War’s Degradation of the Human in Bergman’s ‘Shame’
Ingmar Bergman's Shame is one of his few films so blatantly concerned with the impositions of the external world,as opposed to the internal, subjective aspects of life.
criterion collection
Faceted Depictions of War: On Jan Němec’s ‘Diamonds of the Night’ (Démanty noci)
Are fantasies mixed up with memories in Jan Němec's film adaptation of Arnošt Lustig's autobiographical story of surviving WWII, Diamonds of the Night (Démanty noci)? Will these babes forever be in the woods?
Jackie Chan’s High-Kicking ’80s Cop Movies Are Back!
Re-releases of Police Story and Police Story 2 show writer-director-star Jackie Chan in his finest fighting style -- along with his usual over mugging for the camera.
David Byrne Channels the Weird and the Ordinary in ‘True Stories’
As a piece of both cultural history and film history, David Byrne's True Stories takes its place alongside two other films from the mid-'80s that are also steeped in a surrealistic other-worldly place, Repo Man and Blue Velvet.
At the Crossroads of Pity and Revolt: Intensity and Time in Lino Brocka’s ‘Manila in the Claws of Light’
Lino Brocka's Manila in the Claws of Light seethes with rage against colonial oppression without ever becoming overt agitprop.
On Mishima, and Feeling That One Exists
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters is a singular portrait of an artist's life lived so fiercely as to have left an indelible mark on an alienated world seeking affirmation for its own existence.
On Susan Seidelman’s Film of Aimless Desire, ‘Smithereens’
The experiences you have in NYC are not the best experiences to be had, the sex you have is not the best sex, the friends you make are not the best of all possible friends—but they ought to be.
Hannibal Lecter May Be ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ Icon But Clarice Starling Is the Movie
The Criterion edition of 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs reminds us what the film has always stood for: Don’t underestimate Clarice.
Suffering the Inscrutable: The Ethics of the Face in Dreyer’s ‘The Passion of Joan of Arc’
The Passion of Joan of Arc is imbued with a painterly quality wherein the not-quite static framing of the human visage is its main concern, its aesthetic gambit, and the source of its affective impact.
Criterion’s ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me’ Is a Semiotic Feast
Sheryl Lee’s iconic performance as Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me evokes epic sorrow and haunting tragedy.
And Now for Something Not So Different: Terry Gilliam’s ‘Jabberwocky’
Jabberwocky takes the enticingly evocative, nearly blank canvas of Lewis Carroll's poem and fills it with a parody of medieval banalities that make the film a grimier, far less amusing companion to Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Jean-Pierre Melville’s ‘Le Samouraï’ Plays with the Perils of the Loner
Under the lens of cultural and historical context, as well as understanding the reflective nature of popular culture, it's hard not to read this film as a cautionary tale about the limitations of isolationism.