The Criterion Collection
Short Takes
Mar 5, 2013 — Today we tip our hats to the debonair, mischievous Rex Harrison, born on March 5, 1908. Perhaps remembered best for his role as the arrogant impresario Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady, the 1964 movie musical version of Pygmalion, Harrison...
Sneak Peeks
Feb 28, 2013 — Chronicle of a Summer, a sui generis 1961 collaboration between sociologist Edgar Morin and documentary filmmaker and anthropologist Jean Rouch, is considered a pioneering work of cinéma-vérité. That term—coined by Morin himself—gets thrown around a lot, but what does it really mean?...
Feb 27, 2013 — More than eighty films into his career, Kenji Mizoguchi made this emotionally devastating masterpiece, from a story by Ogai Mori.
Feb 25, 2013 — When an ethnographic filmmaker and a sociologist joined forces, they helped change the course of nonfiction cinema.
Features
Feb 22, 2013 — The writer shares his memories of his friendship with the great writer and Japanese cinema expert, who passed away this week.
Production Notes
Feb 19, 2013 — Photo by Grant Delin, 2012 Today we mourn the loss of Donald Richie, writer, critic, curator, cultural explorer, and my friend since 2001. I met him when he came to New York to record a commentary track for our DVD...
Feb 19, 2013 — Elia Kazan’s masterwork is a vivid, tough look at a time and place, and a transcendent human drama.
Tech Corner
Feb 18, 2013 — In our release of On the Waterfront, out today on Blu-ray and DVD, we offer Elia Kazan’s film in a trio of aspect ratios. Our official presentation of the movie is in 1.66:1, but you can also watch it in...
Feb 18, 2013 — Performances Hiroshima mon amour (1959) is a groundbreaking portrait of a world come undone. Even more memorably, thanks to the brilliant precision of Emmanuelle Riva’s performance, it’s a study of a woman unraveling. In this first leading role in an...
Feb 14, 2013 — David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson’s textbook Film Art, a cornerstone of the cinema studies discipline, was first published in 1979 and is now in a tenth edition. Over the years, some sections have been taken out, either to make room...