Notes for the Eigth Lecture
THE ACADEMY AWARDS
Wings
(1927) Paramount Famous Lasky Corp.
The arrival of the Academy Awards
The Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In 1927 Louis B. Mayer, head of production for MGM, put together the people to form the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences. His stated idea seemed potentially noble enough in that he wanted to exchange ideas and promote technical advances.
Mayer wanted the organization to be a body to arbitrate labor disputes in an industry that was not yet unionized. Many feel that his major goal was to create a body that would regularly come down in labor disputes of the side of management.
The organization formed May 4, 1927 with 36 founding members. Those in bold have been mentioned earlier:
The Motion Picture Academy of Arts as Sciences seems now to be a group of what are thought to be enormously talented people who have the ability to produce the most boring show on television "Hollywood Celebrates Itself" know as the Academy Awards.
From a business perspective it allowed winner to basically ask for more money for their performances.
Similar events in Hollywood history, like the unionization of the people involved in movie making, were applauded by the industry which then fled to Canada to avoid the burdens of the union, and fled to right to work states to make films.
In general, the Academy is not seen as impacting the quality or aesthetics of the films.
While they failed to stop the unionization of Hollywood, they accomplished little beyond establishing the Academy Awards. Initially they established to categories for a kind of "Best Picture" award - one for production and one for artistic merit. Wings got the one for "production" and Sunrise for "artistic merit".
Apparently, this did not go over well since the winner for "production"felt their film must lack "artistic merit" (and so the following year there was simply ONE category "Best Picture". Some sources have ultimately elevated Wings to that category - retroactively
The Academy also rejected The Jazz Singer because they felt that it was not proper to evaluate sound and silent films in the same category. There weren’t enough full length sound films that year to really have a competition in that category. The statue "The Oscar" was designed by Cedric Gibbons, MGM’s artistic director. George Stanley was the sculptor. While the origin of the name remains unclear, the model was Emilio Fernández, a Mexican actor/director.
From a business perspective, the "Oscar"allowed winner (and even nominees)basically to ask for more money for their performances (having been the recipients of this award).
Similar events in Hollywood history like the unionization of the people involved in movie making were applauded by the industry which then fled to Canada to avoid the burdens of the union and fled to right to work states as well, to make films
In general, The Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences is not seen as impacting the quality or aesthetics of the films,
The academy awards moved to get some kind of recognition for performers and technicians and winning or being nominated could lead to more roles, better parts and that most important of all things - more money.
Film scholar Scott Eyman in his 1997 book The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution 1926-1930 shows both the diverse structure and adapted aspects of Wings He indicates that in this period of change from silent to sound,in American cinematography: "Ironically, a mass-market silent spectacular like William Wellman's Wings effortlessly showcases far more visual variety than mainstream American films have offered since: it displays shifts from brutal realism to nonrealistic techniques associated with Soviet avant-garde or impressionistic French cinema - double exposures, subjective point-of-view shots, trick effects, symbolic illustrations on the titles, and so on".
The film is considered by many to be one of the greatest "Air Force" films ever made.
WINGS
He had started in low positions and worked his way up to becoming an actor, screen writer and a major director and producer. He was nominated for 4 Academy Awards . Three were for "Best Director" (the original Star is Born (1937); Battle Ground (1949) and The High and the Mighty (1954). The fourth, which he won, was for “Best Original Story” for A Star is Born (1937). His major films were crime films, action films and adventure films.
Wings won 2 Academy Awards:
Wellman worked quickly. Sometimes taking only one or two takes. While not being overly gentle with his performers he directed 7 to academy awards:
Writing credits for the film go to
War Movies as a genre, have many problems in definition. There are sub genres although "combat films" seem to be the archetype. These films spend a great deal of time in battle scene sequences
As an example of the problems of analysis (being wildly personal, William K. Everson in his American Silent Film p 293 says of The Big Parade:
Whereas Jay Hyams in his War Movies says:
The second kind of film with "male bonding" is often currently analyzed as sexual and hence having undertones of homosexuality.
Because war movies (until fairly recently) are dominated by men since women’s roles were restricted in the military, they generally appeared as the "love interest" of one or more of the military men. In fact Clara Bow’s part in this film is constructed to have a somewhat major role. Clara Bow was Paramount’s major star (known as the "It Girl" as a result of a film called It in which Clara Bow had "it")
After the film:
"...survives as the first really important film about WWI . For a film to assail the false values (flag waving fervor and jubilant patriotism) of the American people was an extremely rare and courageous undertaking in the 20’s"
"American audiences loved the film, for without denying the horrors of the war , it reinforced the national sense of pride in the heroism of American soldiers."