The Criterion Collection
Essays
Feb 24, 2016 — Fifty years after its initial release, Antonio Pietrangeli’s I Knew Her Well is only now emerging as a dazzling peer of the classics of 1960s Italian cinema.
Essays
Jan 21, 2016 — In Gilda, Charles Vidor’s “violent, sexual, chaotic” noir, the director focused on Rita Hayworth’s skills as an actor and a dancer, eliciting a performance that became iconic in its own right and made her an international superstar.
Essays
Oct 21, 2015 — Masaki Kobayashi takes on broken vows and the unreality of the past in his sensual and spooky four-part adaptation of Lafcadio Hearn’s Japanese folktales.
Essays
Jul 2, 2015 — By recounting the impossibility of making a movie, Federico Fellini ended up creating a masterpiece that almost fell into his lap.
Jun 17, 2015 — From a shrewd adaptation by André Gregory and Wallace Shawn, Jonathan Demme fashions a visually inventive dreamscape out of an Ibsen classic.
Jun 24, 2014 — In 1964, Richard Lester harnessed the Beatles’ exploding superstardom for a giddy day-in-the-life pop masterpiece.
Jun 17, 2014 — The brutal lessons of Vietnam remained in America’s national consciousness for a generation. September 11 gave us collective amnesia, and they’ve had to be learned again.
Oct 22, 2013 — This delicately creepy Hollywood horror movie lives up to its reputation as a classic of the genre.
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...
Essays
Nov 14, 2012 — Jean Luc Godard’s exuberant, multipronged attack on the bourgeoisie is both theater of the absurd and political horror.