The Criterion Collection
Essays
May 21, 2001 — Akira Kurosawa’s period film not only commemorated historical Japanese myths with new, vivid feeling but also created the source for many of the enduring entertainment tropes in world cinema today.
Essays
Feb 19, 2001 — Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s romance film spins a web of myth and evocative symbolism around its central search for self-discovery.
Essays
Jan 29, 2001 — Masahiro Shinoda’s historical drama uses traditional elements of Japanese theater to explore the tension between ethics and eroticism.
Essays
Sep 18, 2000 — Drenched in mud and rain, Lars von Trier’s breakthrough film inhabits a true twilight zone, bereft of heroes and integrity.
Essays
Sep 6, 1999 — The subject of loneliness and the observation of the isolated person has always interested me. Even as a child, I couldn’t help but notice those who didn’t fit in for one reason or another—myself included. In life, and for my...
Essays
Oct 19, 1998 — Jean-Luc Godard’s stripped-down science-fiction drama depicts a computer-controlled society at war with artists, thinkers, and lovers.
Essays
Oct 12, 1998 — Inspired by the stranger-than-fiction true story of identical twin gynecologists, David Cronenberg’s psychological thriller is a melancholic meditation on our very existence.
Essays
Jun 2, 1998 — In Ray Johnson’s documentary The Making of “A Night to Remember”, Walter Lord says that when he wrote his 1955 book on the 1912 sinking of the Titanic, there was no mass interest in the topic; nothing had been written...