The Criterion Treatment

Abstract

It’s a mark of distinction for a movie to receive what’s sometimes called the Criterion treatment: a carefully managed video release comprising a technically solid digital transfer and a package of supplements that may include a full-length audio commentary; video and/or audio interviews with the director and others who participated in the production; a video essay or two analyzing cinematic qualities of the featured attraction; ancillary materials such as deleted scenes and theatrical trailers; and liner notes by a critic or scholar with expertise in the subject at hand. Founded in 1984, the Criterion Collection has since branched out with secondary ventures such as Eclipse, a no-frills line specializing in overlooked and undervalued films deemed worthy of renewed attention, and FilmStruck, a streaming service that bit the dust after two short years of operation and is now being superseded by The Criterion Channel and a new WarnerMedia streaming platform. Not every Criterion release has been warmly welcomed—cinephiles have hooted at the Michael Bay items—but thoughtful curating is the company’s chief stock in trade. All of the above is well known to film enthusiasts, but from time to time I like to pause and salute Criterion for so ably serving the cause of contemporary film culture. (Full disclosure: I have written many program essays for Criterion releases and appeared in an extra or two over the years.) Three recent releases nicely illustrate the variety of the company’s efforts. One is Terrence Malick’s remarkable drama The Tree of Life, a philosophically ambitious epic that reached the screen in 2011, followed by an extended version that added about 40minutes of additional footage to the theatrical cut. Criterion’s edition includes both iterations—for me, the longer cut extends the film without either improving or weakening it—along with a sizable package of mostly worthwhile extras, including analyses by film critic Matt Zoller Seitz, music critic Alex Ross, and sundry documentarians. Reviewing the theatrical version of The Tree of Life in 2011, I wrote that Malick’s evident goal is “to evoke the shining of the world with reverence and