The Criterion Collection
Essays
Jun 18, 2007 — The audacious and outrageous political comedy by Yugoslav filmmaker Dušan Makavejev jolts viewers out of complacency and encourages freedom, creativity, and bliss.
Essays
Jun 11, 2007 — Claude Berri’s witty comedy-drama depicts Nazi sympathizers with three-dimensional candor, neither whitewashing nor apologizing for their misguided ideas.
Essays
May 21, 2007 — In January 1948, British film producer Sir Alexander Korda, head of British-Lion and London Film Productions, commissioned novelist Graham Greene to write and research “an original postwar continental story to be based on either or both of the following territories:...
Production Notes
May 2, 2007 — At Criterion, producers spend a lot of time talking about each DVD release—from cover art and liner notes to the special features we present. In the case of the latter, we have a pretty elaborate system in place. We start...
Apr 23, 2007 — Louis Malle’s documentary work adopts certain tenets of cinéma direct—improvisation, minimal crew, the refusal to organize reality—and applies them to a consistently class-conscious, outsider perspective.
Apr 16, 2007 — Following debates about tensions between police and immigrant communities in France, director Mathieu Kassovitz began a public correspondence with the right-wing minister of the interior Nicolas Sarkozy.
Feb 19, 2007 — For a director whose vision is so frequently called pessimistic, Mikio Naruse’s drama exhibits a lightness of touch, deft and coolly understated, like its cocktail jazz score.
Essays
Feb 12, 2007 — The trailblazing career of the extraordinary singer, actor, and activist was pivotal to the emergence of a black film aesthetic and, by extension, an African-American cultural identity.
Jan 12, 2007 — Ijust got back from an around-the-world trip to Minnesota, India, and Paris, and I did it all in about seven days. I’m not proud to admit that all of that traveling was actually done from the shabby couch in my...
Dec 13, 2006 — Well, it’s not exactly writer’s block, but it’s related. I’ve been trying to get this blog entry posted since Tuesday afternoon, but there’s always something that takes me away from the task at hand. I’m procrastinating, and I know why:...