Mike Mills Criterion set turns his family films into a triptych
Mike Mills told Rolling Stone his new Criterion box set makes Beginners, 20th Century Women and C’mon C’mon feel newly connected.
By Georgia Hale · Staff Writer
3 min read
Mike Mills Criterion collectors now have a tidy map of the filmmaker’s most personal run: a new box set bringing together Beginners, 20th Century Women and C’mon C’mon, plus shorts and music videos that show how he got there.
In an interview with Rolling Stone’s David Fear, Mills said he did not plan the three features as a linked cycle. Looking at them together now, though, he said they form “a very nice triptych,” connected by the way he writes and by the family questions sitting under each movie.
The set is titled I’ll Remind You of Everything: The Films of Mike Mills. Rolling Stone reported that it is available now online and in stores.
What is in the Mike Mills Criterion box set?
The Criterion release collects three Mills features: Beginners, 20th Century Women and C’mon C’mon. It also includes early short films such as Deformer from 1996 and music videos Mills directed for Air’s “All I Need” and Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer,” the latter featuring Saoirse Ronan.
Mills told Rolling Stone that producer Kim Hendrickson pushed to broaden the set beyond the three features because his shorts and videos were central to his path as a filmmaker. Mills said he follows an Agnès Varda idea that a film’s length does not decide its value.
The three features have come to look like a family trilogy. Beginners drew on Mills’ father, a closeted gay man who came out late in life and died at 80. The movie won Christopher Plummer an Oscar at age 82.
20th Century Women turned toward Mills’ mother, while C’mon C’mon, starring Joaquin Phoenix, reflected Mills’ feelings about becoming a father. Mills told Rolling Stone that his child saw C’mon C’mon only a year before the interview, during a screening in Berlin.
How did Mike Mills get into filmmaking?
Before feature films, Mills came through Southern California skateboarding, punk rock and art school. Rolling Stone reported that he designed posters and album covers for acts including Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth and Cibo Matto before moving into music videos and short films.
Mills said Errol Morris’ true-crime documentary The Thin Blue Line helped him see a way into movies because of its essay-like structure. He also cited films by Fellini, Antonioni, Jean-Luc Godard and Jim Jarmusch as influences.
Music remains part of the machinery. Mills told Rolling Stone he listens to songs on repeat while writing, and said Frank Ocean’s Blond fed into the shape of C’mon C’mon. He described music as a way of shaping time, a lesson he carried into scenes even when no song is playing over them.
Why are Thumbsucker and Does Your Soul Have a Cold? not included?
Mills’ 2005 debut feature Thumbsucker and his 2007 documentary Does Your Soul Have a Cold? are not part of the Criterion set. Asked by Rolling Stone about the omissions, Mills said Thumbsucker was different for him because he adapted it from Walter Kirn’s novel.
He said he learned a lot from making his first feature and praised the actors, but felt the three later films belonged together more naturally. Those movies, he said, share a style and now feel as if he made them as one piece, even though that was not the plan.
Mills also spoke about the emotional charge of revisiting the work. He said the films let him keep company with his late parents in a strange creative way, while still holding on to what he does not fully know about them.
This story draws on original reporting from Rolling Stone.