Cruising

[beamish14]

Interesting that they are redoing the 4K restoration. They probably wanted to fix the issues that were imposed on the Friedkin supervised master. Great package for fans of the film but I wish they released Sorcerer instead.

Yep. No more wonky color timing, the disclaimer present, and no trimmed scenes.

Have these deleted/“censored” material reel scenes ever appeared before?

I’m sure a 4K of Sorcerer will be a given

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

Thank god. I watched it this year on the Criterion Channel and loved it. So I'm glad this will be 4k with new extras and a book. I was really disappointed at that paucity on the earlier release. That Sister Hyde cover really captures what I loved about the film.

[ryannichols7]

Friedkin is really not for me (aside from The French Connection) but I do want to pop in and say that cover is really incredible. and this is a really good use of a Warner license. hopefully for all fans, Arrow gets to do Sorcerer next

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

Isn’t the cover based off of the Japanese poster?

I watch this movie twice a year, and I’m happy to move those viewings to 4K.

[_shadow_]

But will this restore the "this film is not intended as an indictment of the homosexual world" card opening?

[Finch]

Geoff D confirmed this is the theatrical cut with none of the revisions Friedkin made for home video.

[Finch]

Going to be released in the US too. Mifune Fan found the US listing.

[ryannichols7]

I'm surprised they're still blocked from releasing the scholarly commentary

[nicolas]

Fidelity in Motion confirmed their involvement via X/Twitter.

[tenia]

Does anybody know if it's also a new scan ? Or is it a re-tooling of what Warner/MPI did in 2019 ? The older release had other issues than just the grading, and I doubt they would be alleviated without redoing it all.

[nicolas]

Does anybody know if it's also a new scan ? Or is it a re-tooling of what Warner/MPI did in 2019 ? The older release had other issues than just the grading, and I doubt they would be alleviated without redoing it all.

It reads like a new scan. For example the “by Arrow Films” blurb is missing from the Dollars films as they “only” worked with the raw log files from Ritrovata there.

[senseabove]

Does anybody know if it's also a new scan ? Or is it a re-tooling of what Warner/MPI did in 2019 ? The older release had other issues than just the grading, and I doubt they would be alleviated without redoing it all.

Geoff over at the other forum said that James White confirmed to him that this is a brand new restoration of the theatrical cut, which hasn't been available on home video since VHS. So far seems unclear whether it starts from the same base scan, which Friedkin then tinkered with for the prior release, or is a distinct scan, but that's mostly neither here nor there, as it's reliably confirmed to be the theatrical cut and the grading has been un-Friedkinized.

[tenia]

Thanks for the confirmation. I knew already about the grading, but that's something that could have been achieved through re-using the same scan. I wondered if it went beyond that, through a new scan. This answers it !

[Cash Flagg]

The (4-page!) restoration essay in the booklet notes ‘we were able to access the original dialogue/music/effects tracks and remaster them from scratch’.

[dwk]

Beavering

[Lowry_Sam]

Matt Baume's synopsis of how Friedkin's idea for the film leaked and gay activists attempt to stop the filming of Cruising.

Matt seems to agree with the position that the film could have been better had Friedkin not excised the role of the mafia's control over gay leather bars & S&M clubs and the mafia's use of the police to enforce that control and extort gay patrons from the script. Given the mafia's role in intimidating gay activists and businesses who were targeting the film's production, it seems Friedkin's motives to protect his friends in the mafia & the police force to get the film made resulted in an inferior and less coherent film than what could have been had that social critique been included.

[The Curious Sofa]

As Baume makes clear, the role of the Mafia is not nearly as important as that of the police, who continue to victimize gay men on their own accord and, to this day, fail to solve the murders of gay men and other queer people due to a mixture of ignorance, indifference and prejudice in regard of the community.

The main problem with Cruising has always been that it's a movie about a gay subculture made by straight men who ultimately don't understand it. What Baume gets right is that Friedkin was more interested in imposing his thematic concerns of obsession, violence and self-destruction on the movie, and he saw leather bars as a breeding ground for that. What Friedkin didn't understand was that leather bars provided a space for community, and that these spaces, where in the movie the police try to save the gays from themselves and their self-hating lifestyles, were actually spaces where potential victims of serial killers shared information to save each other, not only without the help of the police, but with the police making their lives even more difficult and dangerous. There have been numerous cases like that as Baume illustrates.

One quibble I have is with the alleged involvement of Spielberg, who was apparently at one point considered as a director. This goes back to claims made by producer Philip D'Antoni (never confirmed by Spielberg), but according to D'Antoni that would have been after Duel and before Spielberg chose Sugarland Express as his theatrical debut. Not after the success of Jaws and instead of Close Encounters, when he would not have had to been in a position to consider a project so far outside his wheelhouse.

[colinr0380]

As Baume makes clear, the role of the Mafia is not nearly as important as that of the police, who continue to victimize gay men on their own accord and, to this day, fail to solve the murders of gay men and other queer people due to a mixture of ignorance, indifference and prejudice in regard of the community.

The big UK example of this being the situation of Dennis Nilsen, who preyed on and killed many gay men who were often estranged from their families or homeless due to their sexuality. The situation being exacerbated by the police and media not only being unable to discern any pattern between the disappearances but even horrifically suggesting that the victims 'deserved' their fates because of their 'chosen' lifestyles, which allowed more men to be killed by Nilsen than otherwise may have been the case. Arrow actually put out the film based on that crime, Cold Light of Day, a few years back.

(And then a similar situation occurred again with the Stephen Port killings just over a decade ago)