Criterion Discussion and Random Speculation Volume 7

[swo17]

Well, he was, 30+ years ago

[DeprongMori]

They aren't "regularly" releasing LvT, and the blackface in Swing Time happened before the zeitgeist's effect banished stuff like 30 Rock and Community episodes that were either directly addressing the issue or had nothing to do with blackface purely as risk management erasure. The only movie including blackface to be released by them since was a satire of it by Spike Lee. Context is important, as is the timeline, and if you can't see the difference between releasing something with a canceled cameo like Manson and a Roman Polanski feature, well, I don't know what to tell you. I think the messaging in this thread is that Criterion is not as guarded around this as they once were, but... this wasn't a "Criterion thing," it was a most-media thing across networks and streaming platforms making safe choices in line with the pulse of the nation

Apologies for the lack of clarity in my sentence — there was some editing on my phone involved — but the word “regularly” was meant to collectively refer to “releases that fly in the face of “Criterion is not releasing things because they are too ‘woke’” assertions. I probably should have added Leni Riefenstahl to that list as she has been severely problematic long before Criterion’s 2017 release of her film Olympiad.

[therewillbeblus]

Well, he was, 30+ years ago

You’re not suggesting that people can rehabilitate or change are you?

[DeprongMori]

Well, he was, 30+ years ago

You’re not suggesting that people can rehabilitate or change are you?

Has he though? I thoroughly believe in rehabilitation and the necessity of allowing for that possibility. (His victim has forgiven him.) I also find a major difference between something like expressing TERFy opinions and committing anal rape of a minor. (And this was apparently only one incident of many.) Such a criminal act has (and should have) more severe consequences — of a criminal nature.

Criterion *should* have major pause about releasing a film like Last Tango in Paris as, according to Maria Schneider, the lead actress was essentially raped on camera and it is even present in the film itself. That’s a different matter than choosing not to release any film by Bertolucci because of what he did on Tango.

[therewillbeblus]

I think swo's point is that to define him as a problem now discounts the possibility of work he's done behind the scenes over 30 years. The verb being active ("is") reduces his worth in the present based on the events of the past, though we shouldn't assume he's rehabilitated and this pivoting doesn't necessitate forgiveness either. I agree with everything in your first paragraph too

[swo17]

It's none of my business frankly, but he's been married to Emmanuelle Seigner since 1989 and to my knowledge has been accused of no improprieties since then

[ryannichols7]

thank you for waiting for this late night edition of the Speculation Roundup! our first to commemorate the 2023 calendar year. once again, a boatload of surprises and many frequently guessed titles remain unreleased..

Lars Von Trier's Europe Trilogy - Europa teased the day prior on social media, Element of Crime stills updated morning of, films on channel - otherwise a total surprise!

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen - first Gilliam title on UHD; complete and total surprise, also only second Sony license for UHD (after Devil in a Blue Dress)

Imitation of Life - left field Universal license; total surprise

This Is Not a Burial, It's a Resurrection - incredibly left field surprise

Bergman Island - ditto; an IFC license

----------------------

DVD to Bluray upgrades:
0080 The Element of Crime
0454 Europa

----------------------

I am still behind on doing the Retroactive Speculation Roundup for 2021-2022, but I will have it for documentation purposes.

excluding the free space title of Europa, not a single person correctly guessed any other title upon unlocking the thread. however, I always like to crown a winner, so...

I wonder if more Gilliam is on the horizon. A 4K of Baron Munchausen or Tideland? Both Zero Theorem and Don Quixote are ridiculously barebones releases

beamish14 is the only person to suggest this! not a single person ever guessed a Europa upgrade or Imitation of Life (even the Sirk version), which I find similarly impressive. in fact, you'd have to go back a ways to see that

Taking off
Rocco and his brothers
Kafka
Hombre
Element of crime upgrade
Moral tales upgrade

black&huge suggested Element of Crime three years ago!

let us all have better luck next month, and not let this be an omen for our speculation skills in 2023. until next month!

[Maltic]

I think swo's point is that to define him as a problem now discounts the possibility of work he's done behind the scenes over 30 years. The verb being active ("is") reduces his worth in the present based on the events of the past, though we shouldn't assume he's rehabilitated and this pivoting doesn't necessitate forgiveness either. I agree with everything in your first paragraph too

He seems to identify with Dreyfus, which would not exactly be asking forgiveness.

[Hogfather]

The menus were done by someone that works with Criterion who assumed they were going to release The House that Jack Built. They were not done in house. It is entirely possible that IFC offered it to Scream Factory first. Or maybe Criterion planned on releasing it, but the decesion makers hated the film when they saw it. We just don't know what the happened.

The way that I read the tweet about it was that Scream Factory had offered IFC a better deal than Criterion.

[knives]

I think swo's point is that to define him as a problem now discounts the possibility of work he's done behind the scenes over 30 years. The verb being active ("is") reduces his worth in the present based on the events of the past, though we shouldn't assume he's rehabilitated and this pivoting doesn't necessitate forgiveness either. I agree with everything in your first paragraph too

He seems to identify with Dreyfus, which would not exactly be asking forgiveness.

He could probably relate to Dreyfus on multiple levels that have nothing to do with the trial over his rape.

[Maltic]

True enough, but the film did give me a vague feeling that he equated his situation - regarding the rape case - and Dreyfus'. Maybe I misread the film, or maybe he was just being cheeky (as he often is). It's been two years since I saw it.

[rrenault]

I could be wrong, but I get the impression Criterion aren't really prioritizing the mid-century legacy foreign titles like Breathless, The 400 Blows, 8 1/2, L'Avventura and so forth. Presumably, they won't bother with those on UHD unless the elements support an almost guaranteed reference disc. In The Mood For Love, being more recent and in color, is probably an easy enough sell to make it worth doing a less than stellar UHD. Saying that, we'd probably get Seven Samurai on UHD if the rights issues with Toho were sorted out. Rashomon and L'Avventura, for what it's worth, have both been blu-ray only'd in France within the past year, despite 4K sources. I'm not sure if the French blu-ray of L'Avventura from Lobster Films uses a different master than the Criterion.

Of the "classic" black and white foreign titles, The Seventh Seal and La Règle du Jeu already have reference UHD releases in Europe.

[M-A]

I could be wrong, but I get the impression Criterion aren't really prioritizing the mid-century legacy foreign titles like Breathless, The 400 Blows, 8 1/2, L'Avventura and so forth. Presumably, they won't bother with those on UHD unless the elements support an almost guaranteed reference disc. In The Mood For Love, being more recent and in color, is probably an easy enough sell to make it worth doing a less than stellar UHD. Saying that, we'd probably get Seven Samurai on UHD if the rights issues with Toho were sorted out. Rashomon and L'Avventura, for what it's worth, have both been blu-ray only'd in France within the past year, despite 4K sources. I'm not sure if the French blu-ray of L'Avventura from Lobster Films uses a different master than the Criterion.

Of the "classic" black and white foreign titles, The Seventh Seal and La Règle du Jeu already have reference UHD releases in Europe.

Rashomon's restoration is actually a 4K scan, 2K restoration. As for L'avventura, it is apparently the new restoration according to a user on the dvdclassik forum. However, Lobster films encoding is usually very poor so I wouldn't be surprised if it was worse than the Criterion disc, like how their stagecoach blu-ray is from a newer restoration, but I think it looks worse than the Criterion disc because of this.

[swo17]

True enough, but the film did give me a vague feeling that he equated his situation - regarding the rape case - and Dreyfus'. Maybe I misread the film, or maybe he was just being cheeky (as he often is). It's been two years since I saw it.

If there are any parallels, I should think they have solely to do with his harsh sentence in the court of public opinion, as opposed to any notion that he should have gotten a free pass for rape

[yoloswegmaster]

Criterion have layed off 20% of their staff.

[swo17]

Yikes

[FrauBlucher]

Layoffs and tee-shirts, ugh. Not good times.

[hearthesilence]

Ugh. Is this the first time they've announced a major layoff like this?

[pzadvance]

“a reorganization intended to prepare the company for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead, which are markedly different from the ones we had built ourselves up to address in the past.”

Sounds ominous…

[Matt]

I don’t really recall them ever making public announcements about personnel at all outside of when William Becker died or when Ashley Clark joined the staff.

[paulm]

Ugh. Is this the first time they've announced a major layoff like this?

The IndieWire article says they had a round of layoffs in 2013.

[domino harvey]

They probably only announced because their let-go staff is probably of the terminally online sort who would break it first if they didn’t get ahead of it.

[yoloswegmaster]

They definitely weren't terminally online since they were let go yesterday and we're just hearing about it through an article today.

[Calvin]

I obviously feel for those who have lost their jobs but it's kind of incredible that Criterion had 80 employees - most other boutique labels I know have single or near-single figures!

[dwk]

I would assume that a large chunk of those 80+ employees was made up of their in-house restoration team.

I did see that the person that was hired last year (I think it was last year) as an Associate Web Editor (who, among other things, was responsible for the announcements) tweeted that she was one of the people let go.