Joan Crawford on Criterion

Please welcome guest contributor David Rush...

Our Dancing Daughters

If an actress is to remain a star for six decades, she must expect some fluctuations in her career trajectory. This was most certainly the case for Joan Crawford, whose cinematic legacy – rather overshadowed in the years after her death for reasons we are all more than aware of – is currently showcased on The Criterion Channel.

The first two decades of Crawford’s stardom saw her go from strength to strength: her breakthrough role opposite Lon Chaney in The Unknown (1927); a series of flapper delights in Our Dancing Daughters (1928), Our Modern Maidens (1929) and Our Blushing Brides (1930); a key supporting role in Best Picture winner Grand Hotel (1932); her numerous popular collaborations with Clark Gable; and most importantly, the rags-to-riches vehicles that held particular appeal for aspirant young women during the Great Depression...

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Portuguese Cinema on Criterion

by Cláudio Alves

It's not often that one gets the opportunity to promote Portuguese cinema in these parts of the internet. Despite good reviews and some acclaim across the festival circuit, it's rare to find films from Portugal being discussed internationally. Even though I love my country's pictures, I find it difficult to justify writing a piece about them for The Film Experience, especially considering plenty of readers don't have access to said films. When the opportunity strikes, one can't waste it. 

Recently, the Criterion Channel has curated two collections focused on the works of Pedro Costa and João Pedro Rodrigues, some of Portugal's most important contemporary filmmakers [some NSFW images after the jump]...

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Almost There: Joan Crawford in "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?"

by Cláudio Alves

It's October, a season for spookiness and horror movies, for nightmares and ghouls. It seems only appropriate that the Almost There series takes a look at a performance in the horror genre, though it's hard to find examples that fit the criteria. AMPAS is famously allergic to most horror and few actors have been recognized or come close for that genre. 

Inspired by the month and the Criterion Channel's new Joan Crawford collection, I decided to take a look at one of the actress' most contentious and controversial achievements. One speaks of that terrifying occasion when Joan and Bette met onscreen, the clashing of two titans and two acting styles, the epitome of Grande Dame Guignol. That's right, it's time to explore What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?...

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Alain Delon on Criterion

by Cláudio Alves

For some people, the word handsome isn't enough. Such beauty defies description and almost seems to bend reality, becoming uncanny in its perfection. French star Alain Delon is one such person. It's no wonder that many a master filmmaker has lost themselves looking at the actor, making devotional songs to his besotting allure in the shape of cinema. Antonioni, Clément, Godard, Malle, Melville, Visconti were some of those masters of cinema and their works have immortalized Alain Delon in poems of celluloid that are some of the best films ever made… 

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The elliptical cinema of Mia Hansen-Løve

by Cláudio Alves

Cinema is many things. An audiovisual art form, a dream, memories crystalized, ghosts of light. It's also a language, an idiom with rules and grammar of its own. Some cineastes film straightforward prose. Others prefer a lyrical approach and write poems with their cameras. There are those who make manifestos, compose diaries, some even do journalistic documentations. Whatever their uses of the language of cinema, the punctuation is usually the same, with norms judiciously followed to keep the clarity of intention, of information and tone. Still, sometimes the most interesting artist is the one that bends those rules to their will, reshaping, transforming, making them into something personal.

Mia Hansen-Løve is such a filmmaker. Instead of employing commas and periods, writing and cutting traditionally, she prefers to film in ellipsis. Constant, evocative, oft-mysterious and emotionally poignant, ellipsis…

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