The Contenders:
Cimarron (winner)
East Lynne
The Front Page
Skippy
Trader Horn
Showing posts with label Cimarron. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cimarron. Show all posts
Friday, July 10, 2020
Friday, October 25, 2019
Friday, August 2, 2019
Monday, January 14, 2019
Friday, November 23, 2018
Friday, March 22, 2013
Watching Oscar: Cimarron
Film: Cimarron
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on laptop.
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on laptop.
It would be really easy for me to say rude things about Cimarron. It was the first Western to win Best Picture (and it’s only marginally a Western), and it evidently left such a bad taste in the collective mouth of the Academy that another film from the genre didn’t win until 1990. And it’s not even a real Western; it just takes place in the Old West. There’s a single shoot out, a lot of posturing, and something that I flat can’t make a lot of sense of. But times have changed. A film like Cimarron, made today, would be vastly changed from this version.
In addition to being the only Old West film to win in the first 60+ years of Oscar history, Cimarron is also the only Best Picture to lose money on its initial release, and it lost a lot. That’s what you get for producing a big-budget film in the middle of one of the worst years of a terrible economic depression. But hey, it won the top prize, and for that reason alone, it has some historical significance.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)