The Criterion Collection
Essays
Dec 2, 1990 — In Martin Scorsese’s hands, the camera is not simply a recording device, but an x-ray machine—and it shows us close-ups of the human soul.
Apr 9, 1990 — Few motion pictures have ever matched the 1938 Warner Bros. production of The Adventures of Robin Hood for sheer entertainment. Even today this film ranks high on any list of all-time favorites. Warner Bros. first considered filming The Adventures of...
May 16, 1988 — Prior to the success of Scaramouche in 1952, many in Hollywood felt that the big-budget “swashbuckler” film was no longer a safe investment. While such motion pictures as MGM’s version of The Three Musketeers (directed by George Sidney, 1948) and...
Essays
Feb 1, 1988 — Charles Laughton’s classic has the feel and the force of an American folk fable; yet, it also mixes rural humor with gothic humor, biblical quotation and Freudian symbolism, and everyday realities with a near-mythic confrontation between the forces of good...
Jan 4, 1988 — The Secret Agent (1936) came to life in the prime of Alfred Hitchcock’s British period. It arrived between the popular triumph of The 39 Steps and the box-office rejection of Sabotage, a more daringly downbeat work. Secret Agent partakes of...
The performer and author sings (literally) the praises of the Tootsie score, talks about Barbra Streisand as a “North Star for anyone unconventional trying to make it in show business,” and shares the moving experience of watching My Beautiful Laundrette...
The writer and director shares his love for Monterey Pop and the way it acts as a time capsule of its era, talks about how The Worst Person in the World redefined the romantic comedy, and praises Wes Anderson’s use...
The writer and director talks about the impact that Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves has had on his life and how seeing it for the first time revealed the kind of cinema he wanted to amke himself.