Criterion Collection

The Criterion Collection is a joint venture between Janus Films and The Voyager Company that was begun in the late 1980s for the purpose of releasing authoritative home video versions of "classic and important contemporary films" on the laserdisc and DVD formats.

History

Because it is a privately held company, there is a dearth of publicly accessable information regarding the Criterion Collection as a business, as well as its relationships with other entities. Nevertheless, what information can be gathered from media sources reveals that the Criterion Collection shares a close business relationship with Janus Films and with Home Vision Entertainment.

Janus Films, Inc. was founded by Bryant Haliday and Cyrus Harvey, Jr. in 1955; they sold it in 1966. At some point thereafter, it was acquired by William Becker and Saul J. Turell. It is likely, although unverified, that Becker and Turell were the 1966 purchasers of Janus Films.

The Criterion Collection was founded in 1984 by Robert Stein, Aleen Stein (then Robert's wife), and Roger Smith. In 1985, the Steins, William Becker, and Jonathan B. Turell (son of Saul J. Turell) founded The Voyager Company. The Voyager Company was a developer of multimedia CD-ROMs. It released dozens of high-quality educational CD-ROMs between 1993 and 2000.

The Criterion Collection became a division of Voyager. In March of 1994, Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH purchased a 20% share of Voyager for $6.7 million. The four founders themselves each retained a 20% share.

In the late 1990s, Voyager was broken up. In the winter of 1997, Holtzbrinck sold 42 Voyager CD-ROM titles, the Voyager brand name, the Voyager web site, and associated assets to Learn Technologies Interactive (LTI) LLC. (Robert Stein, by then divorced from Aleen, had himself sold 42 Voyager CD-ROM titles to LTI some time earlier.) Becker and Turell acquired complete ownership of Criterion; Turell became its CEO, and Becker's son, Peter Becker, became its president. (Peter Becker had been the president of Voyager and, before that, the director of its Criterion division.)

Charles Benton, son of Senator William Benton, founded Public Media, Inc. (PMI) in 1968. PMI's home video division, Home Vision Entertainment (HVE), was established in 1986. Charles' daughter, Adrianne B. Furniss, became PMI's president in 1996, and its CEO in 1999. Adrianne B. Furniss is also the Chief Executive Officer of HVE. Charles Benton is the Chariman of HVE.

Home Vision Entertainment, which is also a privately held company, distributes Criterion DVD releases; however, it doesn't own Criterion. Home Vision Entertainment also provides sales, advertising, and marketing services for Criterion.

Home Vision Entertainment releases its own line of DVDs on its own HVE line, which includes, but is not limited to, The Merchant Ivory Collection and The Classic Collection. The Merchant Ivory Collection is produced in association with the Criterion Collection and is dedicated to releasing DVDs of films produced and directed by Ismail Merchant and James Ivory. The Classic Collection is self-described as "a joint venture between Home Vision Entertainment and Janus Films." It appears to be dedicated to releasing DVDs under the HVE imprint of films for which Janus Films holds DVD rights and are not released by the Criterion Collection. Films under the Classic Collection imprint have also been released by the Criterion Collection.

Contributions and influence

Criterion pioneered many innovations in the way movies are presented on video that have become standard today. One of these is letterboxing, in which widescreen movies are presented in their original theatrical aspect ratios. Though at first resisted by consumers, due to the fact that letterboxing requires the image to be shrunk and bracketed top-to-bottom by black bars to accommodate a television's roughly square screen, it was soon embraced by movie enthusaists who were quick to recognize its benefits over the alternative, a film image severely cropped on the sides. The 1987 Criterion laserdisc of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner was a seminal home video release in legitimizing letterboxing.

Criterion is also credited with creating the concept of the "special edition", in which a movie is presented with numerous bonus materials including trailers, directors' audio commentaries, behind-the-scenes documentaries, alternate endings, deleted scenes, and more. This concept was quickly embraced by almost all other home video companies, from the mainstream to small speciality labels like Elite Entertainment. Today, special edition DVD's, even for the most trivial of films, are becoming the norm rather than the exception.

Criterion usually selects foreign films, established classics, and obscure critically-admired movies over mainstream Hollywood fare, though they have released the occasional mainstream blockbuster. Criterion is noted for spending a great deal of effort and money tracing the best source materials for classic films, and engaging in thorough restorations — another practice that has influenced other companies.

Though a laserdisc pioneer, Criterion entered the DVD market cautiously, not releasing their first titles on the new format until it had been on the market for approximately a year. Today, though they are no longer alone in the care and dedication with which they treat their films, nor in the elaborate content of their special editions, their name alone has become synonymous with quality, a brand of distinction not unlike Lexus or Cadillac.

However, as most any brand associated in the mind of consumers with quality, Criterion DVDs tend, on the whole, to be much more expensive than DVDs released by other entities. Whether this pricing structure is due to increased costs necessary to ensure the best possible films elements and extras and to compensate for a smaller market for the titles it releases, or whether it is a means to capitalize on the cachet of its reputation has been hotly debated.

As of September 2004, Criterion has issued over 200 releases.