New Videos! The Criterion Collection

Posted on November 8, 2007 by Janet Clarke

The Library has acquired about 85% of The Criterion Collection of DVDs, and will continue to collect titles as they are produced. The collection includes about 400 movies in DVD format, a little over half of which have already been cataloged and added to the Video Collection on the Library’s Third Floor.

The Criterion Collection is a continuing series of the greatest classic and contemporary films from around the world published in editions that offer the highest technical quality and award-winning, original supplements. Criterion began with a mission to pull the treasures of world cinema out of the film vaults and put them in the hands of collectors. All of the films published under the Criterion banner represent cinema at its finest.

The foundation of the collection is the work of such masters of cinema as Renoir, Godard, Kurosawa, Cocteau, Fellini, Bergman, Tarkovsky, Hitchcock, Fuller, Lean, Kubrick, Lang, Sturges, Dreyer, Eisenstein, Ozu, Sirk, Bunuel, Powell and Pressburger. Each film is presented uncut, in its original aspect ratio, as its maker intended it to be seen. For every disc, Criterion tracks down the best available film elements in the world, uses state-of-the-art telecine equipment and a select few colorists capable of meeting our rigorous standards, and takes time during the film-to-video digital transfer to create the most pristine possible image and sound. It works with directors and cinematographers to assure that the look of releases does justice to their intentions. Supplements enable viewers to appreciate Criterion films in context, through audio commentaries by filmmakers and scholars, restored director’s cuts, deleted scenes, documentaries, shooting scripts, early shorts, and storyboards. [reproduced in part from The Criterion site]

For example, the collection includes such works as:

3 Films by Louis Malle
8-1/2
Alexander Nevsky
Early Spring
Elevator to the Gallows
Harakiri
Hiroshima Mon Amour
Miss Julie
The Man Who Fell to Earth
Pandora’s Box
Peeping Tom
The Scarlett Empress
The Wages of Fear
Winterlight
Jimi Plays Monterey

and a longer list can be found by searching STARS .