Director Sidney Lumet and dp Owen Roizman, both wearing feathered wings and playing harps in heaven, have just heard about Criterion’s forthcoming 4K Network Bluray (due 2.24.26), and are almost certainly feeling very concerned about their classic 1976 satire being teal-colored.
Remember how Roizman freaked and pretty much hit the ceiling when William Friedkin played around with the color scheme in that bizarre 16-year-old French Connection Bluray? Roizman didn’t tippy-toe around the obvious, which was that the ’09 Bluray’s bizarre color scheme (bleachy, desaturated, high contrasty) was an outright desecration. Three years later a properly remastered, Roizman-approved version was issued on a subsequent Bluray, and thank God for gloriously happy endings.
If and when Criterion saturates Network with sickly teal tones, Roizman will go to management and demand that the clouds above Criterion’s NYC headquarters darken and rumble and secrete bolts of lightning.
