The Admirable Criterion
Criterion Designs
by The Criterion Collection
ISBN: 978-1604659368
Criterion
Designs must easily qualify as being somewhere amongst the top ten most
beautiful film books I own. This hefty tome was brought out in 2014 to
celebrate 30 years of the Criterion Collection, one of the most
influential home video labels of all time. Criterion are an American
company who are partnered with Janus Films and who were also once
partnered with HVC (which explains why you can now get such gems as the
complete Zatoichi Collection and the six original Lone Wolf And Cub
movies in high quality Blu Ray restorations).
It’s
a label who were almost legendary in the days of the LaserDisc, with
titles such as their beautiful Kurosawa transfers and their unbelievably
cool ‘alternate cut’ of Blade Runner (my review here), which is one of the titles that
first made me prick up my ears in the early 1990s, even though I would
never have the required funds to buy a laserdisc player. I
later acquired a VHS NTSC version of this cut which was extremely hard to get to
watch at the time on a UK PAL player although, thankfully, this version
was finally made available properly by Warner Brothers years later, first on DVD and then Blu Ray as one of the
five cuts of the movie on the most recent boxed editions of Blade
Runner… it’s still my favourite version of the film. Of course, once
they started releasing selected titles on US DVD, that’s when I started
buying the Criterion titles. Sure, they were extremely pricey compared
to any other video company’s releases (sometimes of the same title) but
in the case of this particular label, you really were paying for the
quality of transfers from freshly struck prints and, most importantly,
presented in the correct aspect ratio. More often than not, they’d have
some quite unique extras on their discs too… gaining in number as the
company thrived.
Over
the years their logo has changed quite dramatically (although I’ve now
got used to the newish, minimal design) but one of the quirks that
they are noted for and which has stayed with them is the spine number on
their DVDs, starting with the release of spine number 2, Seven Samurai,
if memory serves (I believe spine number 1, Grande Illusion, was a
delayed release?). These spine numbers are something which avid
collectors of the range are happy to pursue almost as much as the films
themselves although... I don’t have a 'collector' mentality myself so I
wouldn’t know.
The
covers of their discs have evolved over the years too and, even in the
days when they were purely using photos or posters from the titles in
question, they were still mini triumphs of design/layout and their
brand image put them head and shoulders above the majority of home video
labels out there. They continue to release somewhere between 4 and 6 titles per
month and many of their older covers, great as they were, have had
facelifts as they are reissued with their new logo or re-released in a Blu
Ray edition. Some, of course, have gone out of print or the rights to
the movies have lapsed back to the original companies... which gave rise
to a thriving trade in bootleg/faked Criterion editions, believe it or
not. They’re that desirable on the collectors market.
Criterion
Designs is a truly gorgeous hard back book which collects some of the
artwork of the range together and, in many cases, gives you some insight
into their creation. I was surprised that there's no dust jacket for the
book but that's because the inside cover spread, full of tiny drawings,
is visible through the front of the book via a large cutout of the
current Criterion logo. The book then goes on to showcase a number of
great pieces commissioned by a load of brilliant designers and artists,
reproducing their work on high quality paper which shows them in their
absolute best light (even more so than the original covers themselves, in
most cases) and also backs these up, a lot of the time, with some of the
booklet interior artwork and boxed set design.
As
I went through the book I noticed there were a lot of creatives of whom I’d not heard but also a number who I definitely knew,
including Eric Chase Anderson whose illustrations for the Criterion
editions of his big brother’s films, Wes Anderson, are an absolute joy. I
also came across some artists who I primarily knew from comic books of
the 1980s such as Jamie Hernandez of Love and Rockets fame or Kent
Williams, whose beautifully painted mini series Blood - A Tale made such
an impression on me when I was at college.
In
addition to beautiful reproductions of some of their favourite covers, many of
which are modern icons among home video enthusiasts, there are number
of examples of the genesis of these creations, including evolutionary
sketches and alternate versions. There are also many fold out pages
which act like double gatefold sections where some of the wider artworks
for the range are shown in their full glory… for instance some stunning
work for Sam Fuller’s movies Shock Corridor and The Naked Kiss and the
wraparound artwork for the dual DVD/Blu Ray set of Zatoichi movies. As a
final extra cherry on the top of an already well iced, cinematic cake,
the final section is a gallery of pages of thumbnails of the entire
history of their covers on laserdisc, DVD and Blu Ray up until the
publication of this book, which is a nice resource to have as you are
able to see a load of their releases in situ with each other at a
glance.
At the end of
the day, much of the stuff reproduced or showcased in Criterion Designs for the first
time in a collection of this nature (including unused artwork) is truly breathtaking and, though it was
an expensive purchase (which is almost a Criterion brand trait but,
luckily, I was given some Christmas vouchers a few years ago which saw me in
good stead), it was truly a brilliant buy and, while it’s taken me this
long to get around to reading it, I’m just so pleased I invested the
money for this volume and hope that, someday, they see fit to issue a sequel tome. Truly a gorgeous addition for the book shelf of any lover
of cinema or fine art and a solid recommendation from me. Check this one
out while you still can.
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