1 Apr 2023

Ari Aster’s Closet Picks 2023

The director of Beau Is Afraid talks about one of the best experiences he’s had in a movie theater, the inspiration he’s taken from Karel Zeman, and the possibility that Cure is “the greatest movie ever made.”

Ari Aster: both visits, and whose taste is nearest

choices

16

13 single, 3 box sets

single films

13

chosen on their own

box sets

3

one choice, many films

films reached

22

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.

131 Closely Watched Trains 1966 SET Michael Haneke: Trilogy 1157 Daisies 1966 1155 Cure 1997 1123 Mr. Klein 1976 SET The Koker Trilogy 891 La poison 1951 SET Three Fantastic Journeys by Karel Zeman 826 The New World 2005 576 Secret Sunshine 2007 394 Woman in the Dunes 1964 496 Che 2008 432 Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters 1985 507 Bigger Than Life 1956 440 Brand upon the Brain! 2006 10 Walkabout 1971

single film, with its spine number box set

	Chose	Director	Year	Taken by
1	Closely Watched Trains	Jiří Menzel	1966	1
2	Michael Haneke: Trilogy box set, 3 films			3
3	Daisies	Věra Chytilová	1966	4
4	Cure	Kiyoshi Kurosawa	1997	6
5	Mr. Klein	Joseph Losey	1976	1
6	The Koker Trilogy box set, 3 films			7
7	La poison	Sacha Guitry	1951	1
8	Three Fantastic Journeys by Karel Zeman box set, 3 films			1
9	The New World	Terrence Malick	2005	2
10	Secret Sunshine	Lee Chang-dong	2007	2
11	Woman in the Dunes	Hiroshi Teshigahara	1964	6
12	Che	Steven Soderbergh	2008	2
13	Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters	Paul Schrader	1985	6
14	Bigger Than Life	Nicholas Ray	1956	3
15	Brand upon the Brain!	Guy Maddin	2006	2
16	Walkabout	Nicolas Roeg	1971	5

How far across film history it reaches

Where this haul sits in film history single films 1951 to 2008, box sets 1955 to 1994

Three Fantastic Journeys by Karel Zeman

The Koker Trilogy

Michael Haneke: 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

21 of its 22 films carry a runtime, and those alone run at least 36.5 hours. The other one is unmatched, so the real figure is higher. The median visit runs 19.2 hours, over the 375 whose every runtime is on record.

What one of its choices was worth is not published for this visit. That figure divides the whole runtime by every choice, so a total missing one film would understate it rather than be approximately right.

How unusual this haul was

Its 16 choices had been taken by 3.25 visits each on average, counting a box set as one thing. Four of them have been taken by nobody else. The least-picked was Three Fantastic Journeys by Karel Zeman, taken by this visit alone.

This visit reached the work of Guy Maddin, through Brand upon the Brain!, who has been in this closet too. Not one of those reaches is returned.

On Vimeo · On criterion.com