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In this week’s post:
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Criterion’s Cinematic Innovations
A few weeks back, The New York Times published a terrific article on the history of the Criterion Collection. It covers its origins as a LaserDisc label, its importance to the establishment of a modern film canon, and some of the arguments over what exactly is “Criterion worthy.”
What I liked the best were the descriptions of its innovations in the realm of presenting films, including features we now regard as standard or even expected:
[The Criterion release of] “King Kong” … featured the first ever audio-commentary track, inspired, as an afterthought, by the stories that the film scholar Ronald Haver told while supervising the tedious process of transferring the film from celluloid.
In addition to the commentary track, “[t]he company popularized the practice of letterboxing, or presenting a film in its original aspect ratio by adding black bars at the top and bottom of the screen rather than cropping the image to fit a standard television display.”
You know something was truly innovative for its time if it becomes something you take for granted today! I also appreciated Criterion’s human-centered approach to programming its streaming service:
Criterion made a conscious decision… to use the architecture of streaming technology differently from the way others have. Instead of an algorithm, viewers are guided to what they might want to watch through careful human curation: video essays, interviews with filmmakers and programming blocks resembling those once common at independent movie theaters throughout America — some as straightforward as retrospectives celebrating specific filmmakers, others as niche as collections dedicated to obscure genres like “gaslight noir” and “gothic noir”…
“They’re not algorithmic by nature,” Becker said of the major streaming services. “They’re algorithmic by intention.”
I really do believe this mindset will be crucial to the future of filmmaking and cinema: actual innovation and intention, instead of treating tech like a magic wand that can be waved at a film library and a pile of cash appears. How do we keep audiences “sticky” and invested? Criterion is (still) leading the way.
The Genius of Robert Altman
Regular readers know I’m a freak for video essays on cinema, and this week will be no exception! I loved this video from Viewfinder on Robert Altman and his unusual filmmaking methods. Check it below:
Naturally, the essay extensively covers Altman’s use of overlapping dialogue, the method for its recording coming through years of experimentation and the initial critical failure of McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Altman eventually utilized an 8 track recording device, with each actor individually mic’d, resulting in the overlapping, naturalistic style found in his films from the 1970s onwards.
The video also describes “flashing,” the method Altman and cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond used for the aforementioned McCabe and The Long Goodbye; basically “[e]xposing your negative to varying amounts of light after you have shot it and before you have developed it.” A terrifying prospect for any camera person for sure, yet it provides the dreamlike quality of both films in an era before it was so easy to adjust a film’s color. Frankly I would say these films still beat the look of most modern movies.
Also covered are Altman’s shot decisions, as well as his use of slow zooms and unusual camera movements to get to the heart of a scene. It’s 20 minutes long, but well worth your time!
Kernels (3 links worth making popcorn for)
Here’s a round-up of cool and interesting links about Hollywood and technology:
How 8 Google employees invented modern AI. (link)
Watching movies on the Apple Vision Pro: Worth it? (link)
AI-generated art cases a controversy for Late Night with the Devil. (link)