Tweet Would The Artist Have Won the '27 Oscars?

While I haven't seen it yet, The Artist appears to be one of the Oscar favourites with nominations for best film, leading actor, supporting actress, cinematography and direction, among others. However, based on comments from the forum members, I get the impression that it's a good film, but not a great silent film. So, had it been made in 1927, I get the impression it would not have won and maybe not even have been nominated? How would you rank it compared to the 1927 winners, in the nominated categories?

In a year that saw the release of 7th HEAVEN, SUNRISE, UNDERWORLD, IT, WINGS, THE CROWD, THE LAST COMMAND, STREET ANGEL, THE WAY OF ALL FLESH, and THE CIRCUS (although some of these were 1928 releases all were grouped together in competition for the 1st Oscar ceremony), THE ARTIST wouldn't have merited a glance. Not a glance.

[silentfilm]

Well, since 1920s costumes were easy to find in 1927, I really doubt that it would have a chance for costume design. Of course that category did not exist back then.

The Oscars are awards, and they aren't necessarily given to the "best" of anything a particular year. Many actors and directors make a really good film, but are also awarded it for the body of their work and the fact that they have been nominated before, but have not won.

There were a lot of high-powered actors, actresses, and directors up for the first Academy Awards (not yet called the Oscars) in 1928.

I'm not trying to discount The Artist at all, but I don't think it would have won any awards. If there was an award for dogs, Uggie would have given Rin Tin Tin a stiff race though. In 2011, The Artist is a breath of fresh air, proving that everything old is new again. The skills and knowledge of how to make a silent film have been lost for decades, but Hazanavicius and the cast and crew made a really good film that celebrates the era. Mel Brooks' Silent Movie was funny, but it was a silent movie firmly set in the 1970s, not just in setting, but in the style and jokes.

One of the things I hate about the awards is that there is no standard as to what makes the "best". Recalling a recent race, Shakespeare in Love and Saving Private Ryan were vastly different films, trying to say different things and affect the audience differently. Some voters like good films that handle serious issues, so SPR was their vote. Others thought about how difficult it was to make a romantic comedy about William Shakespeare, and liked that film better. So YMMV.

Making an analogy to baseball, Hazanavicius, Dujardin and The Artist aren't Babe Ruth in the 1920s or 1930s, but they still hit the ball out of the park in 2011.

Transformers 2 would've won the Best Picture of 1930. Seriously, look at those special effects, color, widescreen, surroundsound. Yep, it sure would've.

That answer your question?

I've seen The Artist twice now, and I really enjoy it, but I can't imagine it standing out as anything remarkable in 1927. It would have been a standard melodrama at the time, good, but nothing extraordinary. I think the reason it is getting such acclaim now is not because it is a fabulous story or ventures into some sort of unchartered territory, but ecause of the way it makes people feel. It is enjoyable to watch. I know for me, it was just exciting to actually go to the theatre to see a new silent movie, to feel what it is like. It was a strange mixture--a brand new film, but one that had such a familiar, welcome feel to it. As for non-silent movie fans, I suppose many of them are simply shocked that they can indeed be entertained by something so seemingly "primitive."

Well, there's one other reason it's getting acclaim. You can see it at the very beginning. The phrase "The Weinstein Company". This little group, with or without Miramax has a history of getting nice but not world-beating movies and getting best picture awards (see for example Shakespeare in Love). You have to think there's some behind-the-scenes action going on for a film like The Artist to get a Best Picture Oscar. I mean, it's a nice film but not THAT nice.

Augustinius wrote:

I mean, it's a nice film but not THAT nice.

HUGO on the other hand, is that nice. Nice enough to win the 2012 Oscars.

I saw Hugo this month. I thought it was all artifice and no art.

Well, there's one other reason it's getting acclaim. You can see it at the very beginning. The phrase "The Weinstein Company". This little group, with or without Miramax has a history of getting nice but not world-beating movies and getting best picture awards (see for example Shakespeare in Love). You have to think there's some behind-the-scenes action going on for a film like The Artist to get a Best Picture Oscar. I mean, it's a nice film but not THAT nice.

Speak for yourself, pal, I think Shakespeare in Love is a great film.

Well, there's one other reason it's getting acclaim. You can see it at the very beginning. The phrase "The Weinstein Company". This little group, with or without Miramax has a history of getting nice but not world-beating movies and getting best picture awards (see for example Shakespeare in Love). You have to think there's some behind-the-scenes action going on for a film like The Artist to get a Best Picture Oscar. I mean, it's a nice film but not THAT nice.

Speak for yourself, pal, I think Shakespeare in Love is a great film.

Best Picture great? Granted it wasn't a banner year for best picture nominees, but I can't see it being that great.

Hugo, on the other hand, totally agree. I will be seeing some of the other nominees this weekend at the AMC Best Picture Showcase but from what I have seen so far, it's my choice for what should be the Oscar winner.

Well, there's one other reason it's getting acclaim. You can see it at the very beginning. The phrase "The Weinstein Company". This little group, with or without Miramax has a history of getting nice but not world-beating movies and getting best picture awards (see for example Shakespeare in Love). You have to think there's some behind-the-scenes action going on for a film like The Artist to get a Best Picture Oscar. I mean, it's a nice film but not THAT nice.

Speak for yourself, pal, I think Shakespeare in Love is a great film.

Best Picture great? Granted it wasn't a banner year for best picture nominees, but I can't see it being that great.

Hugo, on the other hand, totally agree. I will be seeing some of the other nominees this weekend at the AMC Best Picture Showcase but from what I have seen so far, it's my choice for what should be the Oscar winner.

The words "I can't see" and "my choice" are critical, here.

Well, yeah, to some extent it's all subjective.

Well, yeah, to some extent it's all subjective.

Important to keep that in mind.

Well, yeah, to some extent it's all subjective.

Of course, beyond matters of technical competence, it's ALL subjective.

Having said that, I finally saw The Artist last week. One of my friends who saw the film before I did, told me that the musical quote from Vertigo pulled him completely out of the film. I can see his point - the score to Vertigo is iconic if ever a film's score can be referred to as such. I thought that Herrmann's music suited the scene to which it had been applied, but I still find the use questionable.

On the film itself, I did thoroughly enjoy it, but don't really see it as best of the year. I thought Hugo was a terrific film, and of the two "silent era" echoes currently at the multiplexes, much more worthy of the praise that has been heaped on The Artist, enjoyable as it is.

As far as art and artifice goes, we're in subjective territory there as well. Well intentioned and thoughtful folks often fail to understand why every one doesn't see a film (book, musical composition, painting, etc.) the same way they do.

A number of people here and elsewhere have said that it was wonderful to have two films rooted in the silent era competing for Oscars, and while we may disagree on which should win, I think that's a sentiment with which we are all likely to agree.

I think Midnight in Paris should win.

[Christopher Jacobs]

After twelve weekends in release with gradually expanding number of theatres, THE ARTIST still hasn't opened locally and isn't scheduled for this weekend, although one theatre does claim it expects to play it before the Oscars. If it does, this may be the first year in a long time that I'll have seen all (nine this time) Best Picture nominees before the awards. Actually, I've enjoyed each one of the Best Picture nominees I've seen for this year and thought all were worthy candidates. I loved both HUGO and MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, and found EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE to be very powerful, and WAR HORSE to be an audience and Academy-friendly combination of cutesy slick and inspirationally uplifting. THE HELP was quite good and looked like it was almost made for Oscar nominations. THE DESCENDANTS was also pretty good (though hardly "Best Picture" material), and I'll be catching up with MONEYBALL tonight or tomorrow on Blu-ray. However, if I were actually a voting Academy member my choice might be THE TREE OF LIFE, although that would actually be more appropriate as "Most Artistic and Unique Production" like SUNRISE was back in 1927. From what I've been reading on THE ARTIST, I expect I'll find it entertaining and be gratified if it wins "Best Picture" and other awards even if it may not quite deserve them, for all reasons others have already stated about the instant public awareness of silent films the awards will generate (and have already generated).

The grosses for THE ARTIST seem to be staying respectable, although with the push to over a thousand screens Feb 3-4-5, the per-screen weekend gross dropped to under $3000 for the first time and they decided to cut back by almost 200 screens last weekend. (See http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=w ... artist.htm" target="_blank" target="_blank for details.) Sure hope grosses stay steady, and I won't need to wait to see it until the Blu-ray comes out the end of April (THE TREE OF LIFE never did play locally so I had to see it on Blu-ray, and MONEYBALL left before I had a chance to get out to it).

[Mike Gebert]

Transformers 2 would've won the Best Picture of 1930. Seriously, look at those special effects, color, widescreen, surroundsound. Yep, it sure would've.

There is something to this, I think.

The very first Oscars had two "best picture" awards-- or none, depending on how you look at it. Wings won "Most Outstanding Production." Sunrise won "Most Artistic Quality of Production." And that pretty much sets the terms of the Hollywood debate-- is the best picture the most artistic film, or the most impressive entertainment? In the 1930s it was almost always the latter-- think of The Great Ziegfeld, Mutiny on the Bounty, Cimarron, Gone With the Wind, all "most outstanding productions" more than artistic masterpieces. But over time critical preferences caught up with Hollywood and we started to see movies win not for being giant spectacles but for saying something about the times-- The Best Years of Our Lives, All the King's Men, Marty. Unless it was a backlash against that-- The Greatest Show on Earth, Around the World in 80 Days, Ben-Hur. A few films managed to be both-- films like West Side Story, Lawrence of Arabia, The Godfather are both impressive epics and first class dramas.

So would The Artist have won in 1927? No. 1937? No. 1957? Starting to be possible...

Incidentally, besides the novelty of silence, The Artist of course has another novelty-- it's in black and white. Not unknown, but it is interesting to note that if it wins, that will mean that it was 33 years from the third to last black and white best picture winner (The Apartment) to the second (Schindler's List), but only 19 to the next one...

Quite frankly I am not interested in what "The Artist" might have or might have not done in the 1920's and I am also not interested in making comparisons between it and the silent pictures of that era. I am more interested in the fact that someone has been courageous enough and has had sufficient artistic capabilities to make a "proper"silent picture in the 21st Century. I am also grateful that it has picked up a daring distributor - to get it out there. The fact that it has done amazing box office and is roping in awards is further gratification to all of us who appreciate the artistry of silent cinema.

As I and others have said before - if "The Artist" does nothing other than merit an awareness by the great masses to the wonder of the silents - then we may see a positive outcome leading to more screenings of the classics, more restorations and more DVD's. Who knows - we may even see more motion picture people take on silent cinema.

We live in hope.

THE ARTIST is at least as good as FORREST GUMP or TITANIC. And by that I mean, it's at least 7256 times better. And that's a conservative estimate.

THE ARTIST is at least as good as FORREST GUMP or TITANIC. And by that I mean, it's at least 7256 times as good.

"Titanic" (the latest version) is a shocking picture. The language was late 20th Century rather than of 1912. The clothing was wrong - no gentleman would be seen dead in evening dress that had not been properly starched. It would have been impossibly for someone in steerage to be found swanning around in First Class. There were so many flaws in this picture it was virtually impossible to watch. IMHO the best picture on the "Titanic" disaster was "A Night To Remember" from 1958.

Incidentally Lord Fellowes of "Downton Abbey" fame has a mini-series on the "Titanic" commencing in the UK in April.

THE ARTIST is at least as good as FORREST GUMP or TITANIC. And by that I mean, it's at least 7256 times better. And that's a conservative estimate.

OK, I will give you these. I have no idea why Forrest Gump beat Pulp Fiction for the Oscar. And Titanic has the heart of a great movie inside its chest, but whiffles on trifles. The end of the Old World in favor of the New World, the end of the classic aristocracy, there are so many themes right there for the taking. But instead he squanders his story on a teenage romance. Given the epic settings and the weighty themes, this is a tremendous comedown. The Artist is definitely more Oscar worthy than these.

More than anything it shows how useless the Oscar really is to be honest. How many times have the truly classic films won their years?

Not a chance. I mean just look at the films that were not even nominated in any category in the first year of the Academy Awards. OLD IRONSIDES, THE KID BROTHER, BEAU GESTE, SORRELL AND SON, BARBED WIRE, WHITE GOLD, THE RIVER, RAMONA, THE WIND, THE DOCKS OF NEW YORK, and oh yes, John Ford's FOUR SONS, Lubitsch THE STUDENT PRINCE, and De Mille's THE KING OF KINGS. An imposing list to say the least.

Yeah BEAU GESTE was perhaps technically released in 1926, but it didn't play many places in wide release until well into 1927. Maybe the Road Show's were to early for it to qualify though? Ditto for FLESH AND THE DEVIL. BEAU GESTE did win the prestigious Photoplay Medal of Honor as the best film of 1926. As FOUR SONS did for 1928.

[Christopher Jacobs]

... it shows how useless the Oscar really is to be honest. How many times have the truly classic films won their years?

Well, I'd say a good third or more (though not quite half) of the Best Picture winners can be considered classics -- more or less, according to taste.

Here are 30 years worth of "Classics" that hold up pretty well both critically and as entertainment, actually won Best Picture Oscars, and really seem to be the best of that year's nominees (again according to taste):

1927/28 SUNRISE and WINGS (although I might have picked THE CROWD and THE RACKET)
1929/30 ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT
1931/32 GRAND HOTEL
1932/33 CAVALCADE (arguable, as A FAREWELL TO ARMS apparently came in 2nd)
1934 IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT
1938 YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU
1939 GONE WITH THE WIND (perhaps arguable)
1940 REBECCA
1941 HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY
1943 CASABLANCA
1946 THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES
1948 HAMLET
1951 AN AMERICAN IN PARIS
1955 MARTY
1957 THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI
1960 THE APARTMENT
1962 LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
1966 A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS
1972 THE GODFATHER
1974 THE GODFATHER PART II
1976 ROCKY
1978 THE DEER HUNTER
1984 AMADEUS
1991 THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
1995 BRAVEHEART
1998 SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE
1999 AMERICAN BEAUTY
2001 A BEAUTIFUL MIND
2002 CHICAGO
2005 CRASH

Oh, I think you can EASILY argue 1941 there....

But still, my point is made that you have a 30-50% batting rate on the BEST FILM OF THE YEAR award. Come on, that can't be right! In theory the Oscars should be close to 100% if the Best Picture meant anything. And as your list proves, the closer to modern times one gets the worse it gets (because in my opinion overall quality of all movies dropped and so less likely to get a good film just be statistical odds).

And Grand Hotel over City Lights? That's an early example of an Oscar trend -- the big star-stuffed mega production getting noticed while the smaller production gets overlooked.

[Mike Gebert]

So wait, the Oscars are wrong because their subjective judgement doesn't match your subjective judgement?

Sure it's not the other way around?

No award is ever going to be "perfect," if there's any way to judge what that would be. What every award is... is an insight into the mentality of the awarding group at the time.

Interesting for what it tells you about what people thought then. Whether it tells you anything about movies as movies is another matter.

All very interesting, but focused almost totally on the best picture award. How would/does The Artist fare agianst Sunrise in the Cinematography award? How does Dujoidin's best Actor performance stack up aginst Jannings in The Last Command? Does Hazanavicius do a better job as Best Director nominee than Borzage did in winning with 7th Heaven? Is his script better than Hecht's Ocar script for Underworld?

So wait, the Oscars are wrong because their subjective judgement doesn't match your subjective judgement?

Sure it's not the other way around?

No award is ever going to be "perfect," if there's any way to judge what that would be. What every award is... is an insight into the mentality of the awarding group at the time.

Interesting for what it tells you about what people thought then. Whether it tells you anything about movies as movies is another matter.

You're no fun!

Ever read Danny Peary's Alternative Oscars? It's all about one man's subjective opinion against Oscar's subjective opinion. And it is fun as get out to read even when you vehemently disagree with him.

I thought it was obvious that such debates are one person's opinion against another. Movies wouldn't be as fun if it were all established in black and white what was great.

I suppose the Academy Awards account for something - those in the business get recognised by their peers and get a gong. As to those of us who pay to go to the pictures - I don't suppose it really influences us one way or another. We all have our different niches of preferences.

The actual Award Ceremony at one time used to be quite entertaining but in recent years it has bordered on boring. One thing I have noticed amongst all those actors and actresses of today - none of them can make a proper speech! Surely if they are in the profession it would not be hard for them to learn a few lines? Don Ameche was the only recipient in recent years that I can remember making a decent acceptance speech - but then again he belonged to a different world.

It must be that there is a terrible ego amongst picture people. I have never heard of awards among garbage men or tram conductors......

[Mike Gebert]

Ever read Danny Peary's Alternative Oscars? It's all about one man's subjective opinion against Oscar's subjective opinion. And it is fun as get out to read even when you vehemently disagree with him.

I might know something about something like that.

"The actual Award Ceremony at one time used to be quite entertaining but in recent years it has bordered on boring. One thing I have noticed amongst all those actors and actresses of today - none of them can make a proper speech! Surely if they are in the profession it would not be hard for them to learn a few lines? Don Ameche was the only recipient in recent years that I can remember making a decent acceptance speech - but then again he belonged to a different world."

Some stars have been so excited at winning that they
lobbed the f-bomb at an international audience. Uncouth
is too kind of a description. This behavior seems to be
a trend as it has been demonstrated during the last
two ceremonies.