Criterion Discussion and Random Speculation Volume 7

[Altair]

I didn’t think my comment would create this kind of conversation. I thought maybe the answer would’ve been simple, like not enough 4k restorations, but the points being made are right on sorry to say, sadly. We are locked into our own little time capsules and don’t think enough about our changing times. Especially now. As I responded to Matt by calling his comments depressing largely because we see our likes in the rear view mirror of society. Hopefully, it doesn’t disappear into that mirror. I don’t think it will. I certainly believe in cycles.

For me, the greatest decade in world cinema history is the 60s. And Italian cinema had a lot to do with that, along with the new waves, Bergman and the Japanese greats from that era. So, I do think it will circle back as time goes by. I do understand Criterion’s somewhat of a predicament of canonical sensibilities but also having to feed into modern tastes to stay relevant, having chosen the latter at this current point

It would be comforting to think of taste as cyclical, but we've seen that silent cinema - held in extremely high regard in the 1950s and 1960s - has never really returned to such heights, either critically or in terms of viewers. Indeed, the best way to see silent cinema these days is often at specialist film festivals, rather than on disc. There's plenty of canonical literature, for instance, which once it falls off academic syllabi, is read only by a small number of people. Art has to be continously renewed and revived for it to survive. Not all the films we grew up revering will hold on a central place in people's imagination in two decades' time. At least with books, that old infallible technology, it's relatively easy and cheap to re-issue out of print volumes, or in fact to find old copies. Discs are a more constrained format which seem unlikely to last as long, either as a medium or as a technology. Cinema has always been at the mercy of its flickering magic.

[black&huge]

This has been on my mind lately and about out of nowhere as this post but does anyone at all have even the slightest credible knowledge that Beau is Afraid will get a criterion release? it's the only Aster film still without a domestic 4k and it would be the most appropriate of his work to be in the collection.

[MovieBuff647]

This has been on my mind lately and about out of nowhere as this post but does anyone at all have even the slightest credible knowledge that Beau is Afraid will get a criterion release? it's the only Aster film still without a domestic 4k and it would be the most appropriate of his work to be in the collection.

I haven't heard anything but it definitely wouldn't surprise me. They have a great relationship with him and it's the only film of his without any English-subtitled 4K, and Lionsgate handled US physical for that one.

[Finch]

Having just rewatched Synecdoche, New York for the 2008 List Project, a film that I love even more now than when I first saw it, I'm wondering if it might also be rescued from the Sony UHD box by Criterion. I mean, Sony doesn't seem to be interested in giving it a standalone release.

Worst case scenario, you should be able to find it on eBay, denti. People often sell the titles they don't want. I was able to get The Devil's Backbone, His Girl Friday and The Last Picture Show that way. The latter two did get released by Criterion eventually but even the DelToro hasn't made it over yet. For me, the marginal encode improvements weren't worth spending another $40 again, especially since Criterion had worse artwork on the Hawks. I don't know how much longer you're prepared to wait without an announcement from Criterion. On the other hand, Synecdoche New York is going for higher prices than some of the other Sony titles.

Tricky one. Maybe give it a little longer and see if it's in the first quarter announcements and if not, get it then and just hope prices don't go up more?

[Matt]

For me, the greatest decade in world cinema history is the 60s. And Italian cinema had a lot to do with that, along with the new waves, Bergman and the Japanese greats from that era. So, I do think it will circle back as time goes by.

I think a perhaps unfortunate thing that happens is that, as time goes by, acclaim for even the greatest filmmakers coalesces around just one (or two) their films. So Fellini starts to get known as the 8½ guy, Bergman becomes the Persona guy, Renoir becomes the Rules of the Game guy, Ozu is the Tokyo Story guy, David Lean is the Lawrence of Arabia guy.

Even the filmmakers I mentioned above who have risen in estimation are not immune to it. Claire Denis = Beau Travail, Chantal Akerman = Jeanne Dielman, Agnès Varda = Cléo de 5 à 7. As the years go on and the canon changes, I think it's going to be rarer and rarer to have filmmakers who have more than a couple films in the basic canon like Hitchcock, Wilder, and Kubrick. There'll be Lynch, Coppola, Scorsese, and maybe Wong Kar-Wai.

You see this happen all the time in literature, too. Despite their other works, Nabokov is the Lolita guy, Salinger is the Catcher in the Rye guy, George Eliot is the Middlemarch "guy."

Real heads like all of us here know the real depth of many of these filmmakers and also know all about the greats who are not represented at all in canon-defining efforts like the Sight and Sound list: Francesco Rosi, Naruse, Julien Duvivier—the list is endless. And that's okay. That's just the way it's going to be for every art form. But filmmakers (and writers and musicians and artists) are constantly being rediscovered. Maybe not in a precisely cyclical fashion, but look at someone like Chytilová who went from obscurity to Letterboxd darling in the last decade. Thank goodness we now have several video labels in addition to Criterion to help keep good filmmakers in the discussion.

[Lowry_Sam]

Thank goodness we now have several video labels in addition to Criterion to help keep good filmmakers in the discussion.

As well as podcasts and Youtube channels devoted to film. The same is true for music. I can think of so many artists (and songs) from the 80s that I loved but which slowly seem to be all but forgotten now. Younger music fans only seem to be excited about the same songs/artists that happen to get the most airplay on Spotify or whatever music service Trader Joe's uses. A song like Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" can go viral because it's on a soundtrack & sell more than when it came out, but then the whole rest of the album is ignored, much less the rest of her work (excepting "Wuthering Heights" which is viral for other reasons). That being said, coming of age in the late 70s & early 80s, I can't think of any complete albums I paid much attention to from the 60s or earlier (outside Beatles, Stones & Velvet Underground). The "concept" album & more sophisticated production of the 70s really made 60s & earlier albums sound random/unfocused/haphazard. Color, wide screen, 5.1, etc. did the same thing for movies. I knew I was an oddball for preferring b&w films from 50s & 60s (esp. Eastern European, Japanese, Italian & French) to the latest blockbuster. It's easier to see them now because of the independent media market, though it maybe harder to find likeminded people to enjoy them with.

[olmo]

I think a complete indifference to film by TV broadcasters is largely a factor in the ignorance / apathy towards serious cinema from the younger generations. I recall the BBC here in the UK, in the 70s & 80s showcasing curated director seasons - a Rosi season premiered The Mattei Affair & Salvatore Guiliani in the mid 80s, Fellini was barely off BBC Two in the 1970s, whilst in 1980 the same channel broadcast an expansive New Hollywood season; The Great American Picture Show which ran every Sunday evening from August to December and broadcast films by the likes of Altman, Pakula, Schatzberg, Penn, Rafelson & Scorsese.

Channel 4 from its inception championed, co-produced (and funded!) British independent cinema, this enabled established directors such as Stephen Frears, Mike Leigh, Alan Clarke & Bill Forsyth a mainstream audience but also showcased new directors such as Peter Greenaway, Neil Jordan & Richard Eyre. All of this readily available when you switched on the TV in the corner of your living room - I grew up watching all of this stuff. Marvellous.

There isn’t anything comparable now - the nearest being streaming services for a fee and not on the radar of your average 12-20 year old. Reality TV, social media & gaming diverting attention.

It’s hard to fathom just how rich & diverse TV was back then. I was so lucky

[denti alligator]

Having just rewatched Synecdoche, New York for the 2008 List Project, a film that I love even more now than when I first saw it, I'm wondering if it might also be rescued from the Sony UHD box by Criterion. I mean, Sony doesn't seem to be interested in giving it a standalone release.

Worst case scenario, you should be able to find it on eBay, denti. People often sell the titles they don't want. I was able to get The Devil's Backbone, His Girl Friday and The Last Picture Show that way. The latter two did get released by Criterion eventually but even the DelToro hasn't made it over yet. For me, the marginal encode improvements weren't worth spending another $40 again, especially since Criterion had worse artwork on the Hawks. I don't know how much longer you're prepared to wait without an announcement from Criterion. On the other hand, Synecdoche New York is going for higher prices than some of the other Sony titles.

Tricky one. Maybe give it a little longer and see if it's in the first quarter announcements and if not, get it then and just hope prices don't go up more?

Thanks, Finch. Having just rewatched it, I'm patient. But it's nice to hear it's not out of the realm of possibility.

[onedimension]

For me, the greatest decade in world cinema history is the 60s. And Italian cinema had a lot to do with that, along with the new waves, Bergman and the Japanese greats from that era. So, I do think it will circle back as time goes by.

I think a perhaps unfortunate thing that happens is that, as time goes by, acclaim for even the greatest filmmakers coalesces around just one (or two) their films. So Fellini starts to get known as the 8½ guy, Bergman becomes the Persona guy, Renoir becomes the Rules of the Game guy, Ozu is the Tokyo Story guy, David Lean is the Lawrence of Arabia guy.

Even the filmmakers I mentioned above who have risen in estimation are not immune to it. Claire Denis = Beau Travail, Chantal Akerman = Jeanne Dielman, Agnès Varda = Cléo de 5 à 7. As the years go on and the canon changes, I think it's going to be rarer and rarer to have filmmakers who have more than a couple films in the basic canon like Hitchcock, Wilder, and Kubrick. There'll be Lynch, Coppola, Scorsese, and maybe Wong Kar-Wai.

You see this happen all the time in literature, too. Despite their other works, Nabokov is the Lolita guy, Salinger is the Catcher in the Rye guy, George Eliot is the Middlemarch "guy."

Real heads like all of us here know the real depth of many of these filmmakers and also know all about the greats who are not represented at all in canon-defining efforts like the Sight and Sound list: Francesco Rosi, Naruse, Julien Duvivier—the list is endless. And that's okay. That's just the way it's going to be for every art form. But filmmakers (and writers and musicians and artists) are constantly being rediscovered. Maybe not in a precisely cyclical fashion, but look at someone like Chytilová who went from obscurity to Letterboxd darling in the last decade. Thank goodness we now have several video labels in addition to Criterion to help keep good filmmakers in the discussion.

Right, and that narrowing is part of the canonization process both 'politically' (I think complaints about the politics of canon formation are overstated) and in some Platonic fantasy of pure aesthetic discrimination. If Bergman is remembered for 3 films, Fellini for 2, and Antonioni for 1 - say, Wild Strawberries/Persona/Fanny & Alexander, 8 1/2 & La Dolce Vita, and Red Desert, respectively - that might be proportionate to the quality of the work and its ultimate importance.

I still want it all preserved, honored, available in 4K and 8K and 32K and brain-computer-implant-cinema format. But "lesser Dickens" is a thing. Gun to my head I pick Bleak House over Hard Times every time.

[FrauBlucher]

I agree but those special films are doors that the curious will enter if they’re interested enough to want more from said filmmakers. You just hope there are enough folks in generations to come to show such a curiosity.

Altair mentioned silent films being popular again in the 50s and 60s but faded again. I think there is a decent following and curiosity about them today because of technology and the protecting of the original sources or close to original. I am still hopeful. And feel the way onedimension does, except maybe the cinema chip in the brain. The malfunction could be awful

[Lowry_Sam]

Altair mentioned silent films being popular again in the 50s and 60s but faded again. I think there is a decent following and curiosity about them today because of technology and the protecting of the original sources or close to original.

I think silent films have enormous potential because of the fact that their prioritization of the image is imperative to their understanding. It makes them easier to have on a screen in the background without worry about the sound: prime content for tv's in bars, airplanes or live concerts. Because any dialogue is minimal & uses text, they're also more amenable to an international audience. I find them enjoyable to have playing while doing other things & playing my own alternative soundtrack and I don't seem to tire of the images from the popular favourites, regardless of how many times I've seen them (Metropolis, Sunrise, Modern Times).