Criterion & Eclipse in the Press

News on Criterion and Janus Films.
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: Criterion & Eclipse in the Press

#176 Post by knives » Thu Aug 20, 2020 6:03 pm

criterionoop wrote:
Thu Aug 20, 2020 5:19 pm
Controversial statement(s):

Whenever things get into a black vs white binary, the significance of other “people of color” get lost (I say this as a gay man of Mexican descent). The article barely mentions any Mexican films, South American films, Asian films, Middle Eastern films, and seems to focus more on African American filmmakers rather then focusing on international black filmmakers.

Also, the emphasis on “Criterion could release...” gets into the issue of putting Criterion into a vacuum where they have all the rights and the money to release these films. They don’t. And their line of output is slow (how many years did it take to release all the Chaplins? How many years will we be waiting for all the Almodovar / Fassbinder / Kurosawa / Harold Lloyd releases?). Moreover, as people pointed out, Criterion isn’t the only company releasing films.

This is not an excuse to say that Criterion is free from blame, but I think - like with Oscars so White - Criterion is a symptom of a problem. The bigger issue is the film industry itself. If the industry is not emphasizing a bigger push for diversity and gender parity, then you only get a select few films that are put out by female filmmakers and by black filmmakers. And if those films are omitted from the Criterion announcements, then the issue becomes conflated to say that Criterion is the sole problem, when it is a more complex issue than that. And then people are quick to cancel Criterion.
This was on my mind as well, but didn’t want to be the first to bring it up. I think that’s the main issue of America’s racialist discourse in general as it ignores the complexity of non hegemonic groups in the US as well as keeping blacks as othered. In all seriousness who was the last Mexican-American filmmaker to have a major hit and follow up in the way DuVarney and Jenkins have been afforded? Robert Rodriguez?

That doesn’t even get into a lot of other elements which make up a person as well. While watching Glass I was really impressed with the sense that this would be a radically different film if made by someone who lived in LA rather than remaining in PA. Regional voices are very important and something we don’t get at large. I mean, even something as basic as the fact that Biden would only be the second ever non-Protestant president gets shoved under the rug due to this absurd dichotomy.

User avatar
criterionoop
Joined: Mon Sep 20, 2010 7:46 am

Re: Criterion & Eclipse in the Press

#177 Post by criterionoop » Thu Aug 20, 2020 6:05 pm

Never Cursed wrote:
Thu Aug 20, 2020 5:51 pm
I don't think this will much affect Criterion's popularity or lead to widespread calls for its dismantling.
No, I’m using “cancel” in the “cancel culture” sense (not necessarily in the “dismantle” sense). There are people that I’ve seen make good arguments for films that should be in the collection. And there are some people that have been championing films for years (I, for one, have Mexican films I would be interested in seeing in the collection).

But looking at Ava’s tweet and the comments that follow, there isn’t much nuance. Also that quote from Peter Becker is pretty bad.

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: Criterion & Eclipse in the Press

#178 Post by domino harvey » Thu Aug 20, 2020 6:07 pm

To be fair, no director looks good when they get thirsty about being released by Criterion. Do y’all remember Aronfsky’s quest to get the Fountain released? True cringe

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: Criterion & Eclipse in the Press

#179 Post by knives » Thu Aug 20, 2020 6:13 pm

Thankfully that’s blotted from memory.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: Criterion & Eclipse in the Press

#180 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu Aug 20, 2020 6:13 pm

Yeah that was even more brutal than ususal, because the movie is awfully self-important enough without the campaigning

User avatar
Never Cursed
Such is life on board the Redoutable
Joined: Sun Aug 14, 2016 12:22 am

Re: Criterion & Eclipse in the Press

#181 Post by Never Cursed » Thu Aug 20, 2020 6:15 pm

criterionoop wrote:
Thu Aug 20, 2020 6:05 pm
Never Cursed wrote:
Thu Aug 20, 2020 5:51 pm
I don't think this will much affect Criterion's popularity or lead to widespread calls for its dismantling.
No, I’m using “cancel” in the “cancel culture” sense (not necessarily in the “dismantle” sense). There are people that I’ve seen make good arguments for films that should be in the collection. And there are some people that have been championing films for years (I, for one, have Mexican films I would be interested in seeing in the collection).

But looking at Ava’s tweet and the comments that follow, there isn’t much nuance. Also that quote from Peter Becker is pretty bad.
Not defending DuVernay's statements within or outside of the article, but again, neither she nor anyone in the comments of her single tweet about this issue actually calls for a cancel culture approach to Criterion, just that Becker's (insufficient, by all of our admissions) statements within the article rang hollow. Again, I have yet to see anyone use cancel culture rhetoric towards Criterion in response to this article, which makes me question the idea that anyone is or has been quick to cancel Criterion in any way.

Also, what is the difference between the "cancel culture" and "dismantle" uses of the word "cancel?"

User avatar
FrauBlucher
Joined: Mon Jul 15, 2013 8:28 pm
Location: Greenwich Village

Re: Criterion & Eclipse in the Press

#182 Post by FrauBlucher » Thu Aug 20, 2020 6:42 pm

I also haven't seen calls or a movement to cancel Criterion. But I bet the Criterion Website had an epic day in clicks

Kyle Buchanan, co-writer of the NY Times article, retweeted Barry Jenkins/Peter Becker interview. I don't remember seeing it but I'm sure some of you have
https://twitter.com/kyalbr/status/1296481197606998016

ianungstad
Joined: Wed Mar 16, 2005 9:20 pm

Re: Criterion & Eclipse in the Press

#183 Post by ianungstad » Thu Aug 20, 2020 9:28 pm

It's true that Criterion could be more diverse but the article fails to even discuss in detail the World Cinema Project or licensing agreements in recent years to bring films from China, India, Korea etc. to the Collection. It name drops a lot of international auteurs but focuses it's daggers on the lack of black Hollywood and American independent films made from 1990 to the present. Seems like a pretty narrow slice of the pie that disregards a lot of diversity present in the collection.

It also criticizes Criterion for not releasing Medicine for Melancholy but then mentions that Becker reached out to Jenkins in 2018 about doing just that and quotes Becker as saying that he hopes to release it in the near future.

It also claims that they passed on Ava's film and Becker's response was that they would love to do it and that Ava would have to reach out to Lionsgate. When has Lionsgate licensed to ANY third party label?

Criterion only ever had a first run deal with IFC films and whittles that down to only 3-4 releases a year. Only recently having similar arrangements with Netflix and Neon. Those are atypical releases for them. In fact one of the common complaints on the forum is the desire to see less contemporary releases from Criterion and not more. It is too bad that they passed on Daughters of the Dust back in the laserdisc days but they also passed on Bottle Rocket at the time too. (speaking of the Andersons!)

Lots of virtue signaling BS in that article that buries what is a legit criticism that could have been discussed in a more thoughtful manner.

User avatar
CSM126
Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 8:22 am
Location: The Room
Contact:

Re: Criterion & Eclipse in the Press

#184 Post by CSM126 » Thu Aug 20, 2020 9:45 pm

Lionsgate has licensed to Criterion exactly twice: Kicking & Screaming and Naqoyqatsi. They’re definitely not a regular business partner, and I imagine Becker is probably right to say the filmmaker needs to get involved, since that’s how those two licenses happened.

User avatar
Ribs
Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2014 1:14 pm

Re: Criterion & Eclipse in the Press

#185 Post by Ribs » Thu Aug 20, 2020 9:47 pm

Amores perros which is imminent is also from Lionsgate.

User avatar
Big Ben
Joined: Mon Feb 08, 2016 12:54 pm
Location: Great Falls, Montana

Re: Criterion & Eclipse in the Press

#186 Post by Big Ben » Thu Aug 20, 2020 10:02 pm

Isn't a Sembene related something coming too? A boxset or something?

User avatar
dwk
Joined: Sat Jun 12, 2010 6:10 pm

Re: Criterion & Eclipse in the Press

#187 Post by dwk » Thu Aug 20, 2020 10:11 pm

They are working on restoring Sembene's films.

Now, back to Lionsgate.

I assume that Amores perros' rights are back with Iñárritu and Naqoyqatsi is a Miramax title, so, for all we know, that could've been licensed to Criterion back when Disney owned them and they only got around to getting it out after Miramax was sold and Lionsgate assumed physical distribution of that catalog. So Kicking & Screaming is, most likely, the sole Lionsgate title. Maybe people aught to be yelling at Lionsgate for sitting on these films instead of licensing them out. ('though,truthfully, if Criterion were to gain access to a Lionsgate film directed by an African American woman, Eve's Bayou would be my pick.)

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: Criterion & Eclipse in the Press

#188 Post by knives » Thu Aug 20, 2020 10:21 pm

That would be a much better choice. Still my favorite Jackson performance and Lemmons just knows how to build relationships visually.

KJones77
Joined: Wed Aug 23, 2017 11:35 pm

Re: Criterion Discussion and Random Speculation Volume 7

#189 Post by KJones77 » Thu Aug 20, 2020 10:52 pm

dustybooks wrote:
Thu Aug 20, 2020 12:07 pm
I think the broader problem is that Criterion has this image as being a prestigious walled garden rather than just a boutique label that licenses product, which of course gives them an advantage in the marketplace, but I wish people didn't propagate this notion that a film only becomes "important" when they release it.

That said: Kino's generosity with things like the Pioneers boxes and their vastly greater pace of releases definitely makes them look good in this scenario, but of course that requires ignoring the two companies' relative quality control.
This is exactly where I land here. The controversy is based on people buying into their marketing hype about being "important" and "canon" when they're just a private company trying to make a profit. At worst, they're emblematic of a larger societal issue. Yes, they should release more films by black filmmakers and I'm sure they will moving forward, but it doesn't make those films any more important nor are they the only ones guilty of this. You mention Kino's box-set, but aside from that and a few releases here and there, is Kino much better percentage-wise in black to non-black directors? How about Indicator (aside from Black Joy, do they have any other black films included)? Arrow (their blaxploitation releases being the main ones I can think of)? It's not a Criterion only issue, yet because of their marketing themselves as arbiters of canon and people buying into that, they're getting slammed for what is endemic in the industry from film production to eventual home media releases to consumer decisions.
Last edited by KJones77 on Thu Aug 20, 2020 11:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
CSM126
Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 8:22 am
Location: The Room
Contact:

Re: Criterion & Eclipse in the Press

#190 Post by CSM126 » Thu Aug 20, 2020 11:11 pm

I’d be interested to see figures for POC inclusion overall in the collection - not just directors but screenwriters, producers, composers, actors etc. It probably makes this whole issue look overblown, unless you’re a rabid auteurist who thinks directors are the only people who matter on a film shoot.

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: Criterion & Eclipse in the Press

#191 Post by knives » Thu Aug 20, 2020 11:26 pm

Indicator released Watermelon Man.

KJones77
Joined: Wed Aug 23, 2017 11:35 pm

Re: Criterion & Eclipse in the Press

#192 Post by KJones77 » Thu Aug 20, 2020 11:47 pm

knives wrote:
Thu Aug 20, 2020 11:26 pm
Indicator released Watermelon Man.
So there's 1 black director (Black Joy was directed by a white guy, though its cast is all Black IIRC). Not exactly a great percentage there either.

User avatar
swo17
Bloodthirsty Butcher
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
Location: SLC, UT

Re: Criterion & Eclipse in the Press

#193 Post by swo17 » Thu Aug 20, 2020 11:58 pm

And yet they're currently the most vital label running

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: Criterion & Eclipse in the Press

#194 Post by domino harvey » Fri Aug 21, 2020 12:04 am

Indicator is already getting canceled once anyone listens to the James Ellroy commentary for the Lineup

User avatar
hearthesilence
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
Location: NYC

Re: Criterion & Eclipse in the Press

#195 Post by hearthesilence » Fri Aug 21, 2020 12:37 am

Dennis Doros of Milestone commented on the article when someone tagged him on social media with it:

Well... What the writer didn't mention is what I said. Yes, we are very proud of what we've done. But... We LOVE Criterion. We don't have to support 30+ people's salaries so there is a big difference in what we can afford to distribute. Also, they have not poached our best sellers (they have been offered some of them by the producers) so they have kept us in business by their friendship. Knowing the owners and being their friend, I know they will be correcting this as they already have done on the Criterion Channel.

User avatar
hearthesilence
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
Location: NYC

Re: Criterion & Eclipse in the Press

#196 Post by hearthesilence » Fri Aug 21, 2020 12:44 am

soundchaser wrote:
Thu Aug 20, 2020 2:11 pm
Did she miss the entire last few months, when Criterion set up funds specifically to go to black artists and dropped the paywall on dozens of black-artist directed films on their streaming service? Has she not heard that Atlantics, a contemporary film directed by a black woman, is coming to the collection soon? Could Criterion be doing “better” (whatever that means)? Probably. But this axe-grindy, cherry picking bullshit is ridiculous.
It really is obnoxious how they're suddenly going after a company that already started re-evaluating what they've done and was actively turning things around.

User avatar
Luke M
Joined: Thu Jul 12, 2007 9:21 pm

Re: Criterion & Eclipse in the Press

#197 Post by Luke M » Fri Aug 21, 2020 2:27 am

Re-reading the article, I think the most indefensible part is learning Paul Dano is good friends.

User avatar
furbicide
Joined: Thu Dec 29, 2011 4:52 am

Re: Criterion & Eclipse in the Press

#198 Post by furbicide » Fri Aug 21, 2020 3:14 am

willoneill wrote:
Thu Aug 20, 2020 1:11 pm
It's an interesting article, and yes it'd be great to have more quality blu-ray releases from Black directors (among other less-represented areas of film). The article does raise many questions; for instance, the author either doesn't understand or pretends not to understand both the complexity of home video rights, and the fact that the early years of DVD were such a financial boon for the studios that they licensed out a mere fraction of what gets licensed now.

To me though, the biggest question, and I'm not sure where I even stand personally on this, is how much social responsibility a private company is expected to have. Criterion is the most "famous" boutique label (I say this because it's the only one my non-film fan friends can name), but it's not the only one. Why are only their choices criticized? Criterion is not a public entity, or even a publicly-controlled company. It's a private company, and in America, aren't they allowed to run their business as see fit (within the obvious limits of the law and the norms of their industry)? To look at it another way, why do they have the sole responsibility (that is, like it or not, the tenor of that article) for the home video representation of black directors?
I think the questions about its role as a perceived cultural gatekeeper are legitimate, but ultimately the biggest issue here is how Criterion wants to represent itself. Of course it has a right to hardly ever release the work of African-American directors if it doesn't want to; but is "the DVD company that isn't interested in African-American work" really how the company want to see itself, and be seen by others? Because this article shows that that's how they've been seen for a while now, and there's no point complaining about the unfairness of being singled out (nobody gets upset at Kino et al because they don't have the cultural prestige; Criterion are lucky that enough people are invested in the company's work to care).

What I think we have here is a dissociation between a company's goal – to be a prestige label that carries the best of world cinema – and the reality that has emerged from their self-admitted blind spots, which is that their image of "world cinema" has been very white and US/European/Japanese-focused. So an article like this will, hopefully, offer an opportunity for a bit of company soul-searching and a bit more commitment to seeking out work off the beaten track (not only from African-American filmmakers but also those from Africa and other regions of the Global South). Not because the world needs a super-woke, virtue-signalling Criterion – Lord help us all – but because we all (as viewers, critics, filmmakers) benefit from a Criterion that lives up to its own mission statement and performs a more active curatorial role, instead of lazily falling back on [insert overrepresented filmmaker/s of your choice].

User avatar
kcota17
Joined: Fri Feb 28, 2014 9:05 pm

Re: Criterion & Eclipse in the Press

#199 Post by kcota17 » Fri Aug 21, 2020 3:22 am

Well let’s hope this article helps get Killer of Sheep on blu-ray quicker

User avatar
hearthesilence
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
Location: NYC

Re: Criterion & Eclipse in the Press

#200 Post by hearthesilence » Fri Aug 21, 2020 4:16 am

There's a long list of African films that I hope to see release soon (though I'm bracing for the possibility of rights and source material issues with many of my long-available wishes because that's been a frequent problem with many other favorites elsewhere in the world).

Post Reply