I always pine for what I’ve looked at as sort of the Golden Age of Movies in the Seventies — you know, here comes Serpico and Dog Day, The French Connection and Mean Streets, just on and on and on! That kind of early Seventies gritty, urban film. Even a movie like Death Wish, which is way more commercial than the movies I just mentioned, you look at something like that and think, that was what Hollywood was putting out then? Everybody saw those movies and thought, 'I'm not going anywhere near New York City, no way!' I saw them and thought, 'Oh man, I have to get to New York City!' You know what I mean?

And I saw them all when I was a kid, when I was 9, 10, 11. I saw "The Godfather" when it came out. I saw "The French Connection" when it came out. I literally saw "The Wild Bunch" on a double feature with "Deliverance" when I was in third grade.

At a Directors Guild of America (DGA) event in 2011, Spielberg explained that he studied The French Connection in preparation for Munich (2005), his morally ambiguous take on the aftermath of the 1972 Olympic Games massacre. In particular, his use of zoom lenses was informed heavily by Owen Roizman’s Oscar-nominated cinematography. More recently, the wordless, beautifully choreographed on-foot chase through New York that opens Bridge of Spies feels particularly indebted to Friedkin’s work here.

I grew up on ‘70s films, like French Connection, Butch and Sundance, President’s Men, and Dog Day Afternoon. That was my jam. It left a mark on a lot of us.