Criterion Cast: The Eclipse Viewer

This podcast focuses on Criterion’s Eclipse Series of DVDs. Hosts David Blakeslee and Trevor Berrett give an overview of each box and offer their perspectives on the unique treasures they find inside. In this episode, David and Trevor discuss Eclipse Series 22: Presenting Sacha Guitry, four urbane, sophisticated French comedies of the late 1930s.

About the films:

Sacha Guitry was once a household name. Something of a Gallic Noël Coward, this disarming, multitalented artist served up some of 1930s French cinema’s tastiest dishes. The son of a beloved theater actor, Guitry was devoted to the footlights, first turning to the silver screen only as a way of bringing his plays to a wider audience. His films were anything but stage-bound, however: often the director, writer, and star of his popular movies, Guitry brought a witty inventiveness to the cinema and deployed radical techniques with such aplomb and control that he’s considered one of the medium’s first complete auteurs. With these four films, American audiences can finally sample Guitry’s creative, comic confections.

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Timeline for the podcast:

Introduction/Background (00:00:01 – 00:20:05)

The Story of a Cheat (00:20:06 – 00:39:45)

The Pearls of the Crown (00:39:46 – 01:02:00)

Désiré (01:02:01 – 01:25:34)

Quadrille (01:25:35 – 01:41:09)

Conclusion (01:41:10 – 01:52:30)

Buy The Box Set On Amazon:

Episode Links:

Director Overview:

Jacqueline Delubac:

Box Set Reviews:

The Story of a Cheat:

The Pearls of the Crown:

Désiré:

Quadrille:

Contact us:

Next time on the podcast: Eclipse Series 4: Raymond Bernard 

This podcast focuses on Criterion’s Eclipse Series of DVDs. Hosts David Blakeslee and Trevor Berrett give an overview of each box and offer their perspectives on the unique treasures they find inside. In this episode, David and Trevor discuss Eclipse Series 37: When Horror Came to Shochiku.

About the films:

Following years of a certain radioactive beast’s domination at the box office, many Japanese studios tried to replicate the formula with their own brands of monster movies. One of the most fascinating, if short-lived, dives into that fiendish deep end was the one by Shochiku, a studio better known for elegant dramas by the likes of Kenji Mizoguchi and Yasujiro Ozu. In 1967 and 1968, the company created four certifiably batty, low-budget fantasies, tales haunted by watery ghosts, plagued by angry insects, and stalked by aliens—including one in the form of a giant chicken-lizard. Shochiku’s outrageous and oozy horror period shows a studio leaping into the unknown, even if only for one brief, bloody moment.

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Timeline for the podcast:

Introduction/Background (00:00:01 – 00:13:57)

The X from Outer Space (00:13:58 – 00:28:59)

Goke, Body Snatcher From Hell (00:29:00 – 00:51:53)

The Living Skeleton (00:51:54 – 01:16:45)

Genocide (01:16:46 – 01:36:30)

Conclusion (01:36:31 – 01:48:05)

Buy The Box Set On Amazon:

Episode Links:

Shochiku Studio:

Box Set Reviews:

The X from Outer Space:

Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell:

The Living Skeleton:

Genocide:

Next time on the podcast: Eclipse Series 22: Presenting Sacha Guitry

Contact us:

This podcast focuses on Criterion’s Eclipse Series of DVDs. Hosts David Blakeslee and Trevor Berrett give an overview of each box and offer their perspectives on the unique treasures they find inside. In this episode, David and Trevor interview Michael Koresky, author of a book on Terence Davies for the University of Illinois Press, as well as the staff writer at the Criterion Collection and a cofounder and editor of the online film magazine Reverse Shot. His writing has also appeared in Film Comment, Cinema Scope, Moving Image Source, Sight & Sound, and the Village Voice.

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Episode Links:

Films and Sets Mentioned in this Episode:

Contact us:

Next time on the podcast: Eclipse Series 37: When Horror Came to Shochiku

This podcast focuses on Criterion’s Eclipse Series of DVDs. Hosts David Blakeslee and Trevor Berrett give an overview of each box and offer their perspectives on the unique treasures they find inside. In this episode, David and Trevor discuss Eclipse Series 14: Rossellini’s History Films: Renaissance and Enlightenment.

About the films:

In the final phase of his career, Italian master Roberto Rossellini embarked on a dramatic, daunting project: a series of television films about knowledge and history, made in an effort to teach, where contemporary media were failing. Looking at the Western world’s major figures and moments, yet focusing on the small details of daily life, Rossellini was determined not to recount history but to relive it, as it might have been, unadorned but full of the drama of the everyday. This selection of Rossellini’s history films presents The Age of the Medici, Cartesius, and Blaise Pascal — works that don’t just enliven the past but illuminate the ideas that brought us to where we are today.

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Buy The Box Set On Amazon:

Episode Links:

Director Overview:

Box Set Review:

The Age of the Medici:

Cartesius:

Blaise Pascal:

Contact us:

Next time on the podcast: Eclipse Series 37: When Horror Came to Shochiku

This podcast focuses on Criterion’s Eclipse Series of DVDs. Hosts David Blakeslee and Trevor Berrett give an overview of each box and offer their perspectives on the unique treasures they find inside. In this episode, David and Trevor discuss Eclipse Series 15: Travels With Hiroshi Shimizu.

About the films:

Of all the directors who made names for themselves during the Japanese studio golden age of the 1930s, Hiroshi Shimizu was one of the most respected—and, today, one of the least well-known. A curious, compassionate storyteller who was fascinated by characters on the outskirts of society, Shimizu used his trademark graceful traveling shot to peek around the corners of contemporary Japan. In these four lyrical, beautifully filmed tales, concerning geisha, bus drivers, and masseurs, Shimizu journeys far and wide to find the makings of a modern nation.

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Timeline for the podcast:

Introduction/Background (00:00:01 – 00:26:44)

Japanese Girls at the Harbor (00:26:45 – 00:47:40)

Mr. Thank You (00:47:41 – 01:07:17)

The Masseurs and a Woman (01:07:08 – 01:23:22)

Ornamental Hairpin (01:23:23 – 01:41:56)

Conclusion (01:41:57 – 01:50:15)

Buy The Box Set On Amazon:

Episode Links

Director Overview:

Box Set Reviews:

Japanese Girls at the Harbor:

Mr. Thank You:

The Masseurs and a Woman:

Ornamental Hairpin:

Next time on the podcast: Eclipse Series 14: Rossellini’s History Films – Renaissance and Enlightenment

Contact us:

This podcast focuses on Criterion’s Eclipse Series of DVDs. Hosts David Blakeslee and Trevor Berrett give an overview of each box and offer their perspectives on the unique treasures they find inside. In this episode, David and Trevor discuss Eclipse Series 25: Basil Dearden’s London Underground, four films that portray various aspects of English life in a period of cultural transition.

About the films:

After mastering the mix of comedy, suspense, and horror that helped define the golden age of British cinema, Basil Dearden (along with his producing partner Michael Relph) left the legendary Ealing Studios and struck out on his own. In the late fifties and early sixties, he created a series of gripping, groundbreaking, even controversial films that dealt with racism, homophobia, and the lingering effects of World War II, noir-tinged dramas that burrowed into corners of London rarely seen on-screen. This set of elegantly crafted films brings this quintessential figure of British cinema out of the shadows.normal

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Timeline for the podcast:

Introduction/Background (00:00:01 – 00:12:27)

Sapphire (00:12:28 – 00:30:17)

The League of Gentlemen (00:30:18 – 01:00:15)

Victim (01:00:16 – 01:31:08)

All Night Long (01:31:09 – 01:58:29)

Conclusion (01:58:30 – 02:07:35)

Buy The Box Set On Amazon:

Episode Links:

Director Overview:

Box Set Reviews:

Sapphire:

The League of Gentlemen:

Victim:

All Night Long:

Next time on the podcast: Eclipse Series 15: Travels with Hiroshi Shimizu

Contact us:

Twitter

This podcast focuses on Criterion’s Eclipse Series of DVDs. Hosts David Blakeslee and Trevor Berrett give an overview of each box and offer their perspectives on the unique treasures they find inside. In this episode, David and Trevor are joined by Ryan Gallagher to discuss Eclipse Series 30: Sabu!

About the films:

In the thirties and forties, the young Indian actor known as Sabu (born Selar Shaik) captured the hearts of moviegoers in Britain and the United States as a completely new kind of big-screen icon. Sabu was a maharaja’s elephant driver when he was cast in Elephant Boy, a Rudyard Kipling adaptation directed by documentary trailblazer Robert Flaherty and Zoltán Korda that would prove to be enormously popular. Sabu went on to headline a series of fantasies and adventures for the British film titans the Korda brothers, transcending the exoticism projected onto him by commanding the screen with effortless grace and humor. This series collects three of those lavish productions (which also included the classic The Thief of Bagdad): Elephant Boy, the colonialist adventure The Drum, and the timeless Jungle Book.

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Timeline for the podcast:

Introduction/Background (00:00:01 – 00:12:47)

Elephant Boy (00:12:48 – 00:33:19)

The Drum (00:33:20 – 00:57:28)

Interlude: The Thief of Bagdad (00:57:29 -01:01:40)

Jungle Book (01:01:41 – 01:22:00)

Conclusion (01:22:01 – 01:39:15)

Buy The Box Set On Amazon:

Episode Links:

Background and Overview:

Box Set Reviews:

Elephant Boy:

The Drum:

The Thief of Bagdad:

Jungle Book:

Next time on the podcast: Eclipse Series 25: Basil Dearden’s London Underground

Contact us:

Twitter

Email: theeclipseviewer (at) gmail.com

David Blakeslee ( Twitter / Website )

Trevor Berrett ( Twitter / Website )

Ryan Gallagher ( Twitter / Website )

This podcast focuses on Criterion’s Eclipse Series of DVDs. Hosts David Blakeslee and Trevor Berrett give an overview of each box and offer their perspectives on the unique treasures they find inside. In this episode, David and Trevor discuss Eclipse Series 38: Masaki Kobayashi Against the System, four films (three early, one mid-career) that help provide a well-rounded understanding of one of Japan’s greatest directors and cultural iconoclasts.

About the films:

One of the most important filmmakers to emerge from Japan’s cinematic golden age, Masaki Kobayashi is remembered in great part today for his three-part epic The Human Condition (1959–61), but that is just one of the blistering films he made in a career dedicated to criticizing his country’s rigid social and political orders. He first found his voice—rebellious, angry, engaged—in the fifties, following his life-altering experiences as a soldier in World War II; the four films collected here, made during the same period as The Human Condition, reflect Kobayashi’s coming into his own as an artist. He fought to get these powerful dramas made at a studio more oriented at the time toward quiet family melodramas, and they are unforgettable depictions of a postwar Japan troubled by identity crises and moral corruption on scales both intimate and institutional.

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Timeline for the podcast:

Introduction/Background (00:00:01 – 00:18:27)

The Thick Walled Room (00:18:28 – 00:48:22)

I Will Buy You (00:48:23 – 01:08:26)

Black River (01:08:27 – 01:28:59)

The Inheritance (01:29:00 – 01:58:15)

Conclusion (01:58:16 – 02:04:51)

Buy The Box Set On Amazon:

Episode Links:

Director Overview:

Box Set Reviews: 

The Thick Walled Room:

I Will Buy You:

Black River:

The Inheritance

Next time on the podcast: Eclipse Series 30: Sabu!

Contact us:

Twitter

This podcast focuses on Criterion’s Eclipse Series of DVDs. Hosts David Blakeslee and Trevor Berrett give an overview of each box and offer their perspectives on the unique treasures they find inside. In this episode, David and Trevor conclude their conversation about Eclipse Series 1: Early Bergman, a collection of five films that helped Ingmar Bergman establish one of the richest bodies of work in 20th century cinema.

About the films:

Before The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries established him as one of the great masters of cinema, Ingmar Bergman created a series of devastating but less well-known psychological character studies, marked by intricate, layered narratives, gritty environments, and haunting visuals. These early films, which show the stirrings of the genius to come, remain the hidden treasures of a European cinema on the cusp of a golden age.

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Timeline for the podcast:

Introduction/Background (00:00:01 – 00:09:14)

Thirst (00:09:15 – 00:39:00)

To Joy (00:39:01 – 01:18:45)

Conclusion (01:18:46 – 01:46:22)

Buy The Box Set On Amazon:

Episode Links:

Director Overview:

Ingmar Bergman in The Criterion Collection

Thirst:

To Joy:

Next time on the podcast: Eclipse Series 38: Masaki Kobayashi Against the System

Contact us:

Twitter