Re: Best Motion Picture Story 1948
Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2016 5:18 pm
Despite having the very word in the title, Story seems like a truly bizarre place to honor Louisiana Story. I think the movie is kind of interesting as a curio -- the documentary-like photography of the bayou setting gives it an authenticity that sets it apart from studio movies of the era. But as a plot it just doesn't amount to much, and a lot of the scripted scenes are pretty clunky.
The location shooting in The Naked City gives it a sense of verisimilitude that's exciting -- I certainly can't recall another film from the 1940s that shows off so much of New York in that era, which makes it compelling enough for historical purposes. But the story is pretty ho-hum, a fairly routine mystery that proceeds along without all that much narrative surprise along the way. Oh, and I know this probably doesn't count as "story," but I thought the voice-over throughout was really cheesy.
The Search, as previously discussed in the Screenplay thread, is a moving enough postwar drama that its prize here isn't objectionable. And yet, despite a sensitive handling of the material, there isn't a ton of wow to the plot, which as Magilla often reminds us, is what we're supposed to be evaluating here. (Side note: the same people nominated in this category were also nominated in Screenplay -- but I thought the Story category honored writers who DIDN'T write the film's screenplay? Or was that only in years with three writing categories? Will any of this ever make sense?)
The Red Shoes had a very weird Oscar haul -- it was well-liked enough to get 5 nominations including Best Picture, but missed in Director and Cinematography despite the visuals being the movie's supreme achievement. And then it got this writing nomination for one of its least impressive aspects. The film's story has an innate power to it -- the ending especially, from the big tragedy through the final performance of the show, is really gripping on an emotional level. But I find the central love triangle a bit wan, and remember the amazing dance sequences far more than the narrative.
Red River is one of the best westerns of the 1940s, an engrossing adventure centered around the fairly complicated adoptive father-son relationship between Wayne and Clift's characters. I might have preferred a more fatalistic ending -- the "you love each other!" scene doesn't exactly feel like the finale the movie has been heading toward -- but the oppressive, increasingly erratic behavior of Wayne's character throughout the cattle drive propels the story into some pleasingly thorny dramatic territory. This feels like the most substantive piece of writing of this batch, and it gets my vote.
The location shooting in The Naked City gives it a sense of verisimilitude that's exciting -- I certainly can't recall another film from the 1940s that shows off so much of New York in that era, which makes it compelling enough for historical purposes. But the story is pretty ho-hum, a fairly routine mystery that proceeds along without all that much narrative surprise along the way. Oh, and I know this probably doesn't count as "story," but I thought the voice-over throughout was really cheesy.
The Search, as previously discussed in the Screenplay thread, is a moving enough postwar drama that its prize here isn't objectionable. And yet, despite a sensitive handling of the material, there isn't a ton of wow to the plot, which as Magilla often reminds us, is what we're supposed to be evaluating here. (Side note: the same people nominated in this category were also nominated in Screenplay -- but I thought the Story category honored writers who DIDN'T write the film's screenplay? Or was that only in years with three writing categories? Will any of this ever make sense?)
The Red Shoes had a very weird Oscar haul -- it was well-liked enough to get 5 nominations including Best Picture, but missed in Director and Cinematography despite the visuals being the movie's supreme achievement. And then it got this writing nomination for one of its least impressive aspects. The film's story has an innate power to it -- the ending especially, from the big tragedy through the final performance of the show, is really gripping on an emotional level. But I find the central love triangle a bit wan, and remember the amazing dance sequences far more than the narrative.
Red River is one of the best westerns of the 1940s, an engrossing adventure centered around the fairly complicated adoptive father-son relationship between Wayne and Clift's characters. I might have preferred a more fatalistic ending -- the "you love each other!" scene doesn't exactly feel like the finale the movie has been heading toward -- but the oppressive, increasingly erratic behavior of Wayne's character throughout the cattle drive propels the story into some pleasingly thorny dramatic territory. This feels like the most substantive piece of writing of this batch, and it gets my vote.