The Criterion Collection
Jan 6, 2003 — “No one would claim that Lubitsch’s German films were more important than his American ones (cf. Fritz Lang).” This was Richard Roud’s response to my piece “Ernst Lubitsch: German Period” in his Cinema: A Critical Dictionary. One could indeed ask...
Sep 23, 2002 — Anticipating reality TV, Rémy Belvaux’s faux cinema verité satire follows a film crew documenting a mass murderer’s rampage.
Essays
Jun 3, 2002 — By any standard, The Horse’s Mouth shines as an outstandingly personal work from a decade that often seems the most arid in British cinema. Amid tepid comedies and timid thrillers, it sparkles with conviction and eccentricity—at least that’s how it...
Essays
Mar 4, 2002 — Wong Kar-wai’s biggest commercial success to date elevated him to the mainstream of international art house cinema, and it echoes the end of an era with pure melancholic power.
Essays
Feb 11, 2002 — The phenomenon of old age wherein childhood memories return with ever-increasing clarity while great stretches of the prime of life vanish into obscurity is the nub of Ingmar Bergman’s drama.
Essays
Jan 21, 2002 — A fresco conceived on a majestic scale, Marcel Carné’s masterpiece sweeps its audience back to the 1820s, painting the detail of a world obsessed with both theater and crime.
Essays
Oct 29, 2001 — Peter Medak’s stinging satire is unashamedly theatrical, emerging from a fascinating period in English culture when theatre and cinema together were mining a rich vein of flamboyant self-analysis.
Sep 17, 2001 — Elmar Klos and I usually work as equal partners, but in this case he left me a free hand. He knows that I am not thinking of the fate of all the six million tortured Jews, but that my work...
Aug 20, 2001 — Director Torben Skjødt Jensen discusses the "three aesthetic levels" with which he approaches his documentary portrait.
Essays
Aug 20, 2001 — Carl Dreyer considers the work of art’s soul in this excerpt from Dreyer in Double Reflection.