It’s all a state of mind

IN “Bug,” paranoia is a bug. The bugs themselves -- little, tiny aphids burrowing into the skin, growing in egg sacs under teeth, spawning welts across chests -- may or may not be real. But that’s a moot point for Agnes, a sad sack honky-tonk waitress (Ashley Judd) who finds the visions of her laconic drifter lover, Peter (Michael Shannon), utterly contagious -- an intoxicating vision of reality that leads into a hellish biosphere of tinfoil, Raid and homemade bug-repellent chandeliers.

It’s been more than 30 years since director William Friedkin made the horror classic “The Exorcist”; despite the title “Bug,” Friedkin doesn’t think of his latest film as horror, although it too mainlines human suffering into a druglike dream of codependency. For Friedkin, the movie’s main metaphor is entirely apt in today’s society, where fanaticism spreads like cancer.

“There’s the fact that people who are vulnerable -- like Ashley Judd’s character -- meet someone they think they can trust finally, and they tap into the other person’s worldview no matter how far out it might seem. It sometimes leads to extreme violence. Like most of the other films that I’ve made, this is largely to do with the thin line between good and evil in all of us. I think there’s a constant battle in each of us for our better angels to prevail over our demons. I think this goes on every day.”

At 71, Friedkin is a survivor of Hollywood’s vicissitudes -- hailed as a cinematic firebrand for his early films, such as the Oscar-winning “The French Connection,” then increasingly criticized for outrageous bad-boy theatrics and for films like “Sorcerer” and “Cruising” that didn’t earn enough lucre to quiet his studio critics. As the millennium turned, he was churning out competent but not particularly successful studio fare -- macho thrillers such as “Rules of Engagement” and “The Hunted.”

But “Bug,” based on Tracy Letts’ play, has some of the kicky, take-no-prisoners insanity of his earlier films -- in part because Friedkin, who now sounds as calm as an urbane film professor, skipped the studio backing and filmed most of the $4-million movie in 20 harried days in a school gymnasium in Metairie, La., right before Hurricane Katrina hit.

“I prefer to work in this kind of budget range,” says Friedkin. “It brings you back to basics, which is a script you believe in, that has mystery and edge and suspense, and characters that you can recognize and then roles for actors who can bring it off. The basics to me are not computer graphics or chase scenes.” This from a guy who made perhaps the most legendary screen chase of all time: the pounding adrenaline rush of “The French Connection.” “That was another time,” he sighs. “I never looked at ‘The French Connection’ as a chase picture. The chase scenes became metaphors for the character’s obsession.”

“Bug” climaxes in a frenzy of addled fear and irrationality -- and, as Friedkin notes, “the actors had to feel that way. You can’t do that from a dead start. There has to be an atmosphere on the set that will make them think it’s real. I’ll create an atmosphere that is rather frightening.” According to the “Exorcist” lore in Peter Biskind’s history of ‘70s filmmaking, “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls,” Friedkin liked inserting unpredictability into the filmmaking process to get authentic reactions. He shot off guns to scare actors, slapped at least one across the face and yanked Ellen Burstyn’s rigging so hard that she hurt her back -- although he made sure to put her real-life screams on camera. Now the infinitely more mellow-sounding Friedkin merely explains that “over the years I’ve learned [how to make a frightening set], but it’s a trade secret.”

While its descent into human psychosis might be a little rough for mass audiences, the film won the international critics’ prize at last year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Friedkin actually hasn’t made a film since 2003, preferring to spend his time on his second career as an opera director. He’d never actually even seen an opera production before he took up an offer in 1996 from his pal, conductor Zubin Mehta, to direct one and staged Alban Berg’s “Wozzeck” in Florence, Italy, a success that was followed by other operas, such as Bartok’s “Duke Bluebeard’s Castle” and Strauss’ “Salome,” in other prestigious opera houses. “It brings you back to basics, “ says Friedkin, repeating a theme. “These operas have lasted a hundred years; there’s a reason for that.”

Filmmaking, he admits, is changing beyond recognition. “In the very near future, film directors will all be called video artists, because it’s all heading that way ... towards computer-generated imagery,” he says. “Look at the success of a film like ‘300.’ A lot of those extras are made on the computer, [as are] all the backgrounds, all the sets, the costumes.... What’s the limit? To me, we’re looking at the possibility of creating actors on computers.”

“Frankly, the most popular films are those which are basically generated by a computer. It’s the new zeitgeist. As much as I admired and loved the work of the people who preceded my generation -- Billy Wilder, John Huston, Frank Capra -- they can’t make those films today. ‘Double Indemnity’ would probably be an independent film if anybody wanted to make it today.”

rachel.Abramowitz@latimes.com