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

[Southpaw]

The bottom line here is unless you pull a Close Encounters or Blade Runner and release a multi-disc multi-version Blu-ray, you are going to have arguments from both "purists" and "director's intentists" saying their version is better and they're not buying it unless it is included.

Star Trek: TMP press release says they are releasing the theatrical version. All I see are posts lambasting Paramount for the decision not to include the DC.
The French Connection Blu-ray is released with a new director's intent look and Fox/Friedken are lambasted for not including the theatrical version.

 

[GerardC]

This movie has long been one of my favorites, and when the Five Star Collection dvd was released in 2001 I was hugely impressed and very happy with the presentation of the movie. Having lived with the European blu-ray for the last 2 months I can say it's been hard to take this new director approved version.

A side by side comparison with the original dvd shows not just the questionable new colors, but also the enormous amount of loss of shadow detail in dark/night time scenes. This can be attributed I think to the oversaturation of colors, used in the new color timing process described in the new features on the disc. Where the side effects in daytime scenes are mostly limited to color bleeding (most distracting also in some close-ups of faces), it kills any fine detail in the darker scenes. One example in the night club scene, where behind the Sal Boca party a band of musicians is clearly seen playing on the dvd: on the blu-ray they're almost completely lost in the shadows and hard to make out at all.

Also, in the tailing scene after coming out of the night club there seem to be a couple of shots where the grain structure seems frozen and unnatural. Specifically the scene where Doyle and Russo are watching Sal and Angie from the car through the window of the cafe: the faces of the detectives almost turn to mush in a couple of shots.

Luckily the original dvd is still a marvel upconverted. But my heart breaks every time I think of the lost opportunity here. Friedkin in my opinion has really not thought through this new colour timing process.

 

[Loregnum]

I'm fine if a director wishes to alter how HIS film looks and I may pick this blu-ray up.

I also agree with JohnMor how it is funny nobody complained about sleeping beauty being altered yet this (and some other releases) get the complainers out in full force...why the double standard?

To each their own I guess. I really don't care if people are going to not buy this because of the changed colour just like I don't care if people do buy it.

 

[Danny_N]

 

[Carter of Mars]

Funny, people are praising the DVD which only has a 5.1 or stereo re-mix of the film. This Blu-ray includes the original Oscar nominated mono track. There are no editorial changes to the picture, just a different color palette which the director prefers. The re-mix done had all sorts of replaced sound effects, which really changed the movie.

 

[Brian Borst]

According to the people who did the restoration, Sleeping Beauty looks the way it's supposed to look, and how it looked when it premiered. Friedkin changed The French Connection to how he wants it to look now. Those are different things in my opinion.
And even if you want to discuss SB's restoration, it's still nowhere near as drastic as the alteration of The French Connection.

 

[JohnMor]

To me the difference in the looks of each SB and TFC are no more "radical" than the other.

 

[Robert Harris]

Sleeping Beauty is different in two ways. No grain -- the concept being that the original cells had no grain -- and a large format negative had 50% smaller grain anyway, but it is also extremely sharper, as the original dye transfer prints appeared to be far sharper than they actually were. The new Blu-ray of SB has the full resolution of the original SE negative.

RAH

 

[Brian Borst]

Thanks John and Robert, I actually meant Sleeping Beauty looked correct in terms of the colors, since the changed color palet of TFC sparks the most controversy.

 

[Jeff_HR]

I'm buying both I & II on BD, BUT I'm keeping the SD editions I have in case I have issues with the "coloring" change in the two films. :frowning:


I'll bet J6P WON"T give a darn!

 

[Jon Martin]

I don't know if anyone else is following all the talk about the transfer over at Jeffrey Wells' HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE, but apparently now the cinematographer has come out against the film, calling the transfer "atrocious" and "horrifying" and that he wasn't consulted on it.

"Atrocious...Horrifying" :: Hollywood Elsewhere

 

[David (C)]

God has spoken!

 

[Stephen_J_H]

God? Hardly. What this boils down to is two failures: (1) a failure of Mr. Friedkin to communicate with Mr. Roizman; and (2) a failure to acknowledge the collaborative nature of film. The end result is that Mr. Friedkin has the film looking exactly the way he wants it right now. which may not have been his intent @ the time of shooting. That look is clearly @ odds with how Mr. Roizman wants the film to look right now, and his belief is that he wanted something different @ the time of release. The ultimate question is, whose opinion should prevail? Auteur theorists would welcome Friedkin's new version as a manifestation of "director's intent," while others believe it should look as it did in 1971. It is a conundrum and one that RAH has graciously avoided by saying that it looks like film (meaning no DNR), but that the film as presented on BD is not the Best Picture winner of 1971. Is it a hideous travesty, as Mr. Roizman would have us believe? I don't think so.

 

[JohnMor]

I'm sorry, but the cinematographer, however talented (or in some cases, even a genius), is but an additional tool for the director to realize his film intent. Similar to the art director and actors. They are all there to serve the director and his vision. It's a collaborative art, but they are all collaborating on the director's vision of the film (or should be.)

Also, Friedkin states in his intro that this is now closer to his intent at the time, not merely some new-fangled reimagining.

And apologies to Mr. Roizman, but it is impossible for a film transfer to be "emasculated." That word is senseless in the context in which it was used. Add to that such extreme overly-emotional hyperbole as "horrifying" and "atrocious" and it becomes impossible for me to take his point of view seriously.

 

[David (C)]

He shot the fucker - he can say whatever he wants about it.

 

[Paul Arnette]

I'm been laid up most of the day with a stomach bug or something, so I decided to watch The French Connection on Blu-ray Disc. Would I be lynched if I said I didn't notice a huge difference between the BD and the DVD transfers? The color timing featurette, the only special feature I have watched at the moment, does a comparison of what the transfer would've looked like if they'd stuck with the original timing vs. the new look. It wasn't as exagerated as I thought it would be. Additionally, a comparison of the BD and the DVD did not yield the 'revelation' I had expected.

When it is all said and done, I have no issue with the BD transfer, though I agree with Robert Harris that the smart thing to do would have been to include both. That certainly would have been the polite thing to do for both the audience and Mr. Roizman.

 

[JohnMor]

Agreed, but it would actually mean something if it made sense. How can a film transfer be "emasculated" ?

 

[Edwin-S]

If Friedkin's manipulations have, in the opinion of Roizman, weakened the cinematography then he (Roizman) is fully within his rights to say the film is emasculated. I read on another site that shadow detail has been reduced due to Friedkin's manipulation. An example that was brought up was a scene where a band in the background almost completely disappears into shadow in Friedkin's transfer, while the band is very visible in the original cinematography. If that is the case then I would say that Roizman is within his rights to say that the image has been emasculated, since the visual composition has been weakened.

 

[JohnMor]

But he didn't say "weakened." He said "emasculated."

Sigh. Very typical. Clearly you did not read my post. It wasn't about Roizman being critical of the transfer, but the overly emotional, hyperbolic way in which he expressed it that makes me take him less seriously. A film is not "human" and it's not "male."

Neither is this transfer "horrifying" or "atrocious." He may hate it. He may feel it's wrong. He may feel it's ugly. But "horrifying" and "atrocious" would be clearly and uniformly unwatchable to ALL viewers, whether or not they had ever seen the film before. This transfer is not.

Anyone can dislike it for whatever reasons they want, most particularly the cinematographer. But if they can't express their opinions in realistic, direct terms without over emotionalizing them, then I can't take them seriously.

 

[Edwin-S]

Well, you can call it over emotionalizing because it is not your work that has been compromised. Would you be so understanding of someone's manipulations if it was your work that was modified with out so much as the courtesy of a consultation, especially if that work was creative?

I don't blame the guy for expressing his displeasure emotionally. It's his work that has suddenly been deemed to be "lacking" by Friedkin: work that was considered cutting edge when it first came out: work that was unique and fresh enough to garner a nomination for Best Cinematography. Now, all of a sudden, after all these years the visual narrative he helped create is suddenly deemed to be "incorrect" and in need of revision.

Personally, I think that he was actually restrained in the comments he made. Also, one of the definitions of emasculate is "to reduce in vigor, to weaken". Synonyms are: to undermine, to soften, to devitalize. The fact that he chose to use a masculine form as a descriptor does not mean that he is saying the film is male.

Edit: Similes should have been synonyms.