 |
| Slapstick, Buster Keaton and Charles Samuels |
George Valentin was the biggest star of films in 1927; his ego is bigger than life and his success is oversized. But like technology, he soon gets outdated by the appearance of talkies. Just like Charlie Chaplin, Valentin refuses to believe that the public wants to see talking people on the screen. He considers himself as an artist and what he strongly believes to be Art is Silent films. Valentin will listen to no one when it comes to advice or opinion about his work. His own pride will defeat him. On the Chaplin comparisons some elements of this character are direct references to the interpret of the Tramp: no other actor ever had such a triumph, he was the first actor to be paid a million dollars, etc. For those who know: the painting of Valentin that we recurrently see in the film is a bit to Chaplin's portrait of the same nature and style. There are also references in the roles of Valentin towards Douglas Fairbanks. Especially for the adventure genre roles he used to be famous for. Add in a girl, a gun and you complete Jean-Luc Godard's famous saying that all you need to make a film is a girl and a gun. Well, this is almost true in this case, but I would add a dog. Uggy the dog gives superb moments in the film. 
However, the audaciousness of making a Silent film, in black and white, depicting the Classic Hollywood of the late 1920's and 1930's doesn't stand up to fully support the body of the script. The opening and the ending are extremely well executed and they are moments of pure cinematic bliss. What tarnishes the gloss is that the movie is too conscious of being a Silent film. Also, the script should have been reworked to lesser the emphasize on the fall of George Valentin and broaden the interactions of the supporting cast. On the other hand, Jean Dujardin as Valentin gives a superbly subtle performance of perfect restraint. As for Berenice Bejo who plays Peppy Miller, it is more a hit or miss case: her comedic moments are perfect but the dramatic ones lack of depth.
Editor's note: Welcome to the thirteenth of a 33-part series dissecting the 82st Academy Awards, brought to you by the Large Association of Movie Blogs and its assorted members. Every day leading up to the Oscars, a new post written by a different LAMB will be published, each covering a different category of the Oscars. To read any other posts regarding this event, please click the tag following the post. Thank you, and enjoy!
By Michaël Parent of Le Mot du Cinephiliaque.
The category that will be discussed here is not the one that take us in the living room making bets and polls on the winner of the praise of the Academy and which one we thought that should deserve the grand prize and/or have been robbed in public (see here an allusion to the great robbery of Avatar at the Globe). This is a category presented generally in the first half of the ceremony and more often than not they are films with little coverage and sometimes only available on YouTube for a wider diffusion. However, they treat of important subjects that regular films and the mass media would not discourse in times of wide audience. This is one of the categories that is directly connected to reality and humanity. This category is the Best documentary short subject.
The Best documentary short subject category was introduced the same year the Academy started to use the famous confidential envelope system, in 1941. That year, nine films were nominated for the award. As subject matters, from 1941 to 1945 most of the films nominated were about the war effort. In 1942, twenty-five films were nominated and four special awards were given to recognize the war effort on the Allied side in World War II. In these cases, the producers were generally the US Air Force, the US State Marine Corps, the US Navy, the US Department of War, the US Army, etc. Since the early years of the category, a producer well known for his cartoons has often been nominated; Walt Disney, a man preoccupied by entertainment but also by human values. Disney won this award two times as a producer. But the Producer with the most brilliant presence is the National Film Board of Canada with four wins and eleven nominations. The NFB won the first ever documentary award given by the Academy with Churchill's Island in 1941.
The number of nominations is irregular and some years it goes from three to five nominations. The documentaries nominated present realities that are important and generally not presented in the mass media. They show the struggles of human beings fighting for their lives, their rights, and also their fights against diseases, injustice, etc. These filmmakers are witness of the human condition. With their works they attempt to inform the world and help the causes of their subject of films. Their job is more than filming human beings, they participate in the life and they become likethe front man of these causes.
The Film business is celebrated each year with the Academy Awards that congratulate the best films of the year on all their aspects (editing, sound mixing, director, actors, etc.). This contributes to spread the audience and the interest of future viewers of these celebrated films. The Academy Awards is a celebration of excellence in filmmaking but we have to remember that the films winning awards and having success in the box office/rentals are made to entertain, to make us think, to make art, to reflect the world, etc. But in big part the films of the main categories are made to make money. In this specific category, the Best documentary short subject, is probably not the one that makes the most money at the box office or in rentals but these films should be celebrated for their quality of being true and by being made by real passionate people.
For the Ceremony held on March 2010 the Nominees are: (Links on the title of each film is its IMDb.com page)
- China's Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province by Jon Alpert & Matthew O'Neill
"On May 12, 2008, a catastrophic earthquake hit Sichuan Province in rural China, killing nearly 70,000 people, including 10,000 children. In town after town, poorly constructed school buildings crumbled, wiping out classrooms filled with students, most of them their parents' only child. But when grieving mothers and fathers sought explanations and justice, they found their path blocked by incompetence, corruption and empty promises."
With Haiti strocked by recent earthquakes it makes this documentary on top of the topic. But also, what happened in Haiti was even more disastrous and murderous than what sadly happened in the Sichuan Province and it could have desensibilized from the gravity of the catastrophe. So because of its subject and the recent events, I think this film won't be the winner. It's all about timing.
- The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner by Daniel Junge & Henry Ansbacher
