Inside the Box

Trevor Berrett and David Blakeslee are pleased to present Inside the Box, a podcast series that explores the riches in the various box sets released by The Criterion Collection. In this episode, they discuss Wim Wenders: The Road Trilogy, which contains Alice in the Cities, Wrong Move, and Kings of the Road.

In the 1970s, Wim Wenders was among the first true international breakthrough artists of the revolutionary New German Cinema movement, a filmmaker whose fascination with the physical landscapes and emotional contours of the open road proved to be universal. In the middle of that decade, Wenders embarked on a three-film journey that took him from the wide roads of Germany to the endless highways of the United States and back again. Each starring Rüdiger Vogler as the director’s alter ego, Alice in the Cities, Wrong Move, and Kings of the Roadare dramas of emotional transformation that follow their characters’ searches for themselves, all rendered with uncommon soulfulness and visual poetry.

Trevor Berrett and David Blakeslee are pleased to present Inside the Box, a podcast series that explores the riches in the various box sets released by The Criterion Collection. In this episode, they discuss The Samurai Trilogy, which contains Hiroshi Inagaki’s trilogy of films Musashi Miyamoto, Duel at Ichijoji Temple, and Duel at Ganryu Island.

The Samurai Trilogy, directed by Hiroshi Inagaki and starring the inimitable Toshiro Mifune, was one of Japan’s most successful exports of the 1950s, a rousing, emotionally gripping tale of combat and self-discovery. Based on a novel that’s often called Japan’s Gone with the Wind, this sweeping saga fictionalizes the life of the legendary seventeenth-century swordsman (and writer and artist) Musashi Miyamoto, following him on his path from unruly youth to enlightened warrior. With these three films—1954’s Oscar-winning Musashi Miyamoto, 1955’s Duel at Ichijoji Temple, and 1956’s Duel at Ganryu Island—Inagaki created a passionate epic that’s equal parts tender love story and bloody action.

Trevor Berrett and David Blakeslee are pleased to present Inside the Box, a podcast series that explores the riches in the various box sets released by The Criterion Collection. In this episode, they discuss David Lean Directs Noël Coward, which contains the films In Which We Serve, This Happy Breed, Blithe Spirit, and Brief Encounter.

In the 1940s, the wit of playwright Noël Coward and the craft of filmmaker David Lean melded harmoniously in one of cinema’s greatest writer-director collaborations. With the wartime military drama sensation In Which We Serve, Coward and Lean (along with producing partners Ronald Neame and Anthony Havelock-Allan) embarked on a series of literate, socially engaged, and enormously entertaining pictures that ranged from domestic epic (This Happy Breed) to whimsical comedy (Blithe Spirit) to poignant romance (Brief Encounter). These films created a lasting testament to Coward’s artistic legacy and introduced Lean’s visionary talents to the world.

Trevor Berrett and David Blakeslee are pleased to present Inside the Box, a podcast series that explores the riches in the various box sets released by The Criterion Collection. In this episode, they discuss The Koker Trilogy, which contains Where Is the Friend’s House, And Life Goes On, and Through the Olive Trees.

Abbas Kiarostami first came to international attention for this wondrous, slyly self-referential series of films set in the rural northern-Iranian town of Koker. Poised delicately between fiction and documentary, comedy and tragedy, the lyrical fables in The Koker Trilogy exemplify both the gentle humanism and the playful sleight of hand that define the director’s sensibility. With each successive film, Kiarostami takes us deeper into the behind-the-scenes “reality” of the film that preceded it, heightening our understanding of the complex network of human relationships that sustain both a movie set and a village. The result is a gradual outward zoom that reveals the cosmic majesty and mystery of ordinary life.

Trevor Berrett and David Blakeslee are pleased to present Inside the Box, a podcast series that explores the riches in the various box sets released by The Criterion Collection. In this episode, they discuss The Marseille Trilogy, which contains Marius, Fanny, and César.

In the 1930s, Marcel Pagnol, a leading light of the Paris theater, set out for new horizons as a filmmaker in his native Provence. His early masterpieces Marius, Fanny, and César mix theatrical stagecraft with realistic location photography to create an epic love story from the fabric of everyday life. Gruff, sentimental César (music-hall star Raimu) owns a waterfront bar in the Old Port of Marseille where his son, Marius (Pierre Fresnay), wipes down tables and dreams of a life at sea. The prosperous, middle-aged sailmaker Panisse (Fernand Charpin) wants to wed Marius’s sweetheart, Fanny (Orane Demazis), setting up a fateful romantic triangle whose story unfolds across a generation in the films of The Marseille Trilogy, which first earned Pagnol his place in cinema history. “If Pagnol is not the greatest auteur of the sound film,” critic André Bazin wrote, “he is in any case something akin to its genius.”

Trevor Berrett and David Blakeslee are pleased to present Inside the Box, a podcast series that explores the riches in the various box sets released by The Criterion Collection. In this episode, they discuss Three Fantastic Journeys by Karel Zeman, which contains Journey to the Beginning of Time, Invention for Destruction, and The Fabulous Baron Munchausen.

A one-of-a-kind silver-screen illusionist, Czech filmmaker Karel Zeman devoted his career to transporting viewers to realms bey­ond their wildest imagining. The deft, breathtaking combin­ations of live action and animation techniques that he pioneered in the postwar years earned him comparisons to legends such as Georges Méliès, and an array of followers that includes Jan Švankmajer, Terry Gilliam, and Wes Anderson. Presented here are three of Zeman’s most enchanting fantasies—a boys’ adventure into the mists of prehistory, a Jules Verne–derived flight of fancy, and an exotic eighteenth-century tall tale—all of them treasure chests of wondrous sights, tactile textures, and headlong yarn-spinning that helped put Czechoslovak cinema on the international map.

Trevor Berrett and David Blakeslee are pleased to present Inside the Box, a podcast series that explores the riches in the various box sets released by The Criterion Collection. In this episode, they discuss The Apu Trilogy, which contains Pather Panchali, Aparajito, and Apur Sansar.

Two decades after its original negatives were burned in a fire, Satyajit Ray’s breathtaking milestone of world cinema rises from the ashes in a meticulously reconstructed new restoration. The Apu Trilogy brought India into the golden age of international art-house film, following one indelible character, a free-spirited child in rural Bengal who matures into an adolescent urban student and finally a sensitive man of the world. These delicate masterworks—Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road), Aparajito (The Unvanquished), and Apur Sansar (The World of Apu)—based on two books by Bibhutibhusan Banerjee, were shot over the course of five years, and each stands on its own as a tender, visually radiant journey. They are among the most achingly beautiful, richly humane movies ever made—essential works for any film lover.

Trevor Berrett and David Blakeslee are pleased to present Inside the Box, a podcast series that will explore the riches in the various box sets released by The Criterion Collection. In this inaugural episode, they discuss 3 Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg, which contains Underworld, The Last Command, and The Docks of New York.

Vienna-born, New York-raised Josef von Sternberg directed some of the most influential, stylish dramas ever to come out of Hollywood. Though best known for his star-making collaborations with Marlene Dietrich, von Sternberg began his career during the final years of the silent era, dazzling audiences and critics with his films’ dark visions and innovative cinematography. The titles in this collection, made on the cusp of the sound age, are three of von Sternberg’s greatest works, gritty evocations of gangster life (Underworld), the Russian Revolution (The Last Command), and working-class desperation (The Docks of New York) rendered as shadowy movie spectacle.

Inside the Box is a new podcast dedicated to conversation about box sets produced by The Criterion Collection. Co-hosts Trevor Berrett and David Blakeslee, partners on The Eclipse Viewer podcast from 2013 to 2018, pick up where they left off after they completed their coverage of Criterion’s Eclipse Series.

Each episode will focus attention on a particular Criterion box set, discussing not only the films themselves, but also the supplements, packaging and other background information that aims to enhance our understanding and appreciation for each of these unique editions.

Here’s a short introduction from Trevor and David to let you know a little bit more about what they have in mind for their new program!

The unedited version of the first episode of Inside the Box is now available to our supporters on Patreon.