Wednesday, April 13, 2011

#1049: The French Connection

7:58 PM / Blu-ray / Comments6 Comments

BD

(BD, 20th Century Fox, Region ABC, UK)

I picked up some discounted BDs today at HMV. This one was worth the £10 for the jaw-dropping colour timing featurette on the second disc in which William Friedkin destroys the look of the film before our very eyes, turning it into something that resembles one of those colourised Ted Turner botch jobs. I think we can all breathe a sigh of relief that Friedkin didn't work the same "magic" on THE EXORCIST.

 
6 Comments

1. Christopher D. Jacobson said:

I like the revisionist color timing in this film. It gives the movie a very cold, steely look. I wish they would've included the original version in HD, though—I'd probably prefer it. Still, I'm satisfied with the US BD; I think it looks fantastic.

Off topic, but: When is your brother gonna get Spumboard up and runnin' again? :p Message said late January, and now no message is showing at all.

(Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 at 1:11 AM)

2. Author Profile Page Michael said:

Revisionism is one thing. My main concern is with the way Friedkin achieved it. Come on - desaturating the image completely, then partially bleeding in an oversaturated, gaussian blurred colour layer, ending up with an image with the chroma resolution of a third generation VHS? My main complaint isn't with the pastel colours, it's with the fact that the colours bleed excessively out of the edges of objects, lag behind the black and white channel during movement and generally give the impression that the transfer is the work of some kid playing around with a bunch of tools he didn't understand.

I think the cinematographer, Owen Roizman, was completely accurate in his assessment:

"I wasn't consulted. I was appalled by it. I don't know what Billy was thinking. It's not the film that I shot, and I certainly want to wash my hands of having had anything to do with this transfer, which I feel is atrocious."

Regarding Spumboard, I'm not sure. He's got a lot on the go at the moment.

(Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 at 10:02 AM)

3. Adam Grikepelis said:

personally, I'd have much rathered Friedkin messed around with the Exorcist, and left French Connection alone (if it had to be one or the other).
it's a sad thing when filmmakers can't leave well enough alone.
unlike other artforms, for some reason when revisionism like this gets inflicted on a film, it ends up being the only one available.
stop burying the past, guys - if only Scorsese's approach to his earlier work was the norm...

(Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 at 10:46 AM)

4. Phil Quail said:

The French Connection Blu-ray looks awful, like taking a black-and-white photocopy then letting your kids colour it in. I got as far as the night club scene with the Three Degrees, and it was such a dark purplish blurry mess I got my R1 DVD out and watched that instead.

Still, I got the 3-disc BD set pretty cheap a while ago, and at least they didn't bother buggering about with French Connection II.

(Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 at 5:50 PM)

5. Marcus said:

I think The Exorcist was "messed with" enough already, but at least the Bluray gave you the option of watching the original version.

(Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 at 9:05 PM)

6. anephric said:

Sadly, even with the Exorcist and the "original" version (which it's not), it's the revised colour timing and it still has a subtle CG morph when Karras fights off Pazuzu at the end rather than the nifty 70s jumpcut. Why can't things be left alone?

(Posted on Friday, April 15, 2011 at 8:19 PM)

 
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