The Criterion Collection
Jun 8, 2009 — The word “opera” doesn’t immediately come to mind when one thinks of Abbas Kiarostami. Such a grandly theatrical form would seem antithetical to the more minimalist film sensibility of the Iranian director (Taste of Cherry). But thanks to a surprise...
Mar 13, 2009 — In the latest edition of her newsletter, Goop, Gwyneth Paltrow asked “five brilliant directors (four of whom I have worked with and one who I worship) to share their top five DVD rental picks.” The results, from Steven, Wes, Jon,...
Dec 2, 2008 — Ian Thomson has written a fascinating piece on Pier Paolo Pasolini for the Times Online, on the occasion of the publication of two books on the Italian filmmaker-writer-poet: John David Rhodes’s new study of Pasolini’s Rome, Stupendous, Miserable City, and...
Sep 29, 2008 — After Ozu died on his sixtieth birthday, December 12, 1963, some thirty-two diaries were discovered. They were from 1933 to 1963, and though a few years were missing, they offer a commentary on the life of the director and reveal...
Essays
Jul 21, 2008 — A dreamy alternative to the standard notion of horror, Carl Theodor Dreyer’s phantasmal film reimagined the figure of the vampire.
Jun 12, 2008 — Spring is ready to surrender to summer here in the Big Apple, and in keeping with my intentions, I sat down and watched The Love Parade and Monte Carlo from the Lubitsch Musicals Eclipse set. I found them to be...
Production Notes
Apr 1, 2008 — As a generation of artists passes, the deaths often seem to come eerily close together, amplifying their individual achievements. In the past couple of weeks, we’ve lost The Naked City screenwriter Malvin Wald, then the incomparable Richard Widmark, and now...
Essays
Apr 15, 2002 — Jean-Pierre Melville’s first-class crime picture may be the most elegantly rigorous movie ever made about a cockeyed heist.
Essays
Jan 29, 2001 — Masahiro Shinoda’s historical drama uses traditional elements of Japanese theater to explore the tension between ethics and eroticism.