From the same “Roberts Peaked in Serpico, Pelham” comment thread, also posted this morning…
HE reply: To have spoken the plain, unfettered truth about the many, many missteps of the Criterion Collection…my God, who else has had the stones and sand to do this with?
Over the years HE has righteously exposed (a) all of Criterion’s beyond-horrible Egyptian mosquito grainstorm Blurays (Stagecoach, The Awful Truth, The Third Man, His Girl Friday), (b) those grotesque, teal-tinted vandalism Blurays (Bull Durham, Teorema, Midnight Cowboy), (c) Criterion needlessly cleavering A Hard Day’s Night and Some Like It Hot from the pedestal of their healthy, breathing-room aspect ratios of 1.66:1 into the harsh a.r. realm of 1.75 and 1.85, respectively, (d) the mine-shafty, overly inky monochrome renderings of Only Angels Have Wings and Rebecca…the list goes on and on.
Have the Criterion bros fixed any of these errors, the teal vandalizing in particular? Not to my knowledge.
On top of which their social signature is odious. The Criterion crew is pretty much exactly like your snooty cool kidz in high school — chilly, elitist, obstinate snobs. They’re brilliant at sucking up to edge-factor filmmakers and going “coo, coo…we want to slurp your dirty bath water!”
On the other hand their highest quality Bluray/4K visual and compositional signature is second to none (I’ve acknowledged this from the get-go) and fully respected the world over.
And my praise for their game-changing On The Waterfront visual essay about the criminality of cleavering a film that was protected by dp Boris Kaufman at 1.37:1 and yet cropped down to 1.85…for this I will bow down to Criterion on bended knee for the rest of my life.
And I adore, adore, ADORE their wonderfully grain-free Sweet Smell of Success Bluray, not to mention their transportational Blurays of The Hit, Sunday Bloody Sunday and especially Barry Lyndon.
Recounting the saga once again, Criterion rejected Leon Vitali’s claim that Kubrick’s 1975 classic should have been cropped to 1.78:1 -— they corrected this error by cropping Lyndon at 1.66. And yet — and yet! — they failed to give credit to Glenn Kenny for un-earthing a letter (provided by Jay Cocks) that Kubrick sent to exhibitors specifying that the film should ideally be projected at 1.66…and they ignored my weeks-long, one-man-band campaign on behalf of that 1.66 aspect ratio…I was truly the coal fire that kept that engine going.
Nonetheless all hail Criterion for generally being on the side of the angels, not just on this front but many others. They just need to fix the grain, the teal and the aspect ratios on the above titles.
