EveryBestPicture.com revisits this Oscar Best Picture winner
The Academy went from choosing the light and airy The Broadway Melody as Best Picture in 1930 to next voting the dark nightmare of trench warfare, All Quiet on the Western Front. This is a movie that is difficult to extricate from the context in which it was made- the great depression had led the masses into a ruined world from which there was no escape and for which they bore no direct responsibility. The recent advent of sound also made it more possible than ever to give audiences a taste of trench warfare. Cinema’s roots lay in circus tents, films of trains rushing towards the camera sent audiences diving for cover at the turn of the century in scenes impossible to imagine for our screen-conditioned eyes. Sound now added to the immersive impact, and as ‘Wings’ had been so well received just 3 years earlier (Best Picture winner 1929, also set in the Great War) one can picture the people behind AQotWF anticipating the prospect of the impact of adding sound and dipping into the deep palette of pathos provided by the great depression shared by the viewing public. Now, I could go deeper into the fresh young recruits learning how to deal with the horrifying realities of war from the worldly, grisled trench veteran they cling to (Kat) being a reflection of the naivety and unpreparedness of the charleston dancing, jazz handed, chorus-girl filled 1920’s smashing face first into the Great Depression. We could also comment on the clear disdain throughout for authority figures: ridiculed, mocked and undermined; being an expression of the feeling of disappointment in what the industrial military complex gave them (WW1 & the depression). The “look where blind nationalism gets us” message is woven in throughout. Our boys swap home comforts for trench foot at the behest of the Kaiser, are scoffed at by their drafted comrades for having been foolish enough to be talked into volunteering to be in this predicament. As an American (or any allied) audience member you would find yourself rooting for the survival of these men, quite rightly undermining any blindly patriotic views. The last act of the film moves away from the front line to take a look at goings on back home when our protagonist (Albert) is given leave after suffering an injury to his side. He is despairing at the attitude taken by those around him, who have not tasted the bitter sharp end of war and proselytise more young recruits. In fact, it is in a classroom where he is reunited with the professor who convinced he and his classmates to go to war where he makes what would have been considered a criminal speech in wartime: “It is dirty and painful to die for your country. When it comes to dying for your country it is better not to die at all”. Returning early to his 2nd Company comrades willingly, as he can no longer bear being on home leave, the film closes gently but powerfully. The final shot is a super-imposition of two images: a cemetery of white crosses which stretches to the horizon and the 2nd company marching in the same direction, each glancing back to look directly down the camera as if to say goodbye. So what impression does this film leave the modern viewer? The effect lies in an unrelenting effort to drown you in the whistles of shells, bullets and mud, which is entirely successful. Long lasting tracking shots along the trenches as troops are mowed down bring you closer to each soldier’s death than an aerial shot of a busy, muddy field. The shot that lingers on the empty space left by a man going ‘over the top’ long enough for you to feel the unease brought on by a sense that within seconds his corpse will be filling that same space, and so it does. The elaborate camerawork and direction rarely distracts and often impresses, adding to the scale of the production. The multitude of characters and a dreaded feeling of ‘who’s next?’ only dissipates when they are on leave, far from the front line, and this adds to the audiences' emotional connection with the young Germans. Once again the stylised, theatrical acting (although massively toned down in comparison to previous Oscar winners) is still somewhat off-putting, especially as everything else seems so contemporary in its execution. I can see that the tone of this post reflects the sombre, earnest spirit of the film. There are moments intended to shock, but the overall effect is one of a relentless, unforgiving advance towards an inescapable fate whose only relief comes from no longer partaking in the experience. Although it did not make for comfortable viewing for the first two acts there is undeniably something very special about a picture which so successfully allows you to join the experience of its protagonists. This was well worth revisiting. EveryBestPicture.com revisits this Oscar Best Picture winner
Although your critic has seen many of these films at least once before, somehow The Sound of Music has escaped my attention. This puts me in the rare and enviable position of being able to see a widely regarded classic for the first time. A musical often included in all-time top 10 lists, this is a film that Julie Andrews couldn’t resist starring in, despite her reluctance in reprising “another nanny role” after her success as Mary Poppins. Now, clearly I am not going in blind, I know much of the music while the setting and tone have become familiar by cultural osmosis. The film is ubiquitous and its cultural importance cannot be underestimated, it defines an age. The impenetrable protective bubble created by Rogers & Hammerstein’s score and Julie Andrews performance as Maria the governess was strong enough to thwart even the Nazis, and convincingly so. But how does it look to someone watching it in adulthood? At very nearly 3 hours running time and almost certainly the closest thing to a children’s film best picture winner, could I sit through it? There does seem to be a fairly strong divide in people I know: between cisgender men and everyone else on just how good this film really is. Make of that what you will. My initial impression is that Julie Andrews exercised a power that swept up all before her, yes, even me. There were cracks if you looked for them, I found it very difficult to get past the innocent (/absurd), portrayal of the benign sisters and mother superior of the nunnery where the film opens. However, I am very much aware that I am completely open to the accusation of wilfully resisting the suspension of disbelief as the son of a woman who told me horror stories of her time in a school run by German Catholic nuns, so this is likely to be my failing rather than the film's. As someone who works with primary aged children I also found the young Vonn Trapps escapades early on largely unconvincing. However, in both of these cases Andrews convinced me in her performance opposite them that this was just the way things were, and I should get over it. And I did. As theatrical as the performances are, so stylised, I didn’t ever feel that the camera was the actor’s focus. I didn’t feel performed to, like I have done in other musicals; it appeared that they performed for each other rather than their audience. This provided a gateway into their world; an escape from my own. Once this has happened, in any film, if the magic continues for the reminder you will forgive it almost anything. It is also shot sumptuously: exteriors shot on location in Salzburg, Austria and the difference made on screen is astounding. The visual depth seems limitless and this sucks you in body and soul from the first truly iconic shot of Maria atop an Austrian hill, telling us how alive it was. I believed her, the proof was there before me. There are some very interesting shot choices, one such eyebrow raiser during the ‘climb every mountain number’. The Mother Abbess (MA) sings to Maria to convince her to return to Captain Von Trapp and be brave enough to find out if her feelings are mutual (Maria's feelings, not the Nun's) in full black habit. The singing nun spends almost the entire duration obscured, in complete darkness in the foreground, with Andrews face illuminated by a light which suggested to me that the voice she hears is in fact a message of divine provenance, directing her away from the habit and into the arms of the man she loves. There are many theories on why it was done this way: to preserve the MA's modesty; to highlight how dark Maria's life would be in the Abbey seeking the love of Jesus just there for consolation (in comparison to the outside world which appears so brightly lit through the windows here); to obscure Peggy Wood's (the actress who played the MA) poor lip-syncing (as it was not her singing)... I'll stick with my initial interpretation on this one until directed to believe otherwise. The chemistry between the Captain and Governess was a beautiful example of a slow burn beginning to a relationship, so often used in cinema before and since, rarely as successfully. When Maria returns from her honeymoon there is a visible, arresting change in her presence and interactions with the Captain. The suggestion that the marriage was a missing piece in their relationship was poetic, everything between them had now fallen into place. The biggest departure from the norm, something that I have still struggled to get my head around, is the structure of the film. I do not mean this as a negative, quite the opposite. Typically, films (and almost any tale, however old, however told) have three acts. You will know this already: when we teach children to write fiction in England we repeat ad nauseam from when they are 3 until 11 years old, throughout what we call primary school, and often beyond that you must 1. Establish your characters, setting & situation; 2. introduce a dilemma / change to the status quo you have established; 3. Resolve the situation. The Sound of Music, in fact, is a film and its own sequel. The Sound of Music has 6 very clearly defined acts: 1: in the nunnery 2: role as governess INTERMISSION 3: wedding and then a 40 minute sequel in which we 1: meet the Nazis 2: see the Nazi net close in on the Vonn Trapps 3: escape the Nazis Each ‘film’ is perfectly capable of standing on its own two feet, but together they create an epic where nothing stands still, not for a moment. Both parts fit together in a seamless and natural way that cannot be challenged because hey, it all just works so well. Most importantly it doesn’t feel like 3 hours. At the end of the 3rd act we had to put our son to bed, at the wedding scene, perfect timing. I was amazed to see that there were only 40 minutes left. Were this a studio movie made 20 years ago vast swathes of it would have been cut and it would have been a flop of 88 minutes. 10 years ago it would have been a 3 picture franchise (each of 2.5 hours) and today it would have been a Netflix series with each of the Von Trapp children having a spin off of their own. All of these alternatives would have sucked. This picture struck me to be like an antique music box, containing a magic that could only have been created in its time. Any imperfections I may have noted add to its personality. So yes, I enjoyed it. If somehow, like me, you are yet to see it, male cisgender or not, get thee to the Salzburg nunnery. Addendum Although I found it hard, I have decided to consciously avoid discussing the sexual or wartime politics which are present in the film. Perhaps another day. I may be wrong to take the film as intended by the makers, but there was a pleasure in doing so. The suspension of this part of my consciousness made for a much more enjoyable experience, something I am not often capable off doing. Although I do feel a little guilt akin to having just finished a 500ml tub of Haagen Dazs despite myself. EveryBestPicture.com revisits this Oscar Best Picture winner
This is much more what I expected of an aged Hollywood “Best Picture”. My hopes were high after ‘Wings’, and perhaps my inability to appreciate schmaltzy musicals is to blame, but this is definitely one for the ‘you had to be there’ pile. There was, however, much to say for The Broadway Melody at the time. It brought the magic of Broadway to a cinema near you, belters that most would previously only ever had heard over the wireless, disembodied, were now accompanied by the faces that sang them. It did suffer from more than its share of crowd-pleasing gimmicks- there were more than enough semi-clad ladies in fancy silk underwear changing backstage, or in a bathroom, or offstage, or in the hotel room, or bathing nude… come to think of it I am not sure there were any scenes that did not feature or were not bookended by scenes of chorus girls getting changed. The stand-out moment would have been the Technicolor sequence which will have wowed audiences of the 1930’s. Although it wasn’t the first to have colour. Nor sound. Nor even both. Much like Avatar, where once the 3D element is removed it becomes distinctly average, this film would have done well to be warmly received without the colour sequence. Worse still for the legacy of this picture, no colour print survives, so you will have to drift through it in black and white. The script was paper thin- simply serving to showcase the colour, sound, songs and chorus girls. There were some try-hard ‘zinger’ one-liners and yet another love triangle in this story of two sisters arriving in broadway trying to make it big. Although it does depart from the classic 3 act format (1. struggle to make it big 2. Have a modicum of success but a major setback 3. Fame and fortune abound) this may be down to the fact that the makers were too busy trying to feature all the crowd-pulling features to let the plot get in the way. With the director doing a professional by the numbers job (although much lauded by critics at the time, so maybe the lens of time I see this through does poor Harry Beaumont a disservice), scripts in their early days of evolution (this was only the first ‘talkie’ to win an Oscar- as only the 2nd Oscar this is perhaps a cheap statistic!) and camera work generally limited to “Can we get their legs AND faces in every shot?” this is one you might avoid, save to get the gist of early musicals. It was a total victory at the box office. Many critics celebrated its sure-fire recipe to make money before general release, strong performances from the leads, technical gimmicks and a decent score cemented financial success and were even enough to win it the Oscar. The first all-colour talking movie had only come out the year before, but The Broadway Melody came with all the added magic and titillation of Broadway. “Great performances & plenty of sex!” squealed one sweaty-palmed critic for Variety. He was to be rewarded with 3 sequels over the next 10 years, whether he liked them or not. To the modern eye this ain’t no hit, it has aged badly and stands as a testament to how a film can generate money and win awards by pushing all the right buttons on the cash register. EveryBestPicture.com revisits this Oscar Best Picture winner
Despite being considered a ‘lost film’ for much of the 20th century this epic silent movie was rediscovered and restored in the 1990’s, and subsequently re-released. Wings was the biggest movie of its day, taking 9 months to put together- much longer than the 1 month generally expected of a shoot. It ran massively over-budget, featured stars of the day (Clara Bow, for whom the phrase “It Girl” was coined) and stars of the future (Gary Cooper). Cast and crew were holed up in an Arizona hotel for the duration, tales of love and lust became Hollywood legend: affairs, engagements and marriages began and ended, few lasted beyond filming. Battles in the air were shot using 300 pilots, special effects abound, many of which were created just for Wings. This movie was made to seize the mainstream by the scruff of the neck and boy, did it succeed. What struck me about this picture was the frank, censor-baiting, sensitivity challenging thread that ran throughout this 90 year old movie: it featured a smattering of male and female nudity, one pilot giving another a passionate kiss on his deathbed and blood-spattered deaths (very rare sights in widely released early movies). A challenging variety of shots and cuts made it a genuinely entertaining watch: big tracking shots, bold triple superimpositions and humungous battle scenes shot from the air. Wings rivalled my experience of watching Citizen Kane for variety, although lacked the confident, steady hand of Orson Welles' masterpiece. The first act of the movie shows the three protagonists in their adolescence, barely out of high school (cue lots of “gee-whizz” type dialogue). They bounce around in a love triangle of sorts, a fairly by-the-book set up. With a couple of elaborate (perhaps over-elaborate? Impressive, but distracting) shots such as filming two lovers on a swing, with the camera swinging with them, as you see someone approach behind. Cameras of the day would have been at the opposite end from the hand-held HD variety available today, so this was quite a technical accomplishment- much trickery and innovation would have been involved. The film’s story and technical ambition really get going once all three stars of the show have signed up to fight in WW1. The second and third act really take off here, the pace quickens and we see our first dogfights filmed at thousands of feet. The challenging way the camera was used once again impressed: one shot sees an escaping pilot running straight down the camera, staring the audience down, capturing the determination in his eyes in a moment that simultaneously brought you further into (yay!) while thrusting you out of (ugh) the audience experience. Other scenes see pilots filmed in the cockpit from the front, reacting to planes zipping in behind them. I would assume these were filmed in-studio with a projected background, but they were executed sublimely. Enter the dramatic pilot death-faces. To a modern audience the most jarring element in all this is no doubt the over dramatic acting style, the melodrama, the prolonged deaths (zig-zag walking, flailing arms, ten seconds of woe is me and a collapse -rigid as a board). One such death even sees a soldier somersaulting down a mound which raises a chuckle and breaks the emotional connection to what was being seen on the screen. This is in contrast to moments where a much more realistic death might be portrayed and raise a lump in the throat. In one such a the soldier dies while sat on the roadside, cigarette in mouth. His comrade was unaware he had been killed and tries to rouse him unsuccessfully. The final shot of this scene is of said comrade rejoining the faceless ranks marching to the front line, having no choice but to leave his compatriots body in the ditch. I speculate that the contrast between these two ways of dealing with death may well have been to satisfy audiences more used to the large gestures, while introducing a reality they may well have been uncomfortable with. The director (a pilot) and many of those involved in the film had themselves fought in the war and certainly brought some of that with them. Overall an enlightening experience, a positive start and a re-affirmation of how quality transcends time. I have started with the Oscars, namely the winners of ‘Best Picture’.
Sure, they didn’t often get it right, the list of runners up trumps the winners for both quality AND entertainment almost every year, but they do seem to put forward the movie that gave the forefront of the movie industry (the Hollywood machine) the biggest jolt (whether technically, financially or emotionally). In future, if this provides enough entertainment for me, I may also go through all the BAFTA’s and Palm D'ors... |
Previous ReviewsComing soon:Archives
February 2019
Categories
All
AuthorPablo Griffiths is a man with a passion for many things. He has recently taken an interest in writing about film, and himself in the third person. |