Last week in my On DVD Today column I mentioned how the folks at Criterion were clearing off their shelves and offering every item in stock at a 40% discount while supplies lasted. I would assume a majority of the folks that read the article ignored that link since it didn’t have any new information on Batman, Iron Man or any other kind of man from a comic book. However, I am hoping this headline brought in the folks that may be interested in such a deal.
Of course, the hour is late and the majority of the titles are now gone as the deal ends Monday, November 24, at midnight EST. When I first got the email from Criterion I shuffled over to check out a few titles I had been longing to get and had never wanted to spend the money. These included Seven Samurai, The Seventh Seal and 8 1/2. I didn’t buy any of them though since the price continued to exceed what I wanted to spend. After all, Criterion isn’t exactly discount DVD buying. However, I couldn’t help but find myself returning to the store a couple of times throughout the week and again today as the sale dries up on November 24 and prices go back to normal as Criterion sets to debut their first Blu-ray discs on December 16 with Bottle Rocket, Chungking Express, The Third Man and The Man Who Fell to Earth.
As I looked around I noticed the “Add to Cart” buttons were no longer listed on any of the titles I wanted to buy. Was it a lost cause? Would I never have the balls to click the button and pick up the titles I wanted to own but didn’t want to spend all that money on? In all honesty I don’t think I ever would have bought those titles, but even though the individual selections were gone I found a way to pick them all up and I expect them, all of them, to arrive within 5-7 business days.
How did I do it? Well, hold on, it’s gonna cost you some money should you decide to follow in my footsteps, but I think it is worth it.
The box art you see at the lead of this article is Criterion’s “Essential Art House: 50 Years of Janus Films”. It includes 50 films spanning 57 years of work coming out of Janus Films and includes one volume packaging all 50 films in individual sleeves and a second volume which is a 240-page book with introductory essays and essays about each of the films. The set was first available back in October 2006 with an MSRP of $850.00. Amazon has the title available right now for $764.99, which works out to about $15.29 per movie. The set was traditionally sold at Criterion.com for $650, but with the current sale you can get it for $510 with free shipping and handling as well as an included $50 gift certificate for a future purchase at Criterion.com. So, boiling it down you end up spending just over $10 per title and also have $50 to spend on future Criterion titles. Is it expensive? You’re damn skippy it’s expensive. Is it a deal for everyone? Not at all. Do I recommend you give it considerable thought? Most definitely.
I wrestled with the idea of spending so much money on one set of DVDs and outside of all the titles included in the set (listed at the end of this article) I weighed a few other factors into my decision making.
First, I considered the fact that with Criterion moving into a new era where they are now tackling Blu-ray and contending in a much more hotly contested marketplace I began to wonder if they would be able to survive the economic downturn. Criterion’s discs have always been over-priced if you ask me. They have asked for too much money, but managed to stay afloat as they carved out a specific niche in the landscape of film. Without them so many classics would have gone by the wayside and with so many classics already restored and brought into the collection I can’t help but wonder how much stamina the company has left. Sure, they can always come up with new films to release, but will they all be as desired as Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, Jean Renoir’s Grand Illusion, Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal or Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2? Criterion rarely adds recent films to its list outside of Michael Bay’s Armageddon (if you can believe that), Traffic and almost all of Wes Anderson’s catalog, but a move to bring the modern films is damn near impossible since Criterion’s selling point has always been its restoration and presentation coupled with a vast amount of special features. Considering new films are being released on high-definition Blu-ray with more special features than you can imagine it’s hard to think of what Criterion could do to top them and then again, why would studios even want them to?
So, from that perspective I began thinking just how much longer would I be able to buy all of these titles? Hell, I have wanted the Criterion version of Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs since I saw the list of special features after watching the film for the first time about a year ago, but it is no longer in print at Criterion and while you can buy a used version at Amazon from $15-$222 I don’t think I would ever trust buying a used copy and I am not about to shell out $42.73 for one DVD, which is the lowest price for a new version from the Amazon Marketplace. The way I saw it, the “Essential Art House: 50 Years of Janus Films” collection was the easiest and cheapest way for me to get my hands on the films I had wanted for a long time and ensure they were always in my collection.
Of course, there is one set back and that is that none of the features offered on the individual releases of each title are available. This set includes the films themselves, subtitles and the accompanying hardcover book and considering it is 240 pages thick I will assume about 4 pages are dedicated to each film. Is that enough for you? It was for me.
In doing my Cinematic Revival features I often used the commentaries on each disc for additional information for my features, considering Criterion is quite good with their commentaries outside of some of the more boring and mundane historian commentaries I found on most of Bergman’s titles. However, when it came down to it, if I wanted to find out more about each title I hit the Net and searched for what people were saying about each title. Each film in this collection has had enough written on it for you to dig into each one as much as you consider necessary. My assumption is that if you love film, you won’t be against the idea of doing a little reading about each one. I know I plan on using this set to inspire my Cinematic Revival features for the majority of 2009.
Just so you know, Criterion isn’t paying me to write this, it’s just one of those moments where I felt if you were like me and had eyed all of the titles you will see below for some time and were waiting for the right time to buy them then there is no time like the present. As I said, this sale ends at midnight EST on Monday, November 24. The clock is ticking…
If you want to pick up a copy for yourself click here and add it to your cart. If you are anything like me it will be hard to push that little orange button and fill out the payment details, but I wholeheartedly believe that once this 14-pound box set arrives on your doorstep you will fully realize the sheer size of the door you just opened into the world of film.
Here is the list of films included in the set in order of the year they were released. I covered three of these titles in the past in my Cinematic Revival and have linked to my articles where appropriate.
- HÄXAN (1922) Benjamin Christensen
- PANDORA’S BOX (1929) G.W. Pabst
- M (1931) Fritz Lang
- THE 39 STEPS (1935) Alfred Hitchcock
- GRAND ILLUSION (1937) Jean Renoir
- PÉPÉ LE MOKO (1937) Jean Duvivier
- ALEXANDER NEVSKY (1938) Sergei Eisenstein
- THE LADY VANISHES (1938) Alfred Hitchcock
- PYGMALION (1938) Anthony Asquith
- LE JOUR SE LÈVE (1939) Marcel Carné
- THE RULES OF THE GAME (1939) Jean Renoir
- THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP (1943) Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
- BRIEF ENCOUNTER (1945) David Lean
- BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1946) Jean Cocteau
- THE FALLEN IDOL (1948) Carol Reed
- KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS (1949) Robert Hamer
- THE THIRD MAN (1949) Carol Reed
- RASHOMON (1950) Akira Kurosawa
- MISS JULIE (1951) Alf Sjöberg
- FORBIDDEN GAMES (1952) René Clement
- IKIRU (1952) Akira Kurosawa
- THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST (1952) Anthony Asquith
- UMBERTO D. (1952) Vittorio De Sica
- THE WHITE SHEIK (1952) Federico Fellini
- M. HULOT’S HOLIDAY (1953) Jacques Tati
- UGETSU (1953) Kenji Mizoguchi
- THE WAGES OF FEAR (1953) Henri-Georges Clouzot
- SEVEN SAMURAI (1954) Akira Kurosawa
- LA STRADA (1954) Federico Fellini
- RICHARD III (1955) Laurence Olivier
- SUMMERTIME (1955) David Lean
- THE SEVENTH SEAL (1957) Ingmar Bergman
- WILD STRAWBERRIES (1957) Ingmar Bergman
- ASHES AND DIAMONDS (1958) Andrzej Wajda
- IVAN THE TERRIBLE, PART II (1958) Sergei Eisenstein
- BALLAD OF A SOLDIER (1959) Grigori Chukhrai
- BLACK ORPHEUS (1959) Marcel Camus
- FIRES ON THE PLAIN (1959) Kon Ichikawa
- FLOATING WEEDS (1959) Yasujiro Ozu
- THE 400 BLOWS (1959) François Truffaut
- L’AVVENTURA (1960) Michelangelo Antonioni
- THE VIRGIN SPRING (1960) Ingmar Bergman
- IL POSTO (1961) Ermanno Olmi
- VIRIDIANA (1961) Luis Buñuel
- JULES AND JIM (1962) François Truffaut
- KNIFE IN THE WATER (1962) Roman Polanski
- THE GREAT CHASE (1962) Saul J. Turell
- FISTS IN THE POCKET (1965) Marco Bellocchio
- LOVES OF A BLONDE (1965) Milos Forman
- THE LOVE GODDESSES (1965) Saul J. Turell
- THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE (1973) VÃctor Erice
- PAUL ROBESON: TRIBUTE TO AN ARTIST (1979) Saul J. Turell
