Five at five: UK Criterion celebrates five years — my five favourite releases
For too long Criterion — first launched in 1984 — was seen as an exclusively Region A label. But in 2016, at long last, they branched out into Region B and specifically the UK.
They announced themselves into the market in April 2016 with Tootsie, Speedy, Grey Gardens, Roman Polanski’s Macbeth, It Happened One Night and Only Angels Have Wings.
And while film fans — including yours truly — still await the arrival of the Criterion Channel (their bespoke streaming service) we have nonetheless been treated to some stellar editions of under-seen films.
In recent months it appears inflation has put paid to the ‘3 for £30’ sale that was once a regular feature of distributors for the standard ‘clamshell’ editions. Instead UK collectors have to be happy with ‘2 for £25’ — still a bargain.
But anyone holding their breath for a digipak sale… shouldn’t. Releases such as Sansho the Bailiff, Do The Right Thing and Monterey Goes Pop! almost never shift from their RRP.
So, for those new collectors, and maybe old ones who haven’t overindulged as I have — what are the Top 5 releases to get your mitts on?
The New World
I come from a place of bias because The New World is one of my favourite films of all time (it’s firmly in my Top 10).
Terence Malick’s masterpiece (I hold it higher than both The Thin Red Line and The Tree of Life), is a miraculous piece of filmmaking.
On the face of it, the 2005 film is simply a re-telling of the first colonisers in America, the founding of Jamestown and Pocahontas (though she never goes by that name).
Colin Farrell plays John Smith, who falls deeply in love with Q’orianka Kilcher’s unnamed teenage native as Jamestown struggles with famine, disease, treachery and war.
Largely a critical and commercial flop upon its release The New World has only grown in stature as the years go by and featured in many end-of-decade lists in 2010.
Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote:
“Terence Malick’s one-of-a-kind film, about the life of Pocahontas and the dawn of American history, contains some of the best filmmaking imaginable — some of it beyond imagining. I have seen it at least five times and have no idea how Malick knew, when he put it all together, that the movie would even make sense. It’s difficult to write a great short poem. It’s difficult to write a great long novel. But to write a great long poem that’s the size of a great long novel — one that makes sense, doesn’t flag and is exponentially better than the short poem or the long novel ever would have been — that’s almost impossible. Malick did it. With images.”
The Criterion edition contains three discs with three different cuts of the film. The theatrical cut (135 minutes), the ‘first’ cut (150 minutes) and the 172-minute extended cut (in a 4k restoration supervised by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki).
Also in the package are interviews with stars Farrell and Kilcher, programs about the making of — and editing of — Malick’s masterpiece and chats with legendary production designer Jack Fisk (who is currently working on Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon).
Dr Strangelove
Not just a marvellous film but a marvellous release.
Single-disc, sure, but if people ask me what Criterion is all about it’s easy to show them the attention to detail afforded to this edition rather than getting into the weeds with aspect ratios, restoration and special features.
Stanley Kubrick’s Cold War satire comes with a ‘Top Secret’ folder, courtesy if Strategic Air Command (to be opened only when go code received).
Inside is a mock Playboy magazine called Strangelove (complete with racy centre spread) which features a 1994 essay from screenwriter Terry Southern on the making of the film.
An essay from David Bromwich titled ‘The Darkest Room’ is stylised as ‘Top Secret’ documents — replete with R stamp — and there is also a tiny Holy Bible and Russian Phrases book to help those brave Americans caught behind Commie lines and fearing for their ‘bodily fluids’.
Supplements include interviews with Kubrick scholars, excerpts from a 1966 audio interview with Kubrick, four short documentaries about the making of the film, interviews with Peter Sellers and George C Scott and an excerpt of a 1980 interview with Sellers from the Today show.
An absolute must for any collection.
The Before Trilogy
Is including three films as one entry cheating? No, because they’re all included in one stellar package.
Celine (Julie Delpy) and Jesse (Ethan Hawke) meet on a train in Europe and spend the night walking around Vienna falling in love but, as with life, things don’t go as planned — and we revisit them nine years later and then nine years again (will there be a fourth film in 2022?)
Richard Linklater’s career-long look at the realities of love over time, from those first flirtations to furious arguments is perhaps the best trilogy of the modern era — certainly the best examination of love.
The trilogy, Before Sunrise, Before Sunset and Before Midnight, serve as an intimate collaboration between director and actors over 18 years.
“Attuned to the sweeping grandeur of time’s passage as well as the evanescence of individual moments, the Before films chart the progress of romantic destiny as it navigates the vicissitudes of ordinary life.”
Special features include discussions between Delpy, Hawke and Linklater, behind-the-scenes footage, audio commentary on Before Midnight, Dream is Destiny, a feature-length 2016 documentary and After Before, a documentary on the making of Before Midnight in Greece.
nb: the older man hosting the holiday in Before Midnight? That’s cinematographer Walter Lassally (Tom Jones, Zorba the Greek) in his only acting role. He died in 2017.)
Rushmore
I thought it best to include one of the standard ‘clamshell’ releases — after all it is so easy to purr over the digipak editions.
And when it comes to ‘clamshell’ the best is probably Rushmore — Wes Anderson’s sophomore effort.
It is befitting Anderson’s visual style that he is such an outspoken fan of the Criterion Collection with all-but-one of his feature films enjoying a bespoke release (Fantastic Mr Fox is not currently available in the UK).
Rushmore’s edition could well have been compiled by ‘hero’ Max Fischer himself, from the handwritten typeface on the back to the pullout map of Rushmore which is ‘the world of Max Fischer’.
The film isn’t bad either.
sex, lies, and videotape
Less is more with the release of Steven Soderbergh’s debut (he was just 26 when he made it).
For those unaware: Alienated housewife Ann (Andie MacDowell) is drawn to soft-spoken outsider Graham (James Spader) but he is hiding a secret passion for filming women as they confess their deepest desires.
Darkly funny while also keenly observed Soderbergh’s film took home the Palme d’Or and is still celebrated as one of his very best (he has seven films in the collection).
The decision to put it out on digipak is inspired with the protective plastic sheath just translucent enough to give the cover image of Andie MacDowell clutching a camera a film-like haze that reflects the subject matter of the film.
The booklet (and disc) is bare black with white writing and features an essay by critic Amy Taubin and excerpts from Soderbergh’s 1990 book on the film (including diary entries).
Special features include audio commentary with Soderbergh from 1998, a new introduction by the director, interviews with him from 1990 and 1992 and a documentary with Peter Gallagher, Andie MacDowell and Laura San Giacomo.
There’s also a 1989 interview with James Spader.
