Criterion Reflections is David Blakeslee’s ongoing project to watch all of the films included in the Criterion Collection in chronological order of their original release. Each episode features panel conversations and 1:1 interviews offering insights on movies that premiered in a particular season of a year in the past, which were destined to eventually bear the Criterion imprint. In this episode, David is joined by Martin Kessler, Jordan Essoe, Doug McCambridge, Jason Beamish and Trevor Berrett to discuss six titles from the Winter of 1969: Jaromil Jires’s The Joke, Juraj Herz’s The Cremator, Wim Winders’s Silver City Revisited, Fellini: A Director’s Notebook, Luis Bunuel’s The Milky Way and Pierre Etaix’s Le Grand Amour.
Episode Time Markers:
Introduction: 0:00:00 – 0:09:47
The Joke: 0:09:48 – 0:36:30
Silver City Revisited: 0:36:31 – 0:54:30
The Cremator: 0:54:31 – 1:17:57
Fellini: A Director’s Notebook: 1:17:58 – 1:40:40
The Milky Way: 1:40:41 – 2:10:45
Le Grand Amour: 2:10:46 – 2:41:11
The Joke (2/28/69)
Guest: Martin Kessler
This is the third time I’ve formally reviewed The Joke, and I’ve watched it a couple other times besides that. The film continues to impress me as my familiarity with it deepens, to the point that I consider it the most widely accessible, substantive and impacting title of the six included in the excellent Pearls of the Czech New Wave Eclipse Series set. (Though of course, Daisies is still the most wildly delightful, and practically unforgettable.)
Criterion
The Eclipse Viewer – Episode 32 – Pearls of the Czech New Wave
David’s review from A Journey through the Eclipse Series review
New York Times review (1969)
Eastern European Film review
Film Walrus
Kinetoscope Film Journal
Silver City Revisited (3/7/69)
Guest: Jordan Essoe
No poster for this one, since it was a student film that never had its own commercial release. One bit of trivia that Jordan and I discussed off the air but didn’t mention in the recording is that Silver City Revisited as it exists on the Wim Wenders Road Trilogy set is a reconstruction. It was originally just titled Silver City, and that version is presumably lost. As it turns out, there’s no way that this film could be dated to March 7, 1969, the date provided by Wenders himself, since the Rolling Stones clip that Wenders used features Mick Taylor on guitar, who didn’t join the band until June of that year, after they fired Brian Jones.
Criterion
Wim Wenders Stiftung
The Rolling Stones “Gimme Shelter” from Top of the Pops, 1969
The Cremator (3/9/69)
Guest: Martin Kessler
This film was available for a few years or so when Criterion had their deal with Hulu. So far, it hasn’t made it over to FilmStruck, which is a real shame. I hope the delay is due to just some kind of procedural hoop that needs to be jumped through. It’s every bit as creepy and disturbing as it is humorously macabre and brilliantly constructed, delivering shocks and astonished nervous laughter on the first viewing, while provoking a lot of troublesome meditations on how easily corruptible humans can be when their grandiose delusions are flattered by self-gratifying myths of personal or racial superiority.
Criterion
Distant Voices
Film Pulse
Mondo 70
Senses of Cinema
Fellini: A Director’s Notebook (3/15/69)
Guests: Trevor Berrett and Jordan Essoe
A revealing exercise in self-deprecation and self-disclosure by Federico Fellini, this made for TV hour long pseudo-documentary fits snugly within that late 60s subgenre of smug indulgence that basically assumes that if we throw enough flamboyant oddball bits together for an hour or so, we’ll come up with something special – or at least suitable enough to keep the fans entertained (cf. The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour.) Still, it’s Fellini, so worth checki…
