No surprise that a man who began his studies in philosophy before enrolling in the impressively named “Institute of Cinematographic Investigations and Experiences” would turn out to be a storyteller whose technical skill is matched by his intelligent and thoughtful irony. Even less shocking is that a man who volunteered to serve in World War II to save his Republican father from being executed would also have a critical opinion of his government.
Exploring the films of the great Mike Leigh in The Criterion Channel's director spotlight.
The Criterion Channel has put together small collections of films by noted filmmakers past and present, choosing three each to represent the essence of their work.
Ranking the films of French master Jean Renoir.
This week's edition of The Criterion Shelf ranks the films in Criterion Channel's collection of films from Cannes 1968, which was cancelled mid-run.
Ranking the documentaries of pioneering French filmmaker Louis Malle.
Bil Antoniou takes a look at four films made by the celebrated auteur before his reign of fifties melodramas.
Her immense career still goes strong as she has not lost the desire to take chances with artistically adventurous directors, and keeping up with her filmography is no easy task (I’ve been trying for years) but the Criterion Channel’s collection, despite not including her one Oscar-nominated performance, covers her most notable work and is the best summation yet of a classic star.
The week's edition of The Criterion Shelf surveys the Criterion Channel's collection of films by women directors.
Superstition tells us that bad things come in threes, but so do some good things, like when the Criterion Channel wants to highlight the essential works necessary to get to know a filmmaker by posting a collection of three films.
Rita Hayworth was the very picture of fantasy, beautiful, sexually confident and charming; as with most fantasy images on screen, the image was just that.
A tall, broud-shouldered lug with a swindler’s smile, equal parts intellectual and corporeal, Burt Lancaster was a legend by the time of his death in 1994, and Bil Antoniou ranks fifteen of his films featured on the Criterion Channel.
Criterion Channel has assembled seventeen films that deal with films within films, here they are in my preferential order.
born in Denmark and always in possession of a haunted Nordic beauty and that delicate accent when she worked in French, she brought a lack of specificity to his investigations of post-war Paris and its soulless commercialism with her roles in films Alphaville (her most iconic) and Made In USA; but in films like the Rivette film in this collection, she also displayed enormous depths of warmth and sensitivity, while showing off a canny intelligence in movies like Fassbinder’s Chinese Roulette.
