Damn Fool Idealistic Crusader | The Altering of The French Connection and Home Video Overview @DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader | Uploaded June 2023 | Updated October 2024, 3 hours ago.
#thefrenchconnection #censoringfilms #filmpreservation #homevideohistory #physicalmedia
Disney’s editing of The French Connection has set a dangerous new precedent for the preservation of all motion pictures. Their decision to go in and remove an entire sequence from the film and say nothing so that all iterations in circulation are now altered in a way that resembles an old sloppy broadcast television edit of a film is completely reprehensible and without merit. There honestly has not been enough pushback since the news of this really broke. I first heard about it in 2022, but couldn’t find out any more details. Now that this is the version in major circulation and has been seen on TCM, the criterion channel, film festivals and has replaced even digital copies purchased and held in individual’s streaming libraries is absolutely insane. Disney’s decades of revisionism must end and should and here. This needs to be reversed immediately, and actually acknowledged. In addition to removing the offensive word in this one seen an entire central line to the lead character’s psychology has also been removed which is extraordinarily detrimental to the film’s impact as this scene comes very early in the runtime.
I also discuss the film’s video history in a brief overview, which also gets out another long-standing problem with this film: The original Mono audio mix was missing and unavailable from all video and other presentations for nearly 30 years. (EDIT: It did reappear finally on the horrid 2009 Blu-ray release which I wasn't aware of having avoided that disc like the plague. This lossy mono seems to be the same track that was then ported to the 2012 Signature BD.) This is the other primary reason why the 2012 signature series Blu-ray is so incredibly important.
#thefrenchconnection #censoringfilms #filmpreservation #homevideohistory #physicalmedia
Disney’s editing of The French Connection has set a dangerous new precedent for the preservation of all motion pictures. Their decision to go in and remove an entire sequence from the film and say nothing so that all iterations in circulation are now altered in a way that resembles an old sloppy broadcast television edit of a film is completely reprehensible and without merit. There honestly has not been enough pushback since the news of this really broke. I first heard about it in 2022, but couldn’t find out any more details. Now that this is the version in major circulation and has been seen on TCM, the criterion channel, film festivals and has replaced even digital copies purchased and held in individual’s streaming libraries is absolutely insane. Disney’s decades of revisionism must end and should and here. This needs to be reversed immediately, and actually acknowledged. In addition to removing the offensive word in this one seen an entire central line to the lead character’s psychology has also been removed which is extraordinarily detrimental to the film’s impact as this scene comes very early in the runtime.
I also discuss the film’s video history in a brief overview, which also gets out another long-standing problem with this film: The original Mono audio mix was missing and unavailable from all video and other presentations for nearly 30 years. (EDIT: It did reappear finally on the horrid 2009 Blu-ray release which I wasn't aware of having avoided that disc like the plague. This lossy mono seems to be the same track that was then ported to the 2012 Signature BD.) This is the other primary reason why the 2012 signature series Blu-ray is so incredibly important.
