Keep your physical media.
Your old physical media, because if you don’t think Disney et al will start (or have been recently) releasing censored versions of films on Blu Ray and DVD and whatnot, well, I fear you will be prove very much mistaken. It should be noted that the censored version isn’t actually playing on Disney +. (Disney now owns The French Connection because they bought 20th Century Fox. Way to reduce the value or properties you paid tens of billions for, geniuses.)
No, it’s the version playing on the streaming services Apple TV and also The Criterion Channel (!), who presumably bought the rights to stream the film. Criterion especially is a service that unlike Disney is dedicated, one would think, to film as an artform. I’d really, really like to think Criterion didn’t know Disney was providing them a censored version, and is taking steps to ensure that they don’t pay Disney or anyone else in the future for such travesties.
This also includes previously purchased digital copies. If you bought it before it was edited, but didn’t download it to your own device, the version you can call up now is also censored. Even if you bought it when it wasn’t.
I assume everyone here is conversant with 1971’s The French Connection. To call it a classic is underselling it, considering how many movies get called classics now. For those who don’t know, however, French Connection won the following Oscars (back in the day when that meant something): Best Editing. Best Cinematography for Owen Roisman. Best Adapted Screenplay, for Ernest Tidyman. Best Director for William Friedkin. Best Actor for Gene Hackman.
Oh, and and Best Picture. To win Best Picture it beat Last Picture Show, Fiddler on the Roof and A Clockwork Orange. Those were in many ways very different times. Oh, and all four of those films were very successful at the box office.
The only awards French Connection was nominated for but didn’t win were for Best Sound and Best Supporting Actor (Roy Scheider).
Why was the film censored. Well, the main character, cop Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle (based on real life NYC Detective Edward Egan), uses the N word at one point. See, the film doesn’t present Doyle as this flawless hero. Anyone who’s seen the film realizes more than a bit of an understatement. Hackman’s Doyle could have given Ahab lessons on obsession. God forbid movie characters have moral complexity, especially in an extremely gritty, R-rated movie. But that you would butcher a film with that pedigree. And for what? I can’t imagine there are too many people watching The French Connection on The Criterion Channel who are likely to repair to their fainting couches upon such a vulgar word.
(Oh, but the streaming version seen outside the US is intact. Screw you, Disney.)
I know that years ago whichever studio it was reedited the very amusing comedy Rustler’s Rhapsody (yes, on home video too) to remove lines about the hero comically having to consider himself a “confident heterosexual” if he wants to beat gun for hire Patrick Wayne. So I guess this stuff has been happening for a while, but dudes, we’re talking The French Connection. Man, it’s depressing how accurate Orwell was.
I hope Disney + loses even more subscribers because of this.
