DVDSome Came Running by Glenn Kenny

New developments in "French Connection" case...

By February 25, 2009January 12th, 20266 Comments

My buddy and occa­sion­al SCR pinch-hitter Aaron Aradillas always does a great job with his “Back By Midnight” blog radio show, but this week’s epis­ode should touch off some ser­i­ous fire­works. “Anarchy In NYC: The Legacy of The French Connection,” it’s called, and it’s all about the mak­ing of the film…and of course its con­tro­ver­sial new Blu-ray present­a­tion. Among Aaron’s guests are famed cine­ma­to­graph­er Owen Roizman, who shot the film…and who only learned about the new color-retimed DVD when Aaron was book­ing him to appear. Suffice it to say that he has some fairly def­in­ite opin­ions about this con­tro­ver­sial re-visioning. Check it out here. 

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6 Comments

  • Robert says:
    February 25, 2009 at 1:14 pm

    Boy that Mr. Friedkin is one class act. He doesn’t even have the cour­tesy to invite the man respons­ible for the ori­gin­al look in on his very bad idea.
    I had a chance to sit down with this new ver­sion last night and without bela­bor­ing the point, hang on to your old DVD release. The Blu Ray looks awful. As pre­vi­ously noted the reds bleed badly and the night sequences are plagued with excess­ive amount of grain (to the point of distracting).

  • DVertino says:
    February 25, 2009 at 1:49 pm

    I gotta listen to this. I always thought Friedkin was a pom­pous ass, so I would love for this to back­fire on him. Now where is my old 2‑disc set… need a rewatch­ing, stat!

  • bill says:
    February 25, 2009 at 2:02 pm

    I won­der what he’s going to do to “The Exorcist”, the Friedkin film about which I care the most? Beyond what he and Blatty already did to it, I mean.

  • Herman Scobie says:
    February 25, 2009 at 3:18 pm

    Somewhere Lesley Anne Down and Jeanne Moreau are chortling.

  • Aaron Aradillas says:
    February 25, 2009 at 5:36 pm

    FYI: You can down­load the show for free off of iTunes. Keyword: Back By Midnight.

  • Mike De Luca says:
    February 25, 2009 at 7:13 pm

    Well done, Aaron. You got the real deal from the horse’s mouth. And Grasso is rather lov­able. He views Popeye and Cloudy, as strictly good guys versus, say, the idea of Popeye as a fas­cin­at­ing sev­en­ties anti­hero, who kills a fed­er­al agent, then goes mad? But hey, he got the chance to be immor­tal­ized, and, more import­antly, make “The Seven Ups”. Roy Scheider, RIP. Great stuff, Aaron. A most riv­et­ing two hours.