31 Jul 2015

Sean Baker’s Closet Picks

The Oscar-winning writer-director of Anora shares his father’s favorite film, pays tribute to Chantal Akerman, and looks forward to revisiting Yi Yi.

Sean Baker: everything they reached for, and whose taste is nearest

choices

12

10 single, 2 box sets

single films

10

chosen on their own

box sets

2

one choice, many films

films reached

21

the same visit, box sets opened

Criterion's own upload · on criterion.com

This visit as a strip, a cell for each choice: paler the older the film, indigo for a box set, which is one cell however many films it holds. The order is the order Criterion's own page lists them in, which is probably but not provably the order they came off the shelf.

676 I Married a Witch 1942 307 Naked 1993 659 Life Is Sweet 1990 654 Repo Man 1984 561 Kes 1970 576 Secret Sunshine 2007 787 Jellyfish Eyes 2013 339 Yi Yi 2000 458 El Norte 1983 SET Eclipse Series 19: Chantal Akerman in the Seventies 625 Eating Raoul 1982 SET Six Moral Tales

single film, with its spine number box set

	Chose	Director	Year	Taken by
1	I Married a Witch	René Clair	1942	5
2	Naked	Mike Leigh	1993	14
3	Life Is Sweet	Mike Leigh	1990	4
4	Repo Man	Alex Cox	1984	10
5	Kes	Ken Loach	1970	7
6	Secret Sunshine	Lee Chang-dong	2007	2
7	Jellyfish Eyes	Takashi Murakami	2013	2
8	Yi Yi	Edward Yang	2000	12
9	El Norte	Gregory Nava	1983	2
10	Eclipse Series 19: Chantal Akerman in the Seventies box set, 5 films			3
11	Eating Raoul	Paul Bartel	1982	4
12	Six Moral Tales box set, 6 films			10

How far across film history it reaches

Where this haul sits in film history single films 1942 to 2013, box sets 1963 to 1978

Six Moral Tales

Eclipse Series 19: Chantal Akerman in the Seventies

a single film, at its year a box set, across the years of its films the collection, by decade

The axis is the same 1920 to 2030 on every visit page, so a haul that stayed inside one decade looks like one. A box set is drawn across the years of the films inside it, which is a range of release dates and not a claim about the set. Nothing here is in the order the choices were made: displayed position moves film year by a fifth of one percent of its variance, which is not a slope worth drawing.

How long this haul is

Its 21films run 33.5 hours. The median visit runs 19.2 hours, over the 375 whose every runtime is on record.

That is 167.4 minutes of film for each of its 12 choices, counting a box set as the one choice it was. Across the 375 visits with a complete total, the median is 136.4 minutes.

How unusual this haul was

Its 12 choices had been taken by 6.25 visits each on average, counting a box set as one thing. Every one of them has been taken by somebody else too. The least-picked was El Norte, taken by 2 visits in total.

This visit reached the work of Mike Leigh, through Naked and Mike Leigh, through Life Is Sweet, who have been in this closet too. Not one of those reaches is returned.

On Vimeo · On criterion.com