18 Sept 2023

Tyler Mitchell’s Closet Picks

The acclaimed photographer and artist talks about bonding with his dad over films in the collection, praises the subtle power of Ozu’s framing, shares his connection to Garrett Bradley’s depiction of Black American life, and touches on his love for Paul Thomas Anderson.

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

choices

13

12 single, 1 box set

single films

12

chosen on their own

box sets

1

one choice, many films

films reached

17

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.

1184 The Watermelon Woman 1996 886 L’argent 1983 SET Eclipse Series 3: Late Ozu 804 A Brighter Summer Day 1991 1052 Claudine 1974 743 La Ciénaga 2001 573 The Music Room 1958 1097 Love & Basketball 2000 843 Punch-Drunk Love 2002 230 3 Women 1977 1109 Time 2020 137 Notorious 1946 135 Rebecca 1940

single film, with its spine number box set

	Chose	Director	Year	Taken by
1	The Watermelon Woman	Cheryl Dunye	1996	4
2	L’argent	Robert Bresson	1983	5
3	Eclipse Series 3: Late Ozu box set, 5 films			5
4	A Brighter Summer Day	Edward Yang	1991	6
5	Claudine	John Berry	1974	9
6	La Ciénaga	Lucrecia Martel	2001	5
7	The Music Room	Satyajit Ray	1958	1
8	Love & Basketball	Gina Prince-Bythewood	2000	12
9	Punch-Drunk Love	Paul Thomas Anderson	2002	14
10	3 Women	Robert Altman	1977	9
11	Time	Garrett Bradley	2020	4
12	Notorious	Alfred Hitchcock	1946	6
13	Rebecca	Alfred Hitchcock	1940	5

How far across film history it reaches

Where this haul sits in film history single films 1940 to 2020, box sets 1956 to 1961

Eclipse Series 3: Late Ozu

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 17films run 33.2 hours. The median visit runs 19.2 hours, over the 375 whose every runtime is on record.

That is 153.4 minutes of film for each of its 13 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 13 choices had been taken by 6.54 visits each on average, counting a box set as one thing. One of them has been taken by nobody else. The least-picked was The Music Room, taken by this visit alone.

This visit reached the work of Cheryl Dunye, through The Watermelon Woman, Garrett Bradley, through Time, Gina Prince-Bythewood, through Love & Basketball and Lucrecia Martel, through La Ciénaga, who have been in this closet too. Not one of those reaches is returned.

On Vimeo · On criterion.com