Closet Picks

9 Jul 2015

The Wolfpack’s Closet Picks

The subjects of Crystal Moselle’s award-winning 2015 documentary show off their voracious appetite for cinema, saluting films by everyone from Stan Brakhage to Jean Renoir to Alex Cox to Wes Anderson.

The Wolfpack: everything they reached for, and whose taste is nearest

choices
24
22 single, 2 box sets
single films
22
chosen on their own
box sets
2
one choice, many films
films reached
30
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.

638 Following 1999 65 Rushmore 1998 287 Burden of Dreams 1982 725 Eraserhead 1977 82 Hamlet 1948 30 M 1931 409 Days of Heaven 1978 216 The Rules of the Game 1939 217 Tokyo Story 1953 654 Repo Man 1984 630 Rosemary’s Baby 1968 575 The Killing 1956 519 Close-up 1990 516 Stagecoach 1939 483 Repulsion 1965 480 The Human Condition 1959 248 Videodrome 1983 151 Traffic 2000 SET John Cassavetes: Five Films 249 The Battle of Algiers 1966 SET La Jetée/Sans Soleil 99 Gimme Shelter 1970 97 Do the Right Thing 1989 164 Solaris 1972
single film, with its spine number box set
Chose Director Year Taken by
1 Following Christopher Nolan 1999
2
2 Rushmore Wes Anderson 1998
5
3 Burden of Dreams Les Blank 1982
5
4 Eraserhead David Lynch 1977
8
5 Hamlet Laurence Olivier 1948
2
6 M Fritz Lang 1931
5
7 Days of Heaven Terrence Malick 1978
5
8 The Rules of the Game Jean Renoir 1939
6
9 Tokyo Story Yasujiro Ozu 1953
10
10 Repo Man Alex Cox 1984
10
11 Rosemary’s Baby Roman Polanski 1968
3
12 The Killing Stanley Kubrick 1956
5
13 Close-up Abbas Kiarostami 1990
8
14 Stagecoach John Ford 1939
7
15 Repulsion Roman Polanski 1965
4
16 The Human Condition Masaki Kobayashi 1959
2
17 Videodrome David Cronenberg 1983
10
18 Traffic Steven Soderbergh 2000
7
19 John Cassavetes: Five Films box set, 6 films
30
20 The Battle of Algiers Gillo Pontecorvo 1966
9
21 La Jetée/Sans Soleil box set, 2 films
10
22 Gimme Shelter David Maysles, Albert Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin 1970
5
23 Do the Right Thing Spike Lee 1989
20
24 Solaris Andrei Tarkovsky 1972
5

How far across film history it reaches

Where this haul sits in film history single films 1931 to 2000, box sets 1959 to 2000
John Cassavetes: Five Films
La Jetée/Sans Soleil
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

29 of its 30 films carry a runtime, and those alone run at least 54.7 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 24 choices had been taken by 7.62 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 Hamlet, taken by 2 visits in total.

This visit reached the work of Christopher Nolan, through Following and David Cronenberg, through Videodrome, who have been in this closet too. Not one of those reaches is returned.

On Vimeo · On criterion.com