It seems that when it comes to picture quality for films made in the 1960′s and 1970′s, recent Blu-ray releases have been somewhat of a hit or miss proposition. Films like the early Bond films that have undergone major restorations have looked spectacular while others not having undergone such restorations tend to look soft and hazy, lacking the clarity and detail that one has come to expect from Blu-ray. With the release of The French Connection, the 1971 Oscar winner for Best Picture, I was curious to see how the film would translate to Blu-ray as I was never happy with the appearance of the film on DVD. Well, how does it look? Glad you asked.
Film 
Simply put, The French Connection is a great film. Despite being released in 1971, the film holds up well all these years later. The reason for that is fairly simply. Great writing and great acting. The film is based on a book of the same name by Robin Moore released in 1969 that tells the tale of two New York City detectives who were able to unravel a drug importation scheme from France in the early 1960′s.
The film won several Oscars in 1971 including for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Editing and Best Actor for Gene Hackman’s role as Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle. In fact, The French Connection was Gene Hackman’s coming out party as a lead actor. And what a coming out party it was! The French Connection is an action thriller that follows two New York detectives as they get wind of a big drug buy and try to track down who is bringing in the narcotics and how.
The French Connection is very different than modern action films as it relies on character development and placing to increase the sense of drama and tension. While the film features an excellent car chase which is one of the highlights of the film, it does not feature cars crashing and flipping over, relying instead on cinematography, acting and pacing to convey a sense of urgency, tension and excitement as well as Popeye Doyle’s relentless pursuit of his suspects. This is a film that is well worth a look and probably belongs in the collection of any film aficionado. Highly recommended.
Video 
The French Connection is encoded with AVC and is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1:85:1. In somewhat of a first, there is no question that this encode looks just the way the director William Friedkin wants as there is an extra on disc two which goes into the color timing process for the remastering of the film for this release.
The film feaatures a rather muted color palette which is skewed to pastels, rather than the more natural color palette on the original negative. The film also looks soft throughout and lacks the overall detail that I have seen with the better film restorations. Mr. Friedken explains that this is just how he wanted the film to look. They show the original negative and then strip it of all color. They then grossly over saturate the original color palette and then slightly bleed that color over the black and white foundation, generating the look he wanted. As he explained, all he wanted was a splash of color that had a pastel look. However, when direct comparisons are made between the final result and the original negative, the color timing process robs the film not only of the natural looking and properly saturated color palette, but overall image detail, resulting in a softer image than originally captured by the cinematographer. While this is how Mr. Friedkin wanted the film to look on Blu-Ray, it is my opinion that it results in a clear degradation of image quality. However, it is film and his choice.
In addition to the overall softness and muted color palette, The French Connection is also a very grainy film and clearly not a victim of digital noise reduction. However, the manipulation of the color timing along with the heavy film grain results in a image that lacks much in the way of clarity and depth, looking hazy in comparison to other films of the time period that have been restored. This is especially noticeable in interior shots and night time shots which are particularly hazy and noisy, at times looking no better than DVD quality. As you can imagine, I am a bit disappointed by the look of this film on Blu-ray and believe that the film would have looked much better had Mr. Friedkin left well enough alone.
Audio 
As is the case with all Fox releases, The French Connection comes equipped with a lossless audio track featuring DTS HD Master Audio. Unlike the video, I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the 5.1 channel mix on this release, given the age of the film and its original sound design. The dialogue track is well recorded and well placed in the mix. The dialogue is always clear and audible which is important given that it is a dialogue driven film.
What really surprised me the most about the mix is the quality of the musical score which has a nice smooth and open sound, good bass and excellent transparency and imaging. Bass response is good as well, although nowhere near the level of a more modern film. This is especially noticeable during the chase scene, where the car crashes and the sound of the elevated train lack the weight and heft that you would expect with a film of a more recent vintage. However, given the age of the film, I found the quality of the audio to be more than acceptable.
As noted previously, this is a dialogue driven film. However, the 5.1 mix is not as front heavy as I had expected with appropriate use of the surrounds to create a decent sense of immersion during interior scenes as well as the placement of sound effects. While not up to the level of the more modern and sophisticated sound designs, it is more than acceptable and will no doubt please fans of the film.
Special Features 
While watching the extras on most films can get to be a bit of a bore, such was not the case with the extras included here. The extras included on disc one are rather sparse, consisting basically of an introduction to the film from the director, William Friedkin. The introduction was shot in New York on the film’s location and was shot specifically for this release and features excellent video quality. Disc one also includes separate audio commentaries by Mr. Friedkin as well as Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider, along with a trivia track, isolated score track as well as D-Box motion enhancement.
It is on disc two where the extras really shine. All were filmed in high definition and feature excellent picture quality. Clearly, great care was taken in the preparation of these extras. In addition to a series of deleted scenes, disc two contains several featurettes, all of which contain some really interesting information about the making of the film. I particularly enjoyed Anatomy of a Chase where Mr. Friedkin sat down with the producer, Philip D’Antoni, on location and went through the chase scene step by step. The new interview with Gene Hackman was also very informative as was Mr. Friedkin’s interview with Sonny Grosso who was the actual police officer who was the basis of Roy Scheider’s character as they discussed the real life events that formed the basis of The French Connection.
Finally, and of particular interest to film buffs, is the interview with Mr. Friedkin and the film’s colorist as they described the technical steps and artistic vision that went into the preparation of the master used for the Blu-Ray release. While I may not agree with the decisions made, I found the look into the process to be very informative. This release is chock full of many very informative extras that most film fans will find to not only be very informative but enjoyable as well. They are all well worth a gander.
Final Thoughts
While I was a bit disappointed with the overall look of the film, this release is a wonderful edition of the film with informative and interesting extras and is a must for the collection of any film buff. If you are looking for an intelligent action thriller, this is the release for you. Highly recommended.
