1 Oct 2022

Elvis Mitchell’s Closet Picks

In town for the New York premiere of his documentary Is That Black Enough For You?!?, the critic and filmmaker selects some of his favorite movies, including a few that opened up new possibilities in Black cinema.

Elvis Mitchell: everything they reached for, and whose taste is nearest

choices

7

6 single, 1 box set

single films

6

chosen on their own

box sets

1

one choice, many films

films reached

10

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.

1029 Husbands 1970 SET Melvin Van Peebles: Essential Films 1122 ’Round Midnight 1986 963 To Sleep with Anger 1990 1117 love jones 1997 1064 The Parallax View 1974 1112 Miller’s Crossing 1990

single film, with its spine number box set

	Chose	Director	Year	Taken by
1	Husbands	John Cassavetes	1970	6
2	Melvin Van Peebles: Essential Films box set, 4 films			11
3	’Round Midnight	Bertrand Tavernier	1986	7
4	To Sleep with Anger	Charles Burnett	1990	11
5	love jones	Theodore Witcher	1997	5
6	The Parallax View	Alan J. Pakula	1974	4
7	Miller’s Crossing	Joel Coen	1990	6

How far across film history it reaches

Where this haul sits in film history single films 1970 to 1997, box sets 1967 to 1972

Melvin Van Peebles: Essential Films

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 10films run 18 hours. The median visit runs 19.2 hours, over the 375 whose every runtime is on record.

That is 153.9 minutes of film for each of its 7 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 7 choices had been taken by 7.14 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 The Parallax View, taken by 4 visits in total.

This visit reached the work of Charles Burnett, through To Sleep with Anger and Theodore Witcher, through love jones, who have been in this closet too. Not one of those reaches is returned.

On Vimeo · On criterion.com