Random Top 10: Should-Be Criterions

A couple of days ago, Barnes & Noble announced their regular Criterion 50% Off Sale, sending a legion of cinema nerds into a buying frenzy. I'm pacing myself throughout the sale, buying only a couple at a time so I don't go into massive debt. Today I picked up A Christmas Tale and Chungking Express, expanding my Criterion family from four to six:

My first born, and, not surprisingly, my favorite. This is the first thing I would grab if my house was on fire.

The rest of my children.

Anyways, with this sale going on, everyone is in a Criterion frenzy, so what better time than to start talking suggestions for future releases? I know that Criterion has been hit hard by the recession, forced to release a large amount of "mainstream" foreign arthouse flicks just to get by. But once things start to turn around, and they don't have to worry so much about trying to maintain a proper cashflow, here are some films I really hope they can get their hands on and give the Criterion treatment.

10. David Fincher Music Videos
Criterion is known for releasing unusual "speciality" collections--most notably two collections of avant garde works by Stan Brakhage--so why not music videos, an artform in its own right, this go-around? During his height in the late 80's/early 90's, David Fincher was the indisputable master of the artform. With Madonna's 'Vogue' and 'Express Yourself,' George Michael's 'Freedom' and Paula Abdul's 'Cold Hearted Snake' under his belt, among many other masterpiece I'm sure, this collection would be fascinating to say the least.

09. Saratoga Trunk
I've already said my piece about the film, now if only everyone could see it besides the occasional showing on TCM. This is the sort of divisive film Criterion should be taking a chance on every once in awhile.





08. [Safe]
I don't know if this me being oblivious or what, but I simply can't find a DVD of this to see. And watching Julianne Moore suffer under some harsh auteur's guiding hand is always a pleasure.







07. King Vidor Silents
The most consistently interesting director working at any of the studios during the silent era was, without a doubt, King Vidor. He wasn't exactly an artistic visionary, but no one could craft a smart, entertaining crowd pleaser like he could. My dream collection would contain three of his masterpieces currently unavailable anywhere on DVD: the epic WWI romance The Big Parade, the "experimental" look at the life of one ordinary couple The Crowd and his playful jab at the movie industry of the silent era Show People. All three of these are exceptional, underseen films that would vastly benefit from a Criterion release (as opposed to an eventual release somewhere down the road, if ever, from MGM that will receive absolutely no fanfare).




06. The Green Room
Truffaut already has a massive amount of his filmography available through Criterion, but this title has alluded release in America and it's the one film of his I haven't seen I'm most curious about. The plot--a journalist is so obsessed with his long dead wife he dedicates a room in his house as a shrine to her--sounds so completely atypical from anything Truffaut ever did. A great curiosity indeed.




05. Family Diary
While Criterion makes most of their money off releasing films by BergmanGodardFelliniTruffaut, this also affords them the opportunity to highlight smaller, more idiosyncratic directors. Case in point: Valerio Zurlini, who made this positively fascinating melodrama with Criterion favorite Marcello Mastroianni and Jacques Perrin. The plot isn't exactly earth shattering, but I think it's one of the finest studies of sibling relationships I've ever seen.

04. The Servant
This male version of Persona with even more homoeroticism is sadly out of print on DVD. And the world needs more Dirk Bogarde being über gay and über creepy.

03. Buster Keaton Collection
With Criterion releasing their own collection of Charlie Chaplin's film, just a few years after another fine set was released with a multitude of extras, I think it's fitting that they soon honor the other king of silent comedy with his own collection. A Buster Keaton collection is perhaps even more urgent since the only box set with all his films isn't very good. The prints are scratchy and in obvious need of restoration and there are no extras to speak of. I would love for a whole disc of documentaries about his legacy and interviews with him talking about his work (if they even exist).


02. The Mother and the Whore
According to legend, this post-New Wave film contains Jean-Pierre Léaud's best performance. Enough said, yes?


01. Face to Face
According to legend, this little seen Bergman contains the greatest performance from Liv Ullmann as a psychologist who goes gloriously off the deep end. And considering this is the same woman who brought us Persona, Scenes from a Marriage and Autumn Sonata, this must be one hell of a feat. Depriving us Ullmann devotees of this (supposed) treasure is a crime against humanity. We want Liv and we want her now!

Rants on Scenes from a Marriage

The idea of reviewing an Ingmar Bergman film, especially considering my last post involved a memoir from a girl who at the time of publication couldn't even drive a car, seems a little daunting to say the least. But considering I spent five hours watching the TV version of his Scenes from a Marriage, I figured I owed it to myself to write up a couple thoughts about it.

In the simplest terms possible, Scenes from a Marriage follows the disintegration of the marriage between Marianne (Swedish acting goddess Liv Ullmann, in one of her most famous performances) and Johan (Erland Josephson). For years, they have pretended that their marriage has been a happy one. In reality, however, they've simply swept their problems under the rug, as the title of the second episode implies, and subconsciously avoided discussing their real feelings toward each other. Marianne, in particular, has deluded herself so much that when her husband tells her that he's leaving her for another woman, she is caught completely off-guard. Apart from each other, they begin a journey of self-discovery which leads to drastically different results. Marianne realizes that she has a problem standing up for herself and putting others' feelings ahead of her own. Johan, on the other hand, realizes how utterly miserable he is without Marianne and admits that he made a mistake leaving her. After their separation and even through subsequent marriages, the two of them continue to analyze what went wrong in their relationship.

The plot doesn't sound too different from a typical American divorce drama circa 1982 but Bergman's execution completely sets apart. As per usual, the visuals from famed Sven Nykvist are emotionally cold and distant, appropriately highlighting the relationship between Marianne and Johan. What is particularly unusual about the camerawork, however, is its remarkable simplicity. Bergman wasn't particularly famous for a moving camera, but he had an eye for crafting haunting images using lights and shadows. I still find myself frightened by that image of Liv Ullmann in Cries and Whispers where she stares straight into the camera while a shadow covers half of her face. With Scenes from a Marriage, the camera is often non-existent, peering at the Marianne and Johan like an uncomfortable third-party. This often gives the film the feeling that it's more of a rough cut of a film than a fully realized one. The camera often lingers on the same shot of Marianne and Johan, deep in conversation about some aspect of their marriage, for far too long. When you expect the film to make a cut and move on, the camera is still trying to capture something else. The art direction is also rather uncomfortable, eerily similar to the sets in Godard's La Chinoise (a surprising comparison since Bergman thought Godard was a "fucking bore"). This makes sense because, like that Godard film, Scenes from a Marriage is not necessarily interested in making a statement visually. The lack of distracting camerawork and art direction is on purpose so we can focus on what is being said by the characters. This is a film about words and faces and reactions and, holy hell, do we get a lot of that. At times, Scenes from a Marriage comes across as too harsh and too personal, to the point where you have to tune out to keep your sanity. But a lot of what is said is powerful stuff and apparently needed to be brought out in the open as, according to Bergman, the divorce rate skyrocketed after this debuted on TV. This film touched a lot of people, which is both incredibly hard to do and surprising considering Bergman's cerebral filmmaking. If anything, Scenes from a Marriage showed just how complicated and twisted the relationship between formerly married couples can be. Unexpectedly, this film validated the complex relationship between Dorothy and Stan on The Golden Girls; finally I understood why even after all the hurt they had gone through with each other, they never could completely break free. B

By the way, I feel like I should mention Liv Ullmann's performance here. As you may be aware, she was notoriously declared ineligible at the 1974 Oscars since the film had aired on TV beforehand which prompted this newspaper ad from all of Hollywood's then-reigning females thespians to have her included for consideration. Pretty ballsy, huh? And, judging by her performance, those ladies were on to something. While I didn't love her as much as I did in my personal favorite performance of hers, Autumn Sonata, she's damned excellent. She has the uncanniest ability to portray five emotions at once using only her eyes and slight shifts in her face. And she does this all in the most unshowiest way possible. If she was in her heyday now, there is no way she would ever be nominated for an Oscar, let alone two in a five year span. I've never seen anything like it. She is a one-of-a-kind talent and I'm dying to see more of her work.