The Criterion Collection
Essays
May 21, 2007 — “The Harry Lime Theme” has never gone out of print since its release, and it’s been recorded by over four hundred artists, from the Beatles to Guy Lombardo.
Mar 26, 2007 — Across five films, the Swedish director defined his guiding themes and cinematic style.
Mar 12, 2007 — Kon Ichikawa’s incendiary and extraordinarily brutal war film renders the emotional carnage that festers long after the battle’s end.
Feb 12, 2007 — In this classical whodunit made just after the close of World War II, swirling sexual frustrations and resentments find expression in a series of apparently motiveless murders.
Essays
Feb 12, 2007 — The trailblazing career of the extraordinary singer, actor, and activist was pivotal to the emergence of a black film aesthetic and, by extension, an African-American cultural identity.
Feb 12, 2007 — Vittorio De Sica’s seminal drama renounces “egoism” for collective concern, envisioning a cinema of impassioned social conscience.
Jan 22, 2007 — Spencer Gordon Bennet’s eclectic science fiction–adventure movie bundles a serious patriotic message within its retelling of the Odysseus myth.
Essays
Jan 16, 2007 — The marvel of Mouchette inheres in the elegance, obstinacy, and capaciousness of Bresson’s double-mindedness.
Dec 13, 2006 — Well, it’s not exactly writer’s block, but it’s related. I’ve been trying to get this blog entry posted since Tuesday afternoon, but there’s always something that takes me away from the task at hand. I’m procrastinating, and I know why:...
Dec 1, 2006 — We left St-Michel feeling uplifted and took a nice stroll south, past the Closerie des Lilas, the restaurant made famous by Hemingway, and through the Luxembourg gardens, where a film crew was laying dolly tracks and fitting counterweights on a...