The Criterion Collection
Essays
Aug 25, 2014 — Love and death tango in Bob Fosse’s glittering ode to his own mortality.
Jun 19, 2014 — PerformancesTime has added some latter-day ironies to All That Heaven Allows, and not just the revelation that its star Rock Hudson was gay. There’s also the political career of Ronald Reagan, the ex-husband of Hudson’s costar, Jane Wyman—built on the...
Sneak Peeks
Jan 24, 2014 — Here’s a treat for all you It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World superfans. In this new video, photographed and edited by Mad World aficionados George Ann Muller and Paul Scrabo, you can see all the major California locations from...
Jan 13, 2014 — With economy and panache, Michael Mann established his existential crime drama style with this breakthrough first feature.
Oct 21, 2013 — As a film star, John Cassavetes embodied the kinetic, wild-eyed, insanely grinning villain. He seemed born to the role, with his volatile energy and dynamic outbursts, luminous yet curiously deadened eyes, wide-gaping mouth (David Thomson has likened it to a...
Short Takes
Apr 8, 2013 — Photo by Maureen Gosling The great American documentarian Les Blank died yesterday at age seventy-seven. A crafter of intimate, idiosyncratic nonfiction films, Blank made movies for almost fifty years; his topics included traditional American music, food, and, of course, Werner...
Mar 25, 2013 — Robert Bresson’s prison-break story is a tale of religious faith and a work of striking purity.
Dec 4, 2012 — Misunderstood by Hollywood, embraced by critics, this fatalistic fantasy remains Terry Gilliam’s ultimate trip.
Sep 20, 2012 — The following is excerpted from a 1990 audio interview that originally appeared on the Criterion Collection’s laserdisc edition of Children of Paradise. It was conducted by the late Brian Stonehill, who was a communications and media studies professor at Pomona...
Jan 18, 2012 — Poto and Cabengo: Three-Part Harmony Jean-Pierre Gorin’s three Southern California movies are so militantly unclassifiable that terms like documentary or essay film seem as hopelessly out of sync with the recalcitrant and frequently exhilarating works themselves as a Marxist harangue in...