Award-winning director of “The French Connection” and “The Exorcist,” will be the subject of a six-film retrospective in May at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, it was announced on Friday.

The retrospective, presented by BAMcinématek and titled “Friedkin 70s,” will run from May 2 through 7. Its opening night film will be “Sorcerer,†Mr. Friedkin’s 1977 action thriller about a team of fugitives attempting to transport unstable explosives in South America. The screening of “Sorcerer” (which has recently been the focus of a lawsuit Mr. Friedkin filed against Universal and Paramount to determine his rights to show the film publicly) will be followed by a Q & A with the director, who will also be signing copies of his new memoir, “The Friedkin Connection.”

Other films in the retrospective include “The French Connection,” the gritty 1971 crime drama that won the Academy Award for best picture and earned Mr. Friedkin his Oscar for best director; as well as “The Exorcist,” his blockbuster 1973 adaption of William Peter Blatty’s best-selling novel about demonic possession.

This series will also present “The Boys in the Band,” Mr. Friedkin’s pioneering 1970 film about gay culture and adapted fr! om the Mart Crowley play; “The Brink’s Job,” the 1978 crime caper starring Peter Falk; and “Cruising,” a 1980 noir starring Al Pacino as an undercover police officer seeking a killer in the gay bars of Manhattan’s West Village.