Current Posts for November 2006 - The Criterion Collection

2Nov06

Brass Tacks (and Brooches) BY PETER BECKER

I don't know if it's the question we get asked most often or just the one that people ask with the greatest sense of urgency, but here it is: Where does Criterion stand on HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray Disc?

As you may have noticed, Jon Mulvaney has been under strict orders to duck the question, not only for reasons mentioned in Wednesday's post but also because, for the moment, ducking the question may be the only sensible thing to do. Consumers shouldn't have to take a stand in a format war. You shouldn't have to decide between a Casablanca player or one that plays Lawrence of Arabia. That either means buying two machines, which doesn't seem fair, or giving up on seeing some of the movies you love in HD, which doesn't seem like a good solution either. From Criterion's angle, the only answer would be to publish in both formats in order not to leave anyone out, but that would mean doubling our costs and keeping two sets of inventory, which would effectively make it impossible for us to publish the kinds of titles that, despite their modest sales, are critical to the Collection and its mission.

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31Oct06

So We’re Starting a Blog . . . BY PETER BECKER

The obvious question is: Why are we doing this? And the only answer is that it just seems like the right thing to do.

The Criterion Collection is at an awkward age. By Variety and Hollywood Reporter standards, we’re not big (about forty people, most days), but we’re not as small as we used to be. When I started, back in the laserdisc days, we had one digital video deck and a bunch of analog equipment on a rolling rack with about 100 feet of tangled cords on the ground behind it. We moved to a new office a couple of weeks ago, and the engineer told me we had run 18,000 feet of cable for our audio and video rooms. Times have changed.

Over the last ten years Criterion has gotten a little bigger and a lot better. We’ve only grown by about twenty people, but as a result we can do so much that we could never do before. Today we’re an all-digital shop, doing high-definition restoration in-house, and pairing the best group of producers, editors, and designers we’ve ever had with some of the top writers, scholars, and artists in the world. When I started we could never have produced a disc set as complicated as, say, The Battle of Algiers. Just compare the old Seven Samurai to the new one to see what I’m talking about. It’s not that I want to go back. But I do want to make sure that we don’t lose track of the fact that we’re a small company doing something we believe in, and that we’re lucky enough to have an audience of people who care. That’s who this blog is for.

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Criterion Collection - Online Cinematheque

Brass Tacks (and Brooches) BY PETER BECKER

So We’re Starting a Blog . . . BY PETER BECKER

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