Oscars 003

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. 

If the first two years of the Oscars were representations of what was to come (while never straying too far from the norm), the third year was where things started to get interesting. From documentary, to war commentaries, strange science fiction, political dramas, ruined women and big budget aviation, 1930 was a year of diversity in cinema. 

Looking back too, it was a year that showcased some of the best actresses of the decade (and perhaps, all time) - particularly in Greta Garbo, Gloria Swanson and Norma Shearer who would continue to dominate for a few years yet. Norma Shearer, who won Best Actress for her dynamic turn in The Divorcee as a woman embarrassed by her adulterer husband becoming a woman about town herself to return the favour, is wonderful, and perhaps one of the more underrated actresses of the era. She'd actually be a little typecast in the role too, taking on similar ones in 1931's A Free Soul (for which she'd be nominated as well), Let Us Be Gay (1930),  Strangers May Kiss (1931) and Riptide (1934). 

It's a role similar too to the ones played by Greta Garbo in Anna Christie and Gloria Swanson in The Trespasser, demonstrating the few roles available to women of the era. These were each roles in which a woman was ruined and sought salvation in or from men. It makes for an interesting juxtaposition to the other roles women were nominated for - generally strong, weeping mother  roles, which lends a whole new weight to the idea of Madonna, Mother or Whore. (If you played the Madonna in this era, you certainly wouldn't get a nod for it).

On the other end of the spectrum is the building theme of disillusionment with war. There's a teetering balance between patriotism and anger at the scope of war, and the genre of war films could almost become its own category. From Wings (1928) which won Best Picture in the first ever Academy Awards through to All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) which won this year, you can see a dark plunge in subject matter. Wings was certainly critical of war, but All Quiet on the Western Front is brutal. It not only emphasises the tragedy of war, but highlights the futility of it, and the tendency for middle aged men to use boys like toy soldiers. It's a marked difference, and for the rest of the years, the Oscars will pendulum swing between hearty patriotism like The Patriot, War Horse and The Dirty Dozen and harrowing character studies like The Deer Hunter, The Hurt Locker and Apocalypse Now.

All in all, a really strong year for the Oscars, and one that really captures the start of cinema's diversification and the start of its attraction to shades of grey instead of just black and white. 

Three Films to Watch

1. All Quiet on the  Western Front. There's a reason this film is such a classic. It's wonderfully made, and both harrowing and compelling in its commentary on war. What makes it even more tragic is that this 1930 film still had World War II, Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan ahead of it.

2. The Big House. One of the greatest prison films of all time, this film is darker than a lot of the films of the era and contains some amazing visuals across the board, from it's use of shadows and light, to its art department and its angles. 

3. Hallelujah. This film really surprised me. It was so rare to see one African American character in a film in the thirties, let alone to have a film with a full cast of them. It's a compelling film too, about religion and family and  love and lust. King Vidor's previous credits include the stirring film, The Crowd which embodies a lot of the same themes - particularly that of parent-child relationships, and he'd go on to direct War and Peace with Audrey Hepburn. His range is pretty amazing, and this is a really important film from his body of work. 

Three Films to Miss:

1. Disraeli. Suspiciously thin for a political film, this feels more like a Lifetime telemovie than an Oscar nominated feature.

2. Hell's Angels. A film that the biopic (The Aviator) is infinitely more interesting than the original subject matter. It's a well shot film, and the spectacle of it is impressive, just the plot is a little tedious, and the film is loooong. 

3. The Love Parade. Silly, sexist and kind of just bad. I can barely believe it was nominated so far across the board.