Word: janus
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...Richard Lacayo explains in the illuminating essay that accompanies this one, the company built its lustrous reputation two decades ago in its intermediate stage between Janus the movie distributor and Criterion the DVD producer: as the Voyager label in the brief, glorious age of laser discs. Voyager was noted for the care its took in reproducing, sometimes restoring, pristine print quality. In graphics and production, the discs had the elegance of art books; they were the first coffee-table movies...
...Janus was a company that had become a brand - more than that, a beacon. And not just to American moviegoers. In an interview later in his long career, Bergman complained about the shoddy treatment his early films had received in the U.S., with distributors splicing their own footage of nude women into the prints. Then, he said, two young fellows came to see him and showed him and his films the greatest respect. These were the two heads of Janus: Bryant Haliday and Cyrus Harvey...
...Fifty years after their founding of Janus Films, the company has evolved into the Criterion Collection, the foremost packager of DVDs of foreign and specialty films. I can't think of another area of popular art, or commerce, where one brand is considered the standard of excellence, so far above its competitors, as Criterion. Consider: that it's the only label to have its own section in many video stores; that a copy of the out-of-print "white ring" edition of Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salo has been bid up, last time I checked, to $1,025 on eBay...
...Weighing in at 13 lbs., 12 oz., Essential Art House is a whole film school in a really big box. It comprises 52 films that Janus either originally released in theaters or picked up after their initial runs for distribution to repertory theaters, 16mm film programs and the more enlightened TV stations. The A list of foreign films is here: Rashomon and Pandora's Box, The 400 Blows and Viridiana, The Third Man and The Lady Vanishes-the basics of an educated person's film education...
...have to say it drives me nuts that these discs don't include any of the extras I've extolled; a Criterion disc without all the cool Easter eggs is missing something... essential. But the box is a testament not to Criterion but to Janus; indeed, to serious lovers of serious films. As such, there's not a richer gift (if you happen to be rich) for someone ready to experience the wonders of movies beyond Hollywood than this sumptuous...