The Criterion Collection
Essays
Oct 22, 2013 — The disc of Faces that you now hold is the most beautiful copy possible of a film that was meant to look lousy. Digital technology painstakingly reproduces John Cassavetes’s lighting, which allowed his actors to move about freely, and so...
Oct 21, 2013 — As a film star, John Cassavetes embodied the kinetic, wild-eyed, insanely grinning villain. He seemed born to the role, with his volatile energy and dynamic outbursts, luminous yet curiously deadened eyes, wide-gaping mouth (David Thomson has likened it to a...
Sneak Peeks
Oct 17, 2013 — Christiane’s countenance is one of the most memorable in all of horror cinema—yet you barely get to see the real face of the actor playing her. Edith Scob is an ethereal force in Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face as...
Sneak Peeks
Oct 8, 2013 — René Clair’s I Married a Witch is among the buried treasures of 1940s American filmmaking. As the title promises, this is the most fanciful of screwball comedies, one with a peculiar charm that may take you by surprise. Known as...
Sep 25, 2013 — Roberto Rossellini’s tale of modern sainthood demonstrates the importance of opening oneself to the wider world.
Sep 23, 2013 — The neorealist master and the Hollywood icon forged a brilliant artistic path together, despite the backlash their controversial romance generated.
Sneak Peeks
Sep 20, 2013 — She’s unforgettable. It’s difficult to stand out in a cast of dozens of eccentrics, weirdos, and armchair philosophers, but Teresa Taylor is one of the true MVPs of Richard Linklater’s independent breakthrough, Slacker. Identified in the credits only as ”Pap...
Short Takes
Sep 17, 2013 — The author sheds some light on the fascinating life of the American scriptwriter behind Roberto Rossellini’s Paisan.
Aug 19, 2013 — This moving drama about gender, race, and class in 1960s Kolkata is a pioneering work from Satyajit Ray.
Essays
Aug 13, 2013 — John Frankenheimer burrows into the insidious side of the American sixties in his visually dazzling thriller.