The Criterion Collection

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
The Criterion Collection
Type Private
Industry Motion picture video production
Founded 1984
Headquarters New York City, New York, U.S.[1]
Key people Jonathan B. Turell (CEO)[1]
Products Laserdiscs (1984–98)
DVDs (1998–present)
Blu-ray Discs (2008–present)
VOD (select titles) (2008–present)
Revenue US$6.1 million (2007)[1]
Owner(s) The Voyager Company
Employees 40[1]
Parent Janus Films
Divisions Eclipse from the Criterion Collection
Essential Art House
Website www.criterion.com

The Criterion Collection (est. 1984) is a video-distribution company selling "important classic and contemporary films" to film aficionados.[2] The Criterion series is noted for helping to standardize the letterbox format for home video, bonus features, and special editions. Criterion is also known for taking great lengths to restore and clean all films released on their label.

Contents

[edit] History

The Criterion Collection company was founded in 1984 by Robert Stein, Aleen Stein, and Joe Medjuck, who later were joined by Roger Smith. In 1985, the Steins, William Becker, and Jonathan B. Turell founded the Voyager Company,[3] to publish educational multimedia CD-ROMs (1989–2000),[3][4] during which time, The Criterion Collection became a subordinate division of the Voyager Company. In March 1994, Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH bought 20 percent of Voyager for US$ 6.7 million; the founders each retained a 20 percent owner’s share.[3] In 1997, the Voyager Company was dissolved (Aleen Stein founded the Organa LLC CD-ROM publishing company), and Holtzbrinck Publishers sold the “Voyager” brand name, 42 CD-ROM titles, the Voyager web site, and associated assets, to Learn Technologies Interactive, LLC (LTI).[5] Robert Stein sold 42 Voyager titles to LTI for his Voyager–Criterion company share. The remaining partners, Aleen Stein, William Becker (President) and Jonathan Turell (CEO) owned The Criterion Collection company,[5] which has a business partnership with Janus Films, and had one with Home Vision Entertainment (HVE) until 2005, when Image Entertainment bought HVE.[6]

[edit] Home Vision Entertainment

In 1986, Charles Benton founded Home Vision Entertainment (HVE), the home-video division of Public Media Inc. (PMI), which he founded in 1968. The HVE company sold, advertised, marketed, and distributed Criterion Collection DVDs, and sold its own HVE-brand of DVDs (co-produced with Criterion), including The Merchant Ivory Collection,[7] and the Classic Collection, a joint venture between Home Vision Entertainment and Janus Films. The latter enterprise published HVE imprint films, for which Janus Films owned the video rights, unavailable from the Criterion Collection; however, Criterion published Classic Collection fims. In 2005, Image Entertainment bought HVE, thus it became the exclusive distributor of Criterion Collection products.

[edit] Online ventures

Criterion began to provide video-on-demand in partnership with MUBI (formerly The Auteurs) in 2008. In February 2011, Criterion began switching its VOD offerings exclusively to Hulu Plus.[8]

[edit] Contributions and influence

Commercially, the Criterion Collection video company pioneered the correct aspect ratio letterboxing presentation of movies, commentary soundtracks, multi-disc sets, special editions, and definitive versions. These contributions and the idea of special features introduced by the Criterion Collection have been adopted as home video industry wide standards and have been highly influential.

[edit] Letterboxing

With its eighth laserdisc release of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Criterion introduced the letterbox format, which added black bars to the top and bottom of the 4:3 standard television set in order to preserve the original aspect ratio of the film.[9] Thereafter, Criterion made letterboxing the standard presentation for all releases of films shot in widescreen aspect ratios.[10]

[edit] Commentary soundtracks

The Criterion Collection's second catalogue title, King Kong (1933), was the debut of the scene-specific audio commentary contained in a discrete analogue channel of the laserdisc. It featured US film historian Ronald Haver reporting about the production, cast, screenplay, production design and special effects. He also is the commentator for the Casablanca (1942), Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941), Singin' in the Rain (1952), and The Wizard of Oz (1939) laserdiscs. Typically, the chapter-indexed commentaries are exclusive to the Criterion releases, and the initial DVD reissues; they became collector’s items when the original-owner studios re-issued titles (with commentary tracks or not) licensed to Criterion.

[edit] Special editions

The Criterion Collection began in 1984 with the releases of Citizen Kane (1941) and King Kong (1933) on laserdisc. The company later became notable for pioneering the “special edition” DVD concept, containing bonus materials (trailers, commentaries, documentaries, alternate endings, deleted scenes, et cetera), "a film school in a box", as it were,[11] the success of which established the special edition version in the DVD business. In 2006, taking advantage of better film-transfer and film-restoration technologies, Criterion published improved-image versions, with bonus materials, of early catalogue titles such as Amarcord (1973), Brazil (1985), and Seven Samurai (1954).

[edit] Licenses

Some licensed Criterion Collection titles, such as Rebecca (1940), are commercially unavailable but are for sale at auction on-line. Titles such as The Silence of the Lambs (1991), RoboCop (1987), Hard-Boiled (1992), The Killer (1989), and Ran (1985), become unavailable when their publishing licenses expire or when Criterion publishes improved versions, such as Beauty and the Beast (1946), M (1931), Seven Samurai (1954), and The Wages of Fear (1954). As of August 2009, 87 of the 373 titles (23 percent) constituting the list of Criterion Collection laserdisc releases, have been released.

Another example is the film Charade (1963), which was a public-domain property for lacking the legally required copyright notice. The Criterion company produced a digitally cleaned edition under license from Universal Pictures for the initial edition and for the anamorphic widescreen re-release edition of the film.

Periodically, Criterion does release material on DVD/Blu-ray licensed from the studios they previously dealt with, for example Sony, Fox, MGM/UA, and Universal, this is generally done on a case-by-case basis.

[edit] Film restoration

Originally, the Criterion company released art, genre, and mainstream movies on laserdisc. For example Halloween (1978), Ghostbusters (1984), Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), Armageddon (1998), and The Rock (1996). From the 1990s onwards the Criterion Collection mainly focused on releasing World cinema, mainstream cinema classics, and critically successful obscure movies. Using the best available source materials, the company produced technologically improved and cleaner versions. For example The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), M (1931), and the Children of Paradise (1945) discs contain film-cleaning and film-restoration demonstrations, comparing the restored and un-restored images.

[edit] Formats

[edit] Laserdisc and DVD

See also: List of Criterion Collection Laserdisc releases and List of Criterion Collection DVD and Blu-ray releases
The original logo used on Criterion Collection laserdiscs

The Criterion Collection began publishing laserdiscs on December 1, 1984 with its release of Citizen Kane. In 1998, Criterion began publishing DVDs as well. On March 16, 1999, Criterion issued its final laserdisc release, Michael Bay's Armageddon.[12] As with its laserdiscs, Criterion's early DVD editions of widescreen films were presented in the letterbox format, but Criterion did not enhance its discs for 16x9 monitors until mid-1999 with its release of Insomnia (1997), catalogue number 47.[13]

[edit] Video-on-demand services

On 25 November 2008, on its web site, Criterion began offering video-on-demand (VOD) downloading services, for US$5.00 per select movie, marking the beginning of a cross-promotional VOD service from the Criterion and The Auteurs web sites.[14] In early 2011, many Criterion titles also became available through the Hulu Plus premium service.[15]

[edit] High definition format

A Criterion Collection logotype: Blu-ray Criterion label, dates from the first movies released on 16 December 2008.
See also: List of Criterion Collection DVD and Blu-ray releases

Criterion began publishing on Blu-ray Disc in December 2008.[16] Unlike its DVD releases, a mixture of NTSC-standard Region 0 (region-free) and Region 1 DVDs, Criterion Collection Blu-ray Discs are Region A.

[edit] Product pricing

The retail prices for Criterion Collection releases typically range from 30 to 40 US dollars for one-disc and two-discs sets, respectively. Criterion typically release shorter films, for example Night and Fog (1955), below the company’s usual price range.[17]. Criterion DVDs (including two disc editions) are typically ten dollars cheaper than their Blu-ray counterparts.

Janus Films' "Essential Art House" collection consists of Janus-owned Criterion movies without special features, and are also cheaper alternatives.

Demand for out-of-print Criterion Collection releases has spawned the business of counterfeit (bootleg) copies, often advertised as a Criterion Collection Asian edition to disguise their bootleg nature.[13] The company’s Web site instructs buyers to shop carefully, advises about identifying bootleg merchandise, and notes that the Criterion Collection never published Asian editions of its movie catalogue.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d The Criterion Collection Inc. from Hoover's
  2. ^ "Criterion Mission Statement". http://www.criterion.com/about_us. Retrieved 2009-03-30. 
  3. ^ a b c Virshup, Amy (July 1996). "The Teachings of Bob Stein". Wired. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.07/stein_pr.html. Retrieved 2007-08-17. 
  4. ^ Brockman, John. "Bob Stein: The Radical". Digerati. Edge Foundation. http://www.edge.org/digerati/stein/. Retrieved 2007-08-17. 
  5. ^ a b "Aleen Stein". Organa Online. http://www.organa.com/aleen.html. Retrieved 2007-08-17. 
  6. ^ "History". About Home Vision. Home Vision Entertainment. Archived from the original on 2002-06-27. http://web.archive.org/web/20020627202911/www.homevision.com/history.php. Retrieved 2007-08-17. 
  7. ^ Hasan, Mark Richard (September 2004). "DVD Review". Music From the Movies. Archived from the original on 2007-06-08. http://web.archive.org/web/20070608062030/http://www.musicfromthemovies.com/dvd.asp?ID=9. Retrieved 2007-08-22. 
  8. ^ Lawler, Ryan (February 15, 2011). "As Netflix Goes After TV Fans, Hulu Chases Movie Buffs". The New York Times (New York: The New York Times Company). ISSN 0362-4331. OCLC 1645522. http://www.nytimes.com/external/gigaom/2011/02/15/15gigaom-as-netflix-goes-after-tv-fans-hulu-chases-movie-b-79625.html?ref=technology. Retrieved March 30, 2011. ""Hulu is looking to court movie buffs to its subscription Plus offering, announcing Tuesday that it has acquired streaming rights for hundreds of classic films from The Criterion Collection.... Hulu Plus will soon be the only place old movie buffs will be able to catch Criterion titles."" 
  9. ^ The Criterion Collection. ""Invasion of the Body Snatchers"". http://web.archive.org/web/20040905170637/http://chaumurky.net/criterion/catalogpage-135.html. Retrieved 28 November 2011. 
  10. ^ The Criterion Collection. "FAQ". http://www.criterion.com/help#q5. Retrieved 28 November 2011. 
  11. ^ Ulaby, Neda (June 2004). "Criterion DVD Collection". NPR. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1956135. Retrieved 2007-08-22. 
  12. ^ "Criterion Collection Laserdiscs". http://www.laserdiscworld.com/criterion-collection-laserdiscs/. 
  13. ^ a b "FAQS". The Criterion Collection. http://www.criterion.com/asp/faq.asp. Retrieved 2007-08-22. 
  14. ^ http://www.criterion.com/library/online
  15. ^ http://www.hulu.com/criterion
  16. ^ http://www.criterion.com/library/bluray
  17. ^ Janis, Jason (June 2003). "Night and Fog: the Criterion Collection". DVD Talk. http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=6744. Retrieved 2007-08-22. 

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Criterion_Collection&oldid=471743399"
Personal tools
Namespaces
Variants
Actions
Navigation
Interaction
Toolbox
Print/export
Languages