About three years ago, I got it into my head to watch every film ever nominated for an Oscar. It's a pretty insane feat, given that the nominees are well into the thousands, but it's a project I'm yet to regret embarking on. It's just a hell of a lot of fun and has given me this sort of startling education in the history of cinema and narrative. While I've been watching films on an ad hoc, out of order basis over on tumblr, I am finally starting to be able to cross full years off my list, and as I do, I'll be recapping them here.
So, here we go. Oscars: Year One.
When we look at the first Oscars as a fledgling award, it's pretty hard to recognise as the same thing it is today. Actors could be nominated for more than one film (in fact, virtually all were), there were only 12 categories, and technical awards were nominated often not for any specific film, but to a studio or an individual for a suite of projects. It also, in a way that I kind of wish lasted longer than the one year, had two best picture winners. One for the best film (so, for technicality, performances, scope) and another for artistic production (so for smaller films with a bigger, say, emotional scope).
That said, the richness of nominees isn't uncommon. There are gangster films, documentary, romance, philosophical narrative, adaptations and war films galore, all of which are strong indicators for both the future of cinema and the trends the Oscars will follow closely. As a whole, this is a strong start. At least as far as I can tell. 25 films were nominated among the 12 categories, but 10 of them are considered lost films. It, rather unfortunately, means that the hard and tremendous work of the filmmakers is potentially lost forever, and, on a more personal note, means I'll never be able to fully watch the films nominated for this first year.
But hey, we should be thankful for the fifteen that are available! And they're mostly a good bunch. Janet Gaynor is particularly on show. As the winner of the first Best Actress award, she was up for three films, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, Seventh Heaven and Street Angel - all of which are pretty darn stellar films, and showed off Gaynor as one of the talents of her generation.
Unfortunately the first Best Actor award isn't such an easy one to appreciate. Emil Jannings was the winner, who gave brilliant performances in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh. His win though has been all but revoked after Jannings (who you may remember being satirised in Inglourious Basterds) became embroiled in the Nazi Party during World War II and then one of the most recognisable faces in Nazi propaganda films. (Yikes, am I right?)
The awards are also pretty cool/sad, because it's a pretty clear signifier for the end of silent film. The Jazz Singer was up for a writing award in it, and was the first film to ever include sound. By the second year, while there were still a few stragglers, audio had infiltrated most of cinema in what's a pretty quick turnaround (especially when you look at how slow it took colour to catch on, but let's leave that til later awards), and the effect is a bit disheartening given how brilliant some of these films are, but hey, more on that below.
Also worth noting is that Charlie Chaplin received an honorary award. Huzzah!
Three Films to Watch
1. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. Dark, uplifting and unsettling all at once, Sunrise is the story of a woman who convinces a man to murder his wife so that she can marry him and receive his inheritance. The concept is a simple one, but edges a maliciousness into every scene that left me uneasy like Lynch and Fincher would succeed in doing much later. Awesome, awesome film.
2. Sadie Thompson. I hummed and harred about recommending this one as the final reel of the film is actually missing. The DVD I've got has reconstructed it with stills and speech cards, but it means that the guts have really been torn out of the film's climax. That said, the first two thirds are so brilliant, so compelling, I couldn't resist. Gloria Swanson is one of my favourite actresses of the era, and she is on point in this film as a prostitute trying to rehabilitate her life and finding herself fighting a crazed priest in the process.
3. I was really unsure about this final slot. There are a lot of good films this first year, from early gangster film, The Racket, Russian political film, The Last Command, to brilliant social-isolation narrative, The Crowd. That said, there's only one of all of these I've watched more than twice now, and that's Seventh Heaven, an odd little romance about a street cleaner who falls in love with a woman thrown out by her sister. Janet Gaynor won the first ever Best Actress award for her emotive and gorgeous performance as Diane (she was always nominated for Sunrise and Street Angel - two other great films). It was also an early pair-up film of hers with Charles Farrell. They'd be love interests in over 15 films in both of their careers, and it's easy to see why. Their chemistry is basically off the charts.
Three Films to Miss:
1. A Shop Comes In. A total snooze-fest. That is all.
2. The Jazz Singer. Look, I know, I know. It was the first film to include sound. That's great and all, but there's only sound for like, one song, and it's not even a good song, and it's especially not enough to make up for the gratuitous racism and the really lackluster script (whhhhyyy was it nominated for a writing award?)
3. Is a write-off this time. All the others were pretty good, but if you don't like romantic comedies, miss Speedy, or if you don't like crime, maybe write off Underworld (but that film's pretty great, so maybe not).
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