White Dog

Jul 12, 2016 — Herk Harvey’s influential, low-budget horror classic Carnival of Souls is an eerie exploration of the mutability of place and the purgatorial state of dreaming.

Jan 15, 2016 — The filmmaker and cinematographer had a lifelong commitment to the camera and how it could be used to foster dialogue and action.

Nov 25, 2014 — More than just observational, Les Blank’s sensual documentaries are personal and participatory celebrations of American culture.

Oct 29, 2014 — George Sluizer’s singularly unsettling work of psychological terror is a model of lucid craftsmanship.

Oct 16, 2014 — This past August, on the occasion of Volker Schlöndorff’s being selected for a Silver Medallion award by the Telluride Film Festival, Criterion’s Peter Becker talked with the German filmmaker about his long career. A short version of the conversation was...

Jun 26, 2013 — On the life and work of the famous Czech author, and the pleasures and challenges of translating him.

Jul 17, 2012 — Down by Law, released in 1986, was Jim Jarmusch’s third movie. Unlike its predecessors, Permanent Vacation (1980) and Stranger Than Paradise (1984), it did not take off from a semi-documentary view of downtown Manhattan. It was shot entirely on location...

May 22, 2012 — These five films chart the unlikely ascendance of a hero of American underground cinema.

Nov 8, 2010 — To say that Lars von Trier deals in provocation and controversy is like saying John Ford made westerns: obviously true, but far from giving a measure of the director’s importance. Ever since The Element of Crime polarized critics at Cannes...

Aug 18, 2010 — Before Marcel Camus’ Black Orpheus showed up on American and European screens in 1959, what would later be known as the “art film” came in only a few shades of glum: Bergmanesque existentialism, Japanese samurai tragedy, stories of Italian peasant...