Criterion & Eclipse Cover Art & Packaging Babble-on Vol.4

[Flike]

I just think it's a shame that the best DVD company in the world insists upon dating their discs with hip art that never holds up (see spines 1-100 or so).

I've seen a lot of this lately here, on FB and various designers' blogs. What would you have the cover be, and how badly do you think some of the best (recent) covers will date when they're so design-centric (Vampyr, Stagecoach, The Furies, Make Way For Tomorrow, etc.)? I'm honestly curious as someone that's way more interested in general aesthetics than the art of film.

It reminds me of what the Alamo Drafthouse is doing with their posters series -- they cover some incredibly kitschy, embarrassing shit, but a lot of it has been quite beautiful. Recently they've released an Olly Moss (Evil Dead) and a Tomer Hanuka (The Warriors). I feel these illustrators are prolific and talented enough that long after everyone has forgotten those respective films, they'll still be talking about those designs in the context of each designers' oeuvre, and I feel that way about a lot of Criterion's releases, particularly the stuff they've commissioned from cartoonists -- the discs will be in the dumpster in fifty years whereas we'll still be digging through Seth's portfolio.

[knives]

I really doubt that Make Way for Tomorrow will be relegated to dumpsters.

[HistoryProf]

Cover for Red Desert I think looks better and better every time I look at it even though initially I didn't care much for it but the cover for the booklet would have made a great cover.

maybe it's just me, but that cover and interior make me want to blind buy it even more. every image I've seen of this film has intrigued me, and the drab industrial landscape of the packaging has only heightened my interest in seeing it. But again - this from someone who has NOT seen it before...and I can't explain it, but I went from 'whatever' territory to 'need to get this' since it's announcement largely based purely in a few images. it's like the damned thing is calling me.

[HistoryProf]

Well, it's simple and minimalistic, but not as bad as most of the people here are saying.

I agree, most of their concept covers suck from design to craftsmanship, but the Red Desert cover actually fits in with what I recall of the movie. If memory serves, the cover is a image seen from the beginning with that weird electro-hum-popping soundtrack. It's quite jarring. The BFI cover was laughable and a poor attempt to the articulate the title.

I agree that it is a FAR better cover than the bfi...though I tend to find the vast majority of BFI's art decisions vary between confusing to atrocious.

[ellipsis7]

The BFI cover is an oft used original image, iconically featured on posters etc...




The CC RED DESERT cover however calls to mind an interesting juxtaposition, reflecting one line of development in postwar Italian cinema......



...but it does not clearly indicate, after his stunningly beautiful black and white films, that RED DESERT was Antonioni's radical break into colour, hence the brights, reds, yellows and blues of the image used by the BFI...

[fdm]

I'll side with it's being "pure ass". Ranks down there among their worst.

[domino harvey]

Whoever thought of marketing this film without Monica Vitti should have been fired

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

Whoever thought of marketing this film without Monica Vitti should have been fired

Amen. I find the poster far more interesting and compelling due to the mysterious look on Vitti's face. The cover CC used just makes it look like more humdrum, monochromatic angst rather than a change in direction to color.

[Cinephrenic]

Guys get over it, they not changing it. We are stuck without Vitti on the cover.

[Zinoviev]

I'm ok with the cover, in fact I rather like it. Considering some of the more obvious chromatic decisions this year (cf. BLACK Narcissus, The RED Shoes), the Red Desert cover strikes me as subtle and understated.

[Steven H]

It would be a good cover if Red Desert was actually Tarkovsky's long lost three hour Siberian prison camp movie.

[colinr0380]

That reminds me - when is someone ever going to release One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich?

[swo17]

Looks like The Leopard BD is going to be a digipak.

[Highway 61]

Nice. Glad to see Criterion producing Blu digipaks done right.

[aox]

sexy

[dad1153]

beast \:D/

[domino harvey]

Looks like a slipcover to me

[Matt]

It's a digipak, curse the evil contraptions. Criterion do not have double cases for their Blu-rays, so any Blu-ray release with more than 1 disc is probably going to be in a digipak.

[movielocke]

damn, that's a shame.

[Mikos Stenopolis]

Received Red desert, mystery train and close up yesterday. I really with the booklet covers for close up and mystery weren't identical. They're too plain and kinda boring but it's only the booklet. I can say that in person the Red desert as a whole package is very beautiful. The cover is great!

[kaujot]

How on earth did you get them so soon?

[CrazedCollector]

It's a digipak, curse the evil contraptions. Criterion do not have double cases for their Blu-rays, so any Blu-ray release with more than 1 disc is probably going to be in a digipak.

Unless you count the case for Benjamin Button. Which raises the question, which is worse: the run-of-the-mill "un-uniform" blue case or the digipak?

[mfunk9786]

Notice to digipak haters: there are people who really like them.

[Cinephrenic]

Notice to digipak lovers: send me $5 for every one released.

[domino harvey]

This is why we don't need posted ages on the forum. Viva la youth, viva la digipak!