The Criterion Collection logo
'The Criterion Collection' is a privately held
company that distributes authoritative consumer versions of "important classic and contemporary films"
[1] on
DVD. It was established in 1984 as a joint venture between
Janus Films and the
Voyager Company.
Corporate history
Due to the company's private nature, very little publicly accessible information regarding the business or its relationships with other entities is available. Nevertheless, what information can be gathered from media sources reveals that the Criterion Collection shares a close business relationship with
Janus Films and with
Home Vision Entertainment (HVE), which was a publicly traded company in the
United States.
[ History ]
The Criterion Collection was founded in 1984 by
Robert Stein,
Aleen Stein (then Robert's wife), and
Roger Smith. In 1985, the Steins,
William Becker, and
Jonathan B. Turell (son of
Saul J. Turell) founded
The Voyager Company.
[ The Teachings of Bob Stein ] Voyager was a developer of
multimedia CD-ROMs that released dozens of educational
CD-ROMs between 1989 and 2000.
[ Bob Stein: The Radical ] During that time, the Criterion Collection became a division of Voyager. In March of 1994,
Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH purchased a twenty percent share of Voyager for
US$6.7 million. The four founders themselves each retained a twenty percent share.
In the late 1990s, Voyager was broken up. In the winter of 1994, Aleen Stein divorced Robert Stein and left the active management of the company to start another CD-ROM publishing company, Organa LLC, although she retained her share in Voyager.
[ Aleen Stein ] In the winter of 1997,
Holtzbrinck Publishers sold 42 Voyager CD-ROM titles, the Voyager brand name, the Voyager Web site, and associated assets to
Learn Technologies Interactive (LTI) LLC (Robert Stein had himself sold 42 Voyager CD-ROM titles to LTI some time earlier in exchange for his shares in Voyager/Criterion). At this time, the remaining founding partners, Aleen Stein, William Becker and Jonathan Turell retained complete ownership of Criterion, each with 1/3 share of the company; Turell became the CEO and Becker's son,
Peter Becker, became the president (Peter Becker had been the president of Voyager and, before that, the director of its Criterion division). Aleen Stein no longer has a role in the day-to-day operations, but she continues to own one third of the company.
The company softball team is named the "True Foes", punning on the name of French director
François Truffaut.
[ Go True Foes ]
Janus films
Janus Films Inc. was founded by
Bryant Haliday and
Cyrus Harvey Jr. in 1955 and was sold by them in 1966. At some point thereafter, the company was acquired by William Becker and Saul Turell. It is likely, although unverified, that Becker and Turell were the 1966 purchasers of Janus Films.
HVE
Charles Benton founded
Public Media, Inc. (PMI) in 1968. PMI's home video division, HVE, was established in 1986. Charles' daughter,
Adrianne B. Furniss, became PMI's president in 1996, and its CEO in 1999. Adrianne B. Furniss is also the Chief Executive Officer of HVE. Charles Benton is the Chairman of HVE.
HVE, which was also a privately held company, acted as distributor for Criterion's DVD releases as well as providing sales, advertising and marketing services. HVE released its own line of DVDs on its own HVE line, including
The Merchant Ivory Collection,
[ DVD Review ] produced in association with the Criterion Collection and was dedicated to releasing DVDs of films of
Ismail Merchant and
James Ivory, and the Classic Collection, "a joint venture between Home Vision Entertainment and Janus Films." The latter appears to be dedicated to releasing DVDs under the HVE imprint of films for which Janus Films holds DVD rights and are not currently available from the Criterion Collection. Films under the Classic Collection imprint, however, have also been released by the Criterion Collection. In 2005, HVE was acquired by
Image Entertainment. As a result of this transaction, Image Entertainment became the exclusive distributor of the Criterion Collection. DVDs continue to be released under the HVE imprint, but it is unclear how long the practice will continue.
Contributions and influence
Criterion pioneered many innovations in the way movies are presented on video that have become standard today. These include the use of letterboxing, the release of multi-disc sets and special editions, and definitive versions.
Letterboxing
Letterboxing is a practice in which
widescreen movies are presented in their original theatrical
aspect ratios for viewing on the home television screen. Though initially disliked by some consumers, since the letterboxed image would not use the full area of the television, the practice was soon embraced by movie enthusiasts since it allowed the director's original framing to be presented at home for the first time—previous home video releases typically cropped significant portions (25%-50%) of the image to fit the television screens which were common at the time. The 1987 Criterion
laserdisc of
Ridley Scott's ''
Blade Runner'' was a seminal home video release that helped legitimize letterboxing.
[ Open Wide: Why The Sopranos and ER put those black bands across your screen ][ The Playing Field: The Frame in Film and Television ]
Special editions
The company's debut releases were the 1984 laserdiscs of ''
Citizen Kane'' and ''
King Kong''. In both cases, Criterion pioneered the concept of the special edition, in which a movie is presented with numerous bonus materials including
trailers, directors'
audio commentaries, behind-the-scenes
documentaries, alternate endings, deleted scenes, and more. Peter Becker calls this idea, "a film school in a box".
[ Criterion DVD Collection ] This concept was quickly embraced by almost all other home video companies, from the mainstream to small speciality labels. Today, special edition DVDs, even for the most trivial of films, are becoming standard practice.
Criterion occasionally issues the same DVD (e.g. ''
The Red Shoes'') with and without a silver special-edition sticker on the packaging, although there is no difference between discs with and without stickers.
In September of 2006, to tie in with their new design, Criterion re-released three of their earlier titles back onto DVD with enhanced picture and new supplements: ''
Amarcord'', ''
Brazil'', and ''
Seven Samurai''.
Definitive versions
Under license from the copyright holders, Criterion has released definitive, and in some cases unique, video editions of such films as ''
Citizen Kane'', ''
A Hard Day's Night'', ''
It's a Wonderful Life'', ''
Robinson Crusoe on Mars'', '', ''
Jason and the Argonauts'', as well as those noted below. Many of these editions are now out of print, usually where the film's copyrights have changed hands or where the copyright holders have decided to release their own version. As a result, many Criterion titles are now collectors' items.
★ The original Criterion
DVD release of ''
This Is Spinal Tap'' contains supplementary content absent from
MGM's DVD releases (such as the 16 mm 'test' film, and an out of character commentary).
★ The Criterion laserdisc version of ''Blade Runner'' is the original unedited international version which was also released on
VHS by
Nelson Entertainment; this version has not been released on laserdisc, VHS or DVD (after the theatrical release of the director's cut version) due to legal disputes.
★ ''
Midnight Cowboy'' is presented in its intended aspect ratio of 1.66:1 while later releases are all matted to 1.85:1 (causing the titles to be cropped), and includes a commentary
★ Criterion's releases of the first three
James Bond films on laserdisc (''
Dr. No'', ''
From Russia With Love'' and ''
Goldfinger'') included commentaries not present on subsequent laserdisc and DVD releases. In fact, MGM/UA demanded Criterion halt distribution of the discs with the commentaries (many of which were already on store shelves), apparently taking exception with the content. For a very brief period of time, Criterion offered cassette versions of the commentary tracks. However, this was also not acceptable to MGM/UA, thus orders were not filled.
★ ''
Dr. Strangelove'' includes an original draft of the screenplay, and an extensive section of Cold War instructional pamphlets and films (including the full version of ''
Duck and Cover'')
★ ''
The Prince of Tides'' (on laserdisc) was produced and ready to ship when
Barbra Streisand had second thoughts about things she shared on her commentary track and insisted the title not be released. This Criterion version, with additional supplements not included on Columbia/TriStar's current DVD, remains unreleased.
★ ''
The Fisher King'' contains commentary by Terry Gilliam, an extensive deleted scenes section with commentary, trailers, storyboarded segments, and costume tests, while the current DVD release by Sony includes trailers as the only supplement
★ ''
Close Encounters of the Third Kind'' contains scenes from the original version (in film context) which are not represented on the later "collector's edition" video releases (they are available separately on Sony's recent DVD).
★ ''
The Game'' laserdisc version contains a host of supplementary features such as an audio commentary from director
David Fincher, an alternate ending and a psychological test film. However, the DVD release only features the theatrical trailer.
★ The Criterion DVD of
John Woo's ''
Hard Boiled'' featured a multitude of special features that have not been featured anywhere else, including a unique audio commentary by Woo, producer
Terence Chang, filmmaker
Roger Avary and critic
Dave Kehr; an early student film of Woo's; trailers for eleven of his earlier
Hong Kong films; and an essay on Hong Kong crime cinema by David Chute.
Licensing
Some of Criterion's titles (''e.g.'', ''Alfred Hitchcock's'' ''
Rebecca'') are now "out-of-print" and unavailable, and sell at high prices on auction sites. Titles go out of print only when Criterion's license for them expires and is not renewed; this typically happens when the original licensor wishes to release its own version of the title, as happened with ''
The Silence of the Lambs'', ''
RoboCop'', and the
John Woo movies ''
Hard-Boiled'', and ''
The Killer''.
In a few cases, early releases (such as the laserdisc edition of ''
Citizen Kane'', or the DVD editions of ''
Beauty and the Beast'', ''
M'', ''
Seven Samurai'', and ''
The Wages of Fear'') are taken out of print to make way for Criterion's own re-releases, which typically feature improved transfers and more comprehensive supplements.
The comedy ''
Charade'' featuring
Audrey Hepburn and
Cary Grant became
public domain on its release due to the absence of a copyright notice which was required at that time. This means that any home video distributor may release the film without paying royalties. While some budget labels have released lower quality versions, the Criterion Collection produced a digitally-cleaned DVD edition of the film using high-quality source materials, under license from
Universal Pictures, and included extras. They repeated this process for their later
Anamorphic re-release.
Restorations
Originally, Criterion released a wide variety of films on laserdisc such as classics, and artistic films and in addition released mainstream films such as ''
Halloween'', ''
Ghostbusters'' and ''
Bram Stoker's Dracula''. Currently, Criterion usually selects
non-American films, established classics and obscure (albeit critically admired) movies over mainstream Hollywood fare, although it has released the occasional mainstream blockbuster such as ''
Armageddon'' and ''
The Rock''. Criterion is noted for spending a great deal of effort and money tracing the best source materials for classic films, and engaging in thorough video clean-ups--a practice that has influenced other companies, most notably Warner Home Video.
Some Criterion DVDs, such as ''
The Passion of Joan of Arc,'' ''
M'' and ''
Children of Paradise'', contain short restoration demonstrations, which compare unrestored prints with the painstakingly restored new master.
Laserdisc and DVD
Criterion was a laserdisc pioneer, but was a late entrant into the DVD market, not releasing its first titles on the new format until DVD had been on the market for approximately a year. Indeed, Criterion's early DVD releases of widescreen films were presented in letterbox format as was the case with widescreen laserdisc films, rather than being
anamorphically enhanced: Criterion's first anamorphic release was #47, ''
Insomnia'',
[ FAQS ] although there would not be another release of an anamorphically enhanced film in a widescreen ratio until #55: ''
The Unbearable Lightness of Being'').
Nonetheless, in 1998, the company discontinued its line of
laserdisc releases.
While these
laserdiscs are no longer available, bonus materials from them, such as commentary tracks, have appeared on DVD releases issued by other companies. For example,
Martin Scorsese's commentary track for ''
Raging Bull'' appears on the MGM special edition DVD. It is suspected that these commentary releases are the result of business transactions between Criterion and other studios that could potentially allow Criterion to release films on DVD to which it otherwise would not have access.
While the Criterion Company pioneered the production of quality home video releases, in recent years, they have received more competition. Distributors such as
Warner Home Video and
Fox have received considerable acclaim for their recent releases. However, in terms of academic approach, attention to detail and artistic cover art, the Criterion Collection remains unsurpassed.
Pricing
The price range as of 2006 is about US$30 for a one-disc set and US$40 for a two-disc set. The rare discs to break the pricing structure are generally films produced and/or distributed by
Disney's
Buena Vista Motion Picture Group, including ''
The Royal Tenenbaums'', ''
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou'', and ''
Chasing Amy''. In 2003, Criterion departed from their usual pricing structure when they released the short film ''
Night and Fog'' at US$14.95, presumably due to its brief running time.
[ Night and Fog: The Criterion Collection ]
In 2004, Criterion released a DVD holiday gift set exclusively on
Amazon.com, with 282 discs at a cost of about US$5,000.00. It was not a complete set of the Criterion releases at that point, since Criterion no longer had the rights to certain films. It was however, one of the biggest and most expensive DVD products available to consumers.
Since there is significant demand for out-of-print Criterion releases, they are often bootlegged and these bootleg editions are sometimes advertised as "Asian editions".
The Criterion company has urged buyers to "proceed with caution when shopping for out-of-print DVDs," and on its website offers advice on how to spot bootlegs. The company also points out that it has never issued Asian editions. Bootlegs of many out-of-print Criterion editions, particularly the above-mentioned ''
Salò,'' are often seen on Internet auction sites, while legitimate discs can command prices far in excess of their original retail price.
Lists of Criterion releases
★
List of Criterion Laserdisc releases
★
List of Criterion Collection releases
★
List of Eclipse releases
See also
★
Janus Films
★
Eclipse (DVD)
★
Masters of Cinema
★
First Run Features
★
Kino International
References
1. Criterion Mission Statement
External links
★
Official website
★
The Criterion Collection Dungeon – a resource website
★
Listen to Makers of Criterion DVDs at
NPR
★
On Five: The Criterion Collection Blog
★
DVD Audio commentary Research Paper by Jon Waterman
★
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