The Barnes and Noble Criterion Sale Day One

I have spoken at length here about the Criterion Collection and all the wonderful titles within it to the point where you might wonder if this blog was sponsored. It isn’t, but if you’re reading Criterion, feel free to send me a copy of everything, or a shirt, that would be nice. Anyways usually twice a year Criterion offers a 24 flash sale on their site. The last one occurred right around the time this current covid-19 shutdown began. These sales are fun, but all too often I find that they announce this right after I pay rent, credit cards, or have work done on my car. I take advantage when I can and usually wind up with a couple must have titles for my trouble.

As you might expect these flash sales are random and unpredictable, hence the name. More regular are the July and November sales that Barnes and Noble has where all Criterion titles are 50% off. This year was a little different. Imagine going to bed Christmas Eve waiting to wake up and get your presents then you wake up and then your parents tell you Christmas day has been moved to January 3. Well this essentially is what happened this year with the B&N sale. Most years I simply scroll through my Instagram and I see a post about it, then say “oh yay, guess I better hit up a store”. Due to the fact that I’m sitting at home all day and looking for any damn reason to leave the house, I was chomping at the bit like a kid on December 24 to get to it. After looking through reddit threads and other forums July 10 was the date that was floated around. By contrast in 2019 the “July” sale started June 27^th, so this was a near two week delay. I can chalk it up to pandemic related things. I certainly have no concept of how much work goes into having a nation-wide sale at hundreds or thousands of locations, so I’ll stay out of it. First world problems indeed.

Well last night when I went to bed I checked the old B&N website and saw that it was in fact on. It’s always preferred however to go to a physical store. Added bonus, it just so happens that my favorite bakery in Chicago is about two blocks from a Barnes and Noble, so twist my arm. Among the rumors I heard going into this sale was that perhaps the additional 10% discount for members would not be eligible for this sale. This made my capitalist-justice/anti-bureaucracy brain spiral out of control. I can say from personal experience that when I had my own membership I ONLY had it so I could get that extra 10% during these sales. After going and checking out I discovered that was a false alarm, I was angry over nothing, the added 10% still worked. Not to get too math heavy but the 10% is taken after the 50%, so it isn’t a full 60% discount. Long story short a $40 MSRP disc turns out to be $18 instead of $16. Sorry to make your brain hurt. I also saw on the website that for whatever reason a few titles were only showing an 8% discount, but the sale said all titles, and that is the case. I imagine the website has fixed what ails ‘em by now hopefully.

So after all of this, I got up bright and early to hit up my store, buy some stuff, and I wanted to re-cap here what I got and why I got it. For the record, the most films I bought during a month long sale was 22 different titles, so on day one I got more than half-way there.

First up, the sets:

Yojimbo/Sanjuro 2-pack - This has been on my “one of these days” lists for years upon years. I had a copy of both films on VHS, and I believe Yojimbo might have been one of the many DVDs that was stolen from me back in 2001, but I never wound up with it before. My hesitation for this set was the fact that Yojimbo was vastly superior and it seemed like I was dropping and extra $15 for a competent but forgettable sequel. Well this sale I wanted to get my Kurosawa collection up a bit so I decided long ago it’s time. This set has audio commentaries, documentaries, and all the special features I could want, time to re-visit I guess.

 
3 Films by Roberto Rossellini Starring Ingrid Bergman - Journey to Italy which I’ve always known as Voyage to Italy has long been one of my favorite films and usually is on the precipice of cracking my top 100 movies. Europe ‘51 is another damn great movie and I have no strong feelings about Stromboli either way. This is another set that I’ve always been planning on picking up but the price tag was a little off-putting. I’m also curious why the fourth Rossellini/Bergman film Fear wasn’t included here. I guess Joan at the Stake isn’t either so I’ll cease my petty complaints that a boxed set isn’t more extravagant. This does feature the alternate audio versions of all three, which in the case of Stromboli and Europe ‘51 are different lengths. So cool to see more complete versions, but I would have been happy with a solo disc of Journey/Voyage.

The Koker Trilogy - Kiarostami is a bit of a mixed bag as a director. Some of his work is painfully boring, yet some of it is sublime perfection. His Koker trilogy is definitely closer to the latter. Through the Olive Trees in particular is probably my favorite film of his, and Where is the Friend’s House? is everything wonderful about Iranian cinema. I have very few memories of the middle film in this “trilogy”. None of these movies are related in a typical trilogy sense, more thematically. Perhaps the best part about this release is it features the incredibly hard to find 1989 documentary Homework made by Kiarostami. With Taste of Cherry getting re-released later this month it’s a good time to explore his best work.

Now the individual titles by spine number:

Shock Corridor - Samuel Fuller is a cult favorite of nearly every critic and fan of classic cinema. He achieved legendary status thanks to Cahiers du Cinema crew who constantly referenced his films and in the case of Godard even put him in his own movies (the unfortunately out of print Pierrot le Fou). Shock Corridor is one of the best places to start with his work, and it was the 19^th Criterion title released. This is another title I only had on VHS and the lack of audio commentary seemed to keep me from ever picking it up. They’ve added at least one new interview to the blu-ray edition. I meant to pick up this and The Naked Kiss (Spine number 18), but the store I went to was out of that, or I just didn’t quite register because as I said earlier I found plenty else.

 
High and Low - This is another classic Kurosawa/Mifune collaboration that I never had a proper DVD of. In 2001 I ordered 8 Kurosawa films that were imports with subtitles. A few of these were stolen and nearly all have been replaced. This features the It is Wonderful to Create episode about it as well as a commentary track from Stephen Prince. Like a lot of Kurosawa films this was also eventually remade by Hollywood as the Ron Howard film Ransom. I loved it when I first watched it, but literally haven’t seen it for about 18-19 years.

The Cranes are Flying - Someone happens to get advanced copies of Criterion titles and sells them to Half Price Books in Niles, sometimes. Before this was even officially released I saw it there during one of those classic 20% off sales right before the apocalypse. I was very jazzed until I saw the case was cracked. I asked if there was a replacement, there wasn’t, so I figured next sale. This is possibly my favorite cinematography in any movie ever made. Mikhail Kalatozov was a nutcase when it came to setting up shots, and he would go even more over the top in I am Cuba, but story and style blend perfectly here. Another older title I had on VHS years ago, but the blu-ray added some extra features to spark an upgrade.

Army of Shadows - When I first got around to picking up titles on blu-ray this was one of the earlier releases I wanted to snag. I saw it initially in theaters during it’s 2006 release. I wanted to give it another shot, and seeing all the cool extras made me think this was a must-have. The only problem it was one of several titles that went out of print. I looked high and low for it (get it) and contented myself to watching it on the Criterion Channel, as well as every other Melville film. Well then they announced it was getting put out again, and I knew if I let it fall out of print again I’d kick myself indefinitely. This has rightfully earned it’s status as Melville’s masterpiece. Here’s hoping Leon Morin, Priest is also resurrected from the dead soon.

Medium Cool - This and the next film are both from cinematographers turned directors. In the case of Wexler however this was his only major work as a director, and it’s a masterpiece. Shot around the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, it’s part fiction and documentary and one of the best films about what the hell was happening in the 60s. Like many of these films I never owned this, but because it is Wexler’s only film that I know of it was typically forgotten whenever sales came around.

Don’t Look Now - Unfortunately whenever someone dies I think it’s a reminder to revisit their work. When Nicholas Roeg passed away I grabbed my DVD copy of The Man Who Fell to Earth (which is sadly out of print) and I realized I never owned Don’t Look Now (sensing a pattern here). Considering my VHS collection has been sitting in my mother’s attic for 12 years now and I don’t even own a VCR, it is certainly high time to upgrade that literal garbage. I remember trying to find this streaming after his death and couldn’t find it then (since may have changed). It has long considered to be one of the great “serious” horror films. Also who doesn’t want to see some naked Donald Sutherland?

The Breakfast Club - Sometimes when Criterion announces an upcoming title I say “don’t mind if I do” then I play the long waiting game for it to get released, then the longer game of waiting for the next sale. The Breakfast Club was always on the “next sale” list of titles. It got to the point where I had to actually check my collection to make sure I hadn’t picked this up already. This is one of those films everyone seems to love, and part of what made John Hughes so iconic for a generation. Much more mainstream than the typical title, it is nevertheless a welcome addition.

 
The Cremator - If forced at gun-point to say what my favorite film from Czechoslovakia was, The Cremator wins. It did make my last top 100 list, and watching it again with Caroline I have no regrets with my selection. Criterion has put out plenty of Czech films over the years (and there is even a nice retrospective on the channel right now), but the blu-ray offerings have been limited. Some of the early DVD releases were also borderline pointless in terms of extras. These were better suited to an Eclipse release, and there even was one for Czech films. I know I will watch this again, and I will never not recommend this movie to everyone who will listen.

Husbands - Might be a good time to say I love the design of Criterion. Their branding is flawless and their titles look excellent. I got a kick out of the fact that the Cassavetes films released after that initial 5 film boxed set (which I have on DVD) have a similar design. Lord knows I like matching spines, so I was particularly tickled when Husbands was announced with a consistent look. I nearly picked up his final film Love Streams as well, and I will probably go back for it later this month. Husbands however is my favorite film he made and another entry into my personal top 100. I understand this film and his work in general is not for everyone, but damned if this didn’t speak to me on some gut level. It has all the things I want for extras, and look forward to revisited it with Marshall Fine’s commentary track.

Come and See - I believe this is the most recent Criterion release at the time of this writing. Elem Klimov’s WWII masterpiece is one of the most widely seen foreign films around. I’ve always been a little surprised by it’s status as one of those international classics well loved by people who think Shawshank Redemption is the greatest movie ever made. It is great, but like so many other films in this haul, I haven’t seen it for ages. I don’t even think I revisited it during my last movie list research. When you’ve gone 20 years without watching a movie you know you’re overdue, especially when it’s one you know is great. Looking forward to sitting through this again.

Talking about these movies has made me itching to get to Old Orchard and see their selections. So many brick and mortar stores are disappearing and even a few of the existing Barnes and Noble’s in my vicinity don’t have any Criterions. Next week the Bruce Lee boxed set and The Lady Eve are set to release, so I’m not done with this sale yet. So feel free to let me know what you’re planning on snagging. Also can’t believe I forgot Silence of the Lambs again.   

Luis Bunuel’s L’age d’or and That Obscure Object of Desire

I would reckon over the past decade I seem to post one blog for every three I write in my head beforehand. Sometimes it’s a matter of an idea slipping away, often it requires more research that I never get around to doing, and occasionally it just seems like the wrong time. I revisited Luis Bunuel’s first and last feature films over a week ago with the idea to write this here blog but with the world on fire I wondered if it wasn’t a little tone deaf. People have different methods of coping with external strife. Some people want to silence all voices not directly helping the cause, and some people just go silent so they don’t add any of their own noise to a crowded discussion. I personally have to wrestle with the double-edged sword of realizing that as a boring old white guy, I don’t need to chime in on how disenfranchised people are feeling. On the other hand, too many people are accusing others like me of being complicit in white supremacy by not actively posting things. Well damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

A lot of people within the film world are using this time to draw some attention to black filmmakers and their grossly under-represented stories. This is another reason why celebrating two surrealist gems from a Spaniard might seem a little out of touch. There are numerous resources to watch some important works from black filmmakers and nearly every streaming service is making it a little easier to spotlight some of these titles. I have been told that Criterion has made a number of titles free to stream for people who don’t yet have their channel. I would like to point out that removing Gone with the Wind from HBO Max shortly after launch seems to be missing the point, but kudos to them getting ahead of things.

I have never been a fan of blocking out films that are problematic. In fact I think it’s far more important to watch those films and learn from them. You should know what anti-Jewish propaganda looked like in 1930’s Germany. If there’s a film with white people in black face, take it in, take a good look at it, get angry, don’t pretend these things don’t exist. Are you watching a British film set in India with white actors in makeup donning an accent? Let that soak in and try to breathe in just how racist and tone deaf many film industries have been for decades. You should also take note of how things have changed, ask yourself if certain movies could be made today, and why things have changed to avoid it. I think it’s important to view cinema’s shameful past so that we can hopefully learn from it. Should we be “canceling” classics of cinema because modern audiences have evolved? Maybe, but pretending these films weren’t made is not the answer.

Again I should point out I’m a film historian and a straight white man, so take that under consideration when deciding if I have a valid point. I’ve always set out from the start to let this blog be exclusively about cinema. For that reason I tend to filter whatever might be happening in the world through the prism of my area of expertise. One of the most difficult things I’ve had to learn is when to just shut up and listen. So I’ll leave it at that and we can discuss Bunuel’s respective alpha and omega.

When I was a younger man getting into cinema I’d usually check out ten films at a time. I’d often do this 3 times a week, maybe taking a break if I had any time left over to watch things I recorded off of TV or dig into the ever increasing pile of DVDs I had. Being as systematic as I could, I would usually watch movies in the order of length, so longest movie first, shortest movie last. If I got more than one film from a director I’d watch those chronologically. Well three directors always got me a little more excited than others:  Michelangelo Antonioni, Jean-Luc Godard, and Luis Bunuel. For Antonioni there was something about the existential dread of the bored and privileged that resonated with my disillusioned younger self. I wasn’t as aware that subconsciously his elaborate long takes hit the right nerve centers in my brain. For Godard he was the wild-card. He threw out all conventional notions of filmmaking, and I wasn’t sure what I would get from movie to movie. Bunuel’s surrealism appealed to me greatly, but I think he was in many ways the synthesis of those two other directors. Bunuel’s films often lacked closure like Antonioni, his characters were often bored and rich, but he played with the language of cinema in some of the same ways Godard did. 

L’age d’or (1930) is not Bunuel’s first film. He collaborated with Salvador Dali on Un Chien Andalou, but that was clearly a short. Although L’age is barely over an hour, it still counts as a feature. Bunuel would follow it up with Land Without Bread (another short, this time a documentary) and wouldn’t make a proper feature film until 1947. So for the intellectual artists who dabbled in surrealism, L’age d’or stood as a great but singular offering. Cocteau also made his directorial debut in 1930 with Blood of a Poet, and instead of a grand wave of talking surrealist films, these proved to be aberrations. Perhaps it was due to complicated funding, technical limitations (both films were shot silent), but surrealism in film was soon relegated to experimental shorts (Meshes of the Afternoon) or the occasional dream sequence (Spellbound).

Dali’s contribution to L’age d’or has been the subject of debate for decades. His involvement is typically acknowledged as minimal to non-existent here. The collaboration had already soured before production began so many film historians cite this as Bunuel’s first solo work. Un Chien Andalou was deliberately conceived to have no plot, simply surrealist imagery and some loose dream logic. In an early film history class I was pointed out for being “no fun” when my teacher asked us to interpret the film and I mentioned it had no meaning. L’age d’or by contrast has some sort of story, one that links in many ways to his final film That Obscure Object of Desire. If you can boil the plot down, you can simply say a couple are trying to have sex, and religion, society, and nature keep getting in their way. Sexual frustration was deeply rooted in Bunuel’s work, and it became a lifelong obsession, which can be blamed on his Catholic upbringing, even if that is a potential over-simplification.

I often argue that Bunuel’s best work doesn’t rely on story, sure sometimes he can construct a great narrative to go with his imagery (Los Olvidados, Viridiana, Bell du Jour), but more often he takes a premise and works from there. The Exterminating Angel and Simon of the Desert are two works that align well with L’age d’or. You can describe the films with a single sentence, but that doesn’t begin to explain why they are great. That Obscure Object of Desire (1977) falls somewhat in between the two. It lacks much of the overt surrealistic imagery of some of his best work, but from a plot standpoint it is incredibly simple and straight forward. Essentially a wealthy middle-aged man is trying to have sex with a girl who does nothing but tease and torment him.

Sexual frustration might have been the overarching thesis in Bunuel’s work but it has never been so overtly the point as it is in his final film. Some directors seem to wrap up what they’re about with their final film (Ozu, Bergman), but with Bunuel it seems more happenstance. That Obscure Object of Desire isn’t a penultimate summation of a lengthy career, it just happens to explicitly hammer home a predominant theme. Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie feels more like that last grand statement, and perhaps Bunuel conceived it as such, churning out two additional films that in different ways were echoes of the past. That Obscure Object was one of Bunuel’s greatest hits, it earned him a pair of Oscar nominations and hit a pretty large international audience.

Both films take wildly different approaches to telling a similar story. L’age d’or is much more chaotic. Gaston Modot is the thwarted male lead, who appeared in a number of surrealist films as well as Rules of the Game in 1939. Over the past several years I’ve grown to love Rules of the Game a lot, but I never connected the dots before. He also appeared in Children of Paradise and Grand Illusion for what it’s worth. Lya Lys, his German co-star had a slightly less distinguished career who was out of the industry by 1940. Well known artists Max Ernst and Josep Llorens Artigas have small parts as well.

L’age d’or is the result of an amateur to put it plainly. It might be something of a masterpiece, but it betrays Bunuel’s youth. After the sensation of Un Chien Andalou this has the feeling of trying to top the previous film. It is somewhat sacrilegious, but also just absurd. Our “hero” is anything but, he assaults a blind man, kicks a dog, emphatically steps on a beetle, and is openly hostile. He even finds some time for some light sexual assault. This has the air of a story told by a young man who wants to piss people off. It was successful in that aim. The film was denounced by most church groups and sadly went unseen for decades in some places. Even the surviving print is in rough shape. Bunuel in an effort to conserve funds used nearly every foot of film he had for the 63 minutes. Essentially meaning there is an improvisational feel to the picture. There wasn’t the luxury for multiple takes and extra coverage, so there are some moments that feel like they were making it up as they went along. The charm works though, and it’s still a very fun film to watch. The running time certainly helps it’s cause.   

That Obscure Object of Desire has some source material. The Woman and the Puppet was an 1898 novel by Pierre Louys that was supposedly adapted several other times. Fernando Rey was often considered Bunuel’s surrogate in his later films, as Mastroianni was for Fellini. They first worked together in Viridiana back in 1961, and collaborated on three more pictures. Rey is perfect for this role as a man slightly out of touch with all the money and half the patience necessary for this task. He is just oblivious enough to not realize what is happening to him, vain to the point of blindness. For the female lead, Bunuel had an interesting idea. Although he didn’t name her specifically, it was believed that Maria Schneider was his first choice who had to drop out. After a few drinks Bunuel and producer Serge Silberman decided to use two actresses for the same role. This was hardly the first time someone had the idea to use one person in the same role, but instead of having different actresses play a role in different stages of their life, Bunuel used them interchangeably, sometimes even within the same scene. Although Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina look slightly similar they are clearly two different people.

That Obscure Object of Desire is less openly surrealist than most of Bunuel’s late work. It hearkens back more to his straightforward Mexican films. However those movies were always tinted with surrealism, slightly odd touches that made the film feel anything but normal. Here we have a chorus of left-wing terrorists committing random acts of terrorism as a backdrop throughout the film. Rarely are they commented on, but frequently seen in the background and usually offer no more than a line on turning around to avoid the traffic jam they caused. In Bunuel’s world political unrest exist but his characters are oblivious to it and often just roll their eyes at the inconvenience of it all.

This is arguably the central theme of Bunuel’s work. In Belle de Jour, Marcel is something of a gangster, but it’s more an object of fascination or excitement for Severine than any cause she needs to adopt. In this way Bunuel’s films always seem to show you how less popular people may be thinking. Let’s face it, as much as change needs to happen in this world, a lot of people are probably more concerned about blocking off streets or interrupting their shows with news conferences than actively dismantling white supremacy. Bunuel understood this and made a point of showing his main characters as oblivious to the serious issues around them. It makes them seem more petty and easier to laugh at. Rey’s Mathieu seems to be the only one not in on the joke. We all know that Conchita will perpetually tease him and lead him on, but Mathieu still thinks of himself as a worthy virile mate. His money and position allow him to think he’s worthy of a woman half his age, who despite having no money of her own, is in no way beholden to him. She knows she’ll survive and seems to only reconcile long enough to torment him some more. To quote Krusty the Klown, it's only funny when he's "a sap with dignity".

I might hesitate to call That Obscure Object of Desire a masterpiece. L’age d’or is, albeit a flawed one, and in some people’s estimates a masterpiece can’t be flawed. That Obscure Object of Desire is a more mature film clearly, as it was made by a man 47 years older than the director of L’age d’or. Bunuel’s sense of humor got a little more subtle, and he loved poking fun at the absurdity of high society, illustrated most succinctly in The Exterminating Angel and Discreet Charm. If for some reason you bemoan Bunuel’s surrealist tendencies and long for a more conventional narrative that’s just a little off kilter, this would be right up your alley. There’s a reason Bunuel was always among my top 10 favorite directors, he was great from the first to the last. He never got a chance to make another film although he lived for 6 more years after this.