Criterion Collection: A Bitter Sweet Score

I've always been a library rat. When I was in high school, lacking any interests or activities, I spent my afternoons wandering the three levels of book stacks at the local library. I was acutely aware I should probably be occupying my mind with something, fortunately the contents of the books provided a lot of options.

What finally grabbed and held my attention were movies: books of film history and criticism that I could then cross reference by going down to the Audio Visual department and checking out the films recommended in the books. This was how I discovered the edifying lonely art and practice of film snobbery, something both entertaining and isolating. What could be better?

As DVDs began to crowd in on the VHS collections I noticed the word "Criterion" associated with the titles I was interested in. I slowly realized this was a mark of distinction, one I needed to acquaint myself with.

Now it's fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years later and film snobbery hasn't gotten me very far in life. But then that was never the point. It has kept me consistently uncovering transcendent moments. I still go to the same library. The VHS are all gone. Many of the best ones I bought up as they sold off their collection a few years ago. And now just recently Criterion DVDs have begun showing up in their book sales. And since they're marked as "foreign" and "...who gives a crap about foreign movies." they are sold at 50 cents instead of the usual dollar for DVDs My Criterion Collection has more than doubled in two months of book sales, for less than twenty dollars.

I'm just bragging right now. That's all.

There is part of me that mourns any library that would sell off such assets at any price. No public repository has any business getting rid of Fellini's La Strada, Truffaut's Jules and Jim, or Bergman's Magic Flute, Smiles of a Summer Night, or Seventh Seal (to say nothing of The Battle of Algiers, Vivre Sa Vie, or La Bete Humaine). I don't mourn having acquired them but I am bothered that another young person, wandering the book stacks, if he or she reads about these films and goes looking for them, will not find them in their library.

For now I have a lot of watching to do and my plan is, like a true obsessive, to write impressions, dissections and or reviews and post them here.

Up first, Certified Copy. Coming soon.