To put things straight, here is a post from someone who saw the new
Cruising at Cannes.
From HTF Forum:
(quote)"Just got back from the one-time Directors' Fortnight screening of William Friedkin's newly restored version of CRUISING at Cannes. The film was presented in HD as part of the promotion for the Warner Bros. DVD to be released in mid-October. The image looked very crisp. Skin tones looked a little pale in the night and club sequences, but colors really popped for the most part, in particular, the yellow NYC cabs. Sound, in particular, the separation between the various songs and ambient noises, was excellent throughout.
The film attracted a packed house, including Quentin Tarantino. Friedkin appeared to introduce the film and was spirited and appeared quite appreciative of the film's positive reception and the Directors' Fortnight selection committee's decision to screen the film in this year's program. Producer, Jerry Weintraub was also on-hand as he is in Cannes to promote his latest film, OCEANS 13.
The crowd was enthusiastic from start to finish and gave a rapturous applause at the conclusion.
The film is not really much longer than the original cut."
Spoilers below
Friedkin has added bits of explicit club footage and digitally tweaked several existing scenes. The film opens with the new WB logo over the familiar creepy Barre Phillips/Jack Nitzsche underscore. Friedkin has eliminated the disclaimer which attempted to placate the gay community. He has added a scrolling ROCKY-style title credit, which announces CRUISING in bold white on black.
The opening club sequence in which the killer picks up his first on-screen victim has a few extra shots of jock-strap clad dancing patrons.
The "precinct night" sequence features much more explicit footage in the club, intercut with Al Pacino's reactions.
The killing in the park is punctuated by a digital effect which makes the film appear in reverse, negative form at the end of the scene.
When Pacino spys on suspect Stuart Richards as he enters a Columbia University building, the image goes black except for a spotlight around Pacino; the entire image then fades to black.
The sequence in which Pacino dances in the club in front of a flashing, lit-up American flag sign has also been digitally altered in what appears to be an attempt to mimic Pacino's reaction to the amyl nitrate he has just inhaled. There are more cuts to the image of the American flag and more shots of the club patrons and explicit acts going on.
A scene that is often omitted from video and tv prints has been reinstated: this is the scene in which Stuart Richards' friend is interviewed by police about Richards' father; the friend reveals that the father has been dead for ten years, but that Stuart still talks of him being alive.
End credits featured an addendum with credits for the restored version.
The newly inserted snippets, IMHO, are not any more explicit than the footage that has always been in the original R-rated cut. It's just a little more of things that were already there.
Certainly, there is nothing more extreme than the hardcore frames that Friedkin edited into the film prior to its original release."(unquote)
