Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 128: Faded Stars and Small Pictures

By the 1950s film-makers and screenwriters were playing around with new ways to drive the action and one way this was done was by focusing on Hollywood itself and 1951 nominee Sunset Boulevard does just that. Narrated by its lead character, William Holden's struggling screenwriter Joe Gillis, it tells the story of how he came to be living with former star of silent pictures Norma Desmond. Gillis while trying to escape from people who owes money to has a flat tyre and drives into the garage of what he believes to be a deserted mansion. It is only when he is confronted by the only member of staff, Erich Von Stroheim's Max, that he finds out that the house actually belongs to Desmond. Gillis, who owes money all over town, agrees to help Desmond edit her screenplay about Salome and bit by bit he finds himself living in the house and eventually in the room in which all of Desmond's former husbands have lived in. Although a satire the film almost becomes a horror picture with Joe feeling trapped in the house, which in itself becomes a character, and by Desmond who buys Joe expensive clothes and accessories to make him stick around. Meanwhile Joe is secretly sneaking out to Paramount Studios to work on one of his own screenplays alongside the beautiful Betty Schaefer who just happens to be engaged to one of his best friends. These nightly rendevouzes quickly turn into something more and when Desmond discovers what he's been up to she goes into a fit of hysterics. She also discovers that she is no longer wanted by any director, Cecile B De Mille pops up at one point as himself as one of Desmond's former friends and has to do something drastic for the cameras to focus on her.

Sunset Boulevard was partly successful at the 1951 Ceremony winning three awards including a very deserved prize for Best Screenplay and Story. One thing that drives Sunset forward is its narrative provided by Gillis now looking back on all the mistakes he had made throughout the course of the film. The Art Direction of the daunting house and Franz Waxman's haunting score also picked up wins. I believe though had the film not come up against the juggernaut that was All About Eve it would've triumphed even more. It is one of only a handful of films to have someone nominated in all four acting categories and I was especially surprised to see that Swanson lost to Judy Holliday rather than one of Eve's two principal actresses. Swanson is definitely the best thing about the film her Norma Desmond sticks in the mind long after you've finished watching from her manic eyes to her raspy commanding voice everything about her strikes fear in the viewer. Holden is brilliant as the down-on-his-luck everyman who thinks he spots an opportunity to exploit Desmond before seeing that it is the other way around. Von Stroheim, also nominated, adds something more to the film as Max's true identity is revealed later in the film we find out why he is devoted to Norma in the way he is. Finally the beautiful Nancy Olson as Betty was also nominated for bringing a strong presence to a character who could've just become the token love interest. I'm so glad I re-watched this film as I'd forgotten just how good it was and just how brilliant the writing is. I've not got a problem with the fact that it lost but as long as people still remember the film and still watch it then I'll be happy with that. And I think I agree with Desmond one aspect the pictures now have gotten smaller than they were when Sunset was released.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 31: It's All An Illusion

In the main Best Picture category it is very rare that a film that is completely in another language, features in it. This is especially true since the academy introduced the Best Picture not in the English Language award in the late 1940s. However from time to time there is a Cries and Whispers or a Crouching,Tigerr, Hidden Dragon that make it in and the first to do just this was Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion making the list in the 1939 category which was won by You Can't Take It With You. I am a little familiar with Renoir's work having studied early French cinema but I'd never seen this film. It concerns what life was like for French Prisoners-of-War during the First World War Jean Gabin's Marechal and Pierre Frenay's de Boeldieu both of whom get captured and along with other former officers plan to escape. The first half of the film sees the escape attempt foiled as they are moved to another POW camp which is claimed to be an impenetrable  fortress. De Boldieu, Marechal and a third Rosenthal all plan an escape but De Boldieu decides to be the decoy and ends up getting shot by the remorseful German Captain. The final part of the film careers off and sees Marechal and Rosenthal's attempted escape which sees them living with a widowed farm-mistress and Marechal starts to fall for her. The end of the film sees the two men escaping into Switzerland as the Germans decide not to shoot them as they are no longer in Germany.

There's no denying that Renoir is a masterful director and every frame is artfully put together, the scenes which show the horrors of the camp are certainly the stand-out. However I found at times that the narrative was comprised in favour of the films aestethics. Parts of the film were the POWS were plotting early on were long and meandering and the romantic plot between Marechal and the German woman dragged towards its final stages. However these are minor niggles and overall the film was absolutely brilliant the acting was particularly masterful while Gabin was a standout Erich Von Stroheim as the German Captain was absolutely terrifying. Von Stroheim is probably most famous for his role as Max in Sunset Boulevard but he was just as captivating in this yet I'm guessing Oscar couldn't look past the subtitles. I'm surprised this was nominated to start off with so I don't think it had a chance of winning. But it obviously proves that Oscar was starting to become forward thinking at the end of its first decade.