Criterion Discussion and Random Speculation Volume 7

[jegharfangetmigenmyg]

You're right, and if counting Hollywood in, you can add Kubrick and to a lesser extent Hitchcock to that list. Maybe I just have to accept that times are changing, and that some of these great directors will be almost forgotten, many of them because their films don't fit into contemporary agendas or political climate which I think is a shame. That's not what cinema is to me. It's also a bit of paradox since we've never had better direct access to all of cinema history than now. But maybe that's indeed the issue: There's too much to choose from for new cinephiles, so only the Top 5 or 10 directors that you mentioned most of end up rising above the mold? Couldn't dream up a more yawntastic box set than a Kurosawa one.

Also, they managed to do the Fellini set. But, of course, he's much more popular than Antonioni, but I'd argue that the younger generation would find his gender politics and portrayal just as problematic - or archaic - as Hitchcock's (my prediction is that the latter's reputation will slowly wane exactly because of this). I couldn't see Criterion release a Fellini set today, 10 years later.

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

Where is this proof of what younger audiences want or desire? In the last few years, I attended several sold-out shows of Fellini, Hitchcock, and Antonioni films where the median age is people in their mid-twenties. What people post on Reddit (never an indicator knowledge or curiousity) rarely translates to a recognizable reality I experience.

[RPG]

The arthouse cinema I frequent is in the Main Line outside Philly, a more affluent area that generally draws an older audience. In my personal experience, Hitchcock is one of the directors who consistently brings out a younger crowd.

[dwk]

Regarding a Lynch box set, for what it is worth, one of the Lynch fan accounts claims they've heard it isn't a Criterion set. Doesn't explain why Lynch's daughter posted the info under a post by Criterion.

[PfR73]

I don't see how that could make any sense. The rights to Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Twin Peaks: FWWM, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, & Inland Empire are with Criterion/Janus. Why would they license these films out to someone else to release?

[Mr.DarjeelingLimited]

The arthouse cinema I frequent is in the Main Line outside Philly, a more affluent area that generally draws an older audience. In my personal experience, Hitchcock is one of the directors who consistently brings out a younger crowd.

That’s a great theater.

[James Stock]

I don't see how that could make any sense. The rights to Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Twin Peaks: FWWM, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, & Inland Empire are with Criterion/Janus. Why would they license these films out to someone else to release?

I took the comment as meaning it won't be a movie set but who knows with how vague all the information is and that wouldn't make sense either.

[dwk]

I don't see how that could make any sense. The rights to Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Twin Peaks: FWWM, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, & Inland Empire are with Criterion/Janus. Why would they license these films out to someone else to release?

Could be a StudioCanal set for Europe or something other than a set of his films. There is not really enough info to know for sure.

[Mr.DarjeelingLimited]

I’m 23, the majority of people I know who collect Criterion are around my age. There is definitely love for the arthouse guys in there. As for haul posts, the majority of them are made by people just getting into collecting via their favorite films or people who have the older arthouse films and are just grabbing new releases.

My shelf is filled with Ray, Berman, Antonioni, Truffaut, Fellini, Varda, Kurosawa, Demy, Cocteau, Kobayashi, Akerman, and Ozu. There is huge love and admiration for the old school arthouse among my generation.

[knives]

They just changed things which makes assessing votes hard, but on Letterboxd Antonioni’s most popular film, Blow-Up, has 2.7k fans versus Fellini with 8 1/2 at 13k fans. That certainly suggests a popularity gap.

[Lowry_Sam]

I think Criterion's agenda has always been to provide as broad a coverage of the world's cinema as they can and have always used better selling high profile releases to pay the bills while also releasing lower profile titles that deserve a wider audience. I don't think anyone was under the impression that the Olympic set would do anywhere near the sales of the Godzilla set when they planned them and yet both came into fruition. The Bergman set unexpectedly sold out its first pressing quickly because it wasn't region-coded & ended up getting many orders from Sweden (an advantage that a UHD set would share, though I don't think Italians would be as likely to buy up a complete Fellini, Antonioni, Rossellini or Visconti).

There are certain directors in Criterion's catalog that would lend themselves to putting together a comprehensive retrospective that go beyond just the market for such a box: the size of the director's catalog, the number of titles already in the collection, the (# of) licensors to work with, whether the director is still alive or has a foundation for his legacy, the availabilty of the materials needed...

I (and many others) don't begrudge a set I don't want (ie. Anderson or Lynch) if it's going to help fund releases I do want (Pasolini, Fellini, Bergman). I think some of my disappointment though is that we haven't seen any of the smaller sets (outside of a few recent Eclipse upgrades) that we used to see from Criterion (trilogies or multiple disc sets of a non-living director on a particular theme) in a while. Radiance seems to be stepping in to fill the gap, but there's a limit to what they can do to fill that gap. At the same time, Criterion has stepped up its output of individual titles, so I guess it's a trade-off.

Both Lynch & Antonioni have a sizable representation in the collection already, so it wouldn't be a stretch to see a box from either, though the work needed for each would be different. I don't see a Lynch set or an Antonioni set as either/or, but would welcome both even though I'd only buy the Antonioni.