Yes Tom, "Sunrise" was the first best picture
For the past couple of days I’ve been a bit riled up about this blog entry on the LA Times website where critic Tom O’Neil questions the merits of one of the true masterpieces of the silent era, F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise. Sayeth O’Neil:
I’ve seen (1927-28 best picture winner) “Wings” a few times and liked it OK. But now that I’ve viewed “Sunrise,” I must concede: “Wings” soars by comparison. “Sunrise” is paper-thin, hilariously schmaltzy. All three primary characters are cartoonish clichés and their performances 3-inch slices of honeyed ham.
Mind you, I’m the kinda guy who’d normally side with the weepie. On my top 10 list of fave pix of all time are “Peggy Sue Got Married” and “Titanic.” But I just can’t shed a real tear when the farmer in “Sunrise” decides that he just — by golly! — can’t off his sweet, dimpled wifey-pooh, after all. Nor could I cheer the scenes of the couple back together, all giddy smiles and kisses, posing for photos like newlyweds, dancing a happy peasant dance, joyous once he decided not to wring her scrawny little neck and hurl her over the side of the row boat.
What corn pone! Smothered in Cheez Whiz! “Wings” ain’t Shakespeare or Scorsese, mind you, but it’s better than that!
If these paragraphs had been written by some random midwest blogger who lives for the next “Titanic” or “Peggy Sue Got Married” (really Tom, top 10?) I’d just shrug it off, but this guy is employed by the paper of record in the movie capital of the world. Can you imagine someone like Dave Kehr, the DVD reviewer of the NY Times, getting away with this on his personal blog? I think a torch mob, lead by A.O. Scott himself, would be the result. (In actuality, Kehr praised Sunrise in this review of Murnau’s Phantom, so we know where he stands.)
Before going any further, I need to make something perfectly clear. I AM NOT criticizing Tom O’Neil’s right to his opinion. If he does not like Sunrise, he has every right to say so, and also to say that Wings really was the best picture of the first Oscars. My beef is with O’Neil completely overlooking everything that Murnau accomplished in Sunrise. The visual artistry he conceived and executed were true breakthroughs, setting the stage for the cinema of Welles, Hitchcock, and everyone else you can name who valued composition in filmmaking.
For example, Murnau used superimposed shots in a number of places, splitting the screen or using characters in the foreground with different imagery laid into the background. These effects in early 20s cinema involved meticulous planning, since the first shot had to be taken, then the film rolled back in camera so that the to-be-superimposed shot could be taken. By today standards when you see these shots in the film in can seem a bit underwhelming, but when you think about what it took to make this happen, and the foresight Murnau had in creating effects like this, you start to understand how significant it was.
And this is only one of the many cinematic breakthroughs Murnau made in Sunrise, including a fairly spectacular tracking shot near the beginning that again is more remarkable when you consider what it took to make it happen. (Roger Ebert’s write up of the film in this Great Movies column sums all of this up as well as it can be, and is the best appreciation of the film that I’m aware of.)
Tom O’Neil would have done well to have read Ebert’s column before espousing his critical drubbing. Perhaps with a little context of what this film meant at the time it was made (not to mention the groundwork it laid), Mr. O’Neil could have understood better why this film is so appreciated.
But instead, he focused entirely on the melodrama and completely ignored the cinematic elements. His article has NOT ONE mention of the film’s artistic achievements, and in fact, he is rather befuddled as to why the film won the Oscar it did, in the category “the most artistic, unique and/or original motion picture” (one could argue that it was a co-best picture winner that first year, but the Academy considers Wings to be the official best picture.) And to criticize melodrama in silent cinema is a bit like criticising a 2008 film for being in color. Perhaps as a contrast, Mr. O’Neil would like to point out a 1927 film that does not have melodramatic performances.
I admit that, to the best of my knowledge, I’ve never read Tom O’Neil’s writing before, so perhaps this blog entry is an anomoly. Perhaps his columns for the LA Times are well researched, editorially vetted, and make valid thoughtful arguments. If this is the case, he would do well to consider some editorial oversight for his future blog entries as well.
