6 Dec 2014

Asif Kapadia’s Closet Picks

The Oscar-winning director of Amy talks about how Do the Right Thing became a major influence on his work, the overwhelming tension of an infamous scene in Code Unknown, and his love of Ken Loach’s early work.

Asif Kapadia: everything they reached for, and whose taste is nearest

choices

14

13 single, 1 box set

single films

13

chosen on their own

box sets

1

one choice, many films

films reached

16

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.

460 Simon of the Desert 1965 772 Blind Chance 1981 147 In the Mood for Love 2000 17 Salò, or The 120 Days of Sodom 1976 745 Don’t Look Now 1973 133 The Vanishing 1988 97 Do the Right Thing 1989 682 Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion 1970 780 Code Unknown 2000 596 Three Outlaw Samurai 1964 339 Yi Yi 2000 SET The Samurai Trilogy 561 Kes 1970 493 Gomorrah 2008

single film, with its spine number box set

	Chose	Director	Year	Taken by
1	Simon of the Desert	Luis Buñuel	1965	1
2	Blind Chance	Krzysztof Kieślowski	1981	2
3	In the Mood for Love	Wong Kar Wai	2000	10
4	Salò, or The 120 Days of Sodom	Pier Paolo Pasolini	1976	11
5	Don’t Look Now	Nicolas Roeg	1973	5
6	The Vanishing	George Sluizer	1988	6
7	Do the Right Thing	Spike Lee	1989	20
8	Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion	Elio Petri	1970	1
9	Code Unknown	Michael Haneke	2000	2
10	Three Outlaw Samurai	Hideo Gosha	1964	1
11	Yi Yi	Edward Yang	2000	12
12	The Samurai Trilogy box set, 3 films			2
13	Kes	Ken Loach	1970	7
14	Gomorrah	Matteo Garrone	2008	2

How far across film history it reaches

Where this haul sits in film history single films 1964 to 2008, box sets 1954 to 1956

The Samurai Trilogy

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 16films run 29.3 hours. The median visit runs 19.2 hours, over the 375 whose every runtime is on record.

That is 125.5 minutes of film for each of its 14 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 14 choices had been taken by 5.86 visits each on average, counting a box set as one thing. Three of them have been taken by nobody else. The least-picked was Simon of the Desert, taken by this visit alone.

This visit reached the work of Matteo Garrone, through Gomorrah, who has been in this closet too. Not one of those reaches is returned.

On Vimeo · On criterion.com