As Testemunhas

To paraphrase Tolstoy, happy families are all alike: they’re really boring to watch on-screen. Thus, cinema is besotted with deliciously unhappy ones.

The history of cinema: one hundred years of do-overs. But no matter how hard the remakers try, no one can surpass these originals.

In the 1960s a group of daredevil filmmakers brought about the creative revitalization of Japanese cinema.

Predators, prey, objects of study, companions. Here are the animals in the Criterion menagerie.

These uncategorizable works blur the lines between fiction and documentary with panache.

Some of the world’s great directors did their finest work during a time of terrible conflict and loss.

Jul 13, 2010 — At the author’s request, Japanese names are given here in their traditional form: surname first. Ozu Yasujiro’s personal feelings about Japanese militarism in the 1930s and 1940s are not on record. Perhaps, like most people around him, he accepted the...

Jul 13, 2010 — At the author’s request, Japanese names are given here in their traditional form: surname first. Nineteen thirty-six was a decisive year for imperial Japan, marked by extreme violence at home and abroad. In the very early morning of February 26,...

Jul 8, 2010 — “Forty-eight years ago I stood on the set of The Leopard and watched Luchino Visconti bring to life his seminal motion picture about the dying world of the aristocracy, revolution against the old order, and the rise and new-gained riches...

Jul 7, 2010 — Two of Criterion’s 2010 releases were honored at last week’s Il Cinema Ritrovato festival, organized by the Cineteca di Bologna: By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume Two won the top prize for DVD of the year, while Roberto Rossellini’s War Trilogy...