I voted for Raging Bull as the year's best picture (along with actor and director) which is not exactly the same as saying I enjoy watching it. Just between me and thee, the ratio of times I've watched The Blues Brothers, Airplane! and Caddyshack to times I've watched Raging Bull is roughly infinity to one.
As portraits of unlovable losers go, Raging Bull is without peer. Real-life boxer Jake LaMotta (Robert De Niro) did exactly one thing well — beat people up — and he parlayed that into a spectacular career in the ring. That this talent for uncontrolled rage proved to be a liability in every other walk of life came as a complete surprise to no one but himself.
Which makes him a pitiable figure, maybe even a tragic one, and director Martin Scorsese makes you feel in your bones LaMotta's desperation and humiliation as he careens from one self-inflicted disaster to another. It's absolutely top-notch filmmaking.
But, boy, is it hard to watch. I've really got to be in the mood ...
My choices are noted with a ★. A tie is indicated with a ✪. Historical Oscar winners are noted with a ✔. Best foreign-language picture winners are noted with an ƒ. A historical winner who won in a different category is noted with a ✱.
Dances with Wolves is the How Green Was My Valley of 1990, which is to say, a really good film that has been unfairly slagged because it won the Oscar over a more acclaimed movie. A gentle reminder for the true movie fan: it is possible to prefer one film without trashing another. My movie shelf includes both Goodfellas and Dances with Wolves.
What's it about? The adventures of an orphan boy, living in the walls of a Paris train station, who crosses paths with a grumpy old toymaker with a fabulous secret.
But what's it about? Finding your purpose, or maybe rediscovering it. "Machines never come with any extra parts, you know. They always come with the exact amount they need. So I figured, if the entire world was one big machine, I couldn't be an extra part. I had to be here for some reason."
But what's it really about? Martin Scorsese's ongoing love affair with silent movies and the creative genius that made them possible.
And what did I get out of it? Aside from a pleasant afternoon with Katie-Bar-The-Door? Why, the pleasure of seeing dozens of silent film references on the big screen, including but not limited to:
You have until Sunday to vote in this one. (And don't forget to vote in the Classic Hollywood round.)
The Tale of the Tape:
Woody Allen Born: December 1, 1935 (Brooklyn, New York) Directorial Debut: What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966) Academy Awards: 21 nominations (6 for direction): 3 wins, including one for direction—Annie Hall (1977) Katie-Bar-The-Door Awards (for direction): 2 wins—Annie Hall (1977) and Manhattan (both for Comedy/Musical) Three More To See: Sleeper, Hannah and Her Sisters and Match Point
The Coen Brothers Born: Joel Coen— December 29, 1954 (Minneapolis, Minnesota); Ethan Coen—September 21, 1957 (Minneapolis, Minnesota) Directorial Debut: Blood Simple (1984) (Ethan credited as producer) Academy Awards: 13 nominations each: 4 wins (including one for direction)—No Country For Old Men (2007) Katie-Bar-The-Door Awards (for direction): 2 wins—Fargo (1996) and The Big Lebowski (1998) (both for Comedy/Musical) Three More To See: Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing and O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Martin Scorsese Born: November 17, 1942 (Queens, New York) Directorial Debut: Vesuvius VI (short) (1959) Academy Awards: 8 nominations (6 for direction): 1 win—The Departed (2006) Katie-Bar-The-Door Awards (for direction): 2 wins—Raging Bull (1980) and Goodfellas (1990) (both for Drama) Three More To See: Mean Streets, Taxi Driver and The Age of Innocence
Steven Spielberg Born: December 18, 1946 (Cincinnati, Ohio) Directorial Debut: The Last Gun (short) (1959) Academy Awards: 12 nominations (6 for direction): 3 wins (including 2 for direction)—Schindler's List (1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998) Katie-Bar-The-Door Awards (for direction): 3 wins— Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Schindler's List (1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998) (all for Drama) Three More To See: Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Jurassic Park
Can you imagine what a distorted picture of film history we'd have if the only Bette Davis movies that survived were Satan Met A Lady and Wicked Stepmother—if, say, Jezebel and The Letter had disintegrated in the can and Now, Voyager and All About Eve existed as only a damaged print in an archive vault somewhere?
That's about where we stand with regard to Norma Talmadge and our understanding of the silent film era.
I was up at 3 o'clock this morning with what Winnie the Pooh would call a rumbly in my tumbly (well, more like mild nausea—I've been eating my own cooking again) and wound up chasing Norma Talmadge through the misty maze of time. I'm working on a side project I haven't quite decided whether to call the Silent Oscars, the Mythical Monkeys or the Alternate Katies which would go back and hand out awards to movies from 1915-1927, and anybody who's ever attempted to study silent movies eventually runs up against the woeful state of films from that era. Oscar-winning director and enthusiastic film preservationist Martin Scorsese estimates that 80% of all American movies from that period are permanently lost—and lord knows how many that have been found are impossible for an average guy like me to see.
That state of affairs is particularly egregious with regard to Norma Talmadge. She was as highly regarded in her day as Lillian Gish but was a great deal more popular—thus leading someone (I forget who) to compare her to Bette Davis—but the fact is, very little of her work is available, just three DVDs, mostly featuring work from the days before she was a star. I've seen enough of Kiki, a comedy from 1926 co-starring Ronald Colman, to think I'll risk buying it on DVD. It also includes something called Within The Law, a melodrama more typical of her silent work.
Her two most highly-regarded films were Smilin' Through (1922) and Secrets (1924). A single print of the former is housed at the Library of Congress; incomplete prints of the latter are floating around, with at least a third of the film presumed lost. Neither are available on DVD or video.
Of her two talkies, the less said the better. I've seen the first, New York Nights, and she's fine but the movie is an incoherent mess—like so many movies from 1929, the director was dead set on inserting lousy songs where they don't fit and the result is a movie with no pacing and an uncertain narrative.
Worse is her last film, Du Barry, Woman Of Passion, and to say it was a disaster is an understatement. Allegedly, it inspired Jean Hagan's character in Singin' In The Rain—you remember her, don't you, the beautiful silent star who makes a fool of herself every time she opens her mouth. Although Talmadge did not display the thick Brooklyn accent of legend, she was ill-equipped for the long, florid speeches of a stage-bound costume drama and the movie was a flop.
"Quit pressing your luck, baby," wrote her sister Constance, who had retired without ever attempting a sound picture. "The critics can't knock those trust funds Mama set up for us."
Talmadge was the eldest of three acting sisters, born into poverty in New Jersey. Her father left one Christmas morning never to return but her mother, the indomitable Peg Talmadge, moved the family to Brooklyn and pushed her daughters relentlessly, finally scoring film work for Norma at Vitagraph Studios in Flatbush by sneaking past the guard at the studio gates. Norma was just sixteen.
Talmadge made hundreds of shorts at Vitagraph but didn't achieve much notice until starring in a 1915 anti-German propaganda piece called The Battle Cry Of Peace. Peg, Norma and sisters Constance and Natalie, soon moved to California where they landed contracts with D.W. Griffith, then the biggest name in Hollywood. Constance wound up the star of Griffith's Intolerance, but Norma didn't really come into her own until she married producer Joseph Schenck, who later produced Buster Keaton's best work (sister Natalie, in fact, married Keaton). She and Schenck formed the Norma Talmadge Film Corporation and promptly began turning out high-quality hits.
By 1921, Talmadge was the most popular actress in America. In 1927, she started a lasting tradition when she accidentally stepped into wet cement in front of the newly-constructed Grauman's Chinese Theatre.
Talmadge's marriage to Schenck took an odd turn in 1926 when while filming a silent version of Camille she began an affair with co-star Gilbert Roland. Schenck refused Talmadge's request for a divorce (this was long before the no-fault divorce laws of today), but continued to cast the couple together to take advantage of their box office popularity. Not until Talmadge began an affair with comedian George Jessel in 1934 did Schenck finally relent.
Crippled by arthritis, Talmadge lived out her retirement in seclusion and died of pneumonia in 1957.
Postscript: A picture of sisters Constance and Norma Talmadge:
Named for Katie-Bar-The-Door, the Katies are "alternate Oscars"—who should have been nominated, who should have won—but really they're just an excuse to write a history of the movies from the Silent Era to the present day.
To see a list of nominees and winners by decade, as well as links to my essays about them, click the highlighted links:
Remember: There are no wrong answers, only movies you haven't seen yet.
The Silent Oscars
And don't forget to check out the Silent Oscars—my year-by-year choices for best picture, director and all four acting categories for the pre-Oscar years, 1902-1927.
Look at me—Joe College, with a touch of arthritis. Are my eyes really brown? Uh, no, they're green. Would we have the nerve to dive into the icy water and save a person from drowning? That's a key question. I, of course, can't swim, so I never have to face it. Say, haven't you anything better to do than to keep popping in here early every morning and asking a lot of fool questions?
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