DVD Talk Forum - French Connection Censored on Streaming Platforms

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Noonan

06-16-23 01:54 PM

Re: French Connection Censored on Streaming Platforms

Quote:

Originally Posted by DVD Polizei (Post 14286001)

The French Connection is for mature audiences, so if they can't handle a little offensive language...how will they handle the other stuff in the movie...like the violence? Drug use? Blood? Addiction? Was a bad idea on Disney's part.

I don't think you quite understand the impact that word can have on people when it's used as it is in this film. It's not "a little offensive language" to millions of people.

Troy Stiffler

06-16-23 02:21 PM

Re: French Connection Censored on Streaming Platforms

Way too complicated. I'll bow out of this thread and see what happens.

I don't believe in censorship. I'd rather they just transition to being more self-conscious about new films.

I hope Scorsese and WB doesn't decide to remove all the racial insensitivities from Goodfellas. So many movies I can think of. Thinking about how much would need to be censored. I don't foresee this being a trend, beyond possibly transitioning to streaming having "edited for TV" type edits to satisfy advertisers.

orangerunner

06-16-23 02:40 PM

Re: French Connection Censored on Streaming Platforms

The unwritten process of political correctness will always randomly target certain elements and bypass others. Is the French Connection any more offensive than the homophobic and racist dialogue on display in the Best Picture winner of 2006 "The Departed"?

Decker

06-16-23 03:13 PM

Re: French Connection Censored on Streaming Platforms

Again, apparently not Disney's doing. And not a trend. One powerful and probably mentally fading director's wishes. That's it (at least for now). Let's not call out the company that owns the studio, let's not bemoan a trend and look hypothetically into a dystopian and intolerant future. It's one guy, one movie. At least for now.

kefrank

06-16-23 04:13 PM

Re: French Connection Censored on Streaming Platforms

Quote:

Originally Posted by Decker (Post 14286029)

I agree we shouldn't careen down a doomsday slippery slope argument here. However, I don't think Disney/Fox are absolved of all culpability. The studio owns the film. Unless Friedken had an absurdly director-friendly contract that gave him revisionist edit rights in perpetuity (incredibly unlikely), then the studio likely had every tight to tell him, "Feel free to make a director's cut, but we're going to continue making the theatrical cut available on all platforms as well." That would have been the right move IMO for the sake of film preservation. It does not appear that Disney/Fox chose that path.

jjcool

06-16-23 04:24 PM

Re: French Connection Censored on Streaming Platforms

Quote:

Originally Posted by Noonan (Post 14285539)

Yes. Remember the recent Banksy painting that self shredded right after it sold? Artists own their art, regardless of what it means to other people.

So you're saying Banksy owned that piece after he sold it? Did he sell it to himself?

Kurt D

06-16-23 04:28 PM

Re: French Connection Censored on Streaming Platforms

Quote:

Originally Posted by jjcool (Post 14286048)

So you're saying Banksy owned that piece after he sold it? Did he sell it to himself?

With Banksy, you never know ...

But yes, the issue of visual artists messing with work after it has been sold to others has been going on in small degree for quite some time. And they don't really have the right to, since they no longer own it.

Troy Stiffler

06-16-23 04:42 PM

Re: French Connection Censored on Streaming Platforms

So this isn't Disney/Fox either, but rather a simple edit from Friedkin's Director's Cut? That's just surprising, given his filmography. If that's all that's to it, there's not much to talk about.

Dan	06-16-23 04:49 PM

Re: French Connection Censored on Streaming Platforms

So all we have on this is Jeffrey Wells saying that a connection of his has opined that Friedkin requested this cut. Look at the actual quote (underlined by me, for emphasis):

Quote:

I spoke yesterday to a Hollywood veteran, and one of the things I asked him was “why the hell would Friedkin betray the original artistic intent of his own Oscar-winning film by approving the deletion of a nine-second scene that uses the N-word?”
His reply: “Well, he’s entitled to do this, and the original film hasn’t disappeared — it’s available on physical media even if the streaming version is missing the censored footage.”
And then he said something interesting: “I don’t think Friedkin is playing the same close attention to this matter that you are.” I took that to mean that Friedkin may not be paying super-close attention in general.

Sorry for being skeptical, and I could see this being true, but it's not exactly confirmed with that kind of ambiguity. There's literally nothing there but someone's opinion on what Friedkin may or may not have asked for.

I'm going to need something more meaty than that if I'm going to believe this version of the story.

Why So Blu?

06-16-23 05:03 PM

Re: French Connection Censored on Streaming Platforms

Wow, so Friedkin went on record saying he changed it?

Link?

Dan	06-16-23 05:06 PM

Re: French Connection Censored on Streaming Platforms

Quote:

Originally Posted by Why So Blu? (Post 14286067)

Wow, so Friedkin went on record saying he changed it?

Link?

:lol: no. No such confirmation exists. Just Jeffrey Wells posting on his blog, claiming that an "industry veteran" friend of his said Friedkin was entitled to make the cut, not that he actually made the decision.

edit: and yet we have dozens of posts taking it as gospel truth. -rolleyes-

orangerunner

06-16-23 05:15 PM

Re: French Connection Censored on Streaming Platforms

Quote:

Originally Posted by L. Ron zyzzle (Post 14286051)

Don't quote me but with photography, isn't it true that the original photographer (who pressed the shutter-release button) is always the rights-holder in perpetuity of that image regardless of who they sold the image to? For instance, school photographers take a headshot of your son or daughter and sell you the photos but doesn't the photographer still hold the rights to the image? I suppose it depends on how the fine-print is worded.

Kurt D

06-16-23 05:25 PM

Re: French Connection Censored on Streaming Platforms

Quote:

Originally Posted by orangerunner (Post 14286073)

I'm no copyright attorney, or no attorney at all, so take this with a grain of salt: the photographer holds the rights to the image for life plus 70 years (per google) but that doesn't mean they have the right to alter a print you bought. At least I don't think so. I guess if you buy an image that is digitally streamed into your frame on the wall, they could edit the shot and it would change the stream. The same goes for the image of a painting, that image is copyrighted, (you couldn't take a hi-res shot of your Monet and start selling prints) but I don't think a painter could bust into your house and make changes to the actual original object without your permission, because that is a physical object that you own.

Toddarino

06-16-23 06:59 PM

Re: French Connection Censored on Streaming Platforms

If William Friedkin wants to come to my house and edit my vhs tape and scratch my Blu-ray, I’ll allow it as long as he brings a lone UHD copy of Sorcerer and watches it with me.

Kurt D

06-16-23 08:39 PM

Re: French Connection Censored on Streaming Platforms

I haven't seen Sorcerer in many years, but I think it pulled off the signature sequence better than The Wages of Fear.

Toddarino

06-17-23 08:58 AM

Re: French Connection Censored on Streaming Platforms

Quote:

Originally Posted by L. Ron zyzzle (Post 14286133)

I haven't seen Sorcerer in many years, but I think it pulled off the signature sequence better than The Wages of Fear.

I like Wages Of Fear a lot, but Sorcerer is one of my favorite films.
I love showing it to people and watching them get very slowly sucked in until that scene hits.

bluetoast

06-17-23 09:44 AM

Re: French Connection Censored on Streaming Platforms

I saw The Wages of Fear first, in theaters, in a blind view (despite having blind blight it years earlier) and it was an amazing experience. Probably a top ten movie for me. For me, it’ll always be vastly superior to Sorceror.

rw2516

06-17-23 09:58 AM

Re: French Connection Censored on Streaming Platforms

I saw the movie Violent Road on the afternoon matinee movie on tv in the 60s. Went to see Sorcerer went it first came out and thought it was a remake of that old movie I saw on tv as a kid. Didn't know Wages of Fear existed at the time.

Kurt D

06-17-23 10:20 AM

Re: French Connection Censored on Streaming Platforms

Quote:

Originally Posted by bluetoast (Post 14286225)

I'll admit I saw Sorcerer first, so that influences my opinion. Wages of Fear is the better overall movie, for sure. I'll have to revisit Sorcerer to see how that scene feels now.

Nick Danger

06-17-23 10:27 AM

Re: French Connection Censored on Streaming Platforms

Quote:

Originally Posted by Noonan (Post 14285976)

I absolutely love movies but not to the extent where I care if they get edited. My life won't change if a movie has edits x years later. And lets not assume that just because the director wanted FC edited it means that it's going to be an open flood gate of other edits happening. I've actually thought to myself that I wish some media that have insensitive jokes would get edited so I didn't avoid watching them today.

Would I care if I woke up tomorrow and Pulp Fiction was edited to say "Dead Man Storage" instead of what was filmed? Not a single bit. The movie is still amazing if you remove the n word (being used with a hard R) from it. If a movie lives or dies by the use of a racist slur, it's a terrible movie to begin with.

You're okay with removing the casual racism in Pulp Fiction. What if the next generation of movie studios wants to remove the drug use in Pulp Fiction because in that era drug use is considered highly offensive? You must have a point at which you say, "This edit was wrong!"

Mike86

06-17-23 12:06 PM

Re: French Connection Censored on Streaming Platforms

If anyone is looking for the Blu-ray it’s being sold on eBay by Deep Discount for $8.99 plus $1.99 shipping. I grabbed it.

bluetoast

06-17-23 12:15 PM

Re: French Connection Censored on Streaming Platforms

Deep Discount. Haven't used that in so long. Any of you all still participate in that annual sale (if it's still ongoing)?

Why So Blu?

06-17-23 05:01 PM

Re: French Connection Censored on Streaming Platforms

DD has always been reliable. At least with me they have been.

Mike86

06-17-23 06:36 PM

Re: French Connection Censored on Streaming Platforms

Deep Discount is fine. I don’t use them a lot but they’re reliable enough. I bought a Simpsons figure from them just a couple months ago.

Jaymole

06-18-23 05:13 AM

Re: French Connection Censored on Streaming Platforms

Quote:

Originally Posted by Noonan (Post 14285953)

We end up with movies with more nudity and less bigotry? The horror

Good to know that if someone makes a movie about the KKK, they won't say anything racist but we get to see them naked.

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