| This June, Criterion goes western. We’re introducing our first of that genre into the collection, and we’re thrilled that it comes from Anthony Mann, the world-class director whose rough and raw films varied from westerns (Winchester ’73) to policiers (T-Men) to large-scale epics (The Fall of the Roman Empire). His Oscar-nominated The Furies, which features a dynamic, no-holds-barred performance from Barbara Stanwyck, as well as the final screen appearance of the great Walter Huston, is as much a dysfunctional family melodrama as a blistering vision of frontier settlement. Happy viewing! |
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THE FURIES Anthony Mann “A delirious western noir . . . an amazing film.” —Kent Jones, Film Society of Lincoln Center |
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BEFORE THE RAIN Milcho Manchevski “Extraordinary.” —Roger Ebert
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CLASSE TOUS RISQUES Claude Sautet “Tough and touching. A masterpiece of the French gangster genre.” —J. Hoberman, Village Voice
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MORE CRITERION CRIME STORIES:
COMING IN JULY
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters
Patriotism
Mon oncle Antoine
Trafic
High and Low
Vampyr
David Schwartz is the chief curator at New York’s Museum of the Moving Image.
As a film programmer who started watching classic movies just before the advent of VHS, I had my first encounter with most of the films in the collection via faded, scratched, worn 16 mm prints. The idea of owning a pristine copy of a movie like The Rules of the Game is, well, sheer decadence. The problem here, of course, is narrowing the list down to ten. Criterion has always been about quality, but as its library continues to grow, it’s also about quantity. I decided to go with the pleasure principle—the great movies that would be the most fun to watch over and over.
1. The Rules of the Game
2. Late Spring
3. Videodrome
4. By Brakhage
5. All That Heaven Allows
6. The Bank Dick
7. Trouble in Paradise
8. My Night at Maud’s
9. The Royal Tenenbaums
10. Cléo from 5 to 7
Click here to read Schwartz’s thoughts on his top ten.
© 2008 The Criterion Collection