Nope it's just stealing. If I go steal all the DVDs in Walmart claiming it's for preservation, I'm gonna be arrested. Why does it make it different when it's online? You're still robbing a company. Ppl who pirate are no better than shoplifters
100% agree. We cannot erase things from history we don't like. It's a self-obsessed sickness we have picked up from social media, where you can mute, block or unfollow things you don't want to see. But that's not reality. We need to learn from the past, otherwise we end up making the same mistakes over and over. Cancellation and censorship is not a liberal value, it's a fascist value.
Agree with you completely Dan - this is setting a bad precedent for future movies being erased/"scrubbed" for things that people in charge of the rights deem "questionable" or "offensive." Even if I think some movies have too much sex, for instance, doesn't mean I have the right to strike it from the copies of movies other people have.
@@thedarkemissary That's the unfortunate painful part yeah. Streaming services and film companies/distributors will continue to have the rights to have their films removed at any point in time, since they still own the distributed streaming video and is not for the subscribers themselves to archive.
I had never seen The French Connection but always wanted to. I heard about this controversy and found the dvd at a used media shop. It's really good and the censorship makes no sense for a 52 year old R rated movie that only Adults would watch anyway. It shouldn't be censored as it reflects the reality of the time.
I agree. Besides i think its narratively important. The movie is well aware of how it comes across and the character that Gene Hackman plays in the movie is a complete asshole. Its not done insensitively. Depiction does not mean endorsement.
Instead of censoring, we should just have conversations about why we don’t deem it as okay anymore, not that that’s how I feel entirely, but what I mean is how do we learn from history if we erase history. we should tell people about certain things like the scene they cut out from the film, otherwise people will just hear about how great the film was despite having a scene that everyone used to be okay with having in a movie if the goal is to change things for the better, but with all these changes to film, it feels like the goal is much more to pretend it never happen and sweep mistakes under the rug.
"The road to hell is covered with good intentions". If people back then finally saw for the first time in art what until then was real but hidden from public view, how can hiding it now be anything other than reverting back to the notions of that era? That is exactly what they were doing back then.
I find it funny how so many people want to censor the past, yet at every moment we bring up our racist past at every single moment. So which is it? Do we acknowledge the past or are we pretending it didn't happen?
While Gene Hackman is still with us, I would love for him voice a forward or commentary explaining the context of this film and decisions behind the film, script and his memories of making the film. This is history that needs to be preserved.
@@mustafachoudhury3368 That is a totally ridiculous comment. I think that he would if he was in the health to do so. You are clearly not well educated as who democrats are and what they stand for in this era.
Hackman has stated that he didn't like many aspects of Popeye's personality but the logic behind at least as far as Friedkin Is concerned Is that this Is the whole point of the charácter. He Is a Man consumed by His pursue, in many ways Is like captain Ahab from Moby dick
Thank you for posting this very informative video! I'm a brutha who is about as left as they come. And I was offended by the language -- but guess what? I was supposed to be offended by it. That was the whole point! And given what we know about policing in America, that language and racist attitude is typical of many police. The fact that Disney removed the scene is way more disturbing and offensive to me than its inclusion. The weak minds behind this decision to cut the scene should be ashamed of themselves. Final point: this is an R-rated movie for adults, not a kid's film. This censorship is sad and pathetic.
I agree with you Dan . As a historian, art shows a snapshot in time - that comes with the good and bad. We need to understand our past to learn grow from it . Not repeat it . What we find acceptable today could be deemed offensive tomorrow ( and it will ).
Dan, you are 100 percent right. This is the reason I refuse to get rid of my physical media. I want physical media to continue. I am glad to see many of these streaming companies in trouble, so they will be forced to keep producing physical media to make money.
This is one of the reasons why I love and collect physical media when it comes to movies. It hopefully keeps all the OG content from the movie and I don’t have to worry about it potentially leaving a streaming service permanently.
I've gotta say, when you announced you'd do streaming news every other week I was kind of skeptical about there being much material or hot topics to discuss. But every episode since then has been straight fire, and it seems there's always spicy things to talk about so far. Love it
great video as always dan. i agree, censoring content sets a bad precedent for everyone and everything. history is history, regardless of how it makes people feel. hope william friedkin says something about this.
Excellent video. This type of action is dangerous. Companies stamp warning labels on everything. Cigarettes cause cancer but the ingredients stay the same the only change is a warning label.
Legitimately strong and persuasive editorial. This underlines the dangers of having art/information concentrated and mediated by a few corporations. Whatever the motives were, it is unconscionable that any piece of art should be edited. Discussions around a controversial work, of course, need to happen but altering a piece of art without comment (or worse, lying about it) smacks of totalitarianism. We should never take for granted the freedom of expression achieved for us, as it can be too easily revoked. Thank you for highlighting this issue, Dan.
Again, I really enjoy how in depth you go in your research for all of your content. I have never seen The French Connection, but now I'm gonna be on the look out for an uncensored version whenever I go thirfting.
Warner Brothers handles this issue really well with its old looney tunes cartoons, where they present a cartoon in its original form but has disclaimers saying the content reflected views of the time and those views do not reflect the views of the company or society today, but they warn that the content could be offensive to some viewers.
Dan's perpetual tone of mild surprise about Bluey's success is so funny to me, bc anyone who even *knows* someone with a young kid knows that just how much parents and children adore (and depend on) that show
Oh and BTW, am totally behind physical media. Just on a technical level, you get a pure video and audio output from a 4k disc without any compression from streaming.
Thanks for making the censorship lot clearer - lot of noise about this scene cut. Nice to see Spider Verse getting lot of love on streaming/ downloads services Look forward to next show
it's weird that they only censored the film on US and not any other regions, if they really thought they needed to edit that scene that the edit would propagate across their own streaming service first rather than the licensees
That is disgusting censorship. What is next? Censor everything that has racist language from the past? That is absurd. That is a disservice to the art.
I know it wouldn't happen but I just pictured 12 years a Slave without slurs. You'd probably have to cut out half the film 😂 In all seriousness though a simple warning before the film or tv episode is sufficient in my opinion, rather than editing them, or removing them all together.
@@TrappyJenkins Art can have racism in it. Many great movies and songs and shows have racial slurs in them. They would be less if they were subtracted.
In 2005, the French Connection was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". With that, each title named to the Registry, the Library of Congress works to ensure that the film is preserved for all time, either through the Library's massive motion picture preservation program at Dayton, Ohio, or through collaborative ventures with other archives, motion pictures studios, and independent film makers. You would think that it could NOT be edited after being added to the film registry and "preserved for all time".
You have confirmed all my concerns I had when streaming first started. I will say, I have seen The French Connection and yes, that scene confirms what black people already knew white people thought about us. They just pretend they don’t say it when they totally do. (I am black. It’s nice not being gaslighted about racism in pop culture.) EDIT: I was waiting to buy some blu-rays after buying a new blu-Ray player, but i will start buying blu-rays now. Additional thought, if this edit stands, people can always claim that that character was never racist. Which…goes back to the racism gaslighting.
There's a lot of generalizations and assumptions in your comment. I can say I personally don't think that about black people at all. Black people are not a monolith and neither are white people. I am not sure if that is how you meant it to come across but for some reason I felt I wanted to say how I felt about it and how it affected me. I definitely agree with the idea that if we don't acknowledge racism in history we are just going to stay stuck without growing past it.
@@Nawx7 Dude, your white fragility is showing. If you were confident in your self-proclaimed anti-racist beliefs, you wouldn't have felt the need to respond at all.
@@Nawx7 if you think I am saying white people are a monolith… maybe you need to do more research. Saying white people did not mean all white people. I can’t believe in 2023 this still has to be explained. (“Not all men, amitrite?”/s) My family has worked with people with developmental disabilities. Most of them have communication challenges. But even then, some of the white ones know who to direct racial slurs to. Where do you think they learned it from? Many of them aren’t able to watch and listen to TV, movies, and music lyrics so it’s not coming from there. Also many of my non-POC (aka white people) friends tell me what they hear from white people themselves. I live in a predominantly white town.
Isn't there at least one more scene with an ethnic slur in The French Connection? I'm remembering Popeye using one for Hispanics in the scene where he apprehends car thieves. Was that scene also edited (assuming I'm remembering it correctly)?
You're right. A huge problem with 'commercial censorship' is that the license holders or distributors should be forced to state that the version in format ABC being shown in country XYZ on posters, physical media artwork and streaming details has been modified. However, this would require a global licensing rule be applied across countries and states. But such MPAA censorship has been happening for DECADES. Catch up.
Hey if anyone comes to this older video, Max has brought back the original (or at least with the scene mentioned back) version, just watched it yesterday for the first time and I really enjoy it. I went back to this video wondering if It was edited or not.
What’s next? Will the rights owner of Taxi Driver edit out language that they feel is offensive? Will they edit out portions of Jodi Foster’s character? This is all just so absurd.
This type of censorship is regressive and divisive not to mention it muddies the historical record. A simple message/warning/apology if needed before the film is enough.
Never in my dreams did I think, that we would live in a world, where we would one day talk about censorship again and some art from decades ago would be actually censored... It just shows how radical things have become and how dangerous this new "movement" or whatever we want to call it is... It makes me sick.
No it just shows how far we've come as a human race where we won't allow another race of ppl to get away with what they have done in the past. And you're obviously mad at it. Go outside and take a walk. Get some fresh air.
Hi Dan! Your segment reminded me of comments Neil Gaiman made in response to people pirating his work, and how particularly in the streaming era digital media preservation is crucial because many shows and movies don't even get physical releases now.
Another instance of a director making a change, causing difficulty in finding the original version, are with some of Charlie Chaplin's films, specifically The Kid and Modern Times. It's difficult to find the original theatrical versions, only showing the director's cut, even though the theatrical ones are superior.
As someone with a modest classic movie channel myself - and just as a movie fan - I am very glad I have my own physical copies (dvds) of classic movies - and very disturbed (but not surprised) that this kind of cleansing witch hunt is taking place today. It started with Hans Solo firing his blaster a second later - but this is getting much more serious.
I have noticed that the streaming versions of JOHN WICK 1 2 3 have cut out some of the blood splatter also the new physical versions seem to have less blood. Part of the fantasy of John Wick is that he is deadly. Cutting down the blood is like taking Dracula’s fangs.
Out of curiosity (and to the best of your knowledge), does Peacock separate viewing hours for The Office versus The Office: Superfan episodes? I wonder if it's statistically competing with itself by splitting the viewership (I'm currently on a rewatch of the series, but I'm watching the Superfan episodes as they contain deleted scenes).
I'm only 9 minutes in but I have to say that I have, as of so far, refused to repurchase the Star Wars original trilogy. I despise what has been done to them, even since I first saw them on UK TV which probably had some edits of their own. My original VHS releases and (imagine a tear, please) my definitive collection I once had on laserdisc were probably altered in some slight way as well. I hate not being able to see what I once paid to see and what caught my attention. Drew me in and made me love it. I'm always grateful for alternate versions. Gives a great reason to re-watch a film just to see what has been changed but, that original print must remain. It was the original vision of the writer/director, or at least the best they could do to present it at that time, making it a time capsule, if you prefer. And it is likely to have been the origins of the viewers delight for the film. If I paid to see a film and then paid to buy a re-playable copy of that film, I want the film I saw! If I purchased the Mona Lisa but before it was set on my walls Leonardo decided to intercept it and turn it into a mountain landscape filled with CGI, IT IS NOT WHAT I PAID FOR!!! If, however, Leonardo added/included their new "vision" to the order then I'd be extremely happy to see what they had done at the time and what they had truly envisioned. I want to have the opportunity to see the films as they were AND as they are. No artist/director should wish anything else. If they have improved on the original vision, then surely they'd be happy for people to see those improvements, for the paying public to witness the journey? There is no adventure if you are forced to start at the destination. And so the same should be said of any film; French Connection included. The choice to see or not see should be ours: the viewers. If there are two, three or four versions of the same film then we should be responsible when choosing which we see. If the director has a preference then great! Everything should lead towards it. We would benefit knowing which was their preference, their vision. But they should not take from us what it was that made us care and want to know in the first place.
Dan, would love your thoughts on if we can accurately plot the reach of att walsh's "what is a women?" , no matter what anyone feels about the film , I am struggling to understand if we can even know it's reach, it was on a rotten tomatoes chart but I don't know if we can accurately chart its views. Also , that film has had a history of censorship issues too that would love to get your take on.
Short answer, no we can’t. Twitter’s metrics are their own. Additionally, I have no interest in bringing extra visibility to that particular piece of media.
This is why I watch you Dan! Thanks for all the excellent work. I have many issues with this type of censorship, but most of all: if we whitewash history too much, people will lose an understanding of just how open and accepted prejudices used to be.
Dan, I completely agree with you about the stealth editing of The French Connection. But I am curious how you feel about Disney's refusal to make certain films available at all. My late mother was 5 years old when she first watched Song of the South and she absolutely loved the music. A few weeks before she passed, she was in the hospital and asked if she could watch the movie. She couldn't. I completely understand why that film is controversial, but is it really any more offensive than Gone With The Wind? It's been many years since I watched either film, but it seems to me the biggest difference is that Gone With The Wind is much more beloved. But wouldn't an introduction similar to the one in front of Gone With The Wind be sufficient for Song of the South? The other film it seems Disney is determined to bury is The Devil and Max Devlin because Elliot Gould is just that controversial. Seriously though, I completely understand why they don't want to have a Bill Cosby movie on Disney+, but I still think it should be possible to watch it somewhere. What is your opinion?
Song of the South is a tricky situation because it’s aimed at kids. I don’t think it should be completely inaccessible. But I also think the intended audience should be able to understand the disclaimers that come with it and its historical context. So how do you do that with a kids film? I don’t think Disney has ever figured that out, which is why they just stuck it in the vault. There are other movies equally as problematic that are available (certainly many parts of Gone with the Wind and others) and I wish there was some effort to try figuring out how it could be available, if only for historical context and how stereotypes endured and were spread systematically. But I doubt that will be figured out any time soon.
@@DanMurrellMovies I had a social studies teacher in high school show us Birth Of A Nation, both the original "problematic" film and the original full-length film. That film has a disgusting message but is important to the study of film history and (I believe) an understanding of the attitudes of some people in the early 20th Century, including Woodrow Wilson. That film is easy to find though since it's in the public domain. But it didn't have any songs that my mother loved. But Song of the South will pass into the public domain on January 1, 1941. Coincidently, January 1st is my birthday. That will be a bittersweet 73rd birthday present for me. But if I am still around then, I think I'll watch it in her honor.
There must be something more to this. Disney has plenty of movies that come with those warnings of offensive dated content, why would this be different? But also speaking on criterion, 15-20 years ago they sold me a “widescreen” DVD of Hard Boiled that was in a 4x5 letterbox format so on a 16x9 TV it plays as a tiny picture with massive empty black space taking up most of the screen. That was the last time I bought anything from criterion.
This situation reminds me of a plot point on "Thank You For Smoking" (great movie BTW). The antagonist is a senator with a crusade against tobacco, and one of his ideas is to sign a law to mandate editing golden-age Hollywood films replacing all instances of smoking with lollipops, flutes, etc. When asked if that's not erasing history, he replies "No, I think it's *improving* history". Obviously it's satire and that ridiculousness is played for laughs but... here we are.
The French Connection is a on-off amazing movie. Deserves to remain as it was not to hide its uncomfortable scene that are honest to American (World) history.
The character of Popeye Doyle is not a hero, he’s an flawed, racist policeman, but one who goes beyond sanity to catch an international drug supplier, not simply arrest street dealers, to defend the victims of drug abuse. The film still has a lot to say today & you deserve to be uneasy about the ruthlessness of its main protagonist, when thinking about that debate.
This should be incredibly distressing news to every film fan out there. Removing scenes from past movies just because they might offended people of today is a disgusting form of censorship that will inevitably destroy the preservation of classic films for future generations. Film fans need band together and be vocal about this. Thank you for talking about this Dan.
It's possible this movie and Gone with the Wind were singled out because of their awards. Other movies on Disney+ only had a disclaimer shown. There's a contingent who demand "better" of its winners, that they're supposed to be more than quality filmmaking. Also thanks Dan as always for bringing this up.
What I don't get is that space is not a problem anymore with streaming. In fact on Disney+ you can already choose between two versions of Antman 3 - IMAX or wide. Why not just include the theatrical cut as an alternative? Sometimes when you buy bluray you get both the directors cut and the theatrical cut.
Thank you Dan! Totally agree on everything you said about the French Connection situation. And yeah, it sucks a bit to be on the same "side" as certain people but there is a bigger censorship issue that is pretty clear cut on this one. And also I am a total fan of physical media. I am constantly badgering for a physical media version of "Hamilton" because what happens is Disney+ decided to vault it tomorrow. Streaming is nice and convenient, but for anything I love I want it on physical.
I fully support the rights of directors (and technically whoever actually owns it) to provide versions of a film/show they deem suitable for whatever audience they are targetting , having TV and Plane versions make sense to me. However, I strongly feel that the original release version needs to be preserved and available for those who want to view that. Intermediate versions muddy the waters even more, especially in cases when a film was revised while still in release, but in my opinion that inital release is the point where the product intersected with the wider culture andneeds to be preserved.
Thank you for PFV: Everytime I see a chart with the Ranking by Hours watched only I think that is not a good choice for Ranking. Every series/-movie has a different runntime
Great channel, great video. You're bringing solid topics and observations, love it. One thing to mention -- and this is not criticism in a negative sense... between 3:15 and 3:24 -- some people might say Maybe this is a made-for-TV version -- Made-For-TV means a movie that was made with the intention that it will be shown on network tv, it isn't going to be on the big screen in a movie theater.
I tapped in wrong place on screen and posted before I was done, sorry. If The French Connection was shown on TV with a part of a scene cut out, that would not be a made for tv version of the film, that would just be the film, shown on TV, with a part edited out. If there was a made for tv version of The French Connection, that would be a whole separate project, where that movie was made all over again as a project for television. This is only in the interest of specificity. Terrific channel, I'm subscribed. Have a great day.
1) If this was a made for TV version, it would need to be labeled as such, as all edited versions for TV are. 2) No other cuts were made, for violence or language, which would make this a very specific made for TV version that affects only one scene
I can't imagine Friedkin cut a scene - especially if the scene no longer makes sense. I'd like to hear Friedkin confirm that he did "edit" the film. Maybe in a tweet.
Dan I consider myself a cinefile and I have a list of movies I have to watch The French Connection is one I had on that list, but to watch it uncut I am going to have to watch it on a piracy site...THAT is what censorship does! This is disgusting behaviour from whoever censored it. But Hey! Thanks for reminding me of this classic flick!
Interesting. They just showed this movie on (I think) the Movies channel via Antenna. I watched a little bit of it and have no idea if they showed the complete movie. Gene Hackman is a great actor and enjoy watching his acting in his movies. Take care.
Its getting to the point that Piracy is also becoming a form of preservation--especially for titles that never got a physical release.
Nope it's just stealing. If I go steal all the DVDs in Walmart claiming it's for preservation, I'm gonna be arrested. Why does it make it different when it's online? You're still robbing a company. Ppl who pirate are no better than shoplifters
So much is going to get lost as we move farther into better quality cause they don’t make a lot of say DVD’s into Blu-ray, same with 4k.
yeah well thats the only way you can watch the cut disney content as far as i know
This is exactly what I had to do with the 1971 British horror movie The Devils. The directors cut has never been released even 52 years later
Piracy has always been preservation funnily enough, the original Nosferatu wouldn't have survived to today without illegal copies
100% agree. We cannot erase things from history we don't like. It's a self-obsessed sickness we have picked up from social media, where you can mute, block or unfollow things you don't want to see. But that's not reality. We need to learn from the past, otherwise we end up making the same mistakes over and over. Cancellation and censorship is not a liberal value, it's a fascist value.
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Agree with you completely Dan - this is setting a bad precedent for future movies being erased/"scrubbed" for things that people in charge of the rights deem "questionable" or "offensive." Even if I think some movies have too much sex, for instance, doesn't mean I have the right to strike it from the copies of movies other people have.
Except... you don't HAVE streaming content. You have ACCESS to streaming content. Big difference.
@@thedarkemissary That's the unfortunate painful part yeah. Streaming services and film companies/distributors will continue to have the rights to have their films removed at any point in time, since they still own the distributed streaming video and is not for the subscribers themselves to archive.
I had never seen The French Connection but always wanted to. I heard about this controversy and found the dvd at a used media shop. It's really good and the censorship makes no sense for a 52 year old R rated movie that only Adults would watch anyway. It shouldn't be censored as it reflects the reality of the time.
I agree. Besides i think its narratively important. The movie is well aware of how it comes across and the character that Gene Hackman plays in the movie is a complete asshole. Its not done insensitively. Depiction does not mean endorsement.
Instead of censoring, we should just have conversations about why we don’t deem it as okay anymore, not that that’s how I feel entirely, but what I mean is how do we learn from history if we erase history. we should tell people about certain things like the scene they cut out from the film, otherwise people will just hear about how great the film was despite having a scene that everyone used to be okay with having in a movie if the goal is to change things for the better, but with all these changes to film, it feels like the goal is much more to pretend it never happen and sweep mistakes under the rug.
It reflects today's reality. Nothing has changed.
Yeah I agree with this
"The road to hell is covered with good intentions".
If people back then finally saw for the first time in art what until then was real but hidden from public view, how can hiding it now be anything other than reverting back to the notions of that era? That is exactly what they were doing back then.
The road to hell is “PAVED” with good intentions. I hate to be that person, but….
I find it funny how so many people want to censor the past, yet at every moment we bring up our racist past at every single moment. So which is it? Do we acknowledge the past or are we pretending it didn't happen?
@@MrDexter337 the racist present is key.
@@MrDexter337 It's not that simple, racism is in the US is a complex and layered issue. A isn't the same as B.
@@ZachBobBob You really didn't address anything other than make a word salad.
While Gene Hackman is still with us, I would love for him voice a forward or commentary explaining the context of this film and decisions behind the film, script and his memories of making the film. This is history that needs to be preserved.
Gene is big on Democratic party politics so very unlikely to differ from party approved tow line on social/sexual issues
@@mustafachoudhury3368 That is a totally ridiculous comment. I think that he would if he was in the health to do so. You are clearly not well educated as who democrats are and what they stand for in this era.
Hackman has stated that he didn't like many aspects of Popeye's personality but the logic behind at least as far as Friedkin Is concerned Is that this Is the whole point of the charácter. He Is a Man consumed by His pursue, in many ways Is like captain Ahab from Moby dick
@@lamecasuelas2 And maybe a complication of those interviews might be a good addition to the end of the movie.
@@mustafachoudhury3368 you'd think he doesn't have opinion of his own?
Thank you for posting this very informative video! I'm a brutha who is about as left as they come. And I was offended by the language -- but guess what? I was supposed to be offended by it. That was the whole point! And given what we know about policing in America, that language and racist attitude is typical of many police. The fact that Disney removed the scene is way more disturbing and offensive to me than its inclusion. The weak minds behind this decision to cut the scene should be ashamed of themselves. Final point: this is an R-rated movie for adults, not a kid's film. This censorship is sad and pathetic.
I agree with you Dan . As a historian, art shows a snapshot in time - that comes with the good and bad. We need to understand our past to learn grow from it . Not repeat it . What we find acceptable today could be deemed offensive tomorrow ( and it will ).
Dan, you are 100 percent right. This is the reason I refuse to get rid of my physical media. I want physical media to continue. I am glad to see many of these streaming companies in trouble, so they will be forced to keep producing physical media to make money.
This is one of the reasons why I love and collect physical media when it comes to movies. It hopefully keeps all the OG content from the movie and I don’t have to worry about it potentially leaving a streaming service permanently.
You’re our voice, Dan. Thanks a lot!
I've gotta say, when you announced you'd do streaming news every other week I was kind of skeptical about there being much material or hot topics to discuss. But every episode since then has been straight fire, and it seems there's always spicy things to talk about so far. Love it
It's mostly cause streaming is a mess and bad for the film industry.
Its been obvious for forever that downloading/physical media would be the only way to truly preserve movies
Completely agree, when art is censored based on what might be offensive, who decides where it stops
Appreciate you fighting the good fight for physical media.
great video as always dan. i agree, censoring content sets a bad precedent for everyone and everything. history is history, regardless of how it makes people feel. hope william friedkin says something about this.
Excellent video. This type of action is dangerous. Companies stamp warning labels on everything. Cigarettes cause cancer but the ingredients stay the same the only change is a warning label.
Censorship is never the answer. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
You have an amazing channel- huge respect 👍🏻
Legitimately strong and persuasive editorial.
This underlines the dangers of having art/information concentrated and mediated by a few corporations. Whatever the motives were, it is unconscionable that any piece of art should be edited. Discussions around a controversial work, of course, need to happen but altering a piece of art without comment (or worse, lying about it) smacks of totalitarianism. We should never take for granted the freedom of expression achieved for us, as it can be too easily revoked.
Thank you for highlighting this issue, Dan.
Again, I really enjoy how in depth you go in your research for all of your content. I have never seen The French Connection, but now I'm gonna be on the look out for an uncensored version whenever I go thirfting.
Complete agreement Dan. Censorship is a slippery slope. Another very well done video.
Warner Brothers handles this issue really well with its old looney tunes cartoons, where they present a cartoon in its original form but has disclaimers saying the content reflected views of the time and those views do not reflect the views of the company or society today, but they warn that the content could be offensive to some viewers.
With Indiana Jones coming out could you imagine them trying to censor Temple of Doom?!
Awful. He is being sexist, but please keep the film as it is.
Just you wait, it'll be coming...
Thanks for speaking out Dan.
Brilliant video as always Dan. I enjoyed the new library titles chart and the censorship discussion, it could definitely be a slippery slope.
Dan's perpetual tone of mild surprise about Bluey's success is so funny to me, bc anyone who even *knows* someone with a young kid knows that just how much parents and children adore (and depend on) that show
That show also had a scene deleted, because some people were offended.
@@miz4535 MANY deleted scenes, unfortunately.
Great job. Thanks for speaking on this topic. And importance of owning physical media.
As a European I have to say: That's the most USA thing I could imagine
Just change it and tell no one, because it's our product.
Oh and BTW, am totally behind physical media. Just on a technical level, you get a pure video and audio output from a 4k disc without any compression from streaming.
Thanks for making the censorship lot clearer - lot of noise about this scene cut.
Nice to see Spider Verse getting lot of love on streaming/ downloads services
Look forward to next show
I just got a new computer and now that its fully setup I just wanted to say your intro/outro sounds amazing on the speaker that I got for it :D
it's weird that they only censored the film on US and not any other regions, if they really thought they needed to edit that scene that the edit would propagate across their own streaming service first rather than the licensees
In US we’ve become so polarized and divided that it’s hypersensitivity. No one wants to light the match to blow up the proverbial powder keg.
Great job Dan thanks for bringing this to people's attention
That is disgusting censorship. What is next? Censor everything that has racist language from the past? That is absurd. That is a disservice to the art.
So you're saying racism is art?
I know it wouldn't happen but I just pictured 12 years a Slave without slurs. You'd probably have to cut out half the film 😂
In all seriousness though a simple warning before the film or tv episode is sufficient in my opinion, rather than editing them, or removing them all together.
@@TrappyJenkins
Yes.
Racism exists and erasing traces of that is nothing more than denying history
@@TrappyJenkins Art can have racism in it. Many great movies and songs and shows have racial slurs in them. They would be less if they were subtracted.
@@rajangrewal7423 Same with every Quentin Taratino film.
Love that you made a whole video on this topic 👍
In 2005, the French Connection was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". With that, each title named to the Registry, the Library of Congress works to ensure that the film is preserved for all time, either through the Library's massive motion picture preservation program at Dayton, Ohio, or through collaborative ventures with other archives, motion pictures studios, and independent film makers.
You would think that it could NOT be edited after being added to the film registry and "preserved for all time".
You have confirmed all my concerns I had when streaming first started.
I will say, I have seen The French Connection and yes, that scene confirms what black people already knew white people thought about us. They just pretend they don’t say it when they totally do.
(I am black. It’s nice not being gaslighted about racism in pop culture.)
EDIT: I was waiting to buy some blu-rays after buying a new blu-Ray player, but i will start buying blu-rays now.
Additional thought, if this edit stands, people can always claim that that character was never racist. Which…goes back to the racism gaslighting.
There's a lot of generalizations and assumptions in your comment. I can say I personally don't think that about black people at all. Black people are not a monolith and neither are white people. I am not sure if that is how you meant it to come across but for some reason I felt I wanted to say how I felt about it and how it affected me.
I definitely agree with the idea that if we don't acknowledge racism in history we are just going to stay stuck without growing past it.
@@Nawx7 Dude, your white fragility is showing. If you were confident in your self-proclaimed anti-racist beliefs, you wouldn't have felt the need to respond at all.
@@Nawx7 if you think I am saying white people are a monolith… maybe you need to do more research. Saying white people did not mean all white people. I can’t believe in 2023 this still has to be explained. (“Not all men, amitrite?”/s)
My family has worked with people with developmental disabilities. Most of them have communication challenges. But even then, some of the white ones know who to direct racial slurs to. Where do you think they learned it from? Many of them aren’t able to watch and listen to TV, movies, and music lyrics so it’s not coming from there.
Also many of my non-POC (aka white people) friends tell me what they hear from white people themselves. I live in a predominantly white town.
Incredibly well-argued point of view. Thanks for bringing the discussion to light.
Isn't there at least one more scene with an ethnic slur in The French Connection? I'm remembering Popeye using one for Hispanics in the scene where he apprehends car thieves. Was that scene also edited (assuming I'm remembering it correctly)?
That's still in, ironically. Not only censorship, but lazy censorship at that.
@@Thomas_Esson Why am I not surprised? 🙄
Loved your [passsion in the first segment of this video! And also very well spoken!
Disclaimers before running an older film are fine. Actually editing them is a problem.
*furiously starts to google what shirt Dan is wearing*
It's not censored on Disney plus in Canada.
The scene is still intact on Disney+ Australia
Indeed it is. NZ is the same. I checked it the other day when this controversy was making its web forum round. Intact for now.
Here in denmark, the film is on disney+ and i went to check it because i was curious, and the scene is still there in that version here.
You're right. A huge problem with 'commercial censorship' is that the license holders or distributors should be forced to state that the version in format ABC being shown in country XYZ on posters, physical media artwork and streaming details has been modified. However, this would require a global licensing rule be applied across countries and states. But such MPAA censorship has been happening for DECADES. Catch up.
Lol.. I just so this on Max today and watched just to see if it was edited. Came here right away to tell Dan but you beat me to it.
I just checked and as of right now on Canadian Disney+, the scene is still uncensored.
I live in Canada and I had to check my Disney+ to see if the scene in question was edited out and to my surprise it was not
Hey if anyone comes to this older video, Max has brought back the original (or at least with the scene mentioned back) version, just watched it yesterday for the first time and I really enjoy it. I went back to this video wondering if It was edited or not.
This is insane. This is why they have movie ratings. So that adults can watch whatever movies they choose.
What’s next? Will the rights owner of Taxi Driver edit out language that they feel is offensive? Will they edit out portions of Jodi Foster’s character?
This is all just so absurd.
Thankfully no because it's owned by Sony.
@@MrBlue3rdyou never know these days. Sony might arbitrarily make a censorship decision.
This type of censorship is regressive and divisive not to mention it muddies the historical record. A simple message/warning/apology if needed before the film is enough.
Just last week I found and bought a copy of the French Connection at a used bookstore and it is still wrapped in the original plastic.
Never in my dreams did I think, that we would live in a world, where we would one day talk about censorship again and some art from decades ago would be actually censored... It just shows how radical things have become and how dangerous this new "movement" or whatever we want to call it is... It makes me sick.
it's not a movement. It's corporations wanting to make as much money as possible.
No it just shows how far we've come as a human race where we won't allow another race of ppl to get away with what they have done in the past. And you're obviously mad at it. Go outside and take a walk. Get some fresh air.
@@mania4270 oh look, another troll who obviously doesnt understand a thing 🙄😂
@@flow2333 projecting a bit
Hi Dan! Your segment reminded me of comments Neil Gaiman made in response to people pirating his work, and how particularly in the streaming era digital media preservation is crucial because many shows and movies don't even get physical releases now.
Another instance of a director making a change, causing difficulty in finding the original version, are with some of Charlie Chaplin's films, specifically The Kid and Modern Times. It's difficult to find the original theatrical versions, only showing the director's cut, even though the theatrical ones are superior.
WTF that editing was a hatchet job. They at the very least could've made it seamless.
Buy Blurays people, before Disney takes the hatchet to them too.
On the Hot Mic, Jeff Sneider said he dmed Friedkin about it but hadnt heard anything back.
As someone with a modest classic movie channel myself - and just as a movie fan - I am very glad I have my own physical copies (dvds) of classic movies - and very disturbed (but not surprised) that this kind of cleansing witch hunt is taking place today. It started with Hans Solo firing his blaster a second later - but this is getting much more serious.
I have noticed that the streaming versions of JOHN WICK 1 2 3 have cut out some of the blood splatter also the new physical versions seem to have less blood. Part of the fantasy of John Wick is that he is deadly. Cutting down the blood is like taking Dracula’s fangs.
Damn love when Dan gets passionately talking about something like this.
I've been looking forward to streaming charts😊
Out of curiosity (and to the best of your knowledge), does Peacock separate viewing hours for The Office versus The Office: Superfan episodes? I wonder if it's statistically competing with itself by splitting the viewership (I'm currently on a rewatch of the series, but I'm watching the Superfan episodes as they contain deleted scenes).
Hello from Ireland
Do you have any news on how Picard Season 3 did on the streaming charts?
It landed on the top 10 list for original programming a couple of times - for that show, a strong a performance.
@@DanMurrellMovies thanks for your reply.
Strange New World's is getting a lot of promotion on the back of Picard now. In Ireland anyway.
love your essays i think they are so important
I'm only 9 minutes in but I have to say that I have, as of so far, refused to repurchase the Star Wars original trilogy. I despise what has been done to them, even since I first saw them on UK TV which probably had some edits of their own. My original VHS releases and (imagine a tear, please) my definitive collection I once had on laserdisc were probably altered in some slight way as well. I hate not being able to see what I once paid to see and what caught my attention. Drew me in and made me love it.
I'm always grateful for alternate versions. Gives a great reason to re-watch a film just to see what has been changed but, that original print must remain. It was the original vision of the writer/director, or at least the best they could do to present it at that time, making it a time capsule, if you prefer. And it is likely to have been the origins of the viewers delight for the film.
If I paid to see a film and then paid to buy a re-playable copy of that film, I want the film I saw!
If I purchased the Mona Lisa but before it was set on my walls Leonardo decided to intercept it and turn it into a mountain landscape filled with CGI, IT IS NOT WHAT I PAID FOR!!! If, however, Leonardo added/included their new "vision" to the order then I'd be extremely happy to see what they had done at the time and what they had truly envisioned.
I want to have the opportunity to see the films as they were AND as they are. No artist/director should wish anything else. If they have improved on the original vision, then surely they'd be happy for people to see those improvements, for the paying public to witness the journey? There is no adventure if you are forced to start at the destination.
And so the same should be said of any film; French Connection included. The choice to see or not see should be ours: the viewers. If there are two, three or four versions of the same film then we should be responsible when choosing which we see. If the director has a preference then great! Everything should lead towards it. We would benefit knowing which was their preference, their vision. But they should not take from us what it was that made us care and want to know in the first place.
Amazing videos Dan so informative and so interesting to watch ....so thank you ❤
You are doing something very important here Dan, thank you.
Dan, would love your thoughts on if we can accurately plot the reach of att walsh's "what is a women?" , no matter what anyone feels about the film , I am struggling to understand if we can even know it's reach, it was on a rotten tomatoes chart but I don't know if we can accurately chart its views. Also , that film has had a history of censorship issues too that would love to get your take on.
Short answer, no we can’t. Twitter’s metrics are their own. Additionally, I have no interest in bringing extra visibility to that particular piece of media.
This is why I watch you Dan! Thanks for all the excellent work. I have many issues with this type of censorship, but most of all: if we whitewash history too much, people will lose an understanding of just how open and accepted prejudices used to be.
Dan, I completely agree with you about the stealth editing of The French Connection. But I am curious how you feel about Disney's refusal to make certain films available at all. My late mother was 5 years old when she first watched Song of the South and she absolutely loved the music. A few weeks before she passed, she was in the hospital and asked if she could watch the movie. She couldn't. I completely understand why that film is controversial, but is it really any more offensive than Gone With The Wind? It's been many years since I watched either film, but it seems to me the biggest difference is that Gone With The Wind is much more beloved. But wouldn't an introduction similar to the one in front of Gone With The Wind be sufficient for Song of the South? The other film it seems Disney is determined to bury is The Devil and Max Devlin because Elliot Gould is just that controversial. Seriously though, I completely understand why they don't want to have a Bill Cosby movie on Disney+, but I still think it should be possible to watch it somewhere. What is your opinion?
Song of the South is a tricky situation because it’s aimed at kids. I don’t think it should be completely inaccessible. But I also think the intended audience should be able to understand the disclaimers that come with it and its historical context. So how do you do that with a kids film? I don’t think Disney has ever figured that out, which is why they just stuck it in the vault. There are other movies equally as problematic that are available (certainly many parts of Gone with the Wind and others) and I wish there was some effort to try figuring out how it could be available, if only for historical context and how stereotypes endured and were spread systematically. But I doubt that will be figured out any time soon.
@@DanMurrellMovies I had a social studies teacher in high school show us Birth Of A Nation, both the original "problematic" film and the original full-length film. That film has a disgusting message but is important to the study of film history and (I believe) an understanding of the attitudes of some people in the early 20th Century, including Woodrow Wilson. That film is easy to find though since it's in the public domain. But it didn't have any songs that my mother loved. But Song of the South will pass into the public domain on January 1, 1941. Coincidently, January 1st is my birthday. That will be a bittersweet 73rd birthday present for me. But if I am still around then, I think I'll watch it in her honor.
If it had been Friedkin's idea, wouldn't the change be in versions outside USA?
"back" is a good synonym for "returned", and at 4 letters, might fit on a badge without abbreviation
There must be something more to this. Disney has plenty of movies that come with those warnings of offensive dated content, why would this be different?
But also speaking on criterion, 15-20 years ago they sold me a “widescreen” DVD of Hard Boiled that was in a 4x5 letterbox format so on a 16x9 TV it plays as a tiny picture with massive empty black space taking up most of the screen. That was the last time I bought anything from criterion.
All physical media of this film is unavailable on Amazon. Unbelievable…😑
So we get to see the Director's cut now? Wow, how cool!
This situation reminds me of a plot point on "Thank You For Smoking" (great movie BTW). The antagonist is a senator with a crusade against tobacco, and one of his ideas is to sign a law to mandate editing golden-age Hollywood films replacing all instances of smoking with lollipops, flutes, etc. When asked if that's not erasing history, he replies "No, I think it's *improving* history". Obviously it's satire and that ridiculousness is played for laughs but... here we are.
Nice to see Dan take a stand on this.
The French Connection is a on-off amazing movie. Deserves to remain as it was not to hide its uncomfortable scene that are honest to American (World) history.
The character of Popeye Doyle is not a hero, he’s an flawed, racist policeman, but one who goes beyond sanity to catch an international drug supplier, not simply arrest street dealers, to defend the victims of drug abuse. The film still has a lot to say today & you deserve to be uneasy about the ruthlessness of its main protagonist, when thinking about that debate.
Agree with you dan 100% over the censorship issue
I can confirm that in Brazil the scene was not edited on Star+ app
This should be incredibly distressing news to every film fan out there. Removing scenes from past movies just because they might offended people of today is a disgusting form of censorship that will inevitably destroy the preservation of classic films for future generations. Film fans need band together and be vocal about this. Thank you for talking about this Dan.
It's possible this movie and Gone with the Wind were singled out because of their awards. Other movies on Disney+ only had a disclaimer shown. There's a contingent who demand "better" of its winners, that they're supposed to be more than quality filmmaking. Also thanks Dan as always for bringing this up.
What I don't get is that space is not a problem anymore with streaming. In fact on Disney+ you can already choose between two versions of Antman 3 - IMAX or wide.
Why not just include the theatrical cut as an alternative? Sometimes when you buy bluray you get both the directors cut and the theatrical cut.
Thank you Dan! Totally agree on everything you said about the French Connection situation. And yeah, it sucks a bit to be on the same "side" as certain people but there is a bigger censorship issue that is pretty clear cut on this one.
And also I am a total fan of physical media. I am constantly badgering for a physical media version of "Hamilton" because what happens is Disney+ decided to vault it tomorrow. Streaming is nice and convenient, but for anything I love I want it on physical.
I fully support the rights of directors (and technically whoever actually owns it) to provide versions of a film/show they deem suitable for whatever audience they are targetting , having TV and Plane versions make sense to me. However, I strongly feel that the original release version needs to be preserved and available for those who want to view that. Intermediate versions muddy the waters even more, especially in cases when a film was revised while still in release, but in my opinion that inital release is the point where the product intersected with the wider culture andneeds to be preserved.
Dan, do you get a cut of TH-cam Premium subscriptions from subscribers? Or is it better for you if viewers keep the regular ad version of TH-cam?
I get compensated for Premium subs who watch my videos, so whatever works best for you!
@@DanMurrellMovies OK, great! Thanks!
Just got back from my local thrift shop, and guess what I found in the DVD section... The French Connection!
Made sure to put it right in my basket.
MAX is showing the uncensored version now.
30:43 great idea to separate the library series from the originals 👍🏻👍🏻
Thank you for PFV: Everytime I see a chart with the Ranking by Hours watched only I think that is not a good choice for Ranking. Every series/-movie has a different runntime
Loved the “Entourage” reference.
I have to believe you spend even MORE time and effort doing your content about streaming. Much appreciated!!
Great channel, great video.
You're bringing solid topics and observations, love it.
One thing to mention -- and this is not criticism in a negative sense... between 3:15 and 3:24
-- some people might say Maybe this is a made-for-TV version --
Made-For-TV means a movie that was made with the intention that it will be shown on network tv, it isn't going to be on the big screen in a movie theater.
I tapped in wrong place on screen and posted before I was done, sorry.
If The French Connection was shown on TV with a part of a scene cut out, that would not be a made for tv version of the film, that would just be the film, shown on TV, with a part edited out.
If there was a made for tv version of The French Connection, that would be a whole separate project, where that movie was made all over again as a project for television.
This is only in the interest of specificity.
Terrific channel, I'm subscribed. Have a great day.
1) If this was a made for TV version, it would need to be labeled as such, as all edited versions for TV are.
2) No other cuts were made, for violence or language, which would make this a very specific made for TV version that affects only one scene
I can't imagine Friedkin cut a scene - especially if the scene no longer makes sense. I'd like to hear Friedkin confirm that he did "edit" the film. Maybe in a tweet.
If it was a director’s cut, it would be on all Disney+ streaming services everywhere
Dan I consider myself a cinefile and I have a list of movies I have to watch The French Connection is one I had on that list, but to watch it uncut I am going to have to watch it on a piracy site...THAT is what censorship does! This is disgusting behaviour from whoever censored it. But Hey! Thanks for reminding me of this classic flick!
Interesting. They just showed this movie on (I think) the Movies channel via Antenna. I watched a little bit of it and have no idea if they showed the complete movie. Gene Hackman is a great actor and enjoy watching his acting in his movies.
Take care.