Now, what's wrong with this picture? Well, everything. The point he's trying to make by using The Jazz Singer is, I guess, that before that particular film there wasn't any sound on films and after it, there was always sound. Neither of these claims, though, are correct. There was sound before The Jazz Singer and there were silent films after it, some very successful and famous.
In the article he also says that "[The Adventures of Robin Hood] blazed a trail for the following year's Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz by bringing the gorgeous Technicolor palette of the previous year's animated Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs into a movie starring real human beings."
The question that begs to be answered, then, is, whatever happened to Becky Sharp (1935). It's not a classic as Robin Hood, but it was made three years before Robin Hood, in full Technicolor glory and it has real human beings. It was directed by Rouben Mamoulian, one of cinema's greatest visual poets (he took over the direction when Lowell Sherman died), and to my eyes it's the better film. And yet there's not the slightest mentioning of Becky Sharp in the article. Has Harris never heard of it? That seems a bit odd considering he's writing a piece on colour cinema and its beginnings. Does he not like it? But that is of no importance here. Or is it that he wanted to write a piece on The Adventures of Robin Hood and in order to strengthen his argument he conveniently neglected to mention Becky Sharp. Whatever the reason, it's a bad one.
And it's not like Becky Sharp was alone until Robin Hood came along. There was for example The Garden of Allah (1936), A Star is Born (1937) and Nothing Sacred (1937), other great looking Technicolor films. Good as The Adventures of Robin Hood is, it's not because it broke new ground in colour film history. That article is the very essence of bad film writing, of which there's plenty.
3 comments:
As one of what often feels like 6 billion working film critics, it is always pleasant to know someone has read one of my articles, even if they haven’t enjoyed it. Like anyone whose opinions are published in the print media, I am forever open to charges of bad writing. Equally, however, anyone who comments upon those opinions is open to the charge of bad reading: it is this that, I feel, you are guilty of here.
To have read my article, misunderstood it and preceded to paraphrase it as inaccurately as you have falls somewhere between shameless and immensely misguided. The points I was trying to make were those I made and what I meant to say was what I said. Little, if any, of it is what is represented in your blog.
The article in question can be read online: http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk//MediaManager/File/Bigpicissue5(lo-res).pdf
Though it seems unlikely any reader as informed as you obviously are could repeat your feat of reading my article and making such drastically erroneous inferences, it is worth tackling a couple of your points here.
The Big Picture’s ‘1000 Words’ feature, as those familiar with the magazine (or, indeed, anyone who had read the title of my piece) will know, deals with ‘moments that changed films forever’. These can be turning points that were apparent at the time or, as is more the case with The Adventures of Robin Hood, those perceivable primarily in retrospect.
My article dealt with masterpieces. My argument was that Robin Hood was the first live action masterpiece of colour; Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was cited as the first feature-length masterpiece of colour, though it was, of course, animated. Becky Sharp is not a masterpiece and therefore was not up for discussion.
That said, had I your luxury of being able to write about my subject in an ill-conceived and un-copy-edited blog post, instead of within the strict limits of a magazine article, I may well have mentioned Becky Sharp (or, indeed, any of the Technicolor films you mentioned). I may, however, have not: the purpose of my piece was not to articulate why Becky Sharp was not a masterpiece of colour, but why Robin Hood was.
My reference to The Jazz Singer was, of course, not to suggest that there had not been sound film before it or silent film afterwards. It was to make the point that there is no analogous cultural consensus upon what was the turning point in the move towards colour films becoming the norm as there is over Jazz Singer and the move towards a cinema predominantly in sound. (The Jazz Singer’s significance has been discussed in an earlier ‘1000 Words’ piece by another of our writers.)
Your point that Robin Hood did not break ‘new ground in colour film history’ is spectacularly nonsensical. Technical advancements in cinema only become integral to it once they have been employed in films that become seminal: otherwise, such advancements are merely footnotes to history and not the stuff of it. As the first immortal movie to fully exploit the power of Technicolor, Robin Hood is uniquely linked to the story of colour films.
I am, at present, guest editor of The Big Picture and can, therefore, speak for all at the publication in saying that we are always open to dialogue with our readers. Reading your blog, and of your achievements in films studies, it is clear that you are capable of providing publishable copy. As our magazine thrives on the articulation of impassioned and well-informed viewpoints, I could only welcome you if your voice was added to those heard via The Big Picture.
Perhaps you could provide the exhaustive study of the emergence of colour film technology that I was not able to; or perhaps, feeling that mention of Becky Sharp should never have been omitted from an issue with colour as its theme, you could write a piece explaining why. However, if, in so doing, you decide to criticise a published article, we would have to insist that you at least endeavour to understand it.
I'm very grateful for your long reply. Grateful and very pleased, since, as you can see, so very few bother to write comments here. I'm also glad you gave the link to your piece so people can read and compare. I'm sorry I couldn't find it before, even though I search around a bit.
I understand that I've offended you. Saying that something is the essence of bad writing is harsh, and in this case over the top. Your article is obviously not the essence of bad writing.
I don't see how I paraphrase the article inaccurately. I state that you write about colour cinema, and give you credit for the historic backgrund, and then states that you talk about Robin Hood, but fails to mention Becky Sharp and other colour movies. I think my quotes are correct, are they not?
I wasn't too sure about what you meant with the part on The Jazz Singer, that's why I used the expression "I guess", but surely you must admit that reading your article, the uninformed reader might get the impression that The Adventures of Robin Hood was the first Technicolor film with real human beings. Even of you don't believe Becky Sharp to be a masterpiece, and not the many other colour films made before Robid Hood either, it could have been mentioned in passing at least that they existed (something like "although Robin Hood wasn't the first live-action colour film, I would argue that it's the most important of the early ones").
I didn't say that Robin Hood didn't break new ground in colour film history. I said that I don't think that the new use of colour is what made it good. It's good because if its speed, humour and excitement.
To continue, your statement "Becky Sharp is not a masterpiece and therefore not up to discussion" strike me as odd. Who decides which film is a masterpiece? Geoff Andrew believes Becky Sharp to be a marvelous film for example. In my humble opinion neither Becky Sharp nor Robin Hood are masterpieces. Among the Curtiz/Flynn films I much prefer The Sea Hawk, but that's in black and white of course. And the two Wellman films I mentioned in my post, A Star is Born and Nothing Sacred, are for me superior, emotionally and artistically, to both Robin Hood and Becky Sharp. I would also argue that Becky Sharp uses colour more imaginatively than Robin Hood, but all of this is of course a matter of opinion.
You write in the end of your article that Robin Hood "is the first film of its kind - the first live-action colour picture - that film fans, critics and historians cannot ignore." I would argue that this is not so. And I'm not misunderstanding you or being shameless. I'm a fan, critic and historian, and for me there are several colour films made before Robin Hood that can't be ignored. Not because they are subjectively better, but because they are there. Robin Hood wasn't "first".
If you want me to write something for The Big Picture, I'd be honoured to do it.
Thank you for gracious reply, and your ‘Objections’ mini-post. I doubt I will ever write an article with which everyone will agree or of which someone could not make at least one valid criticism. On top of this, pieces in which the author suggests that X was a turning point in cinema (and, by omission, that Y wasn’t) are always subjective and naturally speculative, and often prove controversial.
My commissioning powers extend only to the upcoming print issue of The Big Picture – which is being filled by our regular contributors – but, as I wrote before, we are always open to dialogue with our readers and always equally keen to attract quality contributors. If you write something you would like to submit for consideration, our overall editor can be contacted via our website. Perhaps I’ll see more of you there.
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