The Criterion Collection
Short Takes
Jan 24, 2014 — Aki Kaurismäki first read Henri Murger’s Scènes de la vie de bohème in 1976. The highly influential 1851 book—an episodic novel about a group of starving artists that also inspired Puccini’s 1896 opera La bohème—captured the Finnish filmmaker’s imagination and,...
Essays
Jan 14, 2014 — Jules Dassin’s atmospheric, genre-defining heist thriller combines American virtuosity with French cool.
Jan 10, 2014 — Did You See This?• Reminiscing about Spalding Gray • The Little Tramp is turning 100. • For Dennis Cooper’s birthday, the beauty of Robert Bresson • Still Anger after all these years • Molly Haskell on a new Barbara Stanwyck...
Jan 3, 2014 — Did You See This?• Being Judith Anderson • A directors’ roundtable with Steve McQueen, Spike Jonze, and others • Godard’s coming attractions • The perils of adapting books to the screen • Remembering composer Wojciech Kilar • The fight over...
In Theaters
Dec 19, 2013 — Repertory PicksIt’s a tradition. Every year at Christmastime, the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago resurrects Hiroshi Teshigahara’s exquisite documentary cum visual poem Antonio Gaudí for a weeklong engagement. This largely wordless film, which shows us the beautiful and grand...
Dec 10, 2013 — Djibril Diop Mambety’s Senegalese masterwork is remarkable for both its technical audacity and its postcolonialist expressionism.
Sneak Peeks
Dec 5, 2013 — Keith Carradine was even more essential to Robert Altman’s Nashville than you may realize.
Nov 22, 2013 — Did You See This? • Catching up with Nashville’s Ronee Blakley • Visit Being John Malkovich’s 7½ floor. • Agnès Varda selects. • They’ve got a file on you, Orson. • Words of wisdom from Albert Maysles • The Warner...
Short Takes
Nov 20, 2013 — On November 5, Frances Ha herself, Greta Gerwig, appeared onstage at the New York Institute of Technology Auditorium on Broadway for a special Screen Actors Guild Foundation event. Following a screening of Noah Baumbach’s film, cowritten by and starring Gerwig,...
Sneak Peeks
Nov 19, 2013 — There are few people in the world we would rather hear talk about the beauty of Yasujiro Ozu’s cinema than Donald Richie. One of the world’s foremost scholars on Japanese film and culture, Richie, who died earlier this year, appears...