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

jayembee

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It's not strictly a streaming vs. physical media thing, though. Obviously, they can't change something that's already been released on disc as they can with a digital file, but there's nothing preventing Disney from releasing a censored French Connection on UHD.

Other than disinterest on Disney's part. ;)
 

jayembee

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By the way, for the record, in case someone wants to look for a copy...

The first image is the cover for Friedkin's regraded version; the second image is the cover for the Filmmakers Signature Series version with the original grading.

FC1a.jpg
FC1b.jpg
 

SeanSKA

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I'm just curious as to wonder who they think they are "protecting" by editing out that it of dialogue ? I happen to be Black , and while I cannot speak for ALL of Black America, I think a significant amount of us believe that MANY cops of "Popeye" Doyle's background say and think things like that all the time. Listen to the interview with Gene Hackman on the disc, where he talks about meeting the "real" Popeye, Det. Eddie Egan, and Hackman strongly implies that Egan himself was just like the character in that respect
 

cinemel1

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I just watched The French Connection (Filmmakers’ Signature Series) with the Friedkin commentary. Glad that I bought the disc when I did. His take on how the movie was filmed is fascinating. So much of the filming was on the fly without cooperation or in advance planning with the NYC gov’t. Many scenes were photographed by the cinematographer in a wheelchair. No tracks were laid down to make the shots look smoother.
 

AlexNH

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How different are these? I was only able to get the first one.
There are pro and cons to both versions. The one you bought (2008) has a much sharper image. The new one is dull and the color is all over the place. However, most people say the 2012 transfer is accurate to the original photography...
 

Patrick McCart

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I'm just curious as to wonder who they think they are "protecting" by editing out that it of dialogue ? I happen to be Black , and while I cannot speak for ALL of Black America, I think a significant amount of us believe that MANY cops of "Popeye" Doyle's background say and think things like that all the time. Listen to the interview with Gene Hackman on the disc, where he talks about meeting the "real" Popeye, Det. Eddie Egan, and Hackman strongly implies that Egan himself was just like the character in that respect
I don't think edits like these are ever done to protect anyone, but rather purely to protect the image of the copyright holder.

One reason why I'm fine with those brief text intros one sees on streaming and disc. Just give people a heads up on possibly objectionable content and don't touch the film. These are an excellent idea since I think people not acclimated to older films will enjoy them more if they're expecting something like this. Or for more useful applications like warning about flashing/strobe effects for those with sensor affectations.
 

Robert Crawford

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I don't think edits like these are ever done to protect anyone, but rather purely to protect the image of the copyright holder.

One reason why I'm fine with those brief text intros one sees on streaming and disc. Just give people a heads up on possibly objectionable content and don't touch the film. These are an excellent idea since I think people not acclimated to older films will enjoy them more if they're expecting something like this. Or for more useful applications like warning about flashing/strobe effects for those with sensor affectations.
Bingo!
 

Josh Steinberg

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Disney also has a different approach to the content they own compared to other studios, because they have a different audience they’re trying to please.

Disney’s greatest value (which can be a burden at times as well) is arguably their timelessness. It’s the reason they’ve been as big as they have as long as they have - no other studio derives as much value as Disney does from their legacy content. It’s arguably the only studio that kids and adults of all ages routinely purchase and watch and rewatch old movies and shows, again and again. Their branding is so synonymous with “all ages” and “family” that they don’t market their legacy content as “old films from another time to be viewed in context with the time it came from”. Rather, they think of their work as being living, breathing entities that can be adjusted as necessary as cultural attitudes change and evolve over time. This is nothing new, going back to their earliest days. Walt himself oversaw revisions to some of their cartoon shorts and Fantasia, because he wanted new audiences to view these works as being appropriate for all time - he didn’t want you to see or hear something that would pull you out of the film and make you think about things that aren’t said or done anymore.

There are certainly arguments to be made about the pros and cons of this approach. I don’t think of it as censorship. To me, censorship is when a government tells its citizens what it can and cannot say or watch. This is merely a private company making adjustments to a commercial product that they produce, in order for it to remain viable in a contemporary marketplace, rather than as a historical item in a niche marketplace. At the end of the day, is this really that different than a food company changing a classic recipe after discovering an ingredient once believed benign is actually dangerous? Or a manufacture phasing out a toxic component like asbestos now that it’s understood that it can be deadly? That’s Disney’s mindset. And once that mindset is understood, none of these decisions are difficult to understand.

(It should be noted that Disney has a first rate archival program and the fact that Disney has made changes to their public presentations of material over the decades has no bearing on the fact that the original versions are properly preserved in their own archives.)
 

dpippel

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Their branding is so synonymous with “all ages” and “family” that they don’t market their legacy content as “old films from another time to be viewed in context with the time it came from”.
Josh, we're talking about The French Connection here, not Cinderella. TFC has never been and never will be considered a "family film" or a movie "for all ages." IMO Disney can not and should not apply the same criteria to something like this that they would to films like Fantasia or Pinnochio. Apples and oranges. In addition, TFC is not really "their" legacy content. They didn't create it, they acquired it.
 

Josh Steinberg

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Josh, we're talking about The French Connection here, not Cinderella. TFC has never been and never will be considered a "family film" or a movie "for all ages." IMO Disney can not and should not apply the same criteria to something like this that they would to films like Fantasia or Pinnochio. Apples and oranges. In addition, TFC is not "their" legacy content. They didn't create it, they acquired it.

I don’t disagree with any of those points, merely trying to explain what the thinking behind the decision making may be.

(Particularly if this master was originally created for broadcast/cable/subscription streaming markets, where historically films have always been subject to modification for general audience appropriateness.)
 

JoeDoakes

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Disney also has a different approach to the content they own compared to other studios, because they have a different audience they’re trying to please.

Disney’s greatest value (which can be a burden at times as well) is arguably their timelessness. It’s the reason they’ve been as big as they have as long as they have - no other studio derives as much value as Disney does from their legacy content. It’s arguably the only studio that kids and adults of all ages routinely purchase and watch and rewatch old movies and shows, again and again. Their branding is so synonymous with “all ages” and “family” that they don’t market their legacy content as “old films from another time to be viewed in context with the time it came from”. Rather, they think of their work as being living, breathing entities that can be adjusted as necessary as cultural attitudes change and evolve over time. This is nothing new, going back to their earliest days. Walt himself oversaw revisions to some of their cartoon shorts and Fantasia, because he wanted new audiences to view these works as being appropriate for all time - he didn’t want you to see or hear something that would pull you out of the film and make you think about things that aren’t said or done anymore.

There are certainly arguments to be made about the pros and cons of this approach. I don’t think of it as censorship. To me, censorship is when a government tells its citizens what it can and cannot say or watch. This is merely a private company making adjustments to a commercial product that they produce, in order for it to remain viable in a contemporary marketplace, rather than as a historical item in a niche marketplace. At the end of the day, is this really that different than a food company changing a classic recipe after discovering an ingredient once believed benign is actually dangerous? Or a manufacture phasing out a toxic component like asbestos now that it’s understood that it can be deadly? That’s Disney’s mindset. And once that mindset is understood, none of these decisions are difficult to understand.

(It should be noted that Disney has a first rate archival program and the fact that Disney has made changes to their public presentations of material over the decades has no bearing on the fact that the original versions are properly preserved in their own archives.)
Government is the creator of copyrights. Corporate censorship combined with government created monopoly resembles government censorship in many ways.
 

JoshZ

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How different are these? I was only able to get the first one.

Unfortunately, the first Blu-ray release (which it seems is the one you have) is absolutely horrible. William Friedkin lost his damn mind and decided that he wanted to give the film a "pastel" color makeover, where the entire movie is tinted in utterly bizarre hues (including purple flesh tones in many scenes) for no sensible reason at all. He claimed at the time that this was how he always intended the movie to look, and in fact that he would be doing the same to ALL of his movies, moving next to The Exorcist.

(Screencap borrowed from DVDBeaver.)

french.jpg


Owen Roizman, the cinematographer who shot The French Connection and The Exorcist for him, was horrified by this and called Friedkin out on it, saying that it was never, in any way, his or Friedkin's original intention for the movie to look like that. Friedkin then called Roizman mentally ill, and the two had a messy public war of words until they eventually mended fences. The Exorcist was thankfully spared the "pastel" treatment, and The French Connection was later reissued with a new color grade citing approval by both Friedkin and Roizman.

At the time of the reissue, Friedkin changed his story and claimed that the original Blu-ray was a total f***-up by someone at the studio and never what he wanted. That was of course a flagrant lie, as you can see him in a featurette on the first Blu-ray raving about how amazing he thinks that color transfer looks.

Friedkin's The Boys in the Band received the same "pastel" treatment (it was actually the first to get it), but he stopped doing it after Roizman shamed him.
 

JoshZ

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I also have to say that I think even the remastered Blu-ray has color issues, just different color issues than the original Blu-ray. Colors in general look a little oversaturated and the movie has been given a revisionist teal push on that disc.

Of the two options, the "Filmmaker's Signature Series" disc is clearly the better choice, but I don't think we ever got a truly faithful HD master for the movie, and I doubt we ever will.
 

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