What Do You Think About the Criterion Collection?

T

TaylorTRoom

1,000+ Posts
Here's the deal. I like movies, but am not crazy about them. I can appreciate really well done and textured movies, but my approach is more like Pauline Kael's (she said, "Movies are so rarely great art, that if you can't appreciate great trash there's almost no point in going.").

I have a nice home theater setup- a 52" Toshiba DLP, a good upconverting DVD player, ceiling light dimmers, and a surround sound system. If a dvd has a good image capture, my system can reflect it, and I can appreciate it.

The Criterion Collection is a company that releases dvds of movies that are off the mainstream- artsy and obscure. They release "The 400 Blows" and the "Grand Illusion"; they also release John Woo movies from Hong Kong (which I'm interested in getting). They sell their dvds for about twice as much as regular dvds, claiming they have better images and sound, along with added commentaries. I almost never am interested enough in a movie to buy the commentary.

I'm interested in the product (have already ordered their "Brazil" release), but wonder about the value. Does anybody with other Criterion dvds (own or rent) feel that they are worth the price premium? Which ones did you really think were great? Which ones disappoint?

Thanks.
 
They are very good for older movies. They take the digitization process seriously. Very little care has been taken in creating most DVDs of old movies (60s, 70s) from film.

I can't imagine a movie like Traffic or Tennenbaums being different from the regular DVD.
 
My experience is pretty limited but the Rushmore criterion is absolutely worth it for all the extras.

Can't say much for picture or sound quality.
 
yeah I was about to say that they don't have to be out of the main stream, Michael Bay's The Rock has a Criterion Collection DVD
 
I have quite a few Criterion releases (probably 25-30). Some of the above examples aside, an awful lot of their catalogue is "mono" sound, so they don't typically give your surround system a workout. They do take great care in the video restoration process. They also pay a lot of attention to extras such as commentary and short critical analysis features.

I think they are worth the price premium simply because in many cases they are far and away the best condition the film in question has been in many many years. A good example is Seven Samurai; Criterion's version was of such a high quality compared to the previous release that is was like watching a different film.

Recommendations are tough not knowing what kind of things you like, but I think they did a really good job with "Fanny and Alexander" and "Scenes from a Marriage" (both Ingmar Bergman), "Monterey Pop" (D.A. Pennebaker), "The Battle of Algiers" (Pontecorvo), "Army of Shadows" (Melville), and "Night on Earth" (Jarmusch).

Also check out their Eclipse brand; box sets of different directors without the extras, going for around $10 per disc.
 
Thanks! I am interested in the Kurosawa movies, and will probably check out one of the Melvilles ("Samorai" or "Bob Le Flambeur") to see what I think. I usually don't "get" the French movies, though, and the subtleties of Bergman can be lost on me. I also want to check out the early Hitchcocks.

For years I heard of the John Woo movies "The Killer" and "Hard-boiled", and was excited to see that they were issued by Criterion. Then I discovered that those are out of print, won't be re-issued, and cost over $200 on the secondary market (evidently all of the ones listed on ebay for reasonable prices are bootlegs). Are there any other DVD versions that are well-done?
 
Criterion's Le Samourai looks very good. One of my all time favoritie films. I also have Seven Samurai and its also very well made. I wish they'd make Bottle Rocket.

Edit: After doing some googling, I found that a Criterion version of Bottle Rocket is now in the works. Nice.
 
Criterion just released "The Lady Vanishes" by Hitchcock and it is good. Both of the Bergman examples I gave are very straightforward films; no knights playing chess with Death or anything.
 
I am a big fan of their work. If they have a version of a movie, then it's pretty much a given that's the copy to own. The video quality and work done on restoration is amazing. They focus on trying to make the movie look as much like it did on initial release as possible Their Seven Samurai is really impressive.
 
If you are willing to wait, some of the above mentioned movies will probably be re-released in Blu-Ray by Criterion. Criterion has been mastering the movies in high-definition for a long time. Here is an interesting thread on High-Def Digest.
http:forums.highdefdigest.com/showthread.php?t=45729

By the way, Criterion is great. As much as I love Blu-Ray some of the catalogue titles seemed to be rushed to the market (I realize that these are older movies, but Criterion's work on Seven Samurai, for example, should give movie studios an idea on how to properly clean up the picture quality).

To answer the question about the availability of "Hard-Boiled" or "The Killer", one version of the PS3 game Stranglehod has a "high definition" version of "Hard-Boiled." The picture quality is pretty disappointing.

If you got the dough ($650), the Criterion box set "50 Years of Janus Films" is pretty mind-blowing for the quality of the films contained within. These are just the films, no commentaries.
BOX SET TITLES

ALEXANDER NEVSKY (1938), Sergei Eisenstein • ASHES AND DIAMONDS (1958), Andrzej Wajda • L'AVVENTURA (1960), Michelangelo Antonioni • BALLAD OF A SOLDIER (1959), Grigori Chukhrai • BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1946), Jean Cocteau • BLACK ORPHEUS (1959), Marcel Camus • BRIEF ENCOUNTER (1945), David Lean • THE FALLEN IDOL (1948), Carol Reed • FIRES ON THE PLAIN (1959), Kon Ichikawa • FISTS IN THE POCKET (1965), Marco Bellocchio • FLOATING WEEDS (1959), Yasujiro Ozu • FORBIDDEN GAMES (1952), Réné Clément • THE 400 BLOWS (1959), François Truffaut • GRAND ILLUSION (1937), Jean Renoir • HÄXAN (1922), Benjamin Christensen • IKIRU (1952), Akira Kurosawa • THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST (1952), Anthony Asquith • IVAN THE TERRIBLE, PART II (1958), Sergei Eisenstein • LE JOUR SE LÈVE (1939), Marcel Carné • JULES AND JIM (1962), François Truffaut • KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS (1949), Robert Hamer • KNIFE IN THE WATER (1962), Roman Polanski • THE LADY VANISHES (1938), Alfred Hitchcock • THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP (1943), Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger • LOVES OF A BLONDE (1965), Milos Forman • M (1931), Fritz Lang • M. HULOT'S HOLIDAY (1953), Jacques Tati • MISS JULIE (1951), Alf Sjöberg • PANDORA'S BOX (1929), G. W. Pabst • PÉPÉ LE MOKO (1937), Julien Duvivier • IL POSTO (1961), Ermanno Olmi • PYGMALION (1938), Anthony Asquith and Leslie Howard • RASHOMON (1950), Akira Kurosawa • RICHARD III (1955), Laurence Olivier • THE RULES OF THE GAME (1939), Jean Renoir • SEVEN SAMURAI (1954), Akira Kurosawa • THE SEVENTH SEAL (1957), Ingmar Bergman • THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE (1973), Víctor Erice • LA STRADA (1954), Federico Fellini • SUMMERTIME (1955), David Lean • THE THIRD MAN (1949), Carol Reed • THE 39 STEPS (1935), Alfred Hitchcock • UGETSU (1953), Kenji Mizoguchi • UMBERTO D. (1952), Vittorio De Sica • THE VIRGIN SPRING (1960), Ingmar Bergman • VIRIDIANA (1961), Luis Buñuel • THE WAGES OF FEAR (1953), Henri-Georges Clouzot • THE WHITE SHEIK (1952), Federico Fellini • WILD STRAWBERRIES (1957), Ingmar Bergman • THREE DOCUMENTARIES: THE GREAT CHASE (1962), THE LOVE GODDESSES (1965), and PAUL ROBESON: TRIBUTE TO AN ARTIST (1979), Saul J. Turell
 
I couldn't get the link to open, but it's a worthwhile topic. It seems to me that Criterion has several things going for it:

1. Releases movies that would otherwise be overlooked due to lack of mass appeal (in most cases). Note- I have seen Flesh For Frankenstein (at Cinema Texas); there may be a good reason it is overlooked.
2. Provides quality image captures.
3. In some cases allows the director to re-edit to flesh out his intent and vision.
4. Provides added content in the way of commentary and info on the creative process.

Personally, I'm happy to pay for 1 - 3, but don't really care about #4. Some people really do car about #4, and Criterion obviously does. Given the choice, I would rather pay $30 for a high definition (Blu-Ray now) version of the director's cut of Spartacus, than $40 (or even $30) for the Criterion version with all of the added content (assuming they are the same director's cut). If no Blu-Ray version is available, I would buy the Criterion version, but look for it on sale. Ideally, Criterion will start issuing movies in Blu-Ray.

I imagine that the advent of HDTV is a godsend for Criterion, because the masses (that would be me) now can easily have fairly functional home theaters.

Oh, I think that "Seven Samurai" and one of the Melvilles will be my next purchase. What do you say, Hornfans- "Le Samorai", "Bob Le Flambeur", or ""Le Rouge Cercle"- which one should I get? What would make the best first impression?
 
I have only seen "Army of Shadows", but it is definitely one to own. I know you're not into the commentaries, but the commentaries on the Criterion are great. In the case of "Army of Shadows", it gives an American such as myself a sense of the environment in France when the movie was released. The movie bombed because Melville was viewed by the French as being a DeGaulle sympathizer. Even though I have Gov/His. degrees from UT, I was not that familiar with post WWII internal politics in France (was more aware of the crumbling French colonies in Africa and Asia). Can one enjoy the movie without knowing about the domestic environment of France? Sure, but Criterion does a great job of finding commentors who can add context to what you are watching. I am not as big of a fan of director commentaries. Often times, the directors get bogged down in the minutia of the production of the movies.
 
If you are a big fan of the movie then these collections are the way to go, especially in terms of the extras. I have the Wes Anderson ones and they are great.
 
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