The Criterion Collection
Essays
Oct 30, 2000 — Perry Henzell’s reggae-infused outlaw film reflects the political climate of the times, when anti-government movements were sweeping America and the world.
Essays
Oct 2, 2000 — The most important of Brian De Palma’s earlier features, Greetings (1968) and Hi, Mom! (1970), resist the commodification of entertainment while charting the development of Jon Rubin (Robert De Niro) from voyeur to filmmaker to urban guerilla. If pictures like...
Essays
Sep 18, 2000 — Drenched in mud and rain, Lars von Trier’s breakthrough film inhabits a true twilight zone, bereft of heroes and integrity.
Essays
Aug 28, 2000 — The acclaimed humorist’s work sees the range of human folly sans romance and piety.
Jun 26, 2000 — Kevin Smith writes about his third feature as a sort of penance/valentine for the woman who made him grow up.
Essays
May 15, 2000 — Twenty-five years after its first appearance, Bergman’s film of The Magic Flute remains the finest screen version of an opera ever produced. Shot in sumptuous color by Sven Nykvist, and featuring some of the finest Nordic singers of the day,...
Essays
Apr 24, 2000 — “Most of Aesop’s fables have many different levels and meanings. There are those who make myths of them by choosing some feature that fits in well with the fable. But for most of the fables this is only the first...
Essays
Nov 22, 1999 — Amarcord presents a scathing satirical critique of Italian provincial life during the 1930s, the height of the fascist period (1922–43). In this era, Mussolini’s dictatorship enjoyed its greatest popular support. While Fellini’s depiction of the provincial world under fascism provides...
Essays
Feb 1, 1999 — After finishing Diabolique, heralded French director-screenwriter Henri-Georges Clouzot (1907–1977) confessed that all he had intended was to make a picture that would “amuse myself” and please a young girl who hid under the covers and asked her father to frighten...
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.