Last Updated: Monday, March 22, 2010 | 11:45 AM ET Comments20Recommend69
By Jason Anderson, CBC News
Nastassja Kinski appears in a scene from Wim Wenders's 1984 film Paris, Texas, one of the pictures included in the Criterion Collection DVD series. (Criterion Collection) Late last year, German director Wim Wenders came to the New York office of the Criterion Collection to make sure the colours were right for the DVD label’s new edition of his 1984 film Paris, Texas. As the company’s technical director, Lee Kline, describes it, the scene inside was a slice of movie-geek heaven.
No other video-distribution company commands the same veneration as the Criterion Collection, which produces lavishly packaged editions of many of the best movies ever made.
“Everywhere [Wenders] looked,” says Kline, “there were posters and restoration work going on and people writing about movies and talking about movies and designing art around movies. I asked him, ‘Are you enjoying this?’ He said, ‘Yeah … it’s like a film director’s sleep-away camp.’”
While the Criterion Collection headquarters may not have the same mystique as Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood or the Cinematheque Francaise in Paris, it’s become a hallowed space for cinephiles — even if few ever get to see the inside of it. Then again, these cinephiles are spending less time inside actual theatres, too.
The repertory and art-house film circuit, which once introduced viewers to non-mainstream fare, has struggled for years as non-Avatar-sized movies become increasingly marginalized in the marketplace. If viewers see the great works of world cinema at all, it’s because adventurous video labels are putting them out on DVD (and now Blu-Ray). And no other company commands the same veneration among film buffs as the Criterion Collection, which produces high-quality, lavishly packaged, bonus-stuffed editions of many of the best movies ever made, from the masterpieces of Jean Renoir and Luis Buñuel to well-loved contemporary titles such as Dazed & Confused and Rushmore.
(Criterion Collection) It’s not uncommon for video stores to keep Criterion releases in a separate section, as if they constituted a genre unto themselves. Jonathan Lethem’s latest novel, Chronic City, opens with a scene in the Criterion office — the narrator notes with some disappointment that the “glamour of Criterion’s brand” doesn’t jibe with the cluttered appearance of the place where the magic happens. Matthew Dessem, a Los Angeles-based blogger with a site called the Criterion Contraption, is up to No. 96 in his quest to watch and write about every title in the Collection, which will reach 517 in May.
Criterion started out releasing deluxe laserdisc sets in 1984 and began producing DVD releases in 1998 — it pretty much invented the now-standard practice of adding commentary tracks and other supplemental material to film re-releases. The Criterion Collection won’t divulge sales figures, but Paul Roth, manager of Toronto’s Bay Street Video, says his store alone has sold over 30,000 copies of the 500-odd titles available. Even decade-old titles continue to move units, an amazing feat given that big Hollywood titles are “deadwood” after a month or so in release. (Bay Street Video's all-time Criterion top five is 8 ½, Rushmore, The Seven Samurai, The 400 Blows and Rashomon.)
Susan Arosteguy, a producer who has overseen re-releases of titles such as Slacker and Down by Law in her 15 years with the company, believes the loyalty of Criterion collectors comes down to the label’s willingness to go “the extra mile.”
“I think people appreciate our loyalty to the films themselves,” she says.
At a time when movie distribution methods are radically changing and smaller titles struggle to find an audience, Criterion stands to weather the shift, having developed a faithful clientele who crave the whole package. Watching a Criterion Blu-Ray disc offers far superior picture quality to a downloaded film on your computer screen. And, as Kline says, “If you’re collecting, you want a shelf of movies, not a hard drive full of movies.”
Though very much a boutique operation, Criterion invests considerable resources in archival and restoration work on vintage titles. Creating supplemental materials may require months of work and research. Due to the modest size of the operation, Criterion can only do five or six releases a month. Their products may cost two or three times as much as discs of current Hollywood hits, a fact that intimidates some consumers.
(Criterion Collection) “We have a lot of overhead and getting these things right is not cheap,” says Arosteguy. “We’re happy that the customers are that loyal and will stick with us even in today’s market, when there are so many $5 DVD bins in Walmart.”
Recent additions to the Criterion Collection illustrate the diverse nature of the company’s ongoing project. Along with Wenders’ still-gorgeous Paris, Texas, there is Leo McCarey’s bittersweet dramedy Make Way for Tomorrow (1937), the recent Austrian foreign-film Oscar nominee Revanche and a double-disc edition of Steven Soderbergh’s Che.
“We are all involved in which movies get chosen and how they are scheduled and things like that,” Kline says. “And the way things get scheduled has a lot to do with how much work they need as far as the film transfer and restoration work goes. A film from Japan from the 1930s is going to be a lot more difficult than a film from the ‘80s or ‘90s.”
As for the supplements, Arosteguy says that the first question they ask is whether the filmmaker is alive to oversee the creation of a new edition. “That goes a long way into how you’re shaping the release,” she says. “If it’s somebody who’s no longer with us, then you’re going down a more scholarly bent. It depends on the title. If there’s anybody left from the production, you obviously want to talk to them, or see if there’s any existing interviews with them or the director.”
Filmmakers also tend to go the extra mile when readying their movies for the Collection — possibly because it’s an opportunity to shape how their movies will be preserved for posterity. For his new edition of his 1979 drama Days of Heaven, director Terrence Malick made the controversial decision to mute the film’s vivid colour palette, bringing the look closer to what he’d originally intended.
The supplements are often generated (and even filmed) by Criterion producers like Arosteguy, who hopes the result has some educational value. “I learn so much on every release I work on,” she says. “I don’t want it to be totally dry, stuffy or boring so you think you’re in school. I want it to be interesting and fun and really open people’s eyes.”
She especially enjoys going “off topic” when it comes to outfitting releases with extras. The recent disc for Hunger, Steve McQueen’s much-acclaimed movie about Bobby Sands, includes a TV documentary that aired when the IRA hunger strikes were still breaking news. Criterion discs typically feature booklets with photos, essays and interviews; the 2006 edition of Orson Welles’s Mr. Arkadin (1955) even included a novel by Welles.
Director Terrence Malick chose to mute the colours for the Criterion DVD version of his 1979 film Days of Heaven. (Criterion Collection) The wealth of detail evident in most Criterion releases demonstrates the loyalty the company feels to the movies they select. Yet they’re also dealing with a sometimes persnickety clientele who may have their own ideas about how these films should be packaged — and which ones even belong in the Collection. These things are hotly debated in the forums of the Criterion Collection’s website and The Auteurs, a sister site where many of the films are available for streaming.
“You have to tailor to your tastes and what you think the market will like. Somebody’s always going to complain about something for sure. There’s a whole list on the Criterion forum about the cover art for the packages, and I swear to God that 90 per cent of the time, people hate what we did.”
Paul Roth at Bay Street Video believes Criterion has mostly made the right moves. “Consumers know that if they buy a title today, the company’s not going to turn around in three months and release a special-er special edition,” he says, referring to the aggressive practices of other labels and studios. “I think the brand loyalty for the educated consumer has to do with that also – they know they’re not going to get screwed around, because Criterion hasn’t done that historically.”
In the face of radical change for the movie business, Kline is not alone in his hope that the Criterion Collection will continue to foster some kind of film culture, even if the heated discussions that used to take place outside of theatres are more likely to happen on message boards.
“That was what the movie experience was originally: a communal experience. I hope these people are telling their friends about films and watching these movies together. It’s kind of fun watching a movie alone, but it’s really fun watching it with other people.”
Jason Anderson is a writer based in Toronto.
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