The Criterion Collection Has Some Shady Skeletons in Its Closet
Story by Nathan Williams
Since 1984, the Criterion Collection has dominated the high-end arthouse film market. First releasing on the long-defunct Laserdisc format (ask your grandpa), they segued into VHS, DVD, and later Blu-ray, finally inaugurating their own streaming service. CC has some of the best public relations in the whole of the entertainment biz, with celebrities eagerly raiding their closet for obscure cinematic gems, but that doesn't mean they are immune to the occasional blunder or anti-consumer scheming.
There was a time in the early '80s when a film's shelf life was limited to the theatrical run. If you lived in the sticks and couldn't drive to New York City, Paris, or London to visit a theater with access to vintage prints of Renoir or Bergman, you were simply never going to see 99.9% of classic movies unless you were a film student. Thanks to new technology, Criterion changed viewing habits. An investment sweetened thanks to the inclusion of commentary tracks, a concept they originated. Throughout the years, they haven't always lived up to their website's mission statement, which promises "pioneering commitment to presenting each film as its maker would want it seen, in state-of-the-art restorations." But even when they do obey the director, they still elicit the wrath of fickle movie lovers.
The Criterion Collection's Sucker List Peruse the Criterion Collection page on Wikipedia, and it's so squeaky clean that you'd think that the company was run by nuns. In their Criterion Closet videos, stars like Willem Dafoe and Nicholas Hoult gush about their favorite movies, like giddy children in a candy shop. That rosy viral image belies the real nature of the company, which found itself in a class-action lawsuit over its Criterion Channel subscription service, the case alleging they were selling users’ private info to various other companies, according to a report by Top Class Actions this year.
They didn't fess up, but settled the case for $4.5 million to avoid further bad press. If you happen to have used this site between 2022 and 2024, you might be entitled to a sliver of that settlement. Digging deeper, we find that, despite four decades in business, the Criterion Collection is not accredited with the US consumer rights advocacy organization, the Better Business Bureau, accumulating a dozen complaints over just three years. Though certainly the most egregious, this was hardly the beginning of the Criterion Collection's controversies.
The Commentary To End All Commentaries In the early '90s, CC released the now-banned James Bond Laserdisc collection of the first three films, which dished the dirt. The cast and crew told all, swearing and taking potshots at Sean Connery. The feeling was mutual. Great stuff for us film nerds to mull over — if you can dig it up online — but so provocative at the time that the Bond head honcho, Cubby Broccoli, ordered Criterion to immediately stop selling the Laserdisc when he heard the unfiltered stories that the directors, scriptwriters, editors, and set designers were spouting.
They didn't hold back, ridiculing the actresses, the half-assed casting process, the botched special effects, and the source material itself. The anecdotes and unverified gossip deflate some of the mystique, which is why Eon Productions wished to quash any soundbites deemed detrimental to the franchise or to invite litigation. Depending on your sense of humor or decorum, these "lost" copies of Dr. No, From Russia With Love, and Goldfinger are either the greatest commentary tracks ever recorded or the worst. Either way, you'll never hear a commentary this catty or brutal ever again.
The George Lucas Effect Criterion's re-releases have consistently sparked debate among the film community. It's not always their fault. The CC streaming version of The French Connection notably annoyed viewers when they discovered that their supposedly pristine version of the William Friedkin film they paid for had been censored to scrub rude language, as reported by Forbes. Thusly, betraying the entire appeal of the CC, avoiding all the condescending edits by busybodies. If movie snobs wanted to settle for mutilated versions of the classics, they'd just watch them on basic cable.
In some cases, those ill-advised edits are precisely the fault of the director, tweaking or updating his movie. Which brings us to the tribulations of Wong Kar-wai fans. As Indiewire publicized back in 2021, CC re-released his films exactly to the director's specifications; actions met with mixed feedback for veering from fans' expectations:
"By the time word got out that 'Happy Together' was now missing bits of voiceover that had burned off the negatives in a recent fire, it felt as if we might be careening towards the arthouse equivalent of the Star Wars Special Editions."
Likewise, keen Coen Bros. aficionados quickly noticed that the Criterion copy of Miller’s Crossing sliced out about two minutes of the original film without a disclaimer, leading to forum detectives with way too much free time to compel CC to explain the discrepancy in runtime, which was apparently the work of the Coens.
We're not saying that CC are hypocrites or that you should boycott them. All companies eventually succumb to their sleaziest instincts, and the worst enemy of film preservation is often the creator. Temper your expectations accordingly. The Criterion Collection might appear like an underdog passion project, but it is, in reality, a corporate empire just like every other. Forget the branding. In this age of digital downloads and DRM, they might be one of the few institutions dedicated to physical media, making our reliance on them that much more bittersweet.
The Criterion Collection Has Some Shady Skeletons in Its Closet |
