7 Oct 2024
Marianne Jean-Baptiste & Mike Leigh’s Closet Picks
The legendary director joins the star of his new film Hard Truths in the Criterion Closet, where they share their love for Akira Kurosawa and Charles Burnett, reminisce about early moviegoing experiences, and select favorites for each other.
Filmed together, each with a page of their own: Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Mike Leigh
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.
| Chose | Director | Year | Taken by | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  A Story of Floating Weeds / Floating Weeds: Two Films by Yasujiro Ozu box set, 2 films | |||
| 2 |  Night on Earth | Jim Jarmusch | 1991 | |
| 3 |  John Cassavetes: Five Films box set, 6 films | |||
| 4 |  Secrets & Lies | Mike Leigh | 1996 | |
| 5 |  To Sleep with Anger | Charles Burnett | 1990 | |
| 6 |  Loves of a Blonde | Miloš Forman | 1965 | |
| 7 |  Kes | Ken Loach | 1970 | |
| 8 |  White Material | Claire Denis | 2009 | |
| 9 |  Hunger | Steve McQueen | 2008 | |
| 10 |  The Life of Oharu | Kenji Mizoguchi | 1952 | |
| 11 |  Eclipse Series 23: The First Films of Akira Kurosawa box set, 4 films | |||
| 12 |  Ashes and Diamonds | Andrzej Wajda | 1958 | |
| 13 |  EO | Jerzy Skolimowski | 2022 | |
| 14 |  Claudine | John Berry | 1974 | |
| 15 |  The Ranown Westerns: Five Films Directed by Budd Boetticher box set, 5 films |
How far across film history it reaches
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 28films run 49.1 hours. The median visit runs 19.2 hours, over the 375 whose every runtime is on record.
That is 196.3 minutes of film for each of its 15 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 15 choices had been taken by 7.07 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 Life of Oharu, taken by 2 visits in total.
This visit reached the work of Charles Burnett, through To Sleep with Anger, Claire Denis, through White Material, Jerzy Skolimowski, through EO, Jim Jarmusch, through Night on Earth, Charles Burnett, through To Sleep with Anger, Claire Denis, through White Material, Jerzy Skolimowski, through EO and Jim Jarmusch, through Night on Earth, who have been in this closet too. Not one of those reaches is returned.
One of the choices is their own: Secrets & Lies. Left out of the lineage count, because reaching for yourself is not reaching for somebody else.