Teller of tiny stories

“To wait for the perfect conditions in order to work as an artist entails waiting a long time only because “the right time” truly never exists. Whether factors outside of our control or internal ones that challenge our sense of self, there can always be something that convinces us to wait just a little longer. To be an artist means to make art, and so it is necessary to see “the right time” as simply being the moment you choose to take action.”

– Ava DuVernay

We asked our friends at @criterioncollection to send us a list of some of their favorite Criterion curiosities, behind-the-scenes filmmaking stories that you’ll want to explore more deeply or share with others. Enjoy!

1/ Leon Russell invited Les Blank to make doc about him, but A POEM IS A NAKED PERSON (’74) wasn’t the film Russell was expecting, and he prevented it from being released for more than 40 years except in private screenings. In 2014, as Les’s health was failing, his son Harrod Blank gently, persistently persuaded Leon to allow the film to be shown in theaters. In 1972, when Harrod was nine years old, he had spent the summer living on Leon’s property in Oklahoma with his father. When he first wrote to Leon, he included a drawing (shown above) he had made at that time. That may have been what finally broke the ice.

Leon was very happy when the film came out in 2015 and found an appreciative audience. Here are Leon & Harrod outside the Film Forum on the night of the premiere:

2/ Did you know that Pierre Etaix was also a visual artist who drew many of the original, iconic Jacques Tati posters? Etaix also did the cover design for Criterion’s edition and all the artwork inside (including the one on the theme page for the Etaix series). Etaix drafted the first drawing on a napkin while at dinner with the Criterion team.

3/ The blood spurting at the end of SANJURO (‘62) shot up from an underground tank powered by a big manual pump. Akira  Kurosawa’s right hand, Teruyo Nogami drew this picture of the set-up:

4/ One of the creepiest scenes in MULHOLLAND DR. (2001) has an interesting story about the performance. When Justin Theroux’s character goes to the corral with the “cowboy,” a role played by Lynch’s friend and producer Monty Montgomery, the non-actor couldn’t remember his lines, so the crew taped the lines to Theroux’s face and chest so Montgomery could read them. The result is one of the most memorable performances in the film. 

5/ THE IMMORTAL STORY (’68) had been planned to be one installment in a series of as many as five short story adaptations from Isak Dinesen, a writer that Welles loved almost as much as he did Shakespeare. In fact, Welles once traveled to Denmark to try to meet with her, but lost his nerve, stayed in his hotel room and went back to the airport.

6/ During the editing of THE BLACK STALLION (’79), sound designer Alan Desplet found inspiration for the sound of the sinking ship from an old toilet in the bathroom at the studio. As director Carroll Ballard remembered, if one didn’t flush the toilet just the right way, it emitted the sound that Desplet later used to recreate the sound of the ship’s chambers collapsing from the weight of the water.

7/ Albert Maysles had barely operated a camera in his life when he took the famous shot of Kennedy entering through a crowd in PRIMARY (’60). D.A. Pennebaker put a wide-angle lens on the camera and told Maysles to hold the camera high over his head and just follow the candidate. The resulting shot is such a virtuoso piece of work that it shows what a natural Maysles was.

“Since I was personally totally unknown, I didn’t have the sense of risking anything. I know other cameramen were approached but they thought it wasn’t the right way of doing things or that it would threaten their careers as cinematographers. Someone who had made 20 films would have a lot of contacts in the business and wouldn’t want to jeopardize them. But I had no career because it was only my fourth film. I’ve worked a lot since then because I had the reputation of being fast. Perhaps it’s thanks to Jean-Luc that I became so.”

– Cinematographer Raoul Coutard on beginning his career with Jean-Luc Godard