The Criterion Collection
Jun 19, 2013 — Disorienting, brutal, and bloody beautiful, František Vláčil’s epic is a dark medieval vision teeming with cinematic invention.
Essays
Apr 9, 2013 — This essay by novelist, playwright, and culture critic Gary Indiana originally appeared in the 1992 book Everything Is Permitted: The Making of “Naked Lunch.” Burroughs’s work tends to affect people like a Rorschach test. It separates cultural conservatives from avant-gardists,...
Apr 9, 2013 — This review by film critic Janet Maslin originally appeared in the December 27, 1991, edition of the New York Times, and appears by permission of the author. Naked Lunch, adapted by the dauntless David Cronenberg from William S. Burroughs’s 1959...
Dec 5, 2012 — In René Clément’s sparkling but menacing anti-noir, the Mediterranean setting is as seductive as Alain Delon’s baby blues.
Nov 20, 2012 — For a brief, shining moment, the genteel Japanese studio mutated into a fun house of grim ghouls and slimy aliens.
Short Takes
Oct 17, 2012 — In this second part of our exclusive interview with D. A. Pennebaker about working with Norman Mailer in his fugitive filmmaking phase, the legendary documentarian talks to critic Michael Chaiken about his experiences on that most notoriously mad of...
Short Takes
Oct 15, 2012 — The feral first three films by Norman Mailer, available in our thirty-fifth Eclipse set, may look primitive, but Mailer had some of the best filmmakers in the business on set to help him out, including verité pioneers D. A. Pennebaker...
Sep 19, 2012 — Marcel Carné’s tale of love and devilry in medieval France was a sensation during the German occupation.
Aug 28, 2012 — A frenetic portrait of New York as well as a love story, Paul Fejos’s film captures the odd sensation of being alone in the big city, even when in a crowd.
Apr 13, 2012 — Performances Fists in the Pocket, a gasp-inducing, mouth-frothing, black-comic attack on bourgeois values, is remembered first and foremost as a shocking debut from director Marco Bellocchio. But it gave its star, Lou Castel, a memorable entrance of his own: he...