If I Picked the Winners: Best Picture 1956

     After spending seven weeks covering the major categories of the most recent Academy Award nominations, I thought I would mix things up a bit by going retro this week, so I picked the first Best Picture category in which I saw all of the nominees: 1956. Don't ask me why 1956 was the first year in which I saw all the Best Picture nominees, because I'm not quite sure myself. 1956 was well before my time (it is even before my parents time), and it's not like these movies are all that famous or well-regarded either. In fact, as you are about to learn in a moment (assuming you read this article all the way through), I'm not too keen on any of these movies. It would be hard for me to stand in front of you and, with a straight face, seriously argue for the merits of any one of these as "Best Picture worthy".

     Over the ten or so editions of this article that I have written, I have had to make some excruciatingly tough ranking decisions due to the high quality of the contenders. For instance, how can anyone really decide between Jack Nicholson's characteristically eccentric performance in "As Good as It Gets" and Dustin Hoffman's savant political guru in "Wag the Dog"? Or to bring up a more recent example, the decision to put Mark Ruffalo's laid back sperm-donor father ahead of Christian Bale's crack addict Dickey Eklund is one that I still have my serious doubts about. This week turned out to be just as tough as some of these previous examples, but for a much different reason. This time, the task was to try separate the miniscule differences between boring mediocrity and sub-par work. It's a much different process (and much less fun), but no easier nonetheless.

     The category does serve the purpose though of illustrating why I consistently consider the 1950's to be the worst decade in cinema history. There were some exciting things going on in the world of cinema in foreign countries, but for the American studio system, it doesn't get much uglier. At a time where the studios felt extremely threatened by the new, up-and-coming media known as television, they seem fixated on the idea that the only way to beat TV was to make everything BIG! Whether it be gimmicks such as CinemaScope, 3-D films (something that has unfortunately been resurrected), or the regrettable Smell-O-Vision (I don't know who thought that was a good idea), or simply the self-consciously over-the-top, scenery chewing madness that many actors embraced in the predictably "heavy" plots of the typical melodramatic awards fare, it is all too apparent that "subtlety" was not in the vocabulary of anyone working in Hollywood during the 1950's.

     Right on cue, the year of 1956 is a prime example of everything that was wrong with movies at this time. Each of the nominated films I am about to cover at least partially contains something symptomatic of a dying system that was grasping at straws, frantically doing whatever it could to tread water and keep its head afloat. Even outside of these five nominated films, there isn't much to speak of from the films of 1956 which I have seen. The only American film from the year that comes to mind as something praiseworthy is John Ford's "The Searchers", and even for foreign films the only thing I have seen that is of considerable merit is the Japanese film "The Burmese Harp". Hopefully, there are more films which I have yet to see that will come up big at the plate, but of what I have seen so far (and these five films especially), 1956 is a year best forgotten in the cinema history books. However reluctantly though, on to the countdown.... ?

News: R.I.P Elizabeth Taylor

     Today came the sad news of the death of movie icon Elizabeth Taylor due to complications from a heart condition. The actress, who started out in the business as a child in films such as "Lassie Come Home" and "National Velvet", went on to receive a total of five Best Actress Oscar nominations including two victories ("Butterfield 8" and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf"), as well as an honorary Oscar for the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for her contributions to AIDS awareness. She was also notoriously famous for her plethora of marriages and relationships (8 marriages in total I think), including her most infamous marriage to Eddie Fisher, who she had stolen away from Debbie Reynolds, only to leave him for Richard Burton not long afterwards. In the later part of her life she might have been most famous for being a close confidant of Michael Jackson, and supposedly his death took a great toll on her psyche. As an actress, I personally wouldn't put her up with the heavyweights of the previous era like Katherine Hepburn or Bette Davis (although I have not seen either of her Oscar-winning performances), but she had her moments. Out of her work that I have seen, I am more of a fan of her earlier performances, such as in the original "Father of the Bride" (a great movie) and "A Place in the Sun" (an overrated film, but her performance still stands out nonetheless). The timing of the news is a bit ironic for me, because I am currently in the middle of writing the next edition of "If I Picked the Winners", which happens to include one of her more famous films (I should post it sometime tomorrow night). I really hope this isn't the start of some curse for the articles, because if this is the case, I think I'll have to discontinue the series. Anyway, if you want to read and see (via clips) a retrospective on Ms. Taylor's career, check out this interesting piece at The Guardian by clicking here.