Changing Film Technologies Reflected in Best Picture Nominees

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Lincoln Spector

If either The Artist or Hugo wins the Best Picture Oscar, it will say something interesting about how the Hollywood community accepts the technical changes around them. If Hugo wins, it will be the first 3D movie, and the first shot digitally, to win the prize. If The Artist wins (which would please me far more than Hugo), it will be only the third black-and-white film to win Best Picture since 1956, and only second silent to ever win.

That will be an anomaly, of course, but there’s no question that a digitally-shot film will one day win Best Picture. Each of the last two years, a digitally-shot motion picture was considered a likely winner: The Social Network for 2010, and Avatar for 2009. Each lost to a movie shot on film. But the 2009 winner was another technical record-breaker; The Hurt Locker was the first movie shot in a low-budget, small-gauge format–in this case Super-16–to win Best Picture.

No one who loves cinema views the Best Picture Oscar as a sign that a movie was actually the best picture of the year (although that has happened). But it has always been a sign of what makes Hollywood employees proud of their industry.

Here are some similar Best Picture technical firsts–and lasts.

  • First Best Picture winner and last silent (so far): Wings, 1927/28
  • First talkie winner: The Broadway Melody, 1928/29
  • First color winner: Gone with the Wind, 1939 (three-strip Technicolor)
  • Second color winner: An American in Paris, 1951 (also three-strip Technicolor, but a long wait after the first)
  • First color winner to immediately follow another color winner: The Greatest Show on Earth, 1952 (yes, it was also three-strip)
  • Last black & white winner to follow another black & white winner: Marty, 1955
  • First widescreen winner, first single-strip color winner, first winner shot in large format, and first winner presented in 70mm: Around the World in 80 Days, 1956
  • First winner shot in Cinemascope: Bridge of the River Kwai, 1957
  • Last black & white winner for more than 30 years, and only b&w winner shot or shown in scope: The Apartment, 1960
  • First shot in anamorphic scope and blown up to 70mm: Oliver!, 1968
  • Last winner shot in a large format: Patton, 1970.
  • First winner released in Dolby Stereo: The Deer Hunter, 1978
  • Last winner shot in black & white: Schindler’s List, 1993 (The Artist was actually shot on color film, and digitally converted to b&w.)
  • First winner shot in Super-35, and the last released in 70mm: Titanic, 1997

Moving from technological information to censorable material, the rating system replaced the Production Code in 1968, making Oliver! the first Best Picture with a rating. It was rated G.

The next year, Midnight Cowboy became the first X-rated Best Picture winner.

Those were the last films with those ratings to ever win Best Picture. No NC-17 film has ever won.

Filed under: Awards, Censorship, Technical | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

Good News on Blue Valentine Rating

Posted on December 9, 2010 by Lincoln Spector

I just received word that the MPAA has agreed to The Weinstein Company’s request to rate Blue Valentine
R rather than NC-17. It appears that parents have the right to decide if their 16-year-olds can watch simulated cunnilingus.

Filed under: Censorship | Leave a Comment »

Ratings, Censorship, and the Weinstein Company

Posted on November 18, 2010 by Lincoln Spector

I just received word that the Weinstein Company is appealing ratings on two upcoming films. They’re objecting to the MPAA’s NC-17 rating for Blue Valentine, and an R rating for The King’s Speech.

I saw The King’s Speech at a press screening for the Mill Valley Film Festival, and liked it very much. (You’ll find my quick opinion here; my complete review that will go live on December 1st–two days before the film’s Bay Area release.) That this film would get an R rating seems utterly bizarre to me, except in the sense that bizarre ratings are, in themselves, pretty normal.

Yes, there’s one scene where Colin Firth says the word fuck multiple times. If he had said it only once, the film would get a PG-13 rating. I guess hearing it once will not hurt a 16-year-old’s purity, but three times will have them out on the street turning tricks.

I’ve seen PG-13 movies with sexually tinged torture scenes (Casino Royale) and discussions of oral sex (I Love You, Man). Those are apparently acceptable. But repeated use of an old, Anglo-Saxon word is out of the question.

I haven’t seen Blue Valentine, and thus have no opinion on it. But I’ll offer two opinions on the NC-17 rating:

  1. The real problem with this rating is cultural. If theaters didn’t refuse to show NC-17 movies, if newspapers didn’t refuse to accept advertising from them, and if churches didn’t protest them, these pictures would be economically viable. People should be able to make, distribute, present, and watch films too graphic for an R rating.
  2. In a world of home video, there’s no practical difference between the R and NC-17 rating. You can’t take your children to see an NC-17 movie in a theater, but you can show it to them at home. Thus, the distinction is meaningless.

Filed under: Censorship | 4 Comments »

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