Ryan’s Criterion Link Collection: Wednesday, December 3rd 2014

Collecting the various Criterion-related links from around the web.

FIRST THINGS FIRST

Go read Khoi Vinh’s excellent interview with Sarah Habibi and Eric Skillman, about Criterion Designs

Now, back to that question of tactility. As streaming becomes more prevalent and people buy fewer and fewer movies as physical objects, how does that change your way of thinking about your work?

Skillman: Yes, so far the impact of digital has been mostly after-the-fact, at least for us in the Art Department. Between the much faster turn-around times and the high volume of stuff that we’ve been making available digitally (i.e. virtually the entire collection on Hulu), the most efficient solution we’ve found has been to reformat existing print designs. So that becomes primarily a workload problem rather than an aesthetic problem. I’m sure as streaming becomes more primary, we’ll need to rethink our approach somewhat, but for now we still use the print edition as our starting point and ripple out from there.

Habibi: We definitely have a new audience of Criterion viewers who are encountering us for the first time digitally, streaming through our Hulu channel, or iTunes, or Amazon. But so far it hasn’t greatly affected how the art department is approaching the films or our work. (Besides branding implementation, many web sites use the print design that we have already done.) Generally speaking, I don’t think that Criterion will want to give up having that physical engagement with our audience. The look and the feel of our packaging has always been one of the ways that we communicate our values and our commitment to quality. We enjoy making beautiful objects like this book.

NEWS

Wim Wenders’ The Salt Of The Earth has made the Oscar’s Documentary shortlist

“The Salt of the Earth,” concentrates on the celebrated Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado, and features footage of him looking at some of his best-known images and discussing them with Wim Wenders, who directed the film with Mr. Salgado’s son Juliano.

The folks investigating the remains of Richard III are fairly certain that they’ve found him.

Richard III was the last king of England to die in battle. His remains were discovered in 2012 under a parking lot by archaeologists from the University of Leicester. Early last year, scientists used a DNA analysis to link a Canadian family to the remains, offering compelling evidence that it remains belonged to the king. But the new analysis by an international research team led by Turi King considered a deeper pool of evidence.

REVIEWS

Over on Blu-ray.com, Dr. Svet has published his review of the upcoming Criterion Collection Blu-ray of Todd Haynes’ Safe

I suppose the best way to describe this remarkable film is to say that it is a strikingly accurate time capsule. It sees America on the verge of a massive transformation which would eventually change the way people communicate with each other and, more importantly, feel about each other. It is a very scary film as well, because all of its hidden prophetic observations have become part of our reality. Safe has been recently restored in 4K and looks magnificent on Blu-ray.

For the AV Club, Mike D’Angelo reviews Les Blank: Always For Pleasure

Active from the early 1970s right up until his death from cancer in April 2013, Blank seemed to view life as one never-ending party, to which he was always eager to invite an audience. Les Blank: Always For Pleasure, Criterion’s new three-disc collection, derives its title from one of Blank’s own movies, but those three words also serve as an accurate description of the man’s celebratory ethos.

And at Ioncinema, Jordan Smith has a delightful review of the Les Blank set.

This release couldn’t have a more fitting title. Les Blank: Always For Pleasure is simultaneously sumptuous and gratifying in the same way that stories told by reminiscing grandparents garner nostalgia for a time and place you never knew, yet you feel the heart and soul of this culture now gone still surging on with a strangely natural exuberance. Blank’s ability to capture the sheer joys of life through honest, intimate situations, while capturing a wide view of one’s cultural heritage is absolutely unparalleled. No release this year bears such great historical importance and still possesses the ability to inspire cinematic elation.

Over at Twitchfilm, Dave Canfield takes a look at Hearts And Minds

Hearts and Minds relevance in today’s world, the urgency with which it can continue to speak to us, is palpable. By taking his camera out into the heartland as well as the battlefield, from small town parade to military hospital and ravaged countryside, Davis not only lifts the veil off nationalism but shows the racism and “othering” that has always been appealed to by men in power as they strive to work out their own power mongering agendas using their citizens as canon fodder

INTERESTING

Fandor has re-published a 2007 interview with Les Blank

Jonathan Marlow: I guess that there is no better place to start than the beginning. What was the influence of Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal on your student film, Running Around Like a Chicken with its Head Cut Off?

Les Blank: Bergman’s Seventh Seal was the film that finally ignited my desire to be a filmmaker. Before that, I liked films but I’d never imagined there was a possibility that I would go into filmmaking. When I saw his film and experienced what I experienced emotionally, I figured that this was it. I had to head in this direction. I didn’t know what steps to take but I would work that out later. The scene where the knight taps the figure on the shoulder, he turns around and it turns out that it’s a corpse… that made a big impression on me. That’s what I was getting at when I have a similar situation in my film.

While being interviewed at the Film Society Of Lincoln Center about her new film, Miss Julie, Liv Ullmann had a bit to say about Ingmar Bergman

Inevitably, the conversation turned to her work with Bergman. She described Scenes From A Marriage as their one collaboration “in which I was not neurotic at all.” She recalled that Bergman gave her a screenplay he had written but wanted her to direct about “what he saw as the greatest sin he had done, which was to be unfaithful to someone. I happen to know that story happened long before me — and I don’t think that was the greatest sin he ever did.” She tried to convince him, she said, to show some forgiveness of the character, and when he refused to change the text, she signaled it visually. “And actually, he didn’t forgive me for that. It took a year, but then he said that was OK.”

If you picked up the recent Blu-ray box set of the 60s Batman TV show, Warner Bros owes you some corrected discs.

NOW AVAILABLE TO STREAM

On Fandor

On Netflix