Director: Sidney Franklin
Distributor: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
Top Billed Actors: Paul Muni, Luise Rainer, Walter Connolly
Won 2 Oscars:
Best Actress - Luise Rainer
Best Cinematography - Karl Freund
Nominated for 3 more:
Outstanding Production - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Best Director - Sidney Franklin
Best Film Editing - Basil Wrangell
Plot: A poor farmer has ambitions for family, land, and wealth; when he achieves great heights, he goes out to get a second wife because he actually listens to his dumb uncle. Then a porn parody ensues.
Distributor: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
Top Billed Actors: Paul Muni, Luise Rainer, Walter Connolly
Won 2 Oscars:
Best Actress - Luise Rainer
Best Cinematography - Karl Freund
Nominated for 3 more:
Outstanding Production - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Best Director - Sidney Franklin
Best Film Editing - Basil Wrangell
Plot: A poor farmer has ambitions for family, land, and wealth; when he achieves great heights, he goes out to get a second wife because he actually listens to his dumb uncle. Then a porn parody ensues.
And we're off with the 10th batch of Academy Award nominees for Best Picture. The Good Earth (1937) kicks us off and its heralded as the last achievement for producer Irving G. Thalberg, the man the memorial award for producers is named after. There's a lot to unpack due to the setting of the film. It takes place in pre-World War I China. America's relations with China has never been friendly and it was awkward for a movie based off of an ill-received novel to be produced. What's even more awkward is watching white Americans portray Chinese farmers. There was a plan to film in China (Thalberg actually wanted to use all Chinese-Americans), but MGM couldn't hammer out a deal with the country's government. Instead, the Chinese farmland was built somewhere in California, which explains the huge $2.8 million budget. What's really disheartening is that Anna May Wong really wanted to play the lead actress role of O-Lan but the Hays code actually forbid inter-race marriage, even if Paul Muni, a white man, was playing a Chinese man. She was instead offered the role of the vamp second wife character, which she admirably turned down. Another historic moment in Oscar history is that this is the first time a performer won back-to-back Academy Awards when Luise Rainer, the woman who wound up playing O-Lan, climbed to the top for the second year in a row.
Rainer's performance in her previous win for The Great Ziegfeld (1936) is perfectly fine. However, her performance here is even better. Even though the white actors had to play their roles in yellow-face and odd makeup that attempted to simulate Asian eyes, Rainer's large eyes never stop emoting. Her character doesn't have much to say, but when she speaks, it carries such an extreme weight. Even when O-Lan is relegated to the background in any given scene, I focused all of my attention on her and that has a lot to do with Rainer's acting aura. This film also won for Best Cinematography. The opening of the film sets the tone on the camera-front very well by zooming out from a hole in Wang's (Muni) hut to showcase the scope of the farmland and the conditions of Wang's home-life. The hut is a cramped space, but the camera always seems to do the right thing in terms of slight movement during dialogue sequences. The mob and locust sequences are also highlights.
Now, even though Rainer's performance has to be commended on all levels, it does highlight how poor Muni's is. Muni has been a personal favorite of mine since I started this project. I've loved every job he's done thus far, but he's pretty bad here. He slips in and out of an Asian caricature and he just gets destroyed by Rainer's subtleties. I'm completely disappointed in this outing. I am also disappointed with the second half of the film. After Wang gets some success and starts to head down that slippery slope of luxury (what ambition movie is complete without the fall after the rise?), the film feels disjointed. Wang seemed to have a good heart earlier on in the film, even though he thinks of women as "just females." He then proceeds to chase a second wife, but none of that is really shown on screen. I see that there had to be several re-write due to the Code, so I suspect this has a lot to do with the shaky second half. It just seemed like I was missing pieces of dialogue when the uncle starts talking about a second wife after they see a girl dance one time.
Overall, if you can push through dated notions of whites playing Asians, you will witness a truly great lead performance by Luise Rainer. I wish the same could be said for Paul Muni. The cinematography shines while the screenplay in the second half of the film is dim.
My Score: 7/10
Rainer's performance in her previous win for The Great Ziegfeld (1936) is perfectly fine. However, her performance here is even better. Even though the white actors had to play their roles in yellow-face and odd makeup that attempted to simulate Asian eyes, Rainer's large eyes never stop emoting. Her character doesn't have much to say, but when she speaks, it carries such an extreme weight. Even when O-Lan is relegated to the background in any given scene, I focused all of my attention on her and that has a lot to do with Rainer's acting aura. This film also won for Best Cinematography. The opening of the film sets the tone on the camera-front very well by zooming out from a hole in Wang's (Muni) hut to showcase the scope of the farmland and the conditions of Wang's home-life. The hut is a cramped space, but the camera always seems to do the right thing in terms of slight movement during dialogue sequences. The mob and locust sequences are also highlights.
Now, even though Rainer's performance has to be commended on all levels, it does highlight how poor Muni's is. Muni has been a personal favorite of mine since I started this project. I've loved every job he's done thus far, but he's pretty bad here. He slips in and out of an Asian caricature and he just gets destroyed by Rainer's subtleties. I'm completely disappointed in this outing. I am also disappointed with the second half of the film. After Wang gets some success and starts to head down that slippery slope of luxury (what ambition movie is complete without the fall after the rise?), the film feels disjointed. Wang seemed to have a good heart earlier on in the film, even though he thinks of women as "just females." He then proceeds to chase a second wife, but none of that is really shown on screen. I see that there had to be several re-write due to the Code, so I suspect this has a lot to do with the shaky second half. It just seemed like I was missing pieces of dialogue when the uncle starts talking about a second wife after they see a girl dance one time.
Overall, if you can push through dated notions of whites playing Asians, you will witness a truly great lead performance by Luise Rainer. I wish the same could be said for Paul Muni. The cinematography shines while the screenplay in the second half of the film is dim.
My Score: 7/10