1928: Wings
J: Hello, dear reader (Mom, Dad, Sarah). I'm a junior at UNC studying Psychology with a minor in Spanish for the Business Professions. I have plans to get an MBA and pursue marketing, and maybe eventually get a PhD to teach at a university somewhere in the country. Check back with me in a couple years (and 20-30 movies) to see if my name is on a brick path somewhere yet.
K: This is now Kate writing. I could be lying, and this could still be Jake, but you'll just have to take my word on good faith. At the present (now), I am a senior at UNC studying Computer Science and Chinese. I have plans to do Something, but who knows what that will be-- getting a job in web development, going to Taiwan to teach English for a year, getting a master's degree in education... we'll see.
(Unless a paragraph or line starts with an indication that one of us is writing, assume it's a team effort. Go team. What team? We'd say Wildcats, but High School Musical surprisingly did not garner much praise from the Academy.)
In 1927, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was established, and two years later, the first Academy Awards was held. (Fun fact: the name "Oscars" is believed to have come from executive director of the Academy Margaret Herrick, who thought the award statue resembled her Uncle Oscar. The name came into public use by 1934 and was used officially by the Academy starting in '39.) Louis B. Mayer, of Metro-Goldwyn-fame, said of the ceremony: "I found that the best way to handle [filmmakers] was to hang medals all over them ... If I got them cups and awards, they'd kill themselves to produce what I wanted. That's why the Academy Award was created." This sentiment, combined with an anti-union attitude, places a bit of a pall on the alleged illustriousness of the event, but we can't really dispute the efficacy of Mayer's method. I mean, maybe it's just me (K) and my reluctance to part with a soccer participation award from elementary school that's still gathering dust on top of my bookshelf, but who doesn't love a shiny gold trophy?
In the first ceremony, in 1929, there were two different "best movie" awards, one called "Outstanding Picture" and the other "Unique and Artistic Picture." At the 1930 ceremony, they eliminated Unique and Artistic Picture and decided that Outstanding Picture was the highest honor a film could receive. Therefore, Wings, which won Outstanding Picture in 1928, is the first movie on our long list. (We watched Wings on Tubi, where it is free with brief ads.)
Wings is a silent film. This is the first and most obvious feature of the movie, complete with overexaggerated mouthing of common phrases and pace-disrupting title cards with important dialogue. While Wings was lauded at the time of release ("Nothing in the line of war pictures ever has packed a greater proportion of real thrills into an equal footage"), and in fact still gets praised today ("Subsequent war epics may have borrowed heavily from the original Best Picture winner, but they've all lacked Clara Bow's luminous screen presence and William Wellman's deft direction"), dear reader, we did not enjoy this film - for the first half.
We watched Wings in two installments, as it is a two hour and twenty minute silent film and we are but busy college students. After reaching the intermission (literally, a screen that said "Intermission"), and being thoroughly dissatisfied with the pacing, character development, and long establishing shots, we decided to call it quits for the nonce. But two weeks later, knowing that we couldn't very well continue this journey with only half of Wings under our belt (Wing?), we reluctantly returned to the film. And dear reader, this war epic surprised us.
In this second half of the film, the acting quality and the drama picked up nicely. Lovers clashed in the revelry of a Paris ballroom, friends quarreled over a shared flame far across the Atlantic, and the brutality of the Great War (also called, rather unsuccessfully, the War to End All Wars) loomed large on the screen. Heartbreak and reunion were the order of the day at the end of the film, leaving the viewer teary-eyed and with a new comprehension: that war is perhaps not comprehensible at all, even to those who have lived through it at the front lines.
With one film under our belt, and... just under a hundred to go, our Oscar-watching (but probably not Pulitzer-winning) journey is off to a half-auspicious start, and we're excited to take on The Broadway Melody, a 1929 musical and the first Oscar winner to feature Technicolor. Onwards and upwards!
B-side:
We've oh so kindly elected not to spoil the masterpiece that is Wings in our post, up to this point. If you're interested in watching a 2+ hour silent black and white war epic with the same 3 shots of planes in the air repeated 30 times, and the same 2 minutes of piano music on loop, avert your eyes from this post now. Otherwise - continue reading to learn what becomes of Jack Powell and his comrades.
K: First of all, I have some MAJOR beef with the way in which women are treated in this film. I mean, I know it's 1928, but come on. Just after the intermission, our "hero" Jack Powell is getting absolutely TRASHED at a bar in Paris, macking on some random French lady. Who should walk in but our heroine, our damsel-about-to-be-in-emotional-distress, but Mary Preston? Seeing her desired beau drunk out of his mind on champagne and comfortably ensconced in the arms of Ms. French Lady, she is aghast and retreats to the bathroom in tears after failing to capture his addled mind's attention. There, an elderly looking Frenchwoman counsels her on how best to console herself-- completely change your appearance to win the affection of a man! Great choice! After donning a low-cut sequined dress and some sparkling dangly earrings (she does look real cute I like the fit), she is able to successfully recapture the attention of Jack and get him back to his hotel room.
(Still K) Mary, having successfully ridden out his drunken wiles till Jack tired himself to sleep, decides to change back into her military uniform and let him be. However, whilst she is attempting to change into her uniform behind the modest privacy of a changing screen, who should walk in but two military officials, looking to send Jack back to the front? They have the absolute GALL to ogle her and wink at her, instead of having the common decency to give her some privacy and let her finish changing. Furthermore, upon noticing her uniform, they reprimand her for her indiscrete conduct and send her home from the war. Excuse me??? All of those military men in the lobby can be drinking themselves into oblivion and soliciting the attention of pretty women to distract themselves from the horrors of war, but the second you see a woman changing clothes you assume the worst and send her home from the front because she is failing to conform to YOUR patriarchal social values regarding the so-called virtue of women? I was infuriated. Anyway, rant over. Looking forward to more equitable treatment of women in future movies.
J: #Women. In the end, Jack mistakenly mortally wounds his war-forged-friend, David, and holds him in his arms as he dies. As he parades around his hometown post-war, Jack takes a touching moment to console David's grief-ridden parents and return the medal and stuffed bear that David had kept on him. Jack returns to the woman he had turned down at the beginning of the movie (the very same that was rebuked so thoughtlessly in the story Kate told) and they share a kiss under the stars. A bittersweet ending, watching them hold each others' hands, only moments after seeing flashbacks of David's flag-adorned coffin.
We rate Wings 6/10.
P.S. Everyone involved in this movie, behind and in front of the camera, is dead. This fact will hold true until a very young baby appears in a movie, or we get quite a few further in.
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