Kogonada
The most deeply personal film of Alfonso Cuarón’s career, ‘Roma’ imbues the director’s own childhood memories with the epic sweep of history. But for all the technical virtuosity and monumental scale on display in its set pieces, the movie is anchored by the quiet, loving attention it pays to the rhythms and textures of early-1970s Mexico City. In this new video essay, ‘Columbus’ director Kogonada explores how the in-between moments of the protagonist’s daily existence serve as the heart of Cuarón’s vision — and connect it to the themes of life, death, and rebirth in a few very different works in his filmography, including the dystopian thriller ‘Children of Men’ and the space odyssey ‘Gravity.'
he most deeply personal film of Alfonso Cuarón’s career, Roma imbues the director’s own childhood memories with the epic sweep of history. But for all the technical virtuosity and monumental scale on display in its set pieces, the movie—which joins the Collection today in a director-approved edition—is anchored by the quiet, loving attention it pays to the rhythms and textures of early-1970s Mexico City, captured from the perspective of an indigenous domestic worker (Yalitza Aparicio) caring for a middle-class family during a time of emotional upheaval. In this new video essay, Columbus director Kogonada explores how the in-between moments of the protagonist’s daily existence serve as the heart of Cuarón’s vision—and connect it to the themes of life, death, and rebirth in a few very different works in his filmography, including the dystopian thriller Children of Men and the space odyssey Gravity.
When a renowned architecture scholar falls suddenly ill during a speaking tour, his son Jin finds himself stranded in Columbus, Indiana - a small Midwestern city celebrated for its many significant modernist buildings. Jin strikes up a friendship with Casey, a young architecture enthusiast who works at the local library.
Kogonada looks at how the motif of doors reverberates through Robert Bresson's work.
This new video essay by filmmaker Kogonada explores the many layers of director Francois Truffaut's masterpiece Day for Night.
In the 1960s, pioneering French New Wave filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard introduced the world to a new cinematic lexicon, generated from his innovative, auteurist style. Between 1960 and 1967 alone, he made fifteen features (beginning with his groundbreaking début, Breathless)—and it’s this period that regular Criterion Collection contributor Kogonada explores in a new video essay highlighting the iconic director’s signature themes and devices.
Kogonada’s video essay showcases the similarities of the multiple films Yasujiro Ozu made in his lifetime. Ozu created a genre of his own – a way of filmmaking that was cultivated and nourished throughout Ozu’s career as a filmmaker.
Filmmaker Kogonada reflects on women and mirrors in the films of Ingmar Bergman.
In 1993, the original negatives of Satyajit Ray’s The Apu Trilogy were burned in a massive nitrate fire at a laboratory in London. Even though there were no technologies available at the time capable of fully restoring such badly damaged film elements, the Academy Film Archive held on to them. And now times have changed.
A video essay on how Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris transcends science fiction.
A visual essay for 'La dolce vita,' directed by Kogonada for the Criterion Collection.
When characters stare at the camera in the films of Alfred Hitchcock, the look is almost always associated with the threat of death (through the eyes of a victim, a murderer, a witness). This momentary suspension between death and life is partly what makes Hitchcock the indisputable master of suspense.
Kogonada's video essay made in conjunction with the release of Criterion Designs, a 300-page book, which features highlights from cover art commissioned by the Criterion Collection, including never-before-seen sketches and concept art.
A visual essay on the tactile world of Robert Bresson created for the Criterion Collection.
"I wanted to write a fantasy with the atomic bomb as the theme." – Nobuhiko Obayashi
Filmmaker Kogonada unpicks what defines the Golden Age of Italian cinema with a side-by-side comparison of two edits of the same film, one according to Italian director Vittorio De Sica, and the other according to Hollywood producer David O. Selznick.
If cinema is the art of time, Linklater is one of its most thoughtful and engaged directors. Unlike other filmmakers identified as auteurs, Linklater’s distinction is not found on the surface of his films, in a visual style or signature shot, but rather in their DNA, as ongoing conversations with cinema, which is to say, with time itself.
The cinema of Koreeda Hirokazu is defined by moments of everyday life. Whatever potential there is for heightened drama – the suicide of a husband, a cult massacre, abandoned children – it is diffused by the familiar rhythms of everydayness. This attention to the everyday must be understood within the context of death, which plays a significant role in all of Koreeda’s films. It is death that deepens our sense of life and makes even the most mundane moment seem profound.
Of all the recurring signatures of Malick, his use of fire and water might be the most telling, in part because there’s a significant shift between early Malick (Badlands & Days of Heaven) and later Malick (The Thin Red Line, The New World, The Tree of Life & To the Wonder). Early Malick favors fire. Later Malick favors water. In To the Wonder, Malick forgoes fire altogether for the first time in his career. Water reigns.
Sound in film is often complimentary. Rarely does it suggest an aesthetic of its own. The punctuating, rhythmic soundscapes of Aronofsky are the exception. They stay with you long after the film.
The careful eye of the video artist Kogonada has managed to capture all the incredible, almost absurd, shots that we can find in the first four seasons of Breaking Bad and assemble them all together
The films of Ozu are filled with people walking through alleys and hallways: the in-between spaces of modern life. This is where Ozu resides. In the transitory. It’s what he values as a filmmaker. Alleys are not an opportunity for suspense but for passage.
Kogonada's visual essay about the formalistice choices of master filmmaker Stanley Kubrick
A visual essay highlight shots from Wes Anderson's films which were films "from above."
In this 2014 video essay, filmmaker :: kogonada explores director Ingmar Bergman’s CRIES AND WHISPERS, a film in three movements.
Follows a Korean family through the generations, beginning in early 1900s Korea with Sunja, the prized daughter of a poor yet proud family, whose unplanned pregnancy threatens to shame them all. Deserted by her lover, Sunja is saved when a young tubercular minister offers to marry and bring her to Japan.
"After Yang” centers on a father and daughter as they try to save the life of their robotic family member Yang in a world where robotic children are purchased as live-in-babysitters. In the story, Yang has been programmed to help his little sister learn about her cultural heritage.
