Good Work, if you can get it

Over the years I have frequently found myself in the position of not being able to see a movie I want to see. Sometimes, it’s just that I can’t see the movie for free—like, I’m expected to blind-buy a DVD or blu-ray simply to watch something that is otherwise unavailable. Sometimes, when a movie is out of print (such as much of Kathryn Bigelow’s early filmography, to name just one example), not only is the movie unstreamable, but the only available disks have been priced for scarcity at $50 or sometimes even way, way more than this, like hundreds of dollars.

As a multi-streaming-service-subscriber it’s hugely irritating to have to pay more (than I already pay) to watch something that should stream for free. But worse are the films that simply cannot be had. For years, Claire Denis’ Beau Travail was one such film—unavailable and impossible to see. From the student, teacher or researcher’s perspective, this is really unacceptable in this supposed age of plenty. If it’s an obscure movie that no one ever heard of, that’s one thing. If, like Beau Travail, it’s been almost universally acclaimed and called one of the best films of the 1990s, that’s another.

Thankfully, the Criterion Collection, slow though it might be, too white as it might be, came through this year, with a beautiful blu-ray of this stunning film. I guess this means, if I wait long enough, perhaps I’ll be able to get nice (Region 1) editions of Bigelow’s Near Dark, Blue Steel and Strange Days—perhaps via Arrow Video?