When it came to handing out its top prize in its first years of existence, the Academy really had a thing for historical retrospectives. I happened to watch "Cimarron" and "Cavalcade" back to back in an effort to finally see the handful of Best Picture winners that had slipped past me, and both are historical pageants, one American, the other British, chronicling the first three decades of the twentieth century.
"Cavalcade" begins with the outbreak of the Boer War, and takes its audience right up to the year of its release (1933), following a host of famous historical moments in between -- the sinking of the Titanic, WWI -- as experienced by a well-off English family and its servants. It ends on a rather bleak and uncertain note, with the blurring of class boundaries and the rise of mechanization -- and its possibilities for human destruction -- leaving the English couple at the film's center feeling anxious about the future. Like many of the films to be recognized by the Academy in the early years of sound, it's creakier and much less cinematic than any number of much better films in any given year that were completely or almost ignored, but Oscar has a long legacy of passing over the truly worthy for the mediocre, so it doesn't much surprise me that "Cavalcade" won the Best Picture Oscar over far better nominees like "I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang" and "42nd Street."
Frank Lloyd won the Best Director Oscar for the second time for his efforts on this film, and the many sets needed to give the film its historical sweep won William Darling the award for Best Art Direction. Its only other nomination was for Diana Wynyard as the family matriarch, not a performance that was particularly deserving. She performs the role as if she's on stage, understandable given that the material originated as a play, but still...plenty of other actresses at the time (Barbara Stanwyck, Norma Shearer, Jean Harlow) knew how to give performances on film that were unique to the medium.
Grade: B
"Cavalcade" begins with the outbreak of the Boer War, and takes its audience right up to the year of its release (1933), following a host of famous historical moments in between -- the sinking of the Titanic, WWI -- as experienced by a well-off English family and its servants. It ends on a rather bleak and uncertain note, with the blurring of class boundaries and the rise of mechanization -- and its possibilities for human destruction -- leaving the English couple at the film's center feeling anxious about the future. Like many of the films to be recognized by the Academy in the early years of sound, it's creakier and much less cinematic than any number of much better films in any given year that were completely or almost ignored, but Oscar has a long legacy of passing over the truly worthy for the mediocre, so it doesn't much surprise me that "Cavalcade" won the Best Picture Oscar over far better nominees like "I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang" and "42nd Street."
Frank Lloyd won the Best Director Oscar for the second time for his efforts on this film, and the many sets needed to give the film its historical sweep won William Darling the award for Best Art Direction. Its only other nomination was for Diana Wynyard as the family matriarch, not a performance that was particularly deserving. She performs the role as if she's on stage, understandable given that the material originated as a play, but still...plenty of other actresses at the time (Barbara Stanwyck, Norma Shearer, Jean Harlow) knew how to give performances on film that were unique to the medium.
Grade: B