Criterion Collection
Articles and Essays on Criterion Collection
Brief Encounter (1945)
Its starts with the horn from the sound of an incoming train. In the dining refreshment room of the railway station there are two people sitting together without words but there facial expressions say it all. Both are happily married, in their mid-thirties and each have two children. They are waiting for the sad and final […]
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Earrings of Madame de, The (1953)
“Madame de…was a very elegant, distinguished and celebrated woman, seemingly destined to a delightful, uncomplicated existence. Probably nothing would have happened had it not been for those jewels…” In the opening sequence you see one of the most memorable tracking shots of the film. The camera swoops over the shoulder of a woman whose face you yet […]
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Sansho the Bailiff (1954)
“An era when mankind had not yet awakened as human beings, it has been retold by the people for centuries and it is treasured today as one of the world’s great folk tales full of grief…” Sansho the Bailiff is the greatest of all Japanese films, and is one of the most tragic and emotionally shattering […]
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Fanny and Alexander (1982)
In the opening sequence of Ingmar Bergman’s epic swan song Fanny and Alexander we witness a ten-year old boy gazing into a puppet theater, lifting up layers of a skillfully painted backdrop. The boy soon sets off on an expedition through his grandmother’s matriarch which is an exuberant and lively world full of colorful antique furniture, beautiful sculptures, flowers, clocks […]
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