The Criterion Collection
Essays
Nov 15, 1999 — Great comedy cannot be confined within normally accepted boundaries of taste and sensitivity. The essence of the Pythons was that they were always ready to take on formidable, daunting subjects that others might find too dangerous to contemplate. The idea...
Essays
Sep 27, 1999 — In And the Ship Sails On, I needed a large exterior to paint, so I used the wall of the Pantanella pasta factory. It was where my father, Urbano Fellini, had worked when he passed through Rome on his way...
Essays
Sep 6, 1999 — The subject of loneliness and the observation of the isolated person has always interested me. Even as a child, I couldn’t help but notice those who didn’t fit in for one reason or another—myself included. In life, and for my...
Essays
Feb 1, 1999 — Rob Reiner’s directorial debut documents a recent moment in the band’s checkered history—one that only coincidentally represents a brief decline in the sine wave of their careers.
Jan 11, 1999 — This epic reimagining of medieval Russia was the most historically audacious production made in the twenty-odd years after Sergei Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible.
Essays
Nov 23, 1998 — Paul Morrissey’s gory comedy may be sensationally shlocky, yet it explores profound ideas about sexual liberty, individualistic freedom, and the commodification of everyday life.
Essays
Jun 2, 1998 — In Ray Johnson’s documentary The Making of “A Night to Remember”, Walter Lord says that when he wrote his 1955 book on the 1912 sinking of the Titanic, there was no mass interest in the topic; nothing had been written...
Essays
May 5, 1998 — John Woo’s last film made in Hong Kong before his emigration to the U.S. reflects the city's anxieties and state of crisis throughout the decade.
Essays
Jun 10, 1996 — Ever since Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction created a sensation at [this year’s] Cannes Film Festival, where it won top honors (the Palme d’Or), it has been swathed in the wildest hyperbole. In fact, it has sparked an excitement bound to...