The Criterion Collection
Mar 12, 2013 — Working in America, German master Fritz Lang contributed to the anti-Nazi effort with this nightmarish, surreal tale of espionage.
Feb 27, 2013 — More than eighty films into his career, Kenji Mizoguchi made this emotionally devastating masterpiece, from a story by Ogai Mori.
Essays
Jan 8, 2013 — The two movies that opened the door to “youth culture” in Hollywood, The Graduate and Easy Rider, were milestones, to be sure. But can it really be said that they were milestones in the art of cinema? “I think The...
Short Takes
Dec 18, 2012 — With the stage musical Les Misérables coming to the big screen in one of Hollywood’s most anticipated releases of the holiday season, it seemed a good time to remind you about Raymond Bernard’s extraordinary 1934 cinematic adaptation of Victor Hugo’s...
Dec 5, 2012 — The following is excerpted from an interview that originally appeared in the February 1, 1981, issue of L’avant-scène: Cinéma. It was conducted by Olivier Eyquem and Jean-Claude Missiaen. Eyquem is a documentalist and former staff member at Positif; he blogs...
Dec 5, 2012 — In René Clément’s sparkling but menacing anti-noir, the Mediterranean setting is as seductive as Alain Delon’s baby blues.
Sneak Peeks
Nov 21, 2012 — In his films as well as his poems, novels, and short stories, Pier Paolo Pasolini evinced a love of vernacular speech, often choosing to write in the slangy argots of the working class and the dispossessed. He made his adaptation...
Nov 13, 2012 — Rejecting the orientalism of other adaptations, Pier Paolo Pasolini’s take on the classic tales is humane and erotic.
Nov 13, 2012 — Moving to Chaucer’s gray-skied England, Pier Paolo Pasolini pushed his trilogy into darker realms.
Nov 5, 2012 — The following originally appeared as the afterword to the 2003 New American Library edition of the novel Rosemary’s Baby. Having observed that the most suspenseful part of a horror story is before, not after, the horror appears, I was struck...