Travesty of the Year

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Since I have little else to write about in these late December doldrums, I'm going to re-run some of HE's 2009 highlights over the next couple of days. And one piece I'm especially proud of is the slapdown I gave to director William Friedkin and his "high-contrasty, snow-grained, color-bleeding, verging-on-monochrome" Blu-ray of The French Connection that came out last February.

This Blu-ray disc was, no exaggeration, the most offensive act of corporately-sanctioned vandalism to happen to a classic film in motion-picture history, and I'm thinking it can't hurt to give Friedkin another couple of lashes for completion's sake, just to put the cap on and to make double sure no one ever tries something like this again.

Jeffrey Wells to William Friedkin: The French Connection was obviously your film when you were developing, shooting and cutting it, and certainly your film when you were promoting it in '71. And you were most responsible for winning the Best Picture Oscar, clearly. But those days are over, pal, and while you may feel some form of residual parental ownership rights today, you're out of line. At least as far as revisionist futzing rights are concerned.

Whatever your attorney has told you or the contracts may say, you do not own The French Connection, Mr. Freidkin -- the moviegoing public does. The fans who've been watching and worshipping this film for the last 38 years do. Your ownership rights went out the window, sir, once that legendary New York crime film became a huge hit, and they sure as shit were null and void after it won the Best Picture Oscar of 1971. And you can't just stroll into a post-production house on Highland or Seward and re-visualize it and put out a snow-bleachy version on Blu-ray and say, "This is it -- the best version of this film ever made!"

Well, you can because you have. But you have no legitimacy in doing so.

I'm referring to what cinematographer Owen Roizman strongly stated last week, which is that you've desecrated The French Connection with this new Blu-ray version.

Frame capture from David Lean's revised version of Lawrence of Arabia.

The word on the street is that you intend to do the same thing to The Exorcist down the road. I got the idea from listening to you speak the night before last that if you had a chance you'd probably do the same to upcoming remasters of Sorcerer and To Live and Die in L.A..

I'm writing to tell you, sir, that this has to stop because in the eyes of the Movie Gods you haven't the right to do this, despite what your pallies at Fox Home Video and others in the film-cultivating community may have told you.

You can't mangle what belongs to the public and to history, Mr. Friedkin. Art belongs to the artist until he or she creates it, and then it belongs to the world. Period. That means forever. That means no retroactive whimsical messing-around rights can kick in. And that means no Greedo-shoots-first revisionism of any kind unless the intention is to try and bring genuine (i.e., nonrevisionist) improvement to the original vision. Richer, fuller, crisper, cleaner...fine. But no "atrocious" and "horrifying" revisions.

That means if Pablo Picasso comes back from the grave he can't go to Spain and decide that "Guernica" works better in color because he had a recent vision in heaven that painting it in black and white in 1937 was the wrong way to go. That means that the ghost of David Lean can't come back to earth and decide to reimagine and remaster Lawrence of Arabia as a black-and-white period movie in the vein of John Ford's The Lost Patrol (1934).

The same thing goes for The Exorcist, Sorcerer and To Live and Die in LA.. You don't have the right because they're not your films, buster. You made them, obviously, but they have a life and a culture and a spirit of their own now. And I am telling you, speaking for myself and I suspect for many others, to back off and leave those movies alone. I mean it. Stand aside, sheath your sword, holster your pistol and find some other way to be creative.

You can do what you can to improve the appearance of these films on DVD, Blu-ray and hi-def digital downloads feeds. You can help to make sure they look precisely as they did when they were shown as brand-new prints in first-run theatres, or help make them look even sharper and cleaner and more vivid than they did back then if you so choose, but that's all.

Otherwise you're a brilliant and accomplished filmmaker, and an excellent fellow to discuss the ins and outs of the movie business with. And Bug deserved more attention and acclaim than it got. And all hail Michael Shannon!

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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on December 30, 2009 at 6:23 AM

comment #1

the sordid sentinel says ...

Well said Mr. Wells. I am STILL (all these months later) crushed by what Friedkin did to one of my 10 favorite films. "Travesty" is definitely the apropriate word.

Posted by the sordid sentinel at December 30, 2009 7:26 AM

comment #2

btwnproductions says ...

CONNECTION looks fine on regular Morlock unwashed DVD. I'm not "Blu" over its failure in that format.

Posted by btwnproductions at December 30, 2009 7:45 AM

comment #3

MarkVH says ...

But, but, but... David Poland said that this was how it was SUPPOSED to look1

Posted by MarkVH at December 30, 2009 8:57 AM

comment #4

MrTribeca says ...

Friedkin can do whatever the hell he wants to do with his films. Up the contrast, shove the grain to snowstorm levels, whatever. As long as there's a beautifully remastered copy of the original cut available alongside...

Spielberg earned brownie points from me when he released ET on DVD - both the original version and his butchered "no guns" "Special Edition" were available at the same time. He should have a word with George Lucas, whose non-anamorphic, unremastered issuing of the original cuts of Star Wars IV-VI on DVD bordered on sheer contempt for his audience.

As bad as Friedkin's decision was, I still believe that the "most offensive act of corporately-sanctioned vandalism to happen to a classic film in motion-picture history" was Ted Turner's colorization frenzy in the mid '80s. And he was a repeat offender.

Posted by MrTribeca at December 30, 2009 10:04 AM

comment #5

The Bandsaw Vigilante says ...

The Exorcist BD is coming out in 2010. Heard they held it over so that both cuts (and more supplements) could be included...great news.

Even better news?

Roizman's supervising the Blu-Ray transfer. I can only hope that the five-toe enema Friedkin likely received from him hurt enough to turn the ship around.

Posted by The Bandsaw Vigilante at December 30, 2009 10:50 AM

comment #6

bmcintire says ...

For Chrissakes, Jeff, the man didn't destroy the masters or anything. You can still see the movie how you like it. And I wouldn't be surprised to see Fox release a double-dip of the original HD transfer (done for the last DVD release) on Blu-Ray some time in the near future.
This whining is akin to your Criterion rant about Soderbergh's CHE. The thing has been available on DVD through Blockbuster for months, and Time Warner Cable had it available on-demand in 720p (or 1080i?) HD for most of the Fall. Take a breath already. Your beloved, overpriced full 1080p HD will be ready when it's ready.

BTW, The Blu-Ray release of TO LIVE AND DIE IN LA is scheduled to come out 2/02/10. Freidkin supervised the latest re-transfer (done at his behest) and tweaked some color levels here and there, but no major technical overhaul ala TFC was done to it .

Posted by bmcintire at December 30, 2009 3:54 PM

comment #7

DeeZee says ...

Tribeca: "Spielberg earned brownie points from me when he released ET on DVD - both the original version and his butchered "no guns" "Special Edition" were available at the same time. "

You forgot that you originally had to pay $80 for that edition, until he stopped being a greedy dick about it at the last minute...

Posted by DeeZee at December 30, 2009 4:21 PM

comment #8

DeeZee says ...

But then I'm still offended that he had the gall to sell a special edition Schindler's List on LD for $200.

Posted by DeeZee at December 30, 2009 4:22 PM

comment #9

modernknife says ...

Good news about TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A., hopefully it looks great. Now what about that long overdue SORCERER release?

Posted by modernknife at December 30, 2009 4:49 PM

comment #10

televisiontears says ...

I'm pretty excited that The Exorcist BD will include both versions. A few years ago when I moved to my current city, I had to slim down my library for spacial reasons, so most duplicates got left behind. In a rush, I mistakenly got rid of the original instead of the "Version You've Never Seen" (which btw is a ludicrous, nonsensical title for an alternate cut).

Not that I think that the alt. cut is useless. In the original, the jumpiness in the Karras-is-momentarily-unpossessed-cut always undercut the tension of the climax for me, even at twelve-years-old. The newer version fixed it, and for that I am eternally grateful.

Posted by televisiontears at December 30, 2009 5:10 PM

comment #11

televisiontears says ...

This just made me realize how much money I spend on different releases of a single film. After the the BD, I will have bought The Exorcist freaking six times (crappy VHS, Special Edition VHS, bare-bones DVD, Special Edition DVD, the alternate cut DVD, and now the BD). Sadly, this isn't exactly an anomaly. Someone needs to stage an intervention.

Maybe in 2036, I'll be brainstream-blogging about how the Immersive Interactive Hologram (IIH) of The Exorcist is a slap in the face to Friedkin, and that the Demon-Possession-Simulator awkwardly adds an out-of-place modern element, but despite its initial novelty, begins to grate on the nerves in the third act.

Posted by televisiontears at December 30, 2009 5:28 PM

comment #12

Mike says ...

Off topic a little bit but I wish Gene Hackman would get off the couch and give at least one more performance. The best actor alive is missed.

Posted by Mike at December 31, 2009 10:01 AM

comment #13

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