I’ve been really into Les Blank’s body of work recently. The documentarian was best known for his representations of the American South, specifically as it relates to the tradition of folk music that exists there. The first film of his I watched was “The Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins,” a profile of the titular Texas bluesman I discovered as I was doing research for a final project in my “Folklore of the South” course last semester.
The Criterion Collection, a film distribution and restoration company, has a Blu-Ray box set of Blank’s films titled “Les Blank: Always for Pleasure,” after his 1978 documentary about New Orleans culture. The reason I bring this up is because I think it’s a perfect illustration of the importance of the Criterion Collection: it’s a vast treasure tome of knowledge. Knowledge of film history, yes, but also knowledge of the way our world operates and the social realities of it. Because, ultimately, film is but a representation of the world, and it can teach us — documentary or not — so much about it.
I’m certainly not the first, nor will I be the last, person to turn toward Criterion for primary source research for my class projects. But that’s not its primary importance nor its primary purpose, that’s just a happy accident. What is their primary purpose, however, as stated on its website, is to release “important classic and contemporary films from around the world.” This is purposely vague, and all the better for it: what constitutes an important film?
The company has published a wide array of movies, from Bong Joon-Ho’s “Parasite” to Wim Wenders’ “Paris, Texas”; Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai” to Stanley Kubrick’s “Barry Lyndon.” Through the collection’s 1,260 numbered releases, it covers over 50 countries and many more languages. That is to say, it’s an invaluable resource for documenting and conserving the cinematic history of cultures across the globe. Necessarily, it’s also an invaluable resource for expanding the moviegoer’s horizons.
The importance of watching foreign films and not limiting yourself to only the output of your native country and language shouldn’t have to be defended. Art, by its very nature, cannot be isolationist: all art influences and leaves an impression on all other art. Film is inherently cosmopolitan, and to truly engage with it you must be willing to, as Bong Joon-Ho put it in 2020, “overcome the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles.”
And, really, there’s just so many great films out there that are totally contrary to the production line of the big American studios. You just have to have an open mind and look for them.
Several months ago, I subscribed to the Criterion Channel, the company’s streaming service, and it’s proven to be one of the best purchases I’ve made. Over winter break, I watched 28 films, according to my Letterboxd diary, and of those I watched 16 through the Criterion Channel.
And not all of them were black-and-white, foreign films from the mid-20th century — I had a wonderful time watching “Jackass: The Movie” with my roommate, for example. I also watched “Heathers” for the first time. It sounds silly, but these too are important films in their own right: the latter is a smart deconstruction of the teen movie, a genre that had a very specific moment in the 1980s; the former is a surprisingly insightful look at an America that hadn’t quite fallen total victim to the surveillance state, when the internet was still young and dumb, blind optimism still possible.
“We aim to reflect the breadth of filmed expression,” the company’s website states. “An auteur classic, a Hollywood blockbuster, and an independent B horror film all have to be taken on their own terms.”
As I said before, film is only a representation of the world, and there’s an endless number of ways to represent it. I think “Bicycle Thieves,” a 1948 Italian neorealist film that chronicles the destitution of post-fascist Rome, is one of the greatest films of all time; on the other hand, I don’t think I’d be willing to say it’s better, per se, than “Videodrome,” David Cronenberg’s 1983 body horror that’s about as perfectly transgressive as one would want. The two films fill different niches: wildly different in their approaches but still signifying some important message or other.
And, for what it’s worth, it’s easier than ever to access films like these — the Criterion Channel costs $10.99 a month, compared to the ever-increasing price of Netflix that’s currently, for the ad-free tier, at $17.99 a month.
In our entertainment economy, built on dispersing as much dopamine as possible in as short a time as possible, it’s exceedingly easy to fall in line and consume easy bits of media. Don’t get me wrong: I would never wish to shame those who choose to watch films for their escapism, not necessarily for their cultural or artistic value. There’s nothing wrong with a good popcorn movie, is what I’m trying to say. But it is endlessly important to challenge yourself, to broaden your worldview and explore things you might otherwise not know a whole lot about.
Film is the modern expression of a tremendous history of human knowledge and creativity. Simply put, we’re lucky beyond measure that a company like Criterion exists to affirm that fact.
