The Criterion Collection
Short Takes
Jan 5, 2011 — The blog Dangerous Minds has just posted a short entry focusing on the early-seventies almost-collaboration between Ron and Russell Mael, of the Los Angeles pop-rock band Sparks, and Jacques Tati, revealing what might have been a fascinating final chapter to...
Mar 17, 2010 — 1. A Park—Night A man aflame is running directly toward camera. This image, which comes from Nicholas Ray’s initial treatment for Rebel Without a Cause, might stand at the head of almost any of Ray’s movies, since it so clearly...
Jul 10, 2009 — The final, resolutely unfashionable film from grand old master Carl Theodor Dreyer, Gertrud was met with dismissal in 1964 and continues to be somewhat overlooked even today. But this week, Jonathan Rosenbaum reminds us of its unique beauties and unconventional...
Aug 18, 2008 — One of the most awarded films in Japanese history, Keisuke Kinoshita’s nostalgia piece unfolds a celebration of family values and scenic beauty.
Jun 30, 2008 — The novelist Mishima Yukio stepped behind the camera to adapt his own short story, which depicts the act of seppuku as a thing of beauty.
Essays
Jan 21, 2008 — As late as 1970, Alf Sjöberg’s boldly experimental 1951 adaptation of August Strindberg’s play was declared as inaugurating “a new cinematic language.”
Aug 1, 2007 — Two towering figures of cinema died this week, and while we can all be grateful that they lived such long and fruitful lives, their departures were nevertheless profoundly saddening, and shocking in their coincidence. Look to your right at our...
Apr 17, 2006 — Another movie, another cause célèbre: this mysterious film by Orson Welles has been dismissed as a disaster and hailed as a masterpiece.
Features
Apr 17, 2006 — In the absence of a finished, definitive edit of Orson Welles’s enigmatic project, three writers dive into the unsolvable mystery of the film and the different versions presented in the Criterion edition.
Essays
Mar 14, 2005 — The appearance of this 1966 film signaled not only the debut of Volker Schlöndorff as a major international filmmaker but also the beginnings of what would become known as the New German Cinema, one of the most important film movements...