Why Won't They Release Only What I Want?

[Roscoe]

I see now -- I hadn't realized that this was a totally different thread.

[Michael Kerpan]

...to those who live in the right country. Which I don't.

Sorry you don't have access (but I understand VPNs might circumvent region restrictions -- too complex for me, however).

[dwk]

I believe you only need a VPN to sign up, but after that the Channel is not geoblocked.

[tenia]

Also, frankly, I’m not sure how what most of what Criterion has released in the last year isn’t at worst a lateral move both qualitatively and in terms of basic interest. How, for example, is Claudine not at the very least an interesting and enjoyable building on several key moments in Hollywood history.

Same here.
And honestly, be it some Fellinis or the Marlon Riggs movies or Claudine, all of those appeal to my curiosity about movies I haven't seen yet and that seem very interesting.
Criterion, like other labels, have always been a pool of stuff to dig in for me, releasing often more that I have time to watch anyway, so while I used to care (and most certainly have some posts here - about the Criterion release of Fantastic Mr Fox, IIRC), I don't anymore at all. I'm just glad they're releasing stuff "new to me" that 90% of the time I end up liking whatever it is.

I'm probably more bothered when they pick up movies that looks like 10 other labels could have released, but this ? More stuff to discover for me.

[Gregory]

I never felt that it was Criterion's mission to include minorities just because they are minorities.

Please give an example of a film that you know or feel certain Criterion released just because it was created by a minority filmmaker. I don't understand what releases you're referring to in this point about what Criterion includes.

[JakeStewart]

Though it’s poorly worded, I think the point he’s making is that there’s possibly been an increase in films that wouldn’t have been released unless they were by minority filmmakers. That’s not to say that’s the only reason they’ve been released or that they don’t have artistic merit, just that it plays a large part in it. Love & Basketball for example already had a good blu-ray put out by Warner.

It doesn’t really matter to me. As with any label, if they release something I’m not interested in, I just don’t buy it.

[therewillbeblus]

I think using the word "just" in particular gives the impression that all artistic value is negated outside of the demographic. I highly doubt the group in charge of releases is sitting around a room looking at films directed by filmmakers of color or women and begrudgingly selecting one to fulfill a quota; though without attention directed towards films and filmmakers often neglected, the default towards the dominant trends would continue with complacency. Some of us need influence to stray from those patterns- in a left turn example, I wouldn't have even thought to discover Michel Deville or dig deeper into the rare nouvelle vague archives if it weren't for domino bringing public attention to them; nor would I have sought out a film like Rocha's Black God, White Devil if it weren't for people like zedz and knives discussing it here. It's a good thing that Criterion has been given a push (and in all likelihood were pushing themselves to do this already, as cdnchris has mentioned due to the implausibility that none of these releases were planned pre-NYT article). There are consequences to multiple deviations in attention that lead to a lot of good as well as necessary neglect of other films we may have been crossing our fingers on, because they've been in plain sight all this time, but it's not a bad thing- nor is it "just" to fill a quota. My only gripe has been the output of recent films with strong releases on streaming platforms, but still, I 'get' it, especially if they help fund the rest- which is the way it's always been. And honestly I'm (about) ready to forfeit my complaints: I was a lot more worried when Criterion initially partnered with both Netflix and then Amazon, but in giving it pause, their monthly release slates have fit a relatively eclectic formula (i.e. not just a modern Amazon/Netflix party) so I'm admittedly humbled against that fear and have changed my own outlook over the last few days to give Criterion props for managing so many agendas and still fulfilling (my interpretation of) their ethos.

[vsski]

Please give an example of a film that you know or feel certain Criterion released just because it was created by a minority filmmaker.

Sorry Gregory, that was indeed poorly worded on my part, as Jake Stewart already said, I didn't mean to imply that Criterion staff is sitting around the table and is selecting any crap movie just because it is being made by a minority filmmaker.
It's also clear that the response to my comment shows that the vast majority of people on this forum are either happy with what Criterion is releasing or are simply picking up what they like and don't care about the rest - good for you.

I was simply voicing my own personal opinion that their release slate has changed from having focused more on what I call canonical titles to now including a lot more titles unseen in the collection previously and that I would have expected other labels to release rather than Criterion. I thought this was due to the NYT article, but as Chris and TWBB have credibly pointed out, it may have nothing to do with that at all and is due to licensing rights or the fact that they already had decided to go into a different direction altogether.

I don't know how many remember this, but when Criterion was publishing their first DVDs back in 1998 (IIRC), they had an insert in their cases in addition to the booklet that showed the catalog of what they were publishing and there their mission statement was slightly different than it is now. It stated many filmmakers by name, and I remember Truffaut and Bergman being two of these names (unfortunately due to work I currently live far away from where my collection is so can't take a photo of that booklet). And yes, they always had in their mission statement that they would also release contemporary titles and I remember puzzled faces (figuratively speaking) when Michael Bay and even Wes Anderson titles were introduced.

Criterion was also the first, at least that I'm aware of, that numbered its releases, which in addition to the titles was appealing to my collecting nature (although if you are not a collector having every release even some you normally wouldn't buy will only cause shaking heads, I get that).
So for 20 years, I have been what you call a Criterion "Fanboy" buying every release they put out, whether I liked it or not and whether I already owned it from a different label or not. In my defense the vast majority of what they put out where the titles I loved to have in my collection, so it was easy to overlook some of the others for the sake of keeping the collection intact.

But when I look at the recent years - and now when I list the titles and see their release dates, I come to think that Chris and TWBB were absolutely correct - titles like Beast of No Nations, An Unmarried Woman, Moonstruck, Bruce Lee, Girlfriends, Me, You & Everyone We Know, Wildlife, Once Upon In China, Company (Org. Cast Album), Minding the Gap, Smooth Talk, Pariah, Chop Shop, Defending Your Life, Prince of Tides, Love & Basketball, Throw Down, and I could list probably a dozen other titles, are not what I would have expected from Criterion and shows a much higher frequency of titles that sway away from what I used to love about the company. Too bad for me, and that's all. Companies change, life changes, tastes change.

And to be clear, I'm not saying the titles I list here aren't worthy of a release, actually I own quite a few of them in other editions myself, I'm just sad that they come at the expense of the canonical ones that are still not released. And knives is correct, when he asks, whose canon are we talking about, for me the definition is the films of directors who have been the standard staple of film schools the world over, who had lots of books written on them and that I grew up with, and those are basically those from the early days of silent film to the early 80s (its subjective and a bit fuzzy I fully agree).
And yes, Claudine does indeed look like a lovely package, that I'm sure I will be picking up when I'm back in the States, but my point is who is going to publish Mizoguchi, Naruse, Rivette, Chabrol, Visconti, Resnais and many others who have lots of their films in currently subpar releases or many not released at all, if not Criterion.

At the end of the day all I stated was my own personal opinion, of a Criterion Fanboy if you like, bemoaning the fact that I feel a label I have been supporting for 30 years is changing in a direction I don't like, as I don't see anyone else stepping into the void. And I thought this forum, which I like for the many pieces of valuable information and great discussions, and which I have been following and until recently very infrequently been participating in for more than 10 years, would be a good place to voice this opinion, as I can't think that I'm the only one feeling this way about Criterion.
To my surprise it seems I stirred up a lot of response, and it's clear that at least the vocal part of this forum's members don't share my sentiment - nothing wrong with that and good to know. Life goes on

[Michael Kerpan]

Naruse is my second most favorite director -- but how can Criterion afford to release things that the public won't buy. BFI and MOC issued wonderful DVD sets -- that were flops in terms of sales. I suspect Criterion's one mainline Naruse release -- which I suspect set no sales records. Customers don't always buy wonderful films, lovingly presented. Criterion for ages seemed resistant to Rivette -- so I'm glad for even small steps in his direction. I worry that Mizoguchi is slipping out of fashion. Criterion needs to balance abstract cinematic worth -- and keeping afloat financially. I want the latter more than any particular Blu-Ray release.

There are so many wonderful films out there -- and not

[vsski]

With few exceptions I'm not sure any of Criterion's titles are flying off the shelf. Is Man Push Cart really going to sell oodles more than Naruse? At least if Criterion is publishing Naruse there is a higher chance more people will buy it than from any other label I can think of (plus the US market is far bigger than the UK). But if you are correct that these older 'canonical" titles simply don't sell any longer - and you may well be correct - and instead Criterion needs to publish the titles it does in order to survive financially, the state of physical media is far worse than I assumed it to be. I thought it's the old collectors who primarily pick up loving curated discs - goes to show how outdated my thinking really is.

[domino harvey]

As I recall, the MOC Naruse set sold dramatically low numbers— the only reason they’re scarce now is because a whole bunch of the run were destroyed in the UK looting a few years back. Consider any Naruse release from any label a gift

[artfilmfan]

It is hard for me to believe that the other five Naruse films that are in the MoC and BFI sets, and Scattered Clouds, will not be released by Criterion, especially Floating Clouds. I still hope that Criterion will release them someday.

[Tommaso]

Given that the interest in Naruse isn't as strong as it should be, I don't think that it would be a good idea for Criterion to put the same films out again. If any new Naruse release can somewhat recuperate the investment for the company, it will need to be of a title/titles that would also be a must-buy for those that actually already have the MoC and BFI sets. And there are so many Naruse films around that would deserve a first release in the west.

[tenia]

But when I look at the recent years - and now when I list the titles and see their release dates, I come to think that Chris and TWBB were absolutely correct - titles like Beast of No Nations, An Unmarried Woman, Moonstruck, Bruce Lee, Girlfriends, Me, You & Everyone We Know, Wildlife, Once Upon In China, Company (Org. Cast Album), Minding the Gap, Smooth Talk, Pariah, Chop Shop, Defending Your Life, Prince of Tides, Love & Basketball, Throw Down, and I could list probably a dozen other titles, are not what I would have expected from Criterion and shows a much higher frequency of titles that sway away from what I used to love about the company.

I'm sorry but I don't see why we shouldn't have expected high profile movies from 2 of the most renowned HK filmmakers, a sure-hit HK boxset, a DA Pennebaker documentary (someone Criterion already released 3 documentaries way before this kind of discussion), an Albert Brooks movie, a Paul Mazursky one, or a little-seen US indie movie like they released many over the past decades (is Girlfriends any more surprising than, say, George Washington, Slacker, Life During Wartime or Clean Shaven ?).

Not to say I can't be wrong about this, but I often feel there is a recency bias in this kind of look over whether these inclusions really are different from what we got in the past or not. I'm sure some are, but in your list, I think some just aren't good examples of that.

But if you are correct that these older 'canonical" titles simply don't sell any longer - and you may well be correct - and instead Criterion needs to publish the titles it does in order to survive financially, the state of physical media is far worse than I assumed it to be. I thought it's the old collectors who primarily pick up loving curated discs - goes to show how outdated my thinking really is.

I'm quite sure they do. They're likely to sell way more Citizen Kane despite the release being the humpteenth than Ashes and Diamonds, High Sierra, The Damned, Ratcatcher or Devi. But that's not really the question, since Criterion (and other labels) are clearly balancing out low sellers by higher sellers, and this allow them to release stuff that might be profitable on its own. Criterion always aimed at being kind of exhaustive, it makes sense for me that just like they're likely balancing out The Celebration with The Piano, they can balance out Man Push Cart too.

[vsski]

You are correct tenia that some examples are probably not well chosen (and apologies for some weird reason I confused Company with A Chorus Line, so scratch that), and there have been precedents for any one of these types of releases in the past, so none of them in and by itself should be huge surprises.
My surprise is how many of them there have been in the past 2 years and I connected this, maybe incorrectly, to the NYT article. And you may be correct that I have a recency bias, as I have not looked at how many of these types of releases per year we got 15 years ago vs in the last two.

What I’m hearing from you is that Criterion is doing what they have always been doing, a mix of everything - well for some reason it doesn’t feel like that to me any longer.

Either way, even if my memory plays tricks on me, I will be buying far less from Criterion than I used to despite the fact that I tried so hard for so long to keep a complete collection and I wonder if I’m the only one.

[tenia]

I might be wrong too. I just always felt like Criterion have been eclectic and this is just another way of doing so, and many of the titles pointed out don't seem very different from the stuff I discovered thanks to Criterion 10 years ago. But I do agree that it can feel like there is a monthly spot dedicated to movies they probably wouldn't have released at this pace a few years ago.

What I’m hearing from you is that Criterion is doing what they have always been doing, a mix of everything - well for some reason it doesn’t feel like that to me any longer.

I just don't think they have reduced the size and variety of the "mix of everything" they've been releasing, but on the contrary have added stuff from a blind spot they had. Since they haven't increased their pace of releases despite this, I understand it can feel like it's a zero-sum game, but as I wrote above, for me, I don't really care if I'm discovering that good movie instead of this one. And if anything, I'm all for more stuff that haven't had lots of spotlights until then.

[Glowingwabbit]

but my point is who is going to publish Mizoguchi, Naruse, Rivette, Chabrol, Visconti, Resnais and many others who have lots of their films in currently subpar releases or many not released at all, if not Criterion.

There are so many problems with your initial argument and I firmly believe you have a lot of misinformation about films released recently just because they aren't ALL by a director that isn't part of the old vanilla "canon" (which is definitely not new so you have a lot of recency bias too). But I'm gonna set that aside just point out as I want to focus on these directors you keep mentioning (and some you haven't that fit the bill) that you want Criterion to focus on:

Chabrol and Rivette are clearly two filmmakers that the Criterion brass don't care that much about as they've had ample time to release stuff by both and have done 2 each. Thankfully Arrow stepped in for Rivette and delivered a package that's better than anything Criterion would do (that hard case still looks like it was bought yesterday unlike some recent Criterion boxes). And sadly Cohen is also handling a lot of Rivette's work now. It remains to be seen but perhaps Arrow will finally be giving us the Chabrol sets. Anyway, the point is that Criterion made this choice long ago about these two filmmakers and they aren't the only game in town.

Unlike Arrow which gives us director sets (Fassbinder, Rohmer, etc), Criterion prefers to slowly roll them out (perhaps to satisfy folks with recency bias who will forget). They've continued to release Ray (we just got Devi for Christ's sake), Bresson, Fassbinder, Visconti, Ozu, Mizoguchi, etc. It's just at a snails pace. But happened Truffaut and Kurosawa? At this point my hope is that they'll just do Bergman/Fellini style boxes for their work eventually and that's why we don't see them anymore (I know that's wishful thinking but it also makes sense considering they are flagship directors for the company).

I forgot where I was going with this and I need coffee so I'll just say I am bling buying far less Criterions now which has more to do with other labels just putting a lot more into their releases when it comes to special features, actual booklets and packaging.

[tenia]

I don't know about Rivette, but the Chabrols you'd expect Criterion to possibly release are, IIRC, pretty much stuck in right-holdings hell so it remains to be seen if the Criterion brass don't care that much about him or if they do but they can't show it.
As for Truffaut and Kurosawa, I know we're looking at the current release strategy and they indeed aren't really there, but Criterion released respectively 9 and 27 movies from them, and both are, on Criterion.com's website, in the top-of-the-page short list of 20 directors in their Director filter.

[Glowingwabbit]

As for Truffaut and Kurosawa, I know we're looking at the current release strategy and they indeed aren't really there, but Criterion released respectively 9 and 27 movies from them, and both are, on Criterion.com's website, in the top-of-the-page short list of 20 directors in their Director filter.

Oh yeah I know. I was just using them as an example of why we might not being seeing more titles from them recently (not that I'm personally banging the drum for more titles from them). Sorry if that wasn't clear. I just think they are good candidates for Bergman/Fellini size boxes especially since a DVD set was done for Kurosawa at one point for AK 100.

[MichaelB]

But happened Truffaut and Kurosawa? At this point my hope is that they'll just do Bergman/Fellini style boxes for their work eventually and that's why we don't see them anymore (I know that's wishful thinking but it also makes sense considering they are flagship directors for the company).

Kurosawa is also a long-term flagship director for the BFI, which suggests that the absence of much of his output from Blu-ray isn't down to individual labels and is more likely to be an issue at Toho's end.

[swo17]

vsski, what are the canonical titles that are available to be released that Criterion should have been releasing this past year?

[vsski]

There are so many problems with your initial argument and I firmly believe you have a lot of misinformation about films released recently just because they aren't ALL by a director that isn't part of the old vanilla "canon" (which is definitely not new so you have a lot of recency bias too).

For what it's worth, I own the Arrow Rivette and Fassbinder boxes and many more of their old Academy Line, I also own the French Rohmer box. In the past two years I bought more than 300 discs, about 100 from Indicator (mostly thanks to the great supplements that I sometimes like more than the movies themselves - a big thank you to MichaelB who has a hand in this), about 50 each from the BFI, MOC/Eureka and Arrow and about 30 from Second Run and Third Window. And from Criterion I bought exactly zero.

Of course many of these discs were not new releases, but I got tired of waiting for Criterion, in quite a few cases I waited too long hoping that Criterion would publish them and it never happened and Kino and others stepped in with sub-par editions. So I am monitoring closely who is publishing what (at least for English friendly releases) and of course I'm hoping that the UK labels will continue to pick up the slack. However, the discontinuation of the Academy line may not show the same output from Arrow any longer (at least they are publishing interesting Japanese films), Third Window and Second Run have their own focus (which is great, so I hope they stick to it, as they are doing a good job), so the majority will likely have to come from the BFI and MOC. And of course I realize that existing materials and rights issues do play a role as does the potential to recoup their cost, which I believe to be more difficult for the UK labels given the size of the market (and Brexit and Covid with now huge shipping costs and taxes haven't helped to expand, hence Arrow and Indicator going States side directly).

[vsski]

vsski, what are the canonical titles that are available to be released that Criterion should have been releasing this past year?

I'm not up to date with all the right's issues, but I would have hoped by now to see more Truffauts (upgrades and new titles), some Chabrols (not sure they really don't like him), more Resnais, definitely more Kurosawas (but Michael may be correct that Toho is the problem), more Mizoguchis, at least some Naruses (I still refuse to believe that he would sell less than Man Push Cart), more Oshimas, some more Ozus, some of the early Viscontis, although the materials may not be up to snuff, some more Rosselinis, some Francesco Rosis, more Almodovars (surely they still have his licenses), some of the silent Hitchcocks (although they may not have more, I'm not sure), more World Cinema, some of the older Scorseses, some early Wenders, more Rohmers, some silent Hollywood and some more classic Hollywood, although they have published a few nice ones in recent years.

[MichaelB]

The fact that many of the silent Hitchcocks are still MIA a full decade after the BFI produced 2K restorations of all of them (and with newly-commissioned scores) sadly tells its own story. I suspect at least part of the problem is that because they're public domain in the US, they're an even bigger commercial risk than silent films usually are.

[dustybooks]

I can’t speak for the other directors but will just throw in that the only surviving silent Hitchcocks now missing from Blu-ray are The Pleasure Garden and Easy Virtue, the latter of which I understand is in dreadful condition even after its BFI restoration. The Kino box a couple of years ago plus their Blackmail and Criterion’s Lodger release scooped the rest up, at least in the States. However, I believe Criterion has rights to all of the Thriller Sextet and has only released half, so that is a potentially good example of what you’re arguing. But Hitchcock sells pretty reliably from what I hear (silents aside), so they may be spacing it out intentionally… and I have reason to believe that Secret Agent, conspicuously absent from the Channel, is in dire need of a Man Who Knew Too Much-scale elements rescue. Which I hope happens as it’s a brilliant film.