The Criterion Collection Complete

REES, Dee (United States) Pariah [2011] Spine #1083 Blu-ray \ The path to living as one's authentic self is paved with trials and tribulations in this revelatory, assured feature debut by Dee Rees -- the all-too-rare coming-of-age tale to honestly represent the experiences of queer Black women. Grounded in the fine-grained specificity and deft characterizations of Ree's script and built around a beautifully layered performance from Adepero Oduye,  Pariah  follows Brooklyn teenager Alike, who is dealing with the emotional minefields of both first love and heartache and the disapproval of her family as she navigates the expression of her gender and sexual identities within a system that does not make space for them. Achieving an aching intimacy with its subject through the expressive cinematography of Bradford Young, this deeply felt portrait finds strength in vulnerability and liberation in letting go. 86 minutes Color 5.1 Surround 1:85:1 aspect ratio Criterion Release 2021...

RIGGS, Marlon (United States) Black is . . . Black Ain't [1995] Spine #1082g Blu-ray Director Marlon Riggs  was 38 when he directed  Black Is . . . Black Ain't . Made with an urgency imparted by the knowledge that he was nearing the end of his life, Marlon Rigg's final film -- completed after his death of AIDS by a group of his devoted collaborators -- is a wide-ranging consideration of a question that had long been central to his work: What does it mean to be Black? Using his mother's gumbo recipe as a metaphor for the diversity of the African American experience, Riggs travels the country, seeking insights from leading thinkers like Angela Davis, Henry Louis Gates Jr., bell hooks, and Barbara Smith as well as ordinary people -- young and old, rich and poor, rural and urban, gay and straight -- all grappling with the numerous, often contested definitions of Blackness that have shaped their lives. Punctuated by footage of a dying Riggs directing his crew and delivering ...

RIGGS, Marlon (United States) Non, Je ne Regrette Rien (No Regret) [1993] Spine #1082f Blu-ray Director Marlon Riggs was 36 when he directed Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien (No Regret) . Through music, poetry, and courageous self-disclosure, five HIV-positive gay Black men (among them poet and performance artist Assotto Saint) discuss their individual confrontations with AIDS, illuminating their journeys through the fear, shame, and stigma that accompanied the disease at the height of the epidemic toward healing, acceptance, and truth. In Je Ne Regrette Rien (No Regret) , director Marlon Riggs tells stories of self-transformation in which a once unmentionable "affliction" is forged into a tool of personal and communal empowerment. 38 minutes Color 1:33:1 aspect ratio Criterion Release 2021 The Film The Extras The Booklet Forty-eight page booklet featuring an essay by film critic  K. Austin Collins . Commentary None. Four programs Featuring filmmaker and editor  Christiane Badgl...

RIGGS, Marlon (United States) Color Adjustment [1992] Spine #1082e Blu-ray Director/Writer Marlon Riggs was 35 when he wrote and directed Color Adjustment . What does the American dream look like? Where do Black Americans fit into it? And what is television's role in shaping our views of racial progress and the idealized American family? Picking up where the groundbreaking Ethnic Notions  left off, this pioneering work of media studies by Marlon Riggs presents a complicated, challenging, and nuanced view of evolving racial attitudes as reflected in popular programs such as Amos 'n' Andy, Julia, All in the Family, Good Times, Roots, and The Cosby Show . Narrated by Ruby Dee and featuring interviews with actors Diahann Carroll, Tim Reid, and Esther Rolle, African American historian Henry Louis Gates Jr., and producer Norman Lear, among others, Color Adjustment looks beyond the whitewashed, middle-class mythologies peddled by prime-time entertainment to track the ways in ...

RIGGS, Marlon (United States) Anthem [1991] Spine #1082d Blu-ray Director Marlon Riggs was 34 when he directed Anthem . "Pervert the language." Made at a time when Marlon Riggs was three years into living with HIV and the motto "Silence=Death" was the queer community's defiant response to the antigay policies of the Reagan era, this experimental music video employs a mix of poetry, African beats, and provocative imagery -- sexual, political, and religious -- in order to challenge and redefine prevailing images of Black masculinity. Led by the liberated dancing of the filmmaker himself, Anthem  is a bold vision of queer revolution, proclaiming "Every time we kiss we confirm the new world coming." 9 minutes Color 1:33:1 aspect ratio Criterion Release 2021 The Film The Extras The Booklet Forty-eight page booklet featuring an essay by film critic  K. Austin Collins . Commentary None. Four programs Featuring filmmaker and editor  Christiane Badgley : p...

RIGGS, Marlon (United States) Affirmations [1990] Spine #1082c Blu-ray Director/Writer Marlon Riggs was 33 when he wrote and directed Affirmations . Marlon Riggs expresses the hopes, dreams, and desires of gay Black men in this ode to queer African American empowerment. Built around outtakes of interview and protest footage from Tongues Untied , Affirmations begins as a candid, sex-positive confessional about first-time penetration and evolves into a rousing chorus of calls for freedom, recognition, and inclusion. 11 minutes Color 1:33:1 aspect ratio Criterion Release 2021 The Film The Extras The Booklet Forty-eight page booklet featuring an essay by film critic  K. Austin Collins . Commentary None. Four programs Featuring filmmaker and editor  Christiane Badgley : performers  Brian Freeman ,  Reginald T. Jackson , and  Bill T. Jones : filmmakers  Cheryl Dunye  and  Rodney Evans : poet  Jericho Brown : film and media scholar  Racque...

RIGGS, Marlon (United States) Tongues Untied [1989] Spine #1082b Blu-ray Director Marlon Riggs was 32 when he directed Tongues Untied . Made, in Marlon Rigg's own words, to "shatter the nation's brutalizing silence on matters of sexual and racial difference," this radical blend of documentary and performance defies the stigmas surrounding Black gay sexuality in the belief that, as long as shame prevails, liberation will never be possible. Through music and dance, words and poetry by such pathbreaking writers as Essex Hemphill and Joseph Beam -- and by turns candid, humorous, and heartbreaking interviews with queer African American men -- Tongues Untied  gives voice to what it means to live as an outsider in both a Black community rife with homophobia and a largely white gay subculture poisoned by racism. A lightning rod in the conservative culture wars of the 1980s that incited a right-wing furor over public funding for the arts, the film has lost none of its res...

RIGGS, Marlon (United States/Canada) Ethnic Notions [1986] Spine #1082a Blu-ray Director/Writer Marlon Riggs was 29 when he wrote and directed Ethnic Notions . Marlon Riggs brings viewers face-to-face with the insidious images that have shaped America's racial mythologies, in his first major work, a brilliant and disturbing deconstruction of the ways in which anti-Black stereotypes have permeated nearly every aspect of popular culture. Through razor-sharp historical analysis including interviews with historians and folklore scholars, powerfully deployed imagery, and narration by actor Esther Rolle, Ethnic Nations illuminates, with devastating clarity, how dehumanizing caricatures of Black people -- seen everywhere from children's books to films to household products -- have been used to uphold white supremacy and to justify slavery, segregation, and the continuing oppression of African Americans. In its refusal to look away from racism's ugliest manifestations, this Em...