Criterion Cover Art & Packaging Babble-on Vol.1

[Gregory]

Most of those work very well, but Tokyo Story is the worst of the lot. I had forgotten for awhile how embarassingly inappropriate it is to the film, and seeing it now reminded me. Tears are uncommon in Ozu's films, so seems they decided to fetishize the tear for the cover. But in my opinion, Noriko's strength is far more crucial to her character than her sadness. I could go on, but this is not the Tokyo Story thread.

[Lino]

Keviyp1, you have WAY too much free time for yourself...Still, nice DVD quilt you've got there.

[dekadetia]

As he is sort of a Criterion Collection artist, and I haven't seen it posted elsewhere, I thought I'd mention that Eric Chase Anderson's book Chuck Dugan is AWOL is coming out in May, and looks as you'd expect it would.

[kevyip1]

Keviyp1, you have WAY too much free time for yourself...Still, nice DVD quilt you've got there.

Time well spent! I've found some more of this kind of designs, including the aforementioned The Passion of Joan of Arc, that seems to show up on Criterion covers in an alarming frequency :




All of these covers have one thing in common: the female face, very often beautiful, occupies nearly the entire width or height of the cover, is almost always an incomplete face with certain features omitted or portions of the face hidden, and is "enhanced" to look somewhat outlandish and exoticized.

From the sheer number of these covers I detect a certain female fixation and fetishism, or even misogyny, considering the female face is always sliced across, chopped off, tinted, or defaced in some ways pictorally. I can even surmise that all these covers were designed by the same person.

The male equivalents of these covers are much fewer in number, and these dudes are not exactly easy on the eyes:



Let's not have any pretense about this, guys. Most buyers of Criterion DVDs are male, and Criterion knows this, and designs the covers accordingly!

For The Unbearable Lightness of Being, they could've put a nice, gratuitous closeup shot of Daniel Day-Lewis on the cover, or for the two Sirk films, a pretty picture of Rock Hudson. But nooooo. (I'm not gay, just making a point about the apparent male-female imbalance in this aspect.)

[Martha]

(I'm not gay, just making a point about the apparent male-female imbalance in this aspect.)

Whew.

[Michael]

(I'm not gay, just making a point about the apparent male-female imbalance in this aspect.)

Who cares? This has no relevance to the male-female imbalance.

[dekadetia]

.

[kevyip1]

Your picture looks too standard, and isn't really the male equivalent of the kind of covers that I mentioned, which is a stylized, exoticized, somewhat mangled closeup view of the human face. The Paramount DVD Seconds is a better example...

[colinr0380]

It seems interesting that the Kwaidan and Shop On Main Street covers have the left side of the male face cut off and covers like Silence of the Lambs, Cleo From 5 To 7 and Sisters have the right side of the female face cut off. Is this a suggestion by Criterion of male/female duality or a Bergman Persona homage?

Although The River cover scuppers that idea!

[Lino]

I've never looked at CC's covers that way until now. Weird. But they do seem to have a sort of stylistic trend somehow with the overblown faces in strange oblique perspectives.

One thing I have noticed DVD covers-wise is that the japanese usually tend to cut the usable area in half and put two very striking images on top and bottom. They even do this on film posters. This, of course is totally Criterion OT but since we're talking DVD covers, I'd thought I'd bring this up.

Examples:

http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=IMBC-154#
http://www.moviegoods.com/movie_product ... %5Fnss=648

[colinr0380]

Could the style of splitting the image be due to the way Japanese writing is done top to bottom, so the eye goes down the page. A poster image could be following the same familiar style and having the viewers eye go down the image?

[Narshty]

Does anyone else think their Touchez pas au grisbi cover has been printed far too dark?

[denti alligator]

Does anyone else think their Touchez pas au grisbi cover has been printed far too dark?

Yes, I didn't expect that based on the picture at the website.

[ben d banana]

yup, the grisbi cover looks like bootleg quality.

[Hrossa]

To be on topic, and draw the ire of Matt (who might even banish us from this little island of exile he's created for us should we begin expressing our personal tastes in list form again.):

What do all you silly people think the best cover is?
I'm sort of partial to Youth of the Beast.

AND
that All That Heaven Allows cover dekadetia made.

[Cinephrenic]

Grisbi's is THE WORST cover all time. (Even worst than Whispers and Cries).

What are you smoking? =P~

[hammock]

Grisbi's is THE WORST cover all time. (Even worst than Whispers and Cries).

What are you smoking? =P~

Can't be something he smoked - it would have made him see the beauty in the cover. It's more likely that he ate a bad sausage - those things are evil and make you hate everything!

PS: I bet someone was typing "worst cover lists" when they heard the siren!

[Miguel]

The Grisbi cover looks like it went through a scanner darkly.

[Narshty]

The cover and insert for Night and the City contain a glaring error (to a native Londoner anyway) - not only is "Anderson Road West" totally fictituous, but you'd never, ever get a street in London even called "Anderson Road West"; it's a bullshit Americanisation.

EDIT: I have just seen that this address appears in the film itself. Fools.

[Kudzu]

The woman's face isn't dismembered or discolored but they made up for it with the chest groping.

I have to say that I prefer the other one, mainly for the reason that it doesn't look like a Xerox copy. Perhaps they just want a still of Alain Delon in all of his moody glory and who wouldn't want that?

The title placement is better on this one.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

(Even worst than Whispers and Cries).

I think I like that title even better than the correct order.

So does Bergman, apparently, since the English title switched the order of the original Swedish title.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

The original cover is much better. More moody and much more mysterious. This one looks like a movie poster.

[Lino]

I like this new one a lot more than the previous one! At least now we can see Delon!

[oldsheperd]

I agree with Annie Mall. I reckon the cover is going to have a silver sheen on it. Plus, any cover with Monica Vitti's face on it is worth the admission.

[Hrossa]

I think the comments about it being like a bad xerox are off base. The highlighting of Monica's face is great and very glamorous. I do think they could have brightened the entire left side of the image, though. Alain would have still remained a dark, malevolent figure and we would have gotten better contrast on Monica's arm. Even brightening her arm by itself might be a nice touch.

The bright center of the image apparently wasn't a chance move. They use the same effect on the title.

EDIT: Y'know now that I think about it it's obvious. The effect used on the cover is supposed to mimic the lighting of an eclipse. Hence Alain's dark eclipse of Monica's brightness. Sorry if that was just obvious to everyone else.

Also, I think Antonioni's name is too dark.