The Criterion Collection
May 13, 2009 — It doesn’t really come as a surprise that Chris Marker is a devoted inhabitant of the virtual world Second Life. After all, one could call the playful French filmmaker and multimedia artist’s kitty—and alter ego—Guillaume-en-Egypt a trailblazing avatar (when asked...
Apr 21, 2009 — Fifty years ago today . . . Godard wrote this New Wave battle cry for the April 22, 1959, issue of the French journal Arts, on the news of François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows being selected to represent France at...
Nov 30, 2006 — We've been all over the city in the past couple of days, lugging around the fourteen-pound Janus box in a prototype Janus tote, feeling a little like traveling salesmen, but it's okay, because Paris is just so beautiful, even on...
May 9, 2005 — Les Blank’s documentary examines the interaction of premodern tribal existence with European modernity, epitomized by a movie narrative about the invidious clash of brute nature and a singular ego bent on his own mission of cultural enlightenment.
The Oscar-winning composer selects favorite films that continue to excite him, including Andrei Rublev and Sid & Nancy; praises the transportive nature of Les Blank’s work; and shares how Nicolas Roeg changed his life.
The acclaimed filmmaking duo reminisce about getting their cinematic education while working in a video store, share how Touki bouki has inspired every film they’ve ever made, and select life-changing favorites by Barbara Kopple, Abbas Kiarostami, and Les Blank.
The director of the Oscar-nominated documentary Fire of Love shares her passion for nonfiction filmmakers Chris Marker and Les Blank, and for the iconic love triangles in Jules and Jim and Y tu mamá también.
Jean-Pierre Berthomé is a professor emeritus at Rennes University, where, in the 1980s, he created the department of film studies. He contributes regularly to the French film monthly Positif and has written a dozen books, including on Demy, Orson Welles,...
Director and writer Bertrand Tavernier (1941–2021) made films including The Clockmaker (1974), ’Round Midnight (1986), and My Journey Through French Cinema (2016). He was the author of 50 ans de cinéma américain (with Jean-Pierre Coursodon); Amis américains, entretiens avec les...
Jan 23, 2024 — In the first ten years of her extraordinary career, the Belgian filmmaker used the raw materials of quotidian, marginal lives to spark a radical reinvention of cinema.