The Criterion Collection
The Daily
Jan 26, 2018 — Death has been greedy this week, taking not only artists who have left their mark on cinema but others, too, who have made an impact on our culture overall. The week began with the passing on Monday of Ursula K....
Essays
Jul 11, 2005 — Luchino Visconti’s adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s short story balances realism and fantasy.
Mark Le Fanu teaches film at University College London. He has written extensively about Russian and Japanese cinema. His most recent book, Believing in Film: Christianity and Classic European Cinema (Bloomsbury, 2018), has just been issued in paperback.
Essays
Jul 21, 2008 — Carl Theodor Dreyer’s elliptical and dreamlike vampire film defies definitive shots at interpretation.
Jun 30, 2020 — Come and See (1985) is one of those films whose authority is established from its opening moments. Out in the open air, an elderly peasant dressed in a soft-peaked beret is volleying a mixture of threats and imprecations into some...
Essays
Jul 18, 2017 — During a period of personal turmoil, Andrei Tarkovsky created this enigmatic masterpiece, which explores spiritual and metaphysical mysteries through the prism of a science-fiction epic.
Jul 17, 2015 — As visually and sociopolitically expansive as it is intimate in its details of a boy’s coming of age, Jan Troell’s film is one of the great cinematic debuts.
Apr 22, 2014 — Carl Theodor Dreyer’s spare and modern visual style perfectly complements this comic and soulful domestic comeuppance story.
Jul 22, 2013 — Gabriel Axel’s exquisite adaptation of Isak Dinesen’s short tale of grace through art provides spiritual and sensual sustenance.