The Criterion Collection
Sneak Peeks
Jan 30, 2017 — It wasn’t until the second half of his life that Senegalese master Ousmane Sembène dedicated himself to cinema, with his debut feature, Black Girl, premiering in 1966 when he was forty-three. Already an acclaimed novelist, Sembène had lived in France...
Essays
Jan 23, 2017 — In his radical debut feature, Ousmane Sembène reveals the agony of the postcolonial experience through the story of a Senegalese migrant abused by her French employers.
Jan 11, 2017 — When the Academy Film Archive embarked on a new restoration of The Front Page, preservationists stumbled onto a mystery regarding the existing prints of the film.
Jan 11, 2017 — A revelatory restoration of Lewis Milestone’s underappreciated newsroom comedy accentuates the film’s punchy rhythms and breakneck banter.
Features
Dec 18, 2016 — Imogen Sara Smith examines the tensions between tradition and modernity reflected in two silent crime films by Yasujiro Ozu and Tomu Uchida.
Short Takes
Dec 16, 2016 — Did You See This? To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up, Adam Scovell visited the film’s unforgettable London locations. Another masterpiece made half a century ago is Ousmane Sembène’s Black Girl, a scathing critique of racism anchored by...
Apr 24, 2015 — Atypical in style and subject, Yasujiro Ozu’s early crime dramas show a future master brilliantly experimenting with camera and editing.
May 3, 2011 — French auteur cinema has increasingly been exploring themes of sex through scenarios whose explicitness verges on the pornographic. Along with Patrice Chéreau (Intimacy, 2001), Léos Carax (Pola X, 1999), Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi (Baise-moi, 2000), and Gaspar Noé...
Short Takes
May 3, 2011 — The original title of my film was always Fat Girl, but since I am French and not at all bilingual, it was for reasons more mysterious than an anglicism. Of course, the little girl was fat, but the title also...
Interviews
Oct 22, 2009 — Almost a decade ago, Catherine Breillat, one of contemporary cinema’s great provocateurs, gave us Fat Girl (À ma soeur!), a disturbing and graphic look at the pitfalls of adolescent sexuality from the point of view of a pair of young sisters....