With fifty-six terrific entries and more than six hours of content, it was difficult to pick a winner of the Jeanne Dielman–Criterion Collection Cooking Video Contest, but we finally came to a decision. Selected by Criterion staff members and Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles director Chantal Akerman, first place goes to Jon Pivko’s methodical, menacing meat loaf movie, Cindy Griffith, 42 Carlton Road, Hopewell, NJ. Pivko will receive a new PlayStation 3, Criterion’s reference Blu-ray player. You can see his film below, and then be sure to watch the five honorable mentions. Thanks to everyone who participated and made the contest such a great success, including our Audience Award winner and runners-up.
Grand Prize winner:
CINDY GRIFFITH, 42 CARLTON ROAD, HOPEWELL, NJ
Honorable mentions:
POTATO
MEAT LOAF
OOOOOOO! MEAT-LESS LOAF!
THE MEATLOAF MAKES ITSELF
CLIENT PREPARES MEATLOAF
1975
201 min
Color
1.66:1
Categories: On Five
15 Comments
Thu 29 Oct at 06:56 PM
zack
good choice! great contest… hope there are more to come
Thu 29 Oct at 07:03 PM
Alex Kuznetsov
Thank God it’s over, now we can continue living our lives :)
CONGRATULATIONS to all the participants!
Don’t be discouraged if you didn’t win. If you’re happy with your film then you ARE a winner!
Thu 29 Oct at 07:05 PM
Brad Newton
BRILLIANT!
Thu 29 Oct at 07:18 PM
Jerry
The fact that a woman’s hand playing with ground beef for seven minutes got an honorable mention over some of the other entries is just shameful. Just goes to show that this contest was always skewed towards the self-indulgent “artsy” videos. I hope Criterion holds another contest; maybe I’ll enter that one and make a video of someone taking a dump for eight minutes on a pile of newspapers while writing the names of former English rulers in soap on the bathroom wall and name it “Colonialism.” I’d add in some stop motion in there somewhere, some camera angles pulled from a Beginner’s Guide to Videography, an old lady, and make it ambiguous enough that people will actually believe that their nonsensical interpretations are actually intended subversive meanings. Surefire win.
Thu 29 Oct at 07:54 PM
George
Hey, Jerry. We’re all just a bunch of molecules. Get over yourself.
Thu 29 Oct at 08:40 PM
Gunther
Ok dude, what’s the deal with these cigarettes in the beginning of this movie? Like, she gets them out, from UNDER something else in this drawer, right, she’s like, hiding them from her husband, OR LIFE PARTER dude, I don’t know what happens in this house, goes and sits down, lights one up…two drags dude. She’s done. Puts them back UNDER the thing in the drawer, goes to work. Now, hear me out dude, maybe I’m missing something here. Who would go get their hidden cigarettes, take two puffs and put it out? And she waves the smoke away like that’s gonna do the job. She’s already smoking in the house, her husband’s gonna find out dude.
Classic example of what I hate to see in cinema. Hell, I just gave up smoking a couple months ago, but now you’ve got me feeling like I should start again just so I could finish it for her. Listen, bro, either a) have her smoke the full cigarette so I won’t get pissed, or b) take out the cigarettes entirely, or I’m GONNA get pissed. Think about it this way: You’re watching (in my opinion) the best movie ever made – Reservoir Dogs. Ok, so like they just killed Mr. Blond (SPOILER ALERT, DUDES) and they pull out their cigarettes or whatever to smoke. They take a couple drags, put em out. The whole bank heist thing went wrong, Mr. Blond’s torturing cops, who’s the rat in the group…YOU’RE NOT GOING TO FINISH THAT CIGARETTE, BRO?!
Am I the only one that feels this strongly about this? I just feel it would have been better to hold on that scene as we watched her smoke the whole thing, that’s all. Extend the final cut to 13 minutes, dude. There ain’t no time limit bro, I got nothing else to do. Or, y’know, take it out. Just leave her sitting there looking out the window. BUT, if you DO keep it in…and are thinking about EXTENDING IT… Reservoir Doggy style it, dude.
Oh, congrats on 1st bro.
Thu 29 Oct at 08:52 PM
RJ McHatton
Interesting choice. I kept thinking she was going to pull out a head or arm from the oven or some other surprise ending like HITCHCOCK would have done.
Thu 29 Oct at 09:01 PM
DJ Manhattan
That would have been very HITCHCOCKIAN of them to do.
Thu 29 Oct at 09:10 PM
Peter Rinaldi
Excellent choice CritAkerman! Really love that one! Congratulations Jon. This was a lot of fun to be a part of. So many excellent little films. Well done everyone!
Thu 29 Oct at 11:31 PM
Jon Pivko
Thank you Criterion and Chantal Akerman, and especially my mother. Looking forward to the PS3.
Thu 29 Oct at 11:45 PM
Barbara Katz
This is the most boring set of short films I have seen since the beginning film making class
I had several years ago. I find it hard to believe these were the winners!
Fri 30 Oct at 10:46 AM
A Nommy Ass
Okay Barbara, now tell us how you really feel.
Fri 30 Oct at 11:20 AM
Evan Mather
What a great choice – but seriously: the PlayStation 3 is the Criterion reference Blu-ray player? Is the quality that good?
Tue 03 Nov at 11:36 AM
Samir
I wasn’t aware that recreating a scene from Jeanne Dielman meant creating a whole other story to go with it. I think it would have been more challenging if you had limited them to the same stylistic strictures Akerman worked with in making the film, rather than allowing multiple camera angles and all sorts of other nonsense, (before anyone assumes I’m one of the losers, I didn’t enter the contest). There was not enough specification from Criterion in regards to what entries in this contest needed to accomplish. Was the goal merely to use the cooking video premise as a springboard to tell any story they wanted? Were contestants supposed to synthesize the thematic and motivational intent of the original scenes in their recreations?
In the end anyone who used the single camera set-up of the original as a template lost to people who disregarded the intent of the original scenes altogether, the winning entry in particular. Without context why do we care what she’s doing? If the goal was to make a short film, instead of a recreation/cooking video, why no story? It’s a brilliant idea to show her putting broken glass in the meatloaf as if it were just another mundane ingredient (and the use of the sifter speaks to the idea that perhaps she has done this before or is a meticulous planner). But the rest was quite boring and contradictory (if she has done this before, why is she so sloppy? why include the details about the cigarettes at all if she doesn’t even finish the cigarette? why hide them if you’re smoking in the house? It’s no longer a secret because that smell isn’t going anywhere now) and without context its impossible to have any meaningful reaction to her efforts to hurt someone we never see. Why is she doing this? Without answering that question, the experience is a complete waste. If you’re going to show up other contestants with your short film, then you should have written a story to go with it. The video by itself doesn’t tell us enough to make the 8 minutes worthwhile. To be honest, there wasn’t much (or anything really) to choose from, so I guess we can’t really blame Akerman for her choice. When videos like “the meatloaf makes itself” gets an honorable mention, you can sense the dearth of quality the judges were working with in picking a winner.
Thu 05 Nov at 02:30 PM
PJ
wow, samir. what are you even doing on the Criterion Collection website? Sounds like mckeestory.com would be more your speed. Are you serious that you need every question answered in films you see? that cancels out half the criterion canon. it’s all subjective isn’t it? personally the thing i respond to most in film is mystery. if a film answers questions through the “story” that’s what i find boring. you may not be a contestant but you sound really bitter about something. maybe you should’ve entered this contest with your story-film and then we’d all see something real different and exciting.
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