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A Few Words About A few words about...™ The French Connection -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

Jon Martin

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That can be debated (but maybe not here). It should be a collaboration between the director and the person behind the camera whose work closely mirrors his own.

Criterion makes a point of working with the cinematographers in making the transfer. Look at what happened with CHUNGKING EXPRESS. After it was set to go to manufacturing, Chris Doyle had some changes with it and they redid it.
 

JohnMor

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Very true. But Criterion also has a series of "Director Approved" releases as well. And I'm not trying to marginalize or minimize the DP's contribution to a film, but most DP's these day's freely admit they are there to realize the director's vision and intent, not necessarily their own. Even on the actual films, it states "A Film By (The Director)" not "A Film By (The Cinematographer)." But I think it's a bit revisionist to say that, as has been implied here, the aesthetic of a film is 'owned' by the cinematographer as opposed to the director, or even to the same degree as the director.
 

Martin Henry

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I find Friedkin to come across as a tit at the best of times. What he's done to The French Connection and might possibly do to The Exorcist, simply validates how much of a tit he actually is.
 

Jon Martin

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True, but I think that the "Director Approved" has more to do with the cut of the film, the edit, rather than the look.

As for the "A Film By" credit, as a longtime subscriber to the auteur theory, I've pretty much let it lapse in recent years. The more you look at the making of a film, with the input of a producer (who hires the director and puts it all together), the actors (who are hired sometimes by the producer or studio), the writer (who often develops the script before anyone sees it), I think that credit should be done away with. That is unless the director wrote, directs, and produces the film.
 

JohnMor

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Well it's not to imply that a director does it all himself, but that it is his intent and vision for the film. Otherwise you can have everyone doing their own thing: a writer who wrote a scathing social indictment, actors playing it like a satirical comedy, a PD who sees it as German expressionistic homage, a cinematographer who wants to do a pastoral, golden-hued Hallmark card. And all hoping that the parts make something interesting. It's definitely a collaborative art, but you need one vision and intent to ensure that you have one film, not bits of many divergent ones. Someone has to lead the many voices to one cohesive result.

Even in the Oscar speeches the director is the acknowledged leader of the films. As Sean Penn said, he put himself "in the hands of Gus Van Sant," not "Isn't it fortunate that Gus' work and my work ended up being compatible."

I'm a firm believer that it all starts with the writer, but in the film industry the writer is not the final word, like they are on stage. Many writers will tell you that what they wrote is not what ended up on screen. That's a reality of the film industry. Stage is a writer's and actor's medium, while film is a director's.
 

Peter Neski

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RH :"Personally, I like what Mr. Friedkin has done with the film",

I can't agree with this after watching the Club Scene with a supremes
type group,and the scene before it in the police station,the dvd looks
better to me,the club scene just pops out as looking very strange

Draining the color is fine if the picture isn't as grainy
as this scene is,Neither looks great but removing color isn't an improvement
And thats the problem with the whole job,it dosn't improve the bad
looking scenes and looks sharper because of the format,not because
of what they did

Since the dvd dosn't look all that great it was really hard comparing the two
The movie is still great in any version,
 

Robert Harris

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Please quote fully. The bottom line of my statements is that I enjoyed what I considered to be an interesting experiment. I've worked this line before in replicating the Technicolor look of the 1940s. I was interested from a technical point of view to see what Mr. Friedkin had done with his film. I also wanted the original version on Blu-ray, which would be the version that I would view.

What I was attempting to say was that I have no problem with the "redux" theory as long as the original survives and is available in the same quality.

Mr. Friedkin is a fine filmmaker. If he wishes to go the same route with The Exorcist, let him have at it, but don't release that without a proper original version.

RAH
 

dvdirv

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I just finished watching THE FRENCH CONNECTION. As much as I enjoyed the original film, the grain in the film was totally disappointing.

Yes, the color was somewhat de-saturated, but the extreme grain was what upset me. I don't remember that much grain in the original prints. They had a soft look, but not that much grain.

It looks as though Friedkin had fun with his toys! This is not a keeper for me!
 

Robert Harris

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Things are actually even more difficult.

One can get some idea of grain in a print. But it has actually been printed through multiple generations from the OCN to an IP, a dupe and finally to the print. In that state it is reduced.

And it call all disappear if the optics used in projection are not of high enough quality. And then we have weave, stability, optical alignment deficiencies, focus, and all the other problems of projection, which can totally negate any possible ability to see grain on the screen.

RAH
 

MikeIMH

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The BluRay version of this film has been reviewed by Clydefro at DVD Times and is well worth reading.

In his "final thoughts" section of the review, Clydefro Jones has this to say:

"The French Connection is perhaps the best film of its kind, but, while keeping things in perspective, it's nonetheless a huge black mark to see what director William Friedkin has done to it now, nearly forty years after the fact. I can only hope that Fox comes to its senses and puts out the real version on Blu-ray because the special features included here are mostly terrific, if repetitive".

I submit that this would not be an issue if this BluRay release contained a third disc which included the original version which we know and love, and to further quote Clydefro Jones "whether this (omission) was done intentionally or just out of neglect, is largely unforgivable".
 

dvdirv

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If our posts are not enough, Owen Roizman, the cinematographer of THE FRENCH CONNECTION was "appalled" by this transfer.

He should know!
 

Edwin-S

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I'll take the word of the actual person who shot the film over the opinions of a bunch of people who wouldn't know one end of a lense from the other. If the cinematographer of TFC says this modified film is a travesty and atrocious looking then I'll trust his eye, since he was the one who shot it in the first place.
 

Alex cosmo

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I don't care if the new transfer was blessed by the pope, they are selling this for 30 bucks around here. I spent 20 on the regular dvd not that long ago, and they can't be bothered to include the original version? I'm often a sucker for double dipping but this doesn't cut it. Amadeus too.
 

dvdirv

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As a reaction to the DVD Times review, one poster hit the nail on the head:

"This release is a sad example of the difference between tinkering and restoring and, in its tinkered form, hugely damages the enjoyment one gets from a classic film. It is unfortunate that tinkering seems to be all too common at the moment."

Well said!

I've just read too many reviews that said that the video was "interesting" as opposed to what it did to the enjoyment of the film.
 

Brad Vautrinot

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Agreed, dvdirv. The Santa suit burned holes in my retinas, the grain in most of the dark scenes looked like a blizzard of black snow and was distracrting in the extremis, and the color issues described in this thread just don't do it for me. I'll dig out my SDDVD spl. ed. and compare it with the BD but I suspect that I'll be dumping the BD version. Too bad, it's a great movie.

Brad V.
 

Martin Henry

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You know what bugged my even more than the terrible PQ on the BD? It was that idiot... and I don't use the word idiot lightly... that idiot Friedkin in the color timing featurette, trying to justify and convince us how good this act of cinematic rape was. Showing us footage of the film in HD before they messed it up, teasing us with what The French Connection should have looked like in HD. Mr. Friedkin, hear my words.... You sir, are a prize winning idiot!
 

JohnMor

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Having just watched it through for the second time this week, I find the new blu-ray version to be quite beautiful and on the whole much better than the previous dvd version. It feels much more film-like.

The fleshtones are 100% spot on, which they never were before, suffering under the slight amber cast that was always present on home video versions. The untanned New Yorkers in Midwinter now actually look normal.

The black levels are much richer than ever before, and it was nice to see the grain. The EXCESSIVE grain in some of the shots used in he "Poughkeepsie Shuffle" doc (particularly the scene inside the Chez) reveals how bad the film could have looked and thankfully does not.

The detail level is terrific as well. Noticeable in the scene where the French undercover detective sits at an outdoor table at La Samaritaine, you can now clearly see that the tabletop has a marbled pattern on it. On the dvd and videos it always looked more like a solid red plastic table you'd sit at to eat a corndog in Tomorrowland.

I agree that the bleeding on the Santa suit is distracting. If it were up to me, I certainly would not have defocussed the color in those particular shots as much as they did.

But as it's not my film it wasn't up to me. And it certainly didn't stop my enjoyment of the film. I also agree with those who say the changes are not as radical as others would have people believe.
 

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