The Criterion Collection
Essays
Dec 9, 1985 — Movie thrillers may come and go, but after half a century, Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps still reigns supreme. And not only for the sheer, breathless excitement of the story; the seamless construction; the chilling, beautifully realized atmosphere; and the...
Dec 3, 2018 — Born in 1981 in Fiesole, Italy, Alice Rohrwacher studied in Turin and Lisbon. She has worked in music and documentary projects, and has also worked as an editor and composer for theatre. Her first feature, Corpo Celeste, made its world...
Jul 18, 2018 — Alan Rudolph is a pioneer in the American independent film movement. He has directed nineteen narrative features and one feature-length documentary. His films have been presented in major international festivals for forty years and are noted for their fluid style,...
May 11, 2017 — Steve Gunn is regarded as one of the finest guitar players of our era. The Philadelphia native got off to an early start in high school punk bands before establishing himself as a player in different genres and touring internationally....
Dec 9, 2016 — Clea DuVall is an acclaimed actor whose credits over the past twenty years include the cult favorites But I’m a Cheerleader and The Faculty, Rodrigo Garcia’s Passengers, David Fincher’s Zodiac, and Ben Affleck’s Oscar-winning Argo, as well as the TV...
Dec 29, 2008 — If I had not seen The Lady Vanishes at the age of seven, I might never have become a film critic. I was the fifth child of parents well into middle age: clearly an “accident,” as I was ten-years-plus younger...
Aug 28, 2007 — Having studied everything but film in college, I never would have imagined that landing a job in the DVD industry would help me get more out of fashion magazines. But sitting in the front office at Criterion, seeing every person...
Aug 20, 2001 — Before Lars von Trier, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Andrei Tarkovsky, Ingmar Bergman, Robert Bresson there was Carl Th. Dreyer. The first great film artist to pursue the ineffable in cinema, Dreyer gave depth to what early silent filmmakers innately understood yet took...
Aug 20, 2001 — I have known Torben Skjødt since 1983. His debut video Englefjæs—which I thought to be very accomplished—was presented during a film week in Silkeborg. A debut work, yes, but made with a self-assured maturity by a self-taught creator of images....
Essays
Sep 8, 1998 — In David Lean’s Summertime, in which Rossano Brazzi seduces Katharine Hepburn—an aging, repressed Ohio “working girl” on vacation in Venice—the Continental lover reached his pinnacle and approached his end. In the next decade, he would be embodied by Marcello Mastroianni,...