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Janus Films: An Incomparable Collection
After the war, many of the American films that had been forbidden in France throughout the occupation flooded into the country. This torrent of “foreign cinema” was one of the major factors contributing to the birth of the French New Wave. By the same token, the films from Europe and Asia that were unveiled to curious American eyes in the 50s and 60s had an incalculable effect on our movies. At the moment that the studio system was dissolving and lighter equipment was making genuinely independent filmmaking a reality, artists like Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, Michelangelo Antonioni and François Truffaut were committing art in the first degree, without shame or qualification, and inspiring a new generation of future directors in the process. And filmgoers, too. The Seventh Seal, The 400 Blows, Viridiana, L’Avventura, The Seven Samurai — epochal events all, from what is now considered the Golden Age of art cinema. They were the building blocks of a new American film culture, and they changed the way movies were seen, the way they were discussed and, most certainly, the way they were made.
When the bulk of these films debuted in this country, they were accompanied by a curious logo, a coin of the two-faced Janus: Roman god of open doors and transitions, celebrated at harvests, weddings and births, and, appropriately, herald of the coming of the Golden Age. Janus Films was founded in 1956 by Bryant Haliday and Cyrus Harvey, owners of Cambridge’s Brattle Theater and the 55th Street Playhouse in Manhattan. When they founded their new distrbution company, they were already building on a solid foundation laid by curators like Ed Landberg (and his wife Pauline Kael) on the West Coast, Amos and Marcia Vogel in the East, and distributors like Walter Reade, Thomas Brandon and Charles Cooper. But Haliday and Harvey’s company quickly became synonomous with the best in foreign cinema.
In 1965, after the filmmakers Janus made famous in America had become too rich for their blood, Haliday and Harvey sold to their friends William Becker and Saul Turrell. Who had a brilliant idea. Instead of acquiring new films, they decided to concentrate on old ones, consolidating a library of the finest in international cinema and booking titles on the repertory and college circuits. Becker and Turrell did something extraordinary: they merged past and present, giving film history an ongoing life and presence in the cultural life of America. Their successors, Peter Becker and Jonathan Turrell, have maintained tradition by continuing to acquire the very best films available from around the world and providing the best prints available to the repertory houses still standing. They have also brought Janus into the future and created, with The Criterion Collection, the finest line of DVDs on the market.
American film culture without Janus Films is unthinkable. We’re celebrating their 50th birthday with a selection of titles from their extraordinary collection, all in brand-new or pristine 35mm prints. Janus Films is truly one of our national treasures. Here’s your chance to celebrate their achivements, and to be dazzled all over again by highlights from their incomparable collection.
– Kent Jones
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