Author Spotlight

Benjamin Mercer

Benjamin Mercer is a senior editor at the Criterion Collection. He has written for the A.V. Club, the Village Voice, Reverse Shot, and the Henry James Review, among other publications.

9 Results
The Artistic Synthesis That Gave Bloom to Our Exotica Cover

For this new illustration, Spanish artist David de las Heras combined his signature use of bold colors with the lush style of French postimpressionist Henri Rousseau, a key visual influence on Atom Egoyan’s 1994 film.

By Benjamin Mercer

The Brush Behind the Film: How Painter Hélène Delmaire Created Our Portrait of a Lady on Fire Cover

The artist’s intensive collaboration with director Céline Sciamma yielded a wealth of preliminary studies that came in handy for the cover image of our edition.

The Final-Hour Preservation of Dance, Girl, Dance in Nitrate

Our plans to release Dorothy Arzner’s feminist classic set in motion a restoration process that led Warner Bros. to discover a nitrate negative that had begun to deteriorate in storage.

By Benjamin Mercer

A Dark Vision, in Paper Cutouts: Our Cremator Cover

The Brooklyn-based design studio La Moutique took the eerie, collage-style opening sequence of Juraj Herz’s film as inspiration for its wildly surrealistic cover design.

Our Eye-Popping Tribute to Silver-Screen Magician Karel Zeman

The meticulously layered images in the Czech master’s fantasies inspired the pop-up artwork in our new Blu-ray release of Three Fantastic Journeys by Karel Zeman.

By Benjamin Mercer

Transposing To Sleep with Anger to Paint

The Atlanta-based artist Charly Palmer took on the challenge of distilling the intricacies of Charles Burnett’s family portrait into a single painting.

Diving into the Nitty-Gritty of Film Conservation in Kolkata

Members of the Criterion tech team headed to India last month to teach some practical skills in moving-image conservation at the Film Preservation & Restoration Workshop.

By Benjamin Mercer

Getting to the Root of the New Tree of Life

A look inside the process of collaborating with Terrence Malick on the new cut of his 2011 masterpiece.

By Benjamin Mercer

Deep Dives

The Crime Thrillers of Studio Maverick Yoshitaro Nomura

A veteran of Japan’s legendary Shochiku studios, the versatile genre auteur Yoshitaro Nomura made his mark with a string of impeccably constructed thrillers. Five of his best are now available to stream on the Criterion Channel on FilmStruck.

By Benjamin Mercer