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Janus Loves Federico
September 25, 2006
This Wednesday, Janus Films celebrates its 50th anniversary with a special screening of a pristine print of Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes at New York’s Director’s Guild Theater followed by a VIP party at the oh-so-swank Remi. Janus--the legendary film distributor that introduced U.S. audiences to the works of Bergman, Kurosawa, Fellini and Truffaut (not a bad foursome, eh?), amongst others--is the sister company of The Criterion Collection, which creates the world’s most gorgeous and supplement-laden films on DVD, many of them from the Janus Films library.
When Criterion isn’t dipping into the Janus collection, it often tackles the work of such viable contemporary filmmakers as Jim Jarmusch, Steven Soderbergh, Spike Lee, Wes Anderson and Michael Bay (yes, Criterion issued an edition of The Rock.)
“We like mix it up and keep it varied in order to capture the breadth of film expression—and not be snobby.” says Criterion president Peter Becker, whose partner in celluloid salvation is Criterion CEO Jonathan Turell, who also serves as managing director of Janus Films. (Both Becker and Turell’s father were principals at Janus back in the Fifties.)
In a nod to the accomplishments of Janus and a desire to “publish editions that offer the highest technical quality,”
Criterion has just re-issued a newly re-mastered version of one of their original titles and one of the most popular entries in the Janus library: Fellini’s Amarcord. This new version of Fellini’s acclaimed 1972 nostalgic, coming-of-age memoir is one of handful of titles that Criterion has re-issued over the past year. Others include Terry Gilliam’s Brazil and Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai. Great people, that crew over at Criterion—issuing great DVDs of great films and then re-issuing even greater ones when better technology and finer source materials rear their head!
Posted by on September 25, 2006 | Comments (0)
