The French Connection (William Friedkin, 1971)

[Antoine Doinel]

To anyone thinking of upgrading to the French Connection BD, you might want to hang on to your DVD.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Everybody go check out the other caps at Hundland. Car crash, train wreck, etc. Friedkin has gone completely 'round the bend -- and note that he's applying the same process to The Exorcist.

[StevenJ0001]

Everybody go check out the other caps at Hundland. Car crash, train wreck, etc. Friedkin has gone completely 'round the bend -- and note that he's applying the same process to The Exorcist.

Oh, terrific. From the director who brought us The Exorcist: The Version You Don't Want To See.

[Schkura]

To anyone thinking of upgrading to the French Connection BD, you might want to hang on to your DVD.

*expletive deleted*

[Antoine Doinel]

Robert Harris offers a roundabout defense of Friedkin's "re-imagined" BD of The French Connection.

[Gregory]

I like the part later in the thread where he asserts that for those unfamiliar with the film being able to see it the way it looked in theatrical release is "totally irrelevant." Apparently someone seeing it for the first time shouldn't care about seeing anything other than what he says has been visually "re-imagined." I don't get it.

Off the topic, but I can't believe he trademarked the phrase "a few words about."

[Highway 61]

That Harris piece was better than I thought. I don't see how Friedkin's appropriation of dye-transfer printing processes justifies his revisionism, but I appreciate that Harris asked for the original version of the film to be released along side the altered one.

[pro-bassoonist]

Well, given that technically the DVD release of the film also does not allow the experience the film as originally seen in the theater, I believe that Mr. Harris' point is quite good.

Pro-B

[Gregory]

I just meant see it the way it looked in terms of color grading and the look of color in the film, which I think is very important. I understand that DVD can't perfectly replicate the experience of seeing a film in a theater.

And I didn't mean for my comment to come off so grouchy. This business of not including an alternate which some legitimately prefer just irritates me and makes me wish that people in Harris's position would takes just slightly more of a stand about it when they write about cases like this.

[skweeker]

Well such "revisionism" can start even before release - I am currently in the midst of viewing the multiple versions of Mr.Arkadin, which Criterion has been gracious enough to release - and the many-hands nature of the film medium (not to mention tech advance) lends itself to this "variation in detail" - scores,colors,edits, etc. can all exist in multiple forms, for the "same" (loosely-so-called) film.

I think that it comes down to a question of creator's rights: the creator may change his work: that's my position. It is a moral rather than an aesthetic position, too.

As to who in particular is the "creator" of the work, well, that's a different question. Clear enough when it's a Lucasfilm production: not so clear with say Arkadin or Corporate "Studio" product. The initial creator of the film , and those who later have the power to alter the film, is not always (or even usually) the same. This is more a legal question, than moral or aesthetic.

And it is yet a different question as to whether the changes made are an improvement or not. This is the aesthetic question.
Finally, as always, there is the commercial question...

[Matt]

Scott Eyman has something to say about Friedkin's "mindless revisionism."

It looks like a Tony Scott movie

[Person]

Scott Eyman has something to say about Friedkin's "mindless revisionism."

It looks like a Tony Scott movie

Ouch!

[Awesome Welles]

Robert Harris offers a roundabout defense of Friedkin's "re-imagined" BD of The French Connection.

Mr. Friedkin references John Huston's Moby Dick as the precursor to his work on The French Connection, and while true, the reality goes directly back to the mid-1930s and the period up to WWII.

I've never heard that before but when I saw the Blu-ray played on the big screen for an event to promote the release last year I thought the colour looked good but a bit too pale, I don't recall it looking half as gritty as the caps on the first post. Friedkin was there also and said that he was so impressed with the technology and was finally able to correct the colours to how he originally envisioned it - whether or not that's some promo bull or not I don't know. With regards to Moby Dick - when he discussed his influences he never mentioned it but did go on to talk about his love for Costa-Gavras's Z - the film he says influenced him the most and always tries to mention when discussing The French Connection. As a general aside he was asked what he thought of The French Connection Part II and he said he never saw it and will never any sequels to any of his films which I thought was quite interesting.

[Props55]

Well, I guess if you can't create any new work you must therefore continue to tinker with the old. Either that or make a living giving fatuous interviews and ruining the commentary feature on DVDs of films by other, better filmakers.

In addition to the moral, aesthetic, legal and commercial aspects there is also the sociological and technical/historical. The look of most of the crime/neo-noir/street films of the late 60's/early 70's was the result of shooting with little in the way of traditional "prettification" of the image. If you shot in a subway station with florescent practicals or under a sodium street lamp, no effort was made to color correct either by using gels during shooting or in developing or printing. If skin tones went blue/green under the former or yellow/orange with the latter, all to the good. That and increased grain due to faster filmstocks and lower light levels gave the film the look and feel of really being right there in the "mean streets". (Ironically the color saturation of Scorcese's MEAN STREETS was as carefully controlled by art direction, Kent Wakeford's lighting and IB Tech printing as a Minnelli musical!) Release prints ground out at second tier NYC labs such as TVC (lots of Fox product) and Movielab (Paramount and A.I.P.) completed the gritty, flat daylight, flourescent soaked nighttime, no frills, no fill look these films seemed to demand. Big city urban crime wasn't supposed to be pretty. The look was mainly an Eastcoast/NYC thing but you'd see it in films shot in L.A. as well, the main difference being overbright, blown out highlights with lots of bad reflections in daylight exteriors.

To try and resaturate and color balance such films 30+ years after the fact is not only "bad" revisionism, it's cultural vandalism.

[Antoine Doinel]

Owen Roizman says the new transfer is "atrocious", "horrifying" and adds "it would be a travesty to see The Exorcist transferred in this fashion."

[dx23]

Owen Roizman says the new transfer is "atrocious", "horrifying" and adds "it would be a travesty to see The Exorcist transferred in this fashion."

The question is now if WB is going to let this nut do the same to the Exorcist, knowing that it will affect their sales of the BD. I imagine that someone at Warner is going to see the backlash for the French Connection transfer on the Internet.

[Matt]

If they let Friedkin work his wonders on The Exorcist, let him mess with the recut version and just give us the original version without any tampering on the same disc. That way, everyone's happy.

[Props55]

Thanks for the kind words Mr. Hare. I know that we're both of an age to have seen these films upon original release and know what they looked like on the big screen in new prints.

Many of these films were shot by the "young turks" of the day who have now become "old masters". Roizman, Chapman and others in the east and Zsigmond, Kovacs, et. al. from L.A. and Bill Butler who broke out of the Windy City with Friedkin in the mid-sixties. It's not that they couldn't light the traditional way, just that the times, locations and budgets demanded a grittier style and faster set-ups. Coming from documentary,TV news and exploitation films made them much better adapted than the old studio cameramen. Note that all their work became more polished and saturated by the mid '70s when Coppola, Friedkin Bogdanovich et. al. now had the clout to demand bigger budgets, longer schedules and sit in on penultimate posting of final sound mix and color timing.

To be fair I suppose someone looking at a hazy VHS or an iffy LD could not be blamed for thinking that the image was simply the result of Eastman print fade and that the film needed top to bottom restoration from surviving original elements. That could well be the case in some instances but for the most part the desaturated, high grain, underlit style was the sign of the times.

Note to David: To hear it from many who should know (including Bill Butler), Friedkin fell out of his tree at about age eight!

[Antoine Doinel]

The Blu-Ray of The French Connection is the best print that's ever been made of that picture because of the process itself.

[HerrSchreck]

Freidkin is freakin useless. Once upon a time this man alid down two cine-cultural paradigms that remain touchstones today: the blockbuster, effects-laced horror film, and the buddy crime drama (complete with optional bitchin' chase sequence).

Now he's just useless and an embarassment, which is so sad, because I love that early work so darned much.

I still maintain that the correct ethic-- re this rank revisionism and tinkering with "finished" works-- is always refreshing when encountered: promulgated by the great Victor Erice, who says that once his film is completed, it no longer belongs to him... it belongs to the people who watch it, love it, etc. I understand the sentimentality and nostalgia for filmmaers-- artists of all kinds-- to reflect so fondly on the days of their youth, when they were blazing away in the fire of their 30's & 40's, and passion was deep and the ambition was huge and the future was uncertain and success was just beginning to flirt and tease.

I'm sorry but ruining your most vital early work with the fat-encased judgements of your later mind is no substitute for lack of great current work... and puts out of order the great work you love so much. Accept life, and leave it all the fuck alone furchrissakes!!!!!

[Antoine Doinel]

Freidkin is freakin useless. Once upon a time this man alid down two cine-cultural paradigms that remain touchstones today: the blockbuster, effects-laced horror film, and the buddy crime drama (complete with optional bitchin' chase sequence).

Now he's just useless and an embarassment, which is so sad, because I love that early work so darned much.

Herr, have you seen Bug? If not, I strongly urge you to do so. A severely underrated psychological horror film that shows that if Friedkin has the right material, he's still got it.

[Antoine Doinel]

Friedkin's new version is now screening at MOMA, meanwhile, David Wells has written an open letter to Billy.

[exte]

What if it's a case of following the George Lucas mold? Say they won't be able to buy another version - everyone buys this one, and then release the 'original' down the road for even more money? I can see why Friedkin would do that, in a strictly monetary way.

[Person]

I'll have the UK Blu-Ray two-pack of The French Connection and French Connection II tomorrow. I'm looking forward to seeing how far removed the aesthetic of the original is from the SD-DVD transfer. The French Connection wasn't a film that had elaborate lighting, lavish set decoration or colorful costumes, so it should look pretty 'straight and standard' though it has a lot of mood in several scenes. The Exorcist, on the other hand, was meticulously designed with many destinctive scenes of instantly recognisable artistry. I'm worried that Friedkin will push the film into looking like Suspiria (which has it's own amazing aesthetic). Sorcerer has a bold, bleak aesthetic and I hope too, that it isn't altered drastically. Maybe that is why the SE DVD never came out - Friedkin wants to create a new, color "corrected" transfer.

[Mr Sausage]

The French Connection wasn't a film that had elaborate lighting, lavish set decoration or colorful costumes, so it should look pretty 'straight and standard' though it has a lot of mood in several scenes.

Just because they weren't elaborate or lavish doesn't mean they weren't highly calculated.