Best Pictures #8: 1927-28 (1st) Academy Awards, My Picks for Unique & Artistic Picture and Outstanding Picture

by A.J.

1927-28 (1^st) Academy Awards
My Picks for Unique & Artistic Picture and Outstanding Picture

There would never be another Academy Awards like the first awards. The films eligible for nomination had to have been released in the Los Angeles area between August 1, 1927 and July 31, 1928 (the reasoning for this seemingly arbitrary time-period is lost to history). The winners were announced to the press in February of 1929, and the ceremony was held on May 16, 1929. Individuals could be nominated for a particular film or for their body of work in the qualifying year. For example, Janet Gaynor won the first Best Actress award for her performances in Sunrise, 7^th Heaven, and Street Angel. The award for Best Titles was given to Joe Farnham for his body of work; however, that category was omitted the following year because the birth of talkies had rendered title cards unnecessary. Winners received a statuette, which picked up its nickname “Oscar” sometime in the first decade of the awards. Runners-up and honorable mentions received plaques and certificates. The selection board of judges was made up of only 5 people, some of which were studio heads, including MGM studio boss Louis B. Mayer. There were two categories for Best Director—comedic and dramatic and, most notably, there were two categories for Best Picture: Outstanding Picture (awarded to Wings) and Unique and Artistic Picture (awarded to Sunrise). Both Best Picture categories were considered equal, but when the Unique and Artistic Picture category was eliminated and only Outstanding Picture continued for the 2^nd Academy Awards (to be renamed Outstanding Production for the 3^rd Academy Awards), people came to think of the Outstanding Picture award Wings won as the top Best Picture award and the Unique and Artistic Picture award as a sort of specialty award. This might lead people to think of Sunrise as the more substantial, quality picture and Wings as the well-executed, big budget spectacle. There certainly is some merit to that perspective, but it also discredits both films of the sum total of their different qualities.

Among the nominees of both Best Picture categories we see the types of films that the Academy would often show favor in years to come: socially and politically relevant films (The Racket), historical epics (Wings), sentimental romantic dramas (7^th Heaven), art films and films about personal struggles and pains (The Crowd, Sunrise), and even odd, peculiar, but popular films (Chang). It is also clear that silent filmmaking was at its zenith. Film stories and techniques had reached an incredible level of sophistication since the birth of the medium just over 30 years before the first Oscars. In less than a year, it would all be over.

The Jazz Singer received a special Academy Award for its technical achievements. The Jazz Singer is thought of as the first sound film, but this is not entirely accurate. Only the musical numbers in The Jazz Singer have synchronized sound. The rest of the film plays like a regular silent film. The first synchronized words said on film by Al Jolson (“You ain’t heard nothing yet”) were said between songs and were recorded unintentionally. Sunrise has a complete synchronized soundtrack with music, sound effects, and even unsynchronized words shouted by a crowd. 7^th Heaven and Wings were rereleased with synch soundtracks, but no actors speaking. Silent film audiences would have been used to having sound accompany films. There would be music, and sometimes sound effects, either performed live or prerecorded, but what they had not experienced was actors speaking from the screen. It is clear that studios were hesitant for audiences to hear actors talk, but after those first few words spoken by Al Jolson there was no going back.

Many people today think of silent movies as antiques, quaint precursors to the modern films. I confess I had the same view for a long time. Silent movies are a huge blind spot in my movie watching experience. Even after watching these six films, I still have not seen many silent movies, but I realize now that silent film was a complete, sophisticated, and mature storytelling medium. The films of the late silent era had mastered this new medium of storytelling and were pushing boundaries both thematically and technically. More importantly I realize now that silent film is just another genre, like any other, with great movies, as well as mediocre and bad ones. A new and vast era of cinema has been opened for me to explore and I am very excited.

My Pick for Unique and Artistic Picture: Sunrise

The Crowd and Sunrise were considered experimental films at the time of the first Academy Awards not because of their technical approaches, but because of their subject matter. Showing characters face ordinary problems and live less than idyllic lives was considered unconventional storytelling. It is still unconventional today. These are films about ordinary, everyday people reaching for happiness, but who are surrounded by overwhelming obstacles. Both are considered masterpieces today, and rightly so, but were box office disappointments. I went back and forth many times on which one I think should have won for Best Unique and Artistic Picture, but after re-watching Sunrise, I had to side with the Academy. The Crowd delivers powerful emotional impact and pathos with its images, as does Sunrise, but the latter film also made me feel like I was watching movie magic. Not the magic of special effects and camera tricks, but the magic of living another life, of seeing and feeling hopes and dreams through images that are, for a time, as real as my eyes taking in these images and my heart feeling them. This is fiction that seems tangible. Those flickering images of two souls, the Man and his Wife, breaking and mending, create real emotions from illusion. That is real movie magic. That is what is in every frame of Sunrise.

My Pick for Outstanding Picture: Wings

I wasn’t expecting to agree with the Academy in both Best Picture categories, but of the three nominees for Outstanding Picture, Wings is the clear standout. Straight away from the opening scenes Wings has the definite style that signifies the work of a skilled filmmaker. William Wellman managed to combine mainstream Hollywood romanticism and sentimentality with creative technical flair. The characters and story run thin for such an epic movie, but overall I found Wings an exciting experience. The action scenes are as exciting as those of any film made since and the aerial sequences are thrilling even by today’s standards. Aside from its Best Picture win, Wings also won Best Engineering Effects (a category later changed to Special Effects). Wings set the standard for the big, elaborate productions that the Academy would tend to favor henceforth, for better or worse. Cinephiles and film buffs will likely come across Wings at some point, but I think that casual film fans would also be dazzled and entertained by this silent Best Picture winner.

Best Pictures #3: 1927-28 (1st) Academy Awards, Unique & Artistic Picture* Nominee, The Crowd (1928)

by A.J.

1927-28 (1st) Academy Awards, Unique & Artistic Picture* Nominee

The Crowd (1928)

The story of King Vidor’s silent film The Crowd sounds simple and familiar: the joys and tragedies of a married couple as they struggle to get by in the modern world. However, a movie like this, with such subject matter and of such quality, is a rare thing even today. This film was a passion project for Vidor. Irving Thalberg, head of production at MGM, believed that occasionally films should be made for prestige instead of profit, and since Vidor had directed many hits for MGM, Thalberg greenlit The Crowd.

The Crowd is a film in two parts. The first half is an optimistic romantic comedy. John Simms grows up believing and telling everyone that he is destined for great things. As a young adult, he moves to New York City. He has a job in a skyscraper and meets Mary on a double date. They quickly fall in love and things are great, for a while. We expect a bright future for John and Mary, just like they do; one filled with happy times and easy to solve problems. The second half of the movie is a heavy drama about married life. John and Mary are befallen by small troubles like broken appliances, unfriendly in-laws, and a frustrating day at the beach followed by larger troubles like a lost job, money problems, and a painful tragedy. John’s daydreams and Mary’s pragmatism are an ill match for each other and strain their marriage more and more.

When John arrived in New York harbor, a fellow traveler told him, “You’ve got to be good in that town if you want to beat the crowd.” To our main characters “the crowd” is every other faceless person in the city equally uninterested and unhelpful in their lives and problems. The only help John can hope to get is from himself, something he is painfully slow to realize. John is, of course, as much a part of “the crowd” as he is apart from it; every average person is the main character of their own life, unbeknownst to anyone else.

MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer thought The Crowd was depressing and “obscene” because of a scene that shows a toilet as John tries to fix the tank. Mayer hated this film and urged fellow Academy judges to vote against it. I cannot deny that The Crowd is a depressing film, but it is also an extraordinary one. It is a film of major defeats and small victories. It is not a spoiler to say that the film has a bittersweet ending. Not every problem is solved, but the characters are happy and smiling. Seven different endings were shot for The Crowd. Louis B. Mayer wanted the film to end at Christmas with John and Mary and their children living in a mansion; an ending that would have been wildly out of place and too absurdly positive to be meaningful. I cannot think of a more positive ending that still remains true to the film than the one used. There are only a few other films I can think of that feel as true to the simultaneously harsh and beautiful nature of everyday life.

King Vidor received a well-deserved nomination for Best Director, Dramatic Picture (there was also a Best Director, Comedy category). The Crowd is shot with such skill that it is clear the filmmakers are not only masters of their craft but also creative and inventive minds. In the most famous shot of the film, indeed one of the most famous shots in cinema, the camera pans up a monolithic skyscraper then dissolves to inside and glides over a sea of uniform and anonymous desks aligned in perfect rows before finally pushing in on the desk of John Simms #137. It is a truly beautiful piece of cinema and has been repeated in homage, albeit on a smaller scale, in Billy Wilder’s The Apartment (1960) and Cameron Crowe’s Jerry Maguire (1996). There are number of other visually interesting shots in The Crowd. On John and Mary’s date at Coney Island we see them and their friends slide down a big slide right towards the camera. The production design of the city is impressive and captivating. It is plain and void of character, but seems vast, futuristic, and imposing; it reminded me of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, also from 1927.

The Crowd is a rare kind of film which is powerful and moving while also entertaining. It is loaded with pathos and catharsis for audiences yesterday and today. The Crowd does all of this while being artistic, inventive, and thematically challenging. The Crowd is unfortunately a hard film to track down. It was never issued on DVD and is only available on VHS. However, there is hope for the preservation of this movie. It was one of the first films selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. A most wise choice.

Nominee: MGM

Producer: Irving Thalberg

Director: King Vidor

Screenplay: King Vidor & John V.A. Weaver

Cast: Eleanor Boardman, James Murray, Bert Roach

Release Date: February 18th, 1928

Total Nominations: 2, including Best Unique & Artistic Picture

Other Nominations: Director, Dramatic Picture- King Vidor

*The 1st Academy Awards had two categories for Best Picture: Unique & Artistic Picture and Outstanding Picture. The Outstanding Picture category is widely considered to be the forerunner to Best Picture since the Unique & Artistic Picture category was discontinued the following year. Since at the time each category was thought of as equally the top award I have included the Unique & Artistic Picture nominees as Best Picture nominees.

Best Pictures #2: 1927/28 (1st) Academy Awards, Unique & Artistic Picture Nominee: Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness (1927)

by A.J.

1927/28 (1^st) Academy Awards, Unique & Artistic Picture* Nominee:

Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness (1927)

Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness, a silent film from 1927, had only one nomination at the first Academy Awards for Unique and Artistic Picture. Since at the time of the first Academy Awards, the Unique & Artistic Picture category and the Outstanding Picture category were considered equal, Chang can be considered to be the only documentary ever nominated for Best Picture. Unique & Artistic Picture is certainly the right category for Chang because it is, if anything, a unique picture. Directors Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Shoedsack spent several months in the jungles of northern Siam learning about the native Lao people and their way of life in preparation for their documentary for Paramount Famous-Lasky. The result is an exciting and entertaining picture about Kru, a Lao tribesman, his family, and their daily struggles to live deep in the unconquerable jungle.

I think the best way to describe Chang is as a quasi-documentary since many, if not all, of the scenes are staged reenactments. Kru is a real Lao tribesman, he was the guide for Cooper and Shoedsack on their expedition in northern Siam. His children in the movie are his actual children, but his wife, Chantui, is actually the wife of a fellow tribesman. The Kru family home is a hut built on stilts deep in the jungle away from the main village. Lao homes are actually built on stilts to keep jungle animals out, but the house we see was built specifically for the film and the interior is a separate set. Staged reenactments were not uncommon in documentaries of the silent era; the technique was used notably in Nanook of the North from 1922, which is nearly universally thought of as the predecessor to modern documentaries. If audiences and critics at the time knew about the staging of scenes, they did not mind as Chang was a hit with both.

Many scenes in the movie are reenactments of things Cooper & Schoedsack witnessed, but did not capture on film. There is no scene that is a complete fabrication, except maybe for the scene of a monkey dropping coconuts on stampeding elephants which is the only scene of the movie not shot in Northern Siam (it was done in New York’s Central Park Zoo). Other moments of humor come from certain animals having their own dialogue cards. There was a script written for Chang, but it had to be thrown out due to the unpredictability of the wild jungle animals. The scenes with the jungle animals are the highlight and tragedy of Chang. Kru’s livestock is being killed by leopards, so he enlists the people from the main village to help him in a hunt. The hunting techniques used by the tribesmen are accurate; rifles, spears, deadfalls, pitfalls, and wooden decoy men are all deployed. The leopards and two tigers we see killed in the hunt are real animals that were killed for the film.

However, it should be noted that the Lao people do not kill tigers, according to the DVD commentary by filmmaker and author Rudy Behlmer. The Lao people believe tigers to be possessed by evil spirits that would exact horrible revenge on anyone who killed one, so the rate of death by tiger was very high for the villages of Northern Siam. They would only hunt a tiger if it carried off too many babies. Cooper told the natives that he would bear the responsibility for the deaths of the tigers and any vengeance the evil spirits would unleash. My only solace in seeing those leopards and tigers killed is that they actually were a menace to the people of the region and Cooper and Schoedsack were told by a missionary that the number of people killed by tigers had decreased greatly after their filming in the jungle was done.

Still, I find incredible excitement in the scenes with the tigers. First, a tiger emerges slowly from the dense jungle to drink from a stream. Later, we see a group of hunters running away from a tiger and climbing up a tree in a shot that is almost certainly staged. However, there is no way the wide shot of a hunter up in a tree with the tiger prowling below could be staged. In another shot the camera looks down from a tree and a tiger jumps up, its face filling the screen. A shot that feels even more dangerous when you realize that it was done without the aid of zoom lenses (there were none). Schoedsack was up in the tree on a platform setting up a different shot with his hand cranked camera when a tiger bounded up mere feet, if not inches, from the platform.

The climatic elephant stampede was achieved with much planning and cooperation between the filmmakers and the natives. The tribe used elephants that had been trained as livestock. A low angle shot looking up at the legs of stampeding elephants was captured by Schoedsack in a pit dug by the tribesmen and covered with logs and a low turret that they assured him would hold under the weight of elephants. Cooper and Schoedsack had respect for the native peoples and it shows from the amount of cooperation they received and in the portrayal of the Lao people. In an era of motion pictures when casual racism was, well, casual and political correctness was not even the wild idea of a fantasist, Cooper and Schoedsack show us a non-exploitative portrayal of a people and culture far from Hollywood.

Though scenes may be staged, Chang still creates an authentic feeling of the life of Kru and his family living in the jungle. And, yes, Chang should be thought of as a documentary. In some ways Chang can be looked at as a forerunner to Disney’s short nature documentaries of the 1950s and 60s and the current Disney Nature film series which create a familiar narrative from hours and hours of documentary footage and seek to impart a message of environmental awareness to the audience. Chang is the story of a family living a vastly different way of life than the audience, but also delivers the message that the jungle and nature in general, despite all of mankind’s innovations, is unconquerable. I can’t think of too many documentaries I’d describe as thrilling the way an adventure movie is thrilling while also being informative and entertaining. This is certainly not a well-known film, but fortunately it is readily available on DVD. The sense of adventure and awe of wild beasts and the untamable natural world that Cooper and Schoedsack capture here would be evoked six years later with incredible effect on a much grander, and completely fictional, scale in the duo’s 1933 film King Kong. 

Nominee: Paramount Famous-Lasky

Producer(s): Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack 

Director(s): Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack 

Screenplay: N/A

Cast: Kru, Chantui

Release Date: April 29th, 1927

Total Nominations: 1, including Unique & Artistic Picture

*The first Academy Awards had two categories for Best Picture: Unique & Artistic Picture and Outstanding Picture. The Outstanding Picture category is widely considered to be the forerunner to Best Picture since the Unique & Artistic Picture category was discontinued the following year. Since at the time each category was thought of equally as the top award, I have included the Unique & Artistic Picture nominees as Best Picture nominees.

Best Pictures #4: 1927-28 (1st) Academy Awards, Unique & Artistic Picture* Nominee, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)

by A.J.

1927-28 (1^st) Academy Awards Unique & Artistic Picture* Nominee

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)

I can think of few other silent movies as deservedly lauded and revered, as F.W. Murnau’s silent classic, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. It received the award for Best Unique and Artistic Picture, and ended up being the only film to ever receive that award because the category was eliminated the following year. Like The Crowd, the story of Sunrise is simple: A husband and wife living a simple life in the country are pulled apart when the man is seduced by another woman, but brought back together as he tries desperately to earn his wife’s forgiveness, trust, and love. The setting, as we’re told in the opening titles, is “of every place and no place.” The characters do not even have names; they are the Man (George O’Brien), his Wife (Janet Gaynor), and the Woman from the City (Margaret Livingston). These simplicities belie the technical mastery of the language of the moving image to tell a story, convey ideas and themes, and affect audiences.

Murnau did not like the use of intertitles (title cards and dialogue cards) so they are used sparingly, and after a certain point in the film they are not used at all and the story is told purely though images. These images, including the performances of the actors, don’t just show us the plot, they express the inner emotions of the characters. After his romantic encounter with the glamourous Woman from the City, the Man decides to kill his wife. However, his slow, lumbering walk conveys the conflict and guilt he feels. He walks as though the burden of his decision is literally weighing down on his shoulders. He lumbers like Frankenstein’s monster would in James Whale’s 1931 film. Murnau actually had lead weights put in George O’Brien’s shoes to make his steps slow and heavy. We are relieved, naturally, when he does not hurt his Wife, but each of them are devastated by what almost happened.

Sunrise, also like The Crowd, has two distinct halves each with a dramatic shift in tone. The first half of Sunrise feels somber and potentially tragic. The second half, after the Man and Wife reconcile on an excursion to the city across the lake, is romantic and optimistic. In these scenes in the city, we see the Man and Wife from the front whereas in the first half of the film the camera was always at their backs. The Man no longer walks like a golem. They smile and laugh as they walk through the City, holding each other’s arms as though they are the only two people in the world.

Sunrise was the first film F.W. Murnau made after being brought to America by producer William Fox. It was the first film released by Fox with a Movietone soundtrack. It had music, sound effects, and even some unsynchronized words in a crowd scene which audiences would have heard coming from the film itself. However, there were no characters speaking—true “talkies” would come along very soon. Despite the presence of a complete soundtrack, it still uses images first and foremost to convey story and emotion.

The entire film is rich with technical creativity and impressive shots that all enhance the story. The special effects in Sunrise were all done “in-camera,” meaning that they were created using the camera and not added in later. Superimposed images, miniatures, and matte paintings are all done with such precision and inventive flair that they remain impressive today. In one of the most famous scenes in Sunrise we see the backs of the Man and the Woman from the City as they sit together, and visions of the City, bright and carnival-like, appear before them. In another scene, we see the Man, visibly troubled by his decision to get rid of his wife, but wrapped in the ghostly arms of the Woman from the City; her image is first superimposed above him, then appears all around him. Early in the film the camera glides smoothly alongside the Man as he walks through marshy, uneven ground. Murnau and his cinematographers achieved this effect by putting dolly tracks on the ceiling of the set, rather than the ground, so that the camera could easily pass over the uneven terrain. At a time when many films were still a series of static shots of people in rooms, Murnau’s camera seems to fly.

In the modern era, there are many films in which the spectacle of special effects distracts from the story and characters and becomes the focus of the film. The old-school (the first school, actually) in-camera special effects used in Sunrise may seem quaint today, but they are quite technically sophisticated. Using such inventive and impressive special effects to truly enhance the story is a trait which I think will always be rare, but will always be the sign of a quality film and master filmmaker. I think any modern moviegoer would enjoy and appreciate what they see in Sunrise and, fortunately, it is readily available on DVD and Blu-ray. This is a simple story, but not a simple movie. Its dreamlike feel, subtly wondrous effects, and nameless characters turn this story into a fable—something that exists out of time and remains as magical and powerful as ever.

Nominee: Fox

Producer: William Fox

Director: F.W. Murnau

Screenplay: Carl Mayer, from an original theme by Herman Sudermann

Cast: George O’Brien, Janet Gaynor, Margaret Livingston

Release Date: September 23^rd, 1927

Total Nominations: 4, including Unique & Artistic Picture

Wins: Unique & Artistic Picture, Actress-Janet Gaynor, Cinematography-Charles Rosher and Karl Struss

Other Nominations: Art Direction-Rochus Gliese

*The 1st Academy Awards had two categories for Best Picture: Unique & Artistic Picture and Outstanding Picture. The Outstanding Picture category is widely considered to be the forerunner to Best Picture since the Unique & Artistic Picture category was discontinued. Since at the time each category was thought of as equally the top award I have included the Unique & Artistic Picture nominees as Best Picture nominees.