If you’re a reader of our website, you are likely familiar with The Criterion Collection. Every month, like clockwork, we tend to highlight the additions to the coveted library of cinema titles that many film fans deem is the one-stop-shop for a true film education. That being said, as decades pass, another thing has become readily apparent, The Criterion Collection is far from complete and sadly not even close to diverse. And the man behind Criterion, Peter Becker, admits as much in a New York Times piece about the library’s startling lack of films from Black filmmakers.
Without forcing us to go through each and every Criterion release, the article does it for us and came to a disappointing conclusion—the library contains works from only four Black American filmmakers and only eight total Black filmmakers from around the world. This is most certainly a problem, and something Becker admits is an issue.
“There’s nothing I can say about it that will make it OK,” he said. “The fact that things are missing, and specifically that Black voices are missing, is harmful, and that’s clear. We have to fix that.”
Becker admitted that a reason for the lack of Black American filmmakers can be chalked up to his own “blind spots” in film. This was brought into focus when Becker was asked to screen Julie Dash’s “Daughters of the Dust” (the first theatrical release directed by a Black woman). He eventually would turn down the film for Criterion consideration.
“I didn’t understand what I was looking at,” he said. “I didn’t understand it for what it was. And I wasn’t talking with people who were going to help me.”
While the film has never been formally added to the Criterion Collection, “Daughters of the Dust” was eventually added to the lineup of the streaming service, Criterion Channel. Though, again, this is good for spreading the word of films like ‘Daughters,’ but many feel the official Criterion stamp of approval would have been way more beneficial.
This analysis of the Criterion Collection has led to a number of reactions on social media, as you might expect. However, there are some calling for nuance when looking at these stats.
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Critic Clint Worthing tweeted, “The Criterion Collection isn’t the thing preventing you from watching/accessing more Black cinema.”
AV Club editor, A.A. Dowd, called for people to understand that Criterion is flawed but also a valuable resource and tweeted, “This week in Two Things Can Be True: We should not allow a single company to define what qualifies as ‘important’ cinema, and also it’s nice to have a company so invested in preserving, restoring, and lovingly packaging great movies.”
Nevertheless, there are real problems at Criterion. A film that is brought up in the piece that is often regarded as something Criterion should add to the Collection is Barry Jenkins’ debut feature “Medicine for Melancholy.” This is because the Collection has a history of included debut films from prominent filmmakers, which Jenkins has become in recent years thanks in no small part to his Oscar win for “Moonlight.”
However, the main reason that Becker didn’t consider ‘Medicine’ for the Criterion Collection once again goes back to his “blind spots.”
“I will admit that I didn’t know ‘Medicine for Melancholy’ when it came out,” he said.
So, where does Criterion go from here? Becker said he is putting together a “curatorial advisory group” that will help him find films that might not have come across his radar previously, such as “Medicine for Melancholy.” In addition, he admitted that the company has instituted senior-level training for better “antiracist hiring practices.”
As for actual change, we’ll have to see what the Criterion Collection announces in the months to come to see the promise of diversity take shape.
