I’m really into film and TV restoration. I don’t know if this comes out of my childhood love of archaeology. It would be hard to overstate the influence of Tintin and Uncle Scrooge… Yet I’m maybe a bit spoiled. I pay attention to massive projects like Rear Window and My Fair Lady, to revolutionary ones like the Murnau Foundation Metropolis job, and to compulsive, continually-improving efforts from guys like the Doctor Who Restoration Team. I’m used both to employing every available tool to repair material and present it in the best possible light, and extensive features geared to contextualize the work both contemporarily and retrospectively, examine its production, and illustrate its place in any relevant oeuvre. The point is to put a work back on its feet again, and send it back into mainsteam culture.

The Universal and Warner Hitchcock discs, though relatively unhailed, do a decent job at all of this. Kino is a mixed bag — even their meticulously restored Nosferatu has some amazing undergraduate blunders — yet they clearly try hard under a limited budget to present something significant.

Thing about Criterion — they strike me as sort of a lowest common denominator of film preservation. They’re not into preservation, really; into keeping works healthy and relevant and in circulation. They pander to film fetishists and collectors. They kind of do a half-assed job at both restoration and extras. For reasons I cannot understand, they don’t stabilize film weave. They don’t paint out dust and scratches, or even socket holes. They rarely clean up the sound. Most of their extras, though certainly well-researched, are off-the-shelf and dry as hell. Their DVDs strike me as academic, snooty, overpriced, and not particularly ambitious in the very areas where they claim superiority.

They do good presentation, though. And they do a good job of raising awareness of less obvious films (at least, to a point). And then they put them out in limited editions, and number them so their fans can buy ’em all (at prices around double of other publishers). They’re like the Working Designs of film preservation. (According to that article, Vic Ireland is starting a company called Gaijinworks. Oh my dear Lord Numpty…)

Criterion’s relationship with Janus also weirds me out a little. I realize that it’s basically the commercial arm of Janus, and I understand that Janus is to be credited with a certain amount of US exposure of independent and foreign films, before the boom of indie cinema. In retrospect I always find it a little weird to see their logo plastered in front of so many important movies that they didn’t have anything directly to do with. It’s almost like a corporate collector-fetishism, if maybe for the ultimate cultural good, sort of? This isn’t something I’ve put a lot of thought into; it’s just been scampering around my subconscious. It may be based on nothing but my own prejudices.

Anyway. People keep asking me what I think of Criterion. My answer: phooey!

Though the packaging to their Yojimbo/Sanjuro set is just devine.

(Full disclosure: I have about half a dozen Criterion DVDs, from Hitchcock to Wong Kar-Wai. I’m more impressed with their “new” movies than their classic library. Mostly because they don’t require restoration or much context; all they need is nice packaging and presentation. And yes, In the Mood for Love is classy as hell.)