A few words about...™ The French Connection -- in Blu-ray

Re: A few words about...™ The French Connection -- in Blu-ray

I guess I'll get it started but Warner announced that Friedkin (as well as the cinematographer) are working on the BR of THE EXORCIST. If the rumors out there are true then I hope Warner has seen this thread and will release the original version as well as the "never seen" and possible third one.

Re: A few words about...™ The French Connection -- in Blu-ray

The fact that Roizman is working on it as well as Friedkin makes me hopeful that it will look better than The French Connection. The cinematographer hated the new color timing.

Re: A few words about...™ The French Connection -- in Blu-ray

Same here. I am only interested in the original version of The Exorcist, and will not purchase any other version on BD.

Also, I watched my DVD copy of The French Connection last night. The transfer holds up very well, IMO. I am quite satisfied with watching this version, and will not be buying the altered BD transfer.

Re: A few words about...™ The French Connection -- in Blu-ray

I bought it last week, and watched the film yesterday. I must say the transfer didn't work entirely for me. The red colors (and sometimes the blue colors as well) blooming is really distracting in some shots, and in others it isn't really visible.
The crushed blacks didn't look good either. I don't know if this was inherent in the film, but in some shots of Popeye in his jacket outside, all you could see was his head and his white shirt.
Also, some excessive grain in some shots was a bit distracting. Now, I love grain in a film (makes it come alive to me), so that isn't the point. But it was strange seeing the normal amount of grain in the film, and suddenly it looked like a second generation dupe or something.
But after a while I didn't look for flaws anymore, I was watching the movie. I have never seen it (tried to watch it on television one night, but I was too tired) and I loved it. Great film. I still have to watch the supplements, so I can't really comment on that.

Re: A few words about...™ The French Connection -- in Blu-ray

*ACCIDENTAL DOUBLE POST*

Re: A few words about...™ The French Connection -- in Blu-ray

The only thing that bothered me about Friedkin's experiment were the blooming reds. In terms of color timing and saturation, I liked how it looked. Hopefully they can figure out how to use this process without the bleeding reds (maybe don't be so aggressive with unfocusing the color image?). The "black crush" and high contrast didn't bother me, nor did the grain. There are some old dupes in the film, so maybe that's what you were seeing.

Overall, I liked the look of this, again aside from the bleeding reds which looked odd.

Vincent

Re: A few words about...™ The French Connection -- in Blu-ray

The best way to do it is just use the original color timing. Finished all the supplements, and while the color grading featurette was interesting, I thought the 'normal color grading' parts Friedkin showed us looked way better than the other bits. If he'd had wanted subtle colors he could have asked the cinematographer that, couldn't he?
I did found in interesting that many of the old noir clips showed in the 'Rogue Cop: The Noir Connection' featurette were in HD. They looked gorgeous (who says black and white doesn't look good in HD?) but it did remind me we need a lot more old films on Blu-Ray, this is ridiculous.

Re: A few words about...™ The French Connection -- in Blu-ray

I thought the difference was rather subtle between the "normal color timing" and the final result when Friedkin had the color timer switch back and forth in that documentary. The only shots that looked appreciably different were the one-light, completely uncorrected scans from the negative, which looked rather flat and lifeless with very low contrast.

Vincent