The Oscars and World War I

by Cláudio Alves

Tomorrow we might witness Oscar history being made with the crowning of the very first non-English Best Picture winner. Of course, it is just as likely that we'll see history repeating itself. If Parasite falters and 1917 claims the top prize, that's another muscular war film joining the ranks of the Best Picture pantheon. More specifically, a World War I epic of great technical ingenuity and daring, a project not too unlike the original Best Picture winner, Wings. From 1927 to 2019, movies with similar historical settings have found great success with the Academy, though World War I stories were more regularly found on the big screen when that conflict was still an actual memory for the living. 

For the Oscars' first decade, many war pictures won plaudits. For a time Hollywood let go of the heroic romantics of Wings and adopted a more melancholy view of recent History, with antiwar sentiment as well as complicated class studies that saw a broken society through the prism of war. All that would change with the arrival of World War II. The newer global nightmare readily took the place of the old war in the Academy's eyes, first as propaganda and then as more ponderous retrospective. To this day, people still joke that a sure way to win an Oscar is to do a World War II drama.

But back to the first World War. Here are the 12 Best Picture nominees that have told stories from that global conflict...

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Best Live Action Short Film Category Reviewed

by Eric Blume

The Live Action Short category offers a much more diverse slate for this category than last year, when almost every short film centered around young boys in danger.  There’s some fine filmmaking here, all witness to the talent of their directors who should all have bright futures ahead of them.

Brotherhood comes to us from production companies across four countries (Canada, Tunisia, Qatar, and Sweden…quite a combo!) and deals with a Tunisian family.  The son returns from fighting in Syria with a young new wife, much to the consternation of his father.  Director Meryam Joobeur delivers a nice twist on the “sins of the father” genre here, and she has an excellent sense of how to use the camera.  The actors are often taking up 80% of the frame, and she creates an ambiguous sense of location and wonderful sense of dislocation with this smart framing...

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Defending The Irishman's costumes

by Cláudio Alves

While we may love to criticize the Academy, sometimes we're also a little bit to blame for the perpetuation of their prejudices. For instance, Oscar watchers love to deride the way voters confuse "Best" with "Most". This is especially true in Best Costume Design, where period work rules and contemporary styles are locked out. Still, when a movie is nominated for a wardrobe that's not very glamorous or showy, that prioritizes male attire instead of women's fashion, the grumblings take on another color. Suddenly, it's as if such design work is lesser because it isn't showy.

It's not erroneous to criticize the costume branch for being so myopic this year, having only singled out Best Picture nominees. However, to look at the costumes of The Irishman and say they're unworthy of praise is utter nonsense…

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The Beautiful Dryness of "1917"

by Lynn Lee

[This article contains spoilers]

“One of the best war films ever made.”

That’s not a critic’s blurb – that’s how my father described 1917 to me the other day. The fact that he and my mother loved the film didn’t surprise me, given that I was the one who recommended it to them.  What did surprise me was how much they loved it.  It’s not that they haven’t seen many war movies – to the contrary, my childhood and adolescence included a healthy dose of them, from early black and white greats like Grand Illusion to sweeping Hollywood epics like Lawrence of Arabia.  Over the years my parents have continued to add films as varied as Das Boot, Gallipoli, Saving Private Ryan, and Master and Commander to their favorites.

So what was it about 1917 they deemed worthy to stand with the classics? My dad cited the cinematography, of course, and the vivid realization of the WWI battlefields and trenches, but he also extolled the “delicacy” and “dryness” of the story.  And I think he was on to something there...

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In Lieu of the Supporting Actress Smackdown...

by Eric Blume

This too-short Oscar season has all of us firing on all cylinders here at The Film Experience, so sadly we can't engage in a full Supporting Actress Smackdown this week. (The series will return soon though)  In its absence, and to encourage hearing from all of you, Nathaniel has asked me to submit my personal Smackdown ballot and let the chips fall where they may...

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