Fans fume as classic film undergoes censorship treatment
Film fanatics are in outrage after discovering an unannounced edit in William Friedkin’s 1971 classic movie, The French Connection.
The scene causing the trouble comes just 10 minutes into the drama, when two characters - Gene Hackman’s ‘Popeye’ Doyle and Roy Scheider’s Buddy ‘Cloudy’ Russo - are having a conversation, and one of them uses a racial slur.
The sequence was removed, and the new edited version cuts to the latest in the conversation, omitting the part with the slur.
Disney has been the subject of blame for the move - as the company took over Fox in 2019 and subsequently the rights to the film - with fans accusing them of censoring the scene in the United States, while in the United Kingdom and Canada, the unedited version of the film is still available for streaming on Disney+.
Most took to social media to share their complaints, with the majority in agreement that Disney had missed the mark, and The Film Magazine’s Joseph Wade even calling it “corporate vandalism”.
“In cases such as this, ‘Censor’ takes the place of ‘Vandalise’,” he tweeted. “They have vandalised a piece of art.”
“At the risk of being like ‘nooo, my precious n-word,’ the uncensored FRENCH CONNECTION should be the only one in circulation, whether on TV or in theatres,” one user said. “I don't think it's a stretch to say that Friedkin knew exactly what having his detective protagonist use it said about him.”
One user went on to share a clip of Hackman discussing the scene - and slur - in question, in which the actor claimed he “protested somewhat”, before sharing his belief that it was part of “who the guy is”.
“The censorship of The French Connection is shameful if true,” another agreed.
“Thank God,” a frustrated - and sarcastic - fan added, “now I can finally show my 6 year old child The French Connection without any worries”.
One Twitter user wrote of how “it speaks badly for film preservation that even a Best Picture winner isn't immune from the clutches of Disney”, and how they’d prefer to watch the film “the way it was intended to be watched, thank you very much.”
Images: Twentieth Century Fox