The Criterion Collection
Dec 5, 2005 — René Clément’s masterpiece is dedicated to the radical Freudian proposal that living matter seeks the comfort of oblivion.
Sep 26, 2005 — “They were down for each other.” If one wanted to pitch the concept of Bad Timing in six words, this comment by its director, Nicolas Roeg, couldn’t be bettered.
Jun 27, 2005 — Ko Nakahira’s Nikkatsu Studio youth flick helped transform postwar Japanese cinema.
Essays
Jan 5, 2004 — One of the most original—and hilarious—comedies ever made, M. Hulot’s Holiday has delighted and disarmed moviegoers the world over since its first appearance in 1953. There’s little in the way of plot or dialogue to this French-made farce about a...
Sep 29, 2003 — Rainer Werner Fassbinder dedicated his final energies to bringing the lost, gray years of postwar Germany back to life.
Essays
Jun 23, 2003 — One of the most unusual features of Italian cinema of the late ’50s and ’60s is the way that it affords us multiple perspectives on the same event, namely the economic boom following the postwar recovery. Where the directors of...
Sep 23, 2002 — In 1940 and 1941, David O. Selznick won back-to-back Academy Awards for Best Picture. In 1942, unsurprisingly, he was depressed. His wife, Irene, persuaded him to seek help, and, less than one year later, hale and hardy, he was eager...
Nov 13, 2000 — All the opening bands had finished playing, and it was time for the Stones to come out. The sun was still out and there was plenty of daylight left. The crowd had waited all day to see the Stones perform,...
Essays
May 15, 2000 — In René Clair’s ebullient early talkie, an unsentimental love of humanity permeates every frame.
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.