The third season of The Bear pays homage to a legendary director

The director of that story is William Friedkin, the director behind films like “The French Connection,” “To Live and Die in LA,” “Killer Joe,” “Sorcerer,” “The Exorcist” and others. In the last minutes of the 2020 documentary “Leap of Faith: William Friedkin On The Exorcist” (read our review here)Friedkin tells director Alexandre O. Philippe the story of his first visit to this Japanese garden and the profound impact it had on his life:

“People had said to me, ‘You have to see the Zen garden.’ Well, what the hell, I thought, was the Zen garden? I go there, and there is a piece of land and it is a sea of ​​combed sand, and on it there are several rocks. Each of the rocks is placed somewhere on this sea ​​sand. And around there are some benches where people can sit, and they are there to contemplate the Zen garden. And I sat down, and there were maybe only 20 people there, they were very quiet, and I thought: “What? ‘Is this it? This is a pile of rocks placed on a sea of ​​combed sand.’

If you give in to it, this is what happened. I look at this thing and I try to figure out, what is the attraction? Why is it so famous? Nobody knows when those rocks were put there, or by whom. So that starts to occupy your mind. The next thing you realize is that these rocks are like separate continents that will never be united. They will always live separately like this, like the continents of the Earth. And then you start to realize that they are also like people. Like families, living alone. And then you start to realize that this is human nature. That we are all here alone. No matter how close we are to family or friends, we are alone in this world. And I wasn’t there for – it’s happening to me now, just talking about it – I wasn’t there for 15 minutes before I started crying. Tears started rolling down my cheeks. I was so deeply moved by this simple image that indicated the separation that we all live with from each other. It has moved me to this day. I will never forget that experience of Kyoto and I can’t wait to relive it. It’s probably been more than 40 years since I was there, but not a day goes by that I don’t have images of that experience.”