This is a closely reasoned argument for William Friedkin as a filmmaker of transcendent faith and existential authenticity. It provides a sophisticated re-interpretation of his work through the lenses of thinkers as varied as Frederic Jameson, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Soren Kierkegaard, and legal theorist Carl Schmitt, not to mention film scholars like Tom Gunning, Linda Ruth Williams, Michel Chion, and Robin Wood. Skillfully written and exhaustively researched, the book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the American cinema and the American film industry in the last three decades of the twentieth century.