On The French Connection's Censorship

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The recent passing of New Hollywood auteur William Friedkin had me thinking of The French Connection, my favourite film from the great director's body of work. Unfortunately, thinking about The French Connection also got me thinking about The French Connection's censorship. First discovered streaming on Criterion Channel, a new version of the film which deletes a brief dialogue exchange has been in circulation. In this video essay, I discuss that cut and why it's significant.
Filmography: letterboxd.com...
Works Cited:
"'Who Censored The French Connection?' is a Case Only Popeye Doyle Could Solve." Glenn Kenny, Decider. 2023. decider.com/20...
"The French Connection has been censored and fans are furious." Elizabeth Audrey, NME. 2023. www.nme.com/ne...
"Don't Censor Racism Out of the Past." Thomas Chatterton Williams, The Atlantic. 2023. www.theatlanti...
"The French Connection and the Trouble with Streaming Censorship." Stephen Daisley, The Spectator. 2023. www.spectator....
"Why Disney Is Cutting Back on DVDs After 'Guardians of the Galaxy'." Brian Adgate, Forbes. 2023. www.forbes.com...
• Disney+ Splash Edited ...
• Video
• Disney Censorship Comp...
Music Featured:
Running Waters by Audionautix
Subterranean Howl by ELPHNT
Setup With An E by Small Colin
Both Flanks by Small Colin
Fingerprint by The Mini Vandals
Love Him by Loyalty Freak Music
A Gradual Descent into the Chamber of Darkness by Scott Lawlor
Lost Highway by Au.Ra
The Six Realms by I Think I Can Help You
The Take Down by DJ Williams
Running Waters by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. creativecommon...
Artist: audionautix.com/
Stock film footage: Film leader is run through a projector. Actual film transfer, not a digital creation. Courtesy of www.beachfrontbroll.com.
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26 сен 2024

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Комментарии : 282

@teddyfurstman1997 Год назад

The French Connection being censored on the year William Friedkin died is gross.

@TheWrestlingful 10 месяцев назад

And an exploitative exorcist sequel. It's like the industry never understood Friedkin to begin with

@HistoryonYouTube 6 месяцев назад

I did not know William had died until I saw this video. To think, only this afternoon I said 'He is still alive...'

@tmrezzek5728 Год назад

Doyle: "Never trust a ni**er." Cloudy: "He coulda been white!" Doyle: "Never trust ANYONE." In three lines it's emphasized that Doyle is racist with no self-control, Cloudy is more measured and balanced, and "Never trust anyone" is Doyle's mantra for being a cop. We find out all we need to know about the characters without a shitload of yakety-yak backstory clogging it up. And, yes, hang on to your physical media, folks!

@Treblaine Год назад

It's also really authentic dialogue. I've known guys like Popeye, that's just the sort of thing they'd say.

@guyvizard549 Год назад

Also, maybe Doyle WANTS people to think he's overtly racist, so that nobody knows (or believes) when he's working with black people as insiders on the street. But yes, I agree with those three lines, and that everyone is missing the point of the interaction.

@Gobbersmack 11 месяцев назад

It's also just good advice. You don't see that in movies anymore.

@ericsommers7386 6 месяцев назад

Honestly Roy Scheider is such an underrated actor

@MegaSneed88 Месяц назад

But NieR is a great game series doe

@jwnj9716 Год назад

That's what makes the 70s really interesting. The protagonists weren't the nicest guys. Yet, they were interesting enough to get you invested.

@Enriqueguiones Год назад

This brand of censorship will get worse... MUCH worse. It's the corporate way of doing things. We have to point it out. We have to criticize it. We have to raise our voices. Masterpieces like "The French Connection" MUST be preserved for future generations.

@rexdavidson4028 Год назад

Exactly

@samuelbarber6177 Год назад

Not even just masterpieces, all art needs to be preserved as it was upon its original release, if anything just as a historical document of what life was at that time.

@Enriqueguiones Год назад

@@samuelbarber6177 Absolutely.

@GrandArchPriestOfTheAlgorithm Год назад

Someone really should make an essay about people's zero tolerance of bad words when they're perfectly fine with much worse actions.

@samuelbarber6177 Год назад

“Remember kids, you can have awful violence, just as long as you don’t show a nipple.” I know it’s more about nudity, but I think the spirit is there.

@DirtyHarryFan88 Год назад

That reminds me a line from "You Only Live Twice" - from the novel, not from the movie. "A violent people without a violent language! I must write a learned paper on this."

@SomeHarbourBastard Год назад

_South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut_ “… remember what the MPAA says. ‘Horrific deplorable violence is okay, as long as nobody says any naughty words’!”

@motherplayer Год назад

I'm reminded of the end of this one segment on Mad T.V. with character Bibleman trying to keep kids away from violent video games before concluding with "And remember kids, if you want to see violence, read the bible."

@usernameperson6374 11 месяцев назад

There is a difference between a bad word and a racial slur that has historically been used to insult and dehumanize a whole race who were brought to another country as slaves. But yeah I don’t agree with the censorship of the French connection.

@k9feline2 Год назад

There's another bit of censorship in the current digital version. Not a cut scene, but a change in subtitles. After Charnier talks with Boca in DC he meets with Nicoli on a plane in a conversation in French with English subtitles. According to the original subtitles, Charnier refers to Doyle as, "That bastard who followed me to the subway." But in the current version, the subtitles read, "That man who followed me to the subway." That's another censorship change for the worse. For most of the film, Charnier comes across as a suave, polite, dignified gentleman who's affectionate to his girlfriend. But that subtitled, "That bastard," says a lot about his true character. He's not the gentleman he's coming across as, he doesn't respect a "worthy opponent", he's not a nice man. He's a ruthless crimelord, and anyone who seriously interferes with him- like a cop better at tailing than all the other cops- is just a "bastard' to him. The fact he gets along so well with a psycho like Nicoli is a hint to his true character. "That bastard," confirms it.

@EyebrowCinema Год назад

Excellent read of that line and its significance.

@GregoryGiordano Год назад

This is why I started buying physical media of these re edited films. The upside is there are hundreds of VHS and DVD and Blu-ray of this film used on eBay. Great prices.

@martinsorenson1055 Год назад

I completely agree! I still have my VHS collection as well as DVD, and will not get rid of them. (I also have some laserdiscs!)

@rovhalt6650 3 месяца назад

The problem with physical media is, they rot with time and eventually they won't work anymore.

@RayoSombrio78 2 месяца назад

You should try to make copies

@scottwhittaker4959 Год назад

In the theatrical version of Dirty Harry I recall the psycho using THAT word in order to get beat up better by the black dude he hired in order to frame Callahan for police brutality.

@andrewwilliford9068 Год назад

I’ve been living in London and watched the film on Disney+ without a VPN shortly after the controversy over the censorship came out. I was flabbergasted to see that Disney+ itself didn’t censor that moment but apparently the Criterion Channel’s version did.

@geoffhoutman1557 4 месяца назад

Wow. Good point. I hope Criterion withdrew the cut version, this is a real blemish in their copybook. Their SALO release is amazing (and uncut).

@thomascoughlan5894 Год назад

Excellent essay. Who do Disney think they are trying to protect? Any half intelligent adult can figure out that Popeye Doyle may be the protagonist but that doesn't mean he's the hero.

@johnpoole3871 6 месяцев назад

Disney is protecting itself.

@geoffhoutman1557 4 месяца назад

From what? Lawsuits? That’ll never happen

@marcelodamm Год назад

This reminds me of the book "Cloud Atlas" where in a future timeline one character says that "Movies" were now called "Disneys". Congrats on the awesome video!

@APS221 Год назад

I should point out that your "shoot an unarmed suspect in the back" comment at 13:50 is missing context. The whole pursuit is started when Nicoli shoots at Doyle and hits a lady pushing a stroller that's in front of him. This is mirrored when Doyle almost hits a lady pushing a stroller with the comandeered car during the pursuit. Doyle doesn't see what happened on the train. We, the audience, see that Nicoli shot two other people on the train. He shot the police officer and the conductor. We also see that Nicoli dropped his gun when the train crashed at the station. Doyle doesn't know that. He has every reason to think Nicoli is still armed.

@tjpotvin Год назад

he didn't see a gun in his hand. he can't assume he's armed and then shoot him in the back. cops shouldn't be doing that.

@RockandrollNegro 5 месяцев назад

@@tjpotvin I know this may come as a shock to anyone born after 1980, but it was legal for cops to shoot fleeing, unarmed suspects until 1985 when the SCOTUS ruled it unconstitutional (Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1). Doyle was legally in the right in that era, and ethically, you would be hard-pressed to find anyone who would fault him for shooting a man that had been shooting at him and just had killed two citizens.

@samuelbarber6177 Год назад

The best part is they didn’t even bother replacing it with anything like TV used to do, they just cut it.

@TheDukeOfTumwater 8 месяцев назад

“I’ve about had it with these monkey-fighting snakes on this Monday to Friday plane!”

@isiahfriedlander5559 7 месяцев назад

That’s why I have a 2tb hard drive with my entire movie collection

@tjpotvin Год назад

This is so strange. I'm not sure about in other countries, but in Canada, The French Connection is on Disney plus without this censorship. Just watched it about a week ago and this scene was fully intact. It's also messed up on so many levels to censor this kind of thing. Firstly, because of the integrity of the film as a piece of art. But also because even if the film was portraying a racist message, that's a part of history that people need to be aware of. Maybe with a warning. But covering that up is like hiding it. That's extremely messed up in my opinion.

@fredo1070 Год назад

This is a classic case of a film showing racism, the film is not racist in itself. Friedkin describes Popeye Doyle in his director's commentary as an obsessive racist. Gene Hackman a Liberal hated saying that word, he didn't really like the character of Doyle. Thank the maker, Disney hasn't got its hands on Blazing Saddles. And remember how we used to laugh when they changed the swear words in the TV versions of films, Scarface being the most hilarious example.

@samuelbarber6177 Год назад

“Yippy kie-yay, Mr Falcon!” Hang on, I got another one: “I have had it with these monkey-fightin’ snakes, on this Monday-to-Friday plane.”

@fredo1070 Год назад

@@samuelbarber6177 America is like a giant chicken waiting to be plucked - Tony Montana.

@tmrezzek5728 Год назад

One of the best was when Lethal Weapon was first shown on TV. Originally when Riggs gets shot and falls through the plate-glass window, he says to Murtaugh: "Oh, Roger, now I'm PISSED!" When it was first shown on TV it was changed to "Oh, Roger, now I'm MIFFED!"

@iododendron3416 Год назад

This is what happens when you meet a stranger in the alps!

@EyebrowCinema Год назад

This whole thread of TV edits is very amusing.

@BULL.173 10 месяцев назад

My grandpa was NYPD for 32 years, many of them in Narcotics. He was a part of the task force that raided the SS France in 1968 and seized almost 250 lbs of Heroin. My grandpa LOVED The French Connection. Not just because he was a narc and knew a lot of the real people in which the characters were based. It was a film that actually had its fingers on the pulse of city cops, especially detectives. It pretty well understood what made guys like my grandpa tick. To survive in that environment, guys had to establish a street presence. You were either an apex predator or you were dead. And my grandpa was the first to admit, the film was also uncomfortably close to home too. Sometimes the job did stop being about the drugs. It could, at times, become more about the hunt than anything else.

@guyvizard549 Год назад

Never trust a corporation.

@TomEyeTheSFMguy Год назад

I was two minutes and fourteen seconds into this video when I realized you were talking about "The French Connection" and not "The French Dispatch". I'll be watching the rest of this video from the Dunce's corner, if y'all don't mind.

@EyebrowCinema Год назад

Also a great movie!

@AcesAndNates Год назад

What you said about the Looney Tunes collectors edition setting the standard for re-releasing archaic media is absolutely spot on. I never put it together exactly why, but I always thought of that golden box set every time I think about how they so often “do it wrongly”, today.

@walkermorgan1710 2 месяца назад

I read that Whoopty Goldberg bought a bunch of these cartoons and purposely rereleased them. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

@artofdrinking Год назад

Imagine if fellow Best Picture winner '12 years a slave' cut out all the racist language. Even the most left leaning people weren't asking for this censorship.

@zebertmcfly7274 Год назад

Very well put together video. Absolutely agree, it always gives me a little stab whenever I find myself in a shrinking media section of a store. Buy physical media while you can, folks!

@allenrubinstein3696 Год назад

That line is so key to the Oscar winning film. When black audiences heard Doyle say that in 1971, they cheered out loud! In their whole viewing lives of Dragnet and other copaganda, they were hungry for anything that frankly portrayed reality (in white cinema, anyway. Blaxploitation was rife with racist police). Did Disney censor the word because it's a forbidden word or because they didn't want to show a cop saying it? Nobody was asking for this! They created much more controversy by cutting it - badly - than just leaving past classics alone.

@AgsmaJustAgsma Год назад

9:46 Correction: Song of the South did get an official home video release, albeit on certain markets and on VHS and possibly LaserDisc.

@EyebrowCinema Год назад

My research said it hadn't but admittedly I did not look super deep/

@AgsmaJustAgsma Год назад

@@EyebrowCinemain all fairness, Song of the South is a can of worms in itself, and since it's not the focal point of this video, that omission is not particularly glaring. What I find funny is that whenever Song of the South is mentioned it's always pointed out how you can only get the movie via bootleg recordings, and yet I own an official VHS release by Disney for as long I can remember. Dubbed, but still.

@bensneb360 Год назад

Moral of the story… It’s not what is said, but the context it’s in

@ZaZaTofuHumperdink Год назад

For what it's worth, the uncensored version is streaming on Disney+ and BBC iPlayer in the UK.

@stephenrynerson5530 Год назад

This is very well done, especially the comparison between TFC and Dirty Harry. You also touch on a point early on that I think is critical from a commercial standpoint -- while I don't necessarily like edits to classic children's media, it's at least rationalizable from the perspective of saying, "This was intended to be read/watched/etc. by children and, while that sort of language may have been accepted in the past, it no longer is, so we have to edit the work if we want teachers to still assign it, children's networks to carry it, etc., etc." TFC, however, is a "hard R" film regardless of the singular use of the N-word or not. And, while I get the idea that the edit may have theoretically had commercial motivations, it's distressing because it's very incredible that anyone's decision about whether to rent/buy the film is being affected by the presence of that word in the movie, let alone that any sort of boycott effort or other political action could be credibly aimed at Disney because of its presence, and there doesn't seem to be any evidence that anyone had publicly expressed that they were offended by it.

@thedudeabides3138 Год назад

This was a terrific essay, really well observed and nice editing to match the narration, well done and thank you, you can be very proud of this.

@EyebrowCinema Год назад

Thank you kindly!

@scalzmoney Год назад

Why on earth did they hack out those seconds of picture? Why not just mute the audio for 1/2 a second? This is bad censorship badly done.

@mikekz4489 Год назад

That was the most old school way to do it. That’s what TV stations did before the whole, “this film has been edited for television.”

@JeffreyDeCristofaro Год назад

Censoring these cinema classics is the same as book bans or book burnings... and I've had ENOUGH!!! Protect the arts, people!!!

@elliot2331 Год назад

Great video. Stuff like this is why most of the movies I watch these days are either pirated or on DVD. Also, it was cool seeing ravenous briefly pop onto screen, it would be cool to see your thoughts on that movie. It's one of my favourites.

@GuineaPigEveryday Год назад

thats the thing, people are talking scared about censorship on streaming services but in fact all older movies are now digitally preserved in some form, with multiple copies, often being available on pirating services. It's not great, not perfect, but its better than nothing, and better than inaccessibility of physical mediums for many obscurer films. The fact I can access thousands upon thousands of movies from the 70s however unprofitable they were, however they might've been canned by studios. The bigger issue is newer movies not having physical formats that can be pirated and streaming services just deciding to erase them from existence some times because they're not popular. I'm young, i dont have a dvd player, i move around a lot, so pirating is really the new world of movie-watching, it avoids streaming service censorship and paywalls.

@EyebrowCinema Год назад

I watched Ravenous for the first time a few months ago and thought it was great. Wonderfully gruesome movie with some fascinating characters and thoughtful commentary on manifest destiny. It's also a snow western and those just rule on principle.

@ShadyPlatinum777 Год назад

Disney logic: overworking and underpaying employees good. Naughty words bad.

@thechidd8819 Год назад

Ya know, limey and mick are also slurs lol. You probably just removed the words in that scene one at a time until yt allowed you to post it but it's funny those are the ones they allowed through the filter

@rafaelalandrade Год назад

Slurs directed at white people are totally cool these days.

@kostajovanovic3711 Год назад

@@rafaelalandradecmar

@georgejpg Год назад

Weirdly, I watched this for the first time (streaming or otherwise), a couple months ago. This scene wasn't censored.

@TheCybermonty Год назад

Is this the Canadian version of Roman from Succession narrating?

@themahoneychops Год назад

Great video. I’d not seen French connection in maybe 15 years. Decided to watch it following this video so put my old dvd on but the print and aspect ratio was off so decided to watch it on Disney+ (I’m in the uk) & the N-Bomb is included! Keep up the good work

@Wedge4Life 11 месяцев назад

Well coincidentally I just watched this on Disney+ last night for the first time and came on RU-vid more for reaction to the ending than the dialogue but just so you know the movie was uncut .....

@latenightlogic Год назад

In a perfect world I’d be watching all of Thomas Flight’s stuff on physical media and not RU-vid.

@Bale4Bond Год назад

I remember watching the film on Disney+ around half a year ago (admittedly for the first time) and i didn't notice any blatant censorship or noticeable jumps. Was this a recent change?

@AgsmaJustAgsma Год назад

The change was first noticed when the movie was added to The Criterion Channel, back in June.

@EyebrowCinema Год назад

Disney+ in other countries have the unedited version. The censorship seems to be exclusive to America for the time being.

@josephodonovan7292 Год назад

I just saw the full version on Disney Plus in Ireland - No censorship at all

@Bingo_Chuck1918 11 месяцев назад

I believe the censor was only in the United States

@bikefixer 6 месяцев назад

This is a superb analysis of Dirty Harry and The French Connection. I am one who saw them both when they were released within a couple of months of each other in the fall of 1971, and like Eyebrow Cinema immediately saw one was a celebration of fascism (Dirty Harry) while the other was an observation of fascistic behavior (The French Connection). Harry is presented as heroic, Popeye is shown as a legally endorsed sociopath, whose story plays out in a scenario more resembling real life. But there is another profound difference in the characters, and that it is the actors playing them. Clint Eastwood is not veering too far from his own personality (and politics) while Gene Hackman is giving a major league bravura acting performance (in real life, Hackman is nothing like Popeye Doyle). Twenty years later, they would repeat those character archetypes in the same film: Unforgiven. But for me, The French Connection holds up viewing after viewing, while the last time I saw Dirty Harry was in the cinema back in 1971. At the time I enjoyed it, but I knew I was being emotionally manipulated, and never saw the need to watch it again.

@samuelbarber6177 Год назад

I probably need to see more of his work. So far I’ve only seen The French Connection and The Exorcist, and with all respect to Friedkin, I’m not a big fan of either film, though I probably should rewatch them as well. A lot of movies really do improve on a rewatch (plus I watched both on BBC IPlayer so who knows what version of each I saw). Oh, on censorship? Yeah, screw it. Even if I’m not a massive fan of them, they shouldn’t be cut at so many years after the fact. I’ve never really understood censoring stuff anyway. I mean, if it’s already rated for 18 year olds then surely anything should be fair game, right? I also hate this with Director’s Cuts. Not Director’s Cuts as a concept, just more that so many Director’s Cuts become the default version. It’s surprisingly difficult to find the original version of Apocalypse Now, but that’s the version I want, Francis. What’s that line from Blade Runner about tears in rain? And the worst part is that The French Connection isn’t even a Disney film. They got it decades after it was made. Edit: I recently rewatched the film, sure it enough it improved, and also sure enough, BBC IPlayer played the uncensored version. I don’t exactly know how UK streamers get ahold of almost exclusively theatrical versions of stuff (Blade Runner is always shown in its theatrical cut here), but it is appreciated on occasion.

@GuineaPigEveryday Год назад

Watch Sorcerer, idk if the slow pacing of those movies mentioned above are not your thing, I think the thrills of Sorcerer might be your thing, I mean its some insanely visual suspense, principally these dudes desperate to escape their situation take up a job driving a truck full of explosives across the jungle, and the sequences that follow are breathtaking. To Live and Die In L.A. feels more akin to a Mann film with its slickness and the setting in L.A. with rhythmic soundtracks and a pretty sick chase in the middle. Idk Friedkin might not be to everyone's taste, he really touches on specific sort of themes and tones that might be offputting or bleak to watch for some.

@OuterGalaxyLounge Год назад

Saying what you don't like but providing no examples of what you do like leaves us with zero context or barometer of your taste and aesthetics.

@samuelbarber6177 Год назад

@@OuterGalaxyLounge see, in the conversation about Friedkin, those are the only two movies of his I’ve seen and while they aren’t bad, I just found them to be not very engaging. I guess for comparison’s sake I could provide examples like Mean Streets or The Shining, each of which I preferred over the Friedkin films. It’s also partly that each film does get hyped up a lot, and well, if you go years hearing about how awesome something is, and then you watch it, it better be good or you’re probably gonna be disappointed, especially when one (The Exorcist) is so commonplace that virtually nothing that happens in it is a surprise.

@Wallyworld30 Месяц назад

I saw Disney's "Song of the South" in the Theater on Summer Vacation in 1986 with my grandparents when I was just 9 years old. The Movie is an incredible piece of art and I had no idea it dated all the way back to 1946. The music from that movie will be ringing in your ears for days after seeing it. Zippa Dee Doo Dah Zippiddy Day... My oh My what a Wonderful Day! I had no idea that was the last time it was shown in theaters. It's a beautiul movie and even if it depicts a LIE the movie itself is stil an incredible peace of work and we shouldn't deny an entire generation from a flawed but excellent picture.

@negsterarchive7911 Год назад

I watched The French Connection for the first time hours before his death and felt responsible

@maxinator317 Год назад

Good, you did this lol

@EyebrowCinema Год назад

*doing an impression of Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting* It's not your fault.

@negsterarchive7911 Год назад

hahaha just what I needed Robin@@EyebrowCinema

@petertuite3885 Год назад

Just checked my purchased version on apple & it’s edited. Disgraceful. I expect Django unchained now to be only the titles so 3 minutes long

@SimonBishop779 4 месяца назад

Just to say a huge “thank you”, for the spoiler warning at the beginning. I’m going to watch the film, and then come back (I was here initially for the Bond videos). Your videos are excellent and much discussate.

@ROL4NDpkmnguide 5 месяцев назад

I watched it today on disney+ and it didn't have any censorship (maybe a localization thing since i'm not in the US). It blew me away on how well paced a film it was: with 2o minutes to go I felt like I was still in the 1st act, it blew past me and I adored it

@nhlcbj Год назад

Criterion is releasing Mean Streets on 4K in 2 months. If they censor that it’ll be a shame 😞

@AtomicAgePictures 4 месяца назад

Lets not forget that The French Connection was based on a true story, and the actual police officers being depicted were employed by the film makers as consultants. They not only approved of the final film, but were friends with Friedkin until his death.

@mickey4355 Год назад

Brilliant video! Keep up the work

@thedumpsterdaddy5692 Год назад

I'm so disappointed with what feels like a wave of censorship being brought to us. Like this, and the examples by Disney that you posted. I've been very vocal about the video game, Skullgirls getting censored in a similar way. I've tried to rally the community to fight against it, with absolutely no luck. A good chunk of the community actually supports it, which baffles me. Even if you think it's problematic, it shouldn't be censored. I've made a petition, but it's had no luck so far. Hopefully, it changes in the future.

@krosewall Год назад

HBO max just added the uncensored version

@teddyfurstman1997 11 месяцев назад

Nice

@jamesoblivion 8 месяцев назад

It is possible that Friedkin made this change. Much as he released an alternate cut of The Exorcist to appease William Peter Blatty...not because he thought the extended version was better, but because he thought Blatty deserved to have his version of the film. It's no secret that Gene Hackman was very uncomfortable about using the racial slur, and encouraged Friedkin to remove that dialogue at the time they were shooting, because he didn't want to do the scene as written. Friedkin prevailed, but perhaps, late in life, he may have considered this Gene's version, and worth releasing. That's all entirely speculative, naturally, but if it were a cut made by Friedkin, I think that would have been his rationale for doing it, based on his track record. It's certainly more likely Disney's doing, but I don't think we can entirely eliminate the possibility that Friedkin was involved.

@sireggnog890 Год назад

The future of newer movies and preservation of older ones is going to be bleek and depressing to me. :(

@paint9er Год назад

Maron's WTF interview with Friedkin is one of my all time favorite podcast episodes!

@shawnkennedy855 2 месяца назад

Friedkin never gave a bad interview.

@TheDukeOfTumwater Год назад

I am not someone who is averse to streaming. In fact, I’m subscribed to most of the major platforms. There’s definitely a sense of convenience with these services, what with having access to vast libraries of celluloid that don’t take up physical space I can conjure with just the press of a button. However, it is situations like this egregious censorship of ‘The French Connection’ that make me grateful for my physical media collection that no amount of convenience can replace.

@Mondomeyer Год назад

I can't wait to see the new streaming version of Joe. It will open with Susana Sarandon walking through the streets during the opening credits and cut immediately to the end credits

@montiseas919 8 месяцев назад

My first time seeing censorship happen was when they had Back to the Future trilogy playing on Nickelodeon and they dubbed over swear words like replacing shit with shoot. This was something like 15-17 years ago.

@madmau Год назад

I Guess It's only in America, since in Mexico the movie stands unaltered, altough I don't know for for how long

@jtthompson0520 Год назад

It is sort of interesting to listen to people with modern perspectives talk about these films. Kind of like reading Brave New World at points.

@robfreeman5783 5 месяцев назад

2084: "Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

@Donkey_Glossolalia Год назад

Thankyou! It's so tedious having check & make sure that a film hasn't been censored or cut with no regard for context by the suits before you buy. Personally I have no interest in streaming anything & almost always go for the Director's cut (Alien is the only film I can think of, off the top of my head, where I actually prefer the theatrical release.) Love the channel good sir!

@EyebrowCinema Год назад

The Alien Director's Cut is interesting because there's scenes in there I really like, but overall I too prefer the theatrical.

@stephenrynerson5530 Год назад

I'd submit that the theatrical cut of Alex Proyas' "Dark City" is better than the director's cut (at least if you mute the opening narration in it).

@tuco1099 Месяц назад

That last 2 mins was fantastic. I hasn't realised physical media was being phased out by disney. Definitely own this stuff before it vanishes

@simoneastmond3970 Год назад

i just watched the french connection on disney + so i could see this video. it seems as though it's been added back, for some bizarre reason so i'm not entirely sure if disney is behind it now. idk, that's just a theory

@EyebrowCinema Год назад

The censorship is exclusive to the U.S. for the time being, which is another reason this whole thing is peculiar.

@soliopy Год назад

Excellent as always!

@MrKarl0077 6 месяцев назад

The narrator missed is the growing frustration that these movies expressed about the breakdown of society in 1971.

@sconni666 Год назад

Censorship is un American. Ridiculous.

@antoinepetrov Год назад

This is one of my favourite video essays. Ever

@1223jamez 11 месяцев назад

The French Connection is one of my all time favorites!

@Theomite 9 месяцев назад

I wound up accidentally buying the 2011 Blu-ray edition twice. I bought it years ago, watched it a few times, then forgot I had it when I moved, and wound up buying it from a Wal-Mart bin for a really seductive price. So now I have 2 uncut copies and...I'm very okay with that. Physical Media Forever. Dual-Format 4 Life.

@RetroRespawn 3 месяца назад

Disney: *removes a racial slur* Eyebrow Cinema: and I took that personally

@TheJuRK 4 месяца назад

I can't tell you how much it bummed me out that I watched The French Connection on Turner Classic Movies and noticed that the scene had been cut. I'd always loved TCM for seeing films in their original form...but their very identity is completely ruined by this one little cut. What makes it even worse is that modern films like Tarantino's Django Unchained uses the word nearly 150 times while classics are now summarily butchered for "progressive values." No art is safe.

@princessmovie8523 Год назад

it's extremely odd that on portugal's disney+, the scene is still there. the n-word is uncut. is this just disney, or part of a bigger problem?

@gumbycat5226 Год назад

'Tis why I will always keep my DVDs.

@EnglishStrippedBare Год назад

Thanks man. It's important to spotlight censorship.

@bdavis24fan 5 месяцев назад

I watched The French Collection on Max (Formerly HBO Max) and it showed the scene in it's entirety. So idk if they fell to the pressure and fixed the edit or if Max got a different video file. It's weird.

@hexenkonig7074 11 месяцев назад

Just watched the film on Disney+ yesterday with the scene fully intact. I live in Germany so I guess it's just a matter of time until the version will be censored here. You made a compelling argument for physically buying films instead of relying on streaming. I wasn't aware of this issue before.

@GuineaPigEveryday Год назад

I just recently watched The French Connection 2 (not through a service but by other means) and loved it, even if the middle chunk of heroin-addiction is insane to watch and morbid as hell. I then later researched what streaming service holds this movie only to realise it was Disney+. Not even Disney+ itself, but their archival dump they don't bother to promote to their subscribers, Star+. A fucking classic 70s grimy police thriller by John Frankenheimer himself, involving a half hour of someone shooting up heroin and then brutally, painstakingly trying to withdraw while drunk-ranting and sobbing, and its been relegated to a back-corner of fucking Disney+ so that no one will watch it, yet they refuse to sell it to a streaming service willing to promote darker artistic movies. Also by the way, anyone curious about how a sequel to William Friedkin's masterpiece is? It's actually pretty good, shockingly, I'd recommend it, and that's mostly thanks to John Frankenheimer, another legend, although you might have to sit through some pretty stiff and frustrating first act of the film where Doyle is bumbling around like an asshole.

@CornishCreamtea07 11 месяцев назад

I saw it a couple of years ago on Disney+, and the scene was in it then.

@rumblerumble2276 Год назад

I still can’t decide if I like The French Connection.

@queencancerous5332 Месяц назад

I really feel like Disney didn't really understand what they were getting when they bought 20th Century Fox.

@phonerfoner4543 11 месяцев назад

I saw TFC with William Friedkin in attendance at the academy theater in 2022. This was the censored version of the film. Friedkin did a Q&A beforehand and stayed for part of the screening. He left early (I believe just because of his health and age) but I’m pretty sure he stayed past the censored scene. He didn’t say anything about the censorship during the Q&A. Not sure if he knew about it or agreed with it or not, but he was there in the theater when that version aired. Just fyi

@adamwallace7353 Год назад

So glad I've still got the DVD I bought in middle school

@BobCoakley 5 месяцев назад

The original version is on HBO Max right now

@MrBochawa 11 месяцев назад

Valuable and insightful perspectives....recited, perhaps, at a tempo best tolerated at 1.5X speed?

@Treblaine Год назад

"SJWs don't censors media, corporations do" how are they mutually exclusive?

@kostajovanovic3711 Год назад

Ffs

@teddyfurstman1997 11 месяцев назад

Thanks for the 👍🏻

@iain2080 8 месяцев назад

After watching it on Disney+ of all things and that word wasn't censored. Very odd that it's a censored version made available by Disney for Criterion but the version on their own platform isn't censored. And you're right the scene doesn't work without it, at least with a blatant jump cut. Great video man, Friedkin knew these dirty cops and gangsters in real life he never really looks down on them he just sought to accurately represent them as he also did in Cruising and Killer Joe. RIP to a legend.

@wolfeflambe Год назад

It’s still uncensored on Disney plus here in the UK.

@scottjo63 8 месяцев назад

May I say, Jo Don Baker used the n word in Walking Tall once or twice and Bruce Dern used it twice in The Cowboys. Funny, what Dern did to Wayne's character gets him more hate still to this day over the other thing.

@grantwilliams2650 2 месяца назад

Luckily the one I watch on Max was uncensored

@salsathemonkey22 28 дней назад

Oh my fuck its the GTA mission

@BarnabusBarbarossa Год назад

It's interesting to ponder who this kind of censorship is really meant to please. While the anti-woke crowd may see this as pandering to liberal SJWs or whatever, I have to wonder if the opposite is true. We're in an era where discussion of racism is being excised from school corriculums by conservatives on the grounds that admitting the very existence of racism is itself problematic. By discussing the history and continued prevelance of systematic racism you run the risk of being accused of some insidious CRT plot to poison the minds of children and society. I think removing allusions from racism from a movie like this one is part of that trend. It's not for the purpose of avoiding offending marginalised groups, it's to spare the majority white audiences the intrusion of "Woke Identity Politics®", or whatever it's called now, into what they believe should be mindless entertainment that doesn't challenge their beliefs in any way.

@GuineaPigEveryday Год назад

Its weird because the whole trend is now that progressive people are trying to make sure the racism of history is made clear and transparent to future generations to learn about the crimes of the past, and to learn about the harsh truths of your nation's history however unscrupulous it may be to realise. So this action by Disney goes against progressive or leftist ideas of actually showing the history, i mean ffs they're the ones that are about exposing police brutality and police racism in history. So although it might be an easy assumption that this is all a collusion of wokeism, i feel like Disney just acted like a dumbass in a way that appeals to no one.

@seanwieland9763 Год назад

Racism and “social justice” are completely fake issues that have been drummed up like a tempest in a teapot during the Great Awokening of the 2010s. People don’t need their beliefs “challenged”. Get off your high horse, you psychopath.

@deathcrist2000 11 месяцев назад

Apropos of nothing, The French Connection just got added to Max uncensored.

@ryanlandes6849 11 месяцев назад

I just watched this on MAX, there's NO edit in the version they're streaming.. There's another scene where Popeye says somthing racist too, it's also still in the version on Max..

@nathanielrhoads9978 Год назад

Really appreciate this video. I was aware of this issue when it first started getting reported on, but didn't pay too much attention to the debate because I saw one too many "it's those darn woke lefties" arguments for my liking. And I like how you go beyond just a simple "they censored a classic movie" argument to analyze the portrayal of dirty/loose cannon cops in the early 70s. While I am sure it's more for a simple commercial reason, I partly wonder if Disney is doing this because they view streaming as the "next TV". These odd changes (cutting out dialogue from French Connection, digitally extending the hair in Splash) seem just as odd as some of the overdubs done for television. And yes, we had dubbed, modified, or edited versions of movies for TV, but (to my understanding) those changes were done strictly for television broadcast and we could always get the original version of a film on physical media or (until now, I guess) streaming. This is entirely hypothetical, but if streaming does become the "next TV", media companies can modify or edit films or television shows they own and argue that is specifically for streaming. In a time when physical media is, to the wider public, becoming obsolete, these edited versions will unfortunately become the only versions available, though.

@johnpoole3871 6 месяцев назад

I saw Song of the South in 1986. The frustrating part is that the racist reconstruction era stuff is really boring and pointless whereas the good parts of the film were the cartoons. Kind of wish we had just kept the cartoons.