Criterion Collection
Articles and Essays on Criterion Collection
Seventh Seal, The (1957)
“And when the lamb had first opened the Seventh Seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. And the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.” -Revelation 8:1 Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal immediately became a classic staple in art film culture, and couldn’t have been released at […]
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Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)
Au Hasard Balthazar is one of the most excruciating spiritual experiences I have ever witnessed on the screen and it is directed by the only person that could pull off such a remarkable achievement, the great French director Robert Bresson. It’s a tragic film full of pain, anguish and human suffering, a story that is Bresson’s heartbreaking prayer […]
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Red Shoes, The (1948)
There is a disturbing contrast between two different type of stories in Powell and Pressburger’s masterpiece The Red Shoes. One of the stories is a traditional Hollywood romance about a young ballerina who becomes an overnight sensation and falls in love with the composer of the ballet that inspired her. Then there’s another story that seems more […]
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High and Low (1963)
Sadly Akira Kurosawa is mostly known for his Samurai films, and some of his greatest works were outside of the Samurai genre (like John Ford’s films outside of his Westerns.) High and Low is one of them, as it tells a story about a wealthy industrialist whose family is the target of a cold-blooded kidnapper. High and Low […]
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Le Samourai (1967)
“There is no greater solitude than that of a Samurai, unless it is that of the tiger in the jungle…” Bushido (Book of the Samurai) The film opens to an near empty room, along with the sound of a bird chirping in its cage. In the shadows we can barely see a man laying on […]
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