Cimarron was the first Western film to be selected for the top honor at the Academy Awards. Ironically, it wasn't until 1990 that another Western won for Best Picture, and that was Dances with Wolves. Both films are about pioneers who were willing to take a chance on new territory and a chance at a new and different life. Both are somewhat long movies as well, and sadly, both are overrated. Cimarron is not a great movie; in fact, it's a bit boring, another trait that it shares with Dances with Wolves. (Well, I still think Dances with Wolves is more than just a "bit boring.")
The movie covers several decades in the lives of the Cravat family, a newspaper editor and his wife and children, who move into the Oklahoma territory upon its opening for settlement in 1889. Actually, Yancey Cravat isn't just a newspaperman; he's also a lawyer and a politician and a minister and a little bit of everything. He's played by Richard Dix, or I should say, he's overplayed by Richard Dix. Dix seems to be acting as if he were on a stage or in a silent movie, so exaggerated are his gestures and facial expressions. His wife, Sabra, is played by Irene Dunne, and she's much more realistic in her performance than Dix. Both were nominated for acting awards, though; neither one of them won, however. It isn't difficult to see why.
The film begins with a vibrant recreation of the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889, and it is quite the visually stunning sequence. A lot of horses and wagons and riders wind up trying to stake a claim in so-called new territory. Of course, it’s only “open” because the U.S. government has, in essence, taken it from the Native Americans living there. This is mentioned briefly, but the focus is on the white settlers. Discussions and depictions of non-white characters remain primarily stereotypical, but I’ll talk more about that a little bit later.
Sabra’s family opposes her leaving with him to go to unknown territory, but she loves him and wants to go where he goes. His sense of adventure is thrilling to her at first. When they arrive in what is now the town of Osage, he seems to know everyone already, but not all of them are necessarily his friends. The bad guys in town (and you can tell who they are from their first appearance on screen) need to be handled. There’s a shootout at his first sermon in town, an event attended by almost everyone, including the saloon girls. Yancey eventually winds up having to kill someone he’s known for a long time, a character called The Kid, but Dix isn’t really able to convey emotionally how difficult that must have been for Yancey.
There’s yet another land rush in 1893, and Yancey is eager to join it. That’s when Dunne’s Sabra realizes that he will always want to keep moving even though she prefers to settle down and improve the town they’ve already helped to found. She prefers stability; he likes constant change. He stays gone from Osage for five years, and the passage of time in the film is marked with dates on the screen or closeups of pages from the newspaper to show the date for relevant news. It’s a clever device that is, thankfully, not overused here.
Tucked away in this movie is a performance by one of my favorite supporting players of all time. Edna May Oliver plays Mrs. Tracy Wyatt, one of the biggest gossips in town. Her distinctive facial features perhaps inevitably consigned her mostly to supporting parts; she was never considered beautiful enough to be a leading actress except in eccentric roles. However, she always brings enthusiasm and humor to her performances, as she does here. She's a joy to watch whenever one of her brief moments on the screen allows her to shine. She knows she's the comic relief, and she makes sure that you remember just how funny she is.
There’s an interesting subplot involving a character named Dixie Lee (played by Estelle Taylor). We first see her trick Yancey out of a piece of prime land in the initial land rush. Later, though, she’s fallen on tough financial times and has turned to the only profession that was available to single women in the Oklahoma Territory. Being a prostitute (although that word is never mentioned in the film) makes her the subject of a great deal of scorn from the “respectable” ladies in town, including Sabra. By the time Yancey returns from one of his adventures, Sabra has managed to have Dixie put on trial. Her husband takes Dixie’s side over his wife’s objections and serves as her attorney. The story that Dixie tells of how she wound up in the situation she’s in serves as one of the better emotional scenes in the film. It’s also quite an interesting opportunity to tell the story of some of the women who came to the West.
The film takes us all the way to Oklahoma statehood in 1907 and the discovery of oil on Osage territory (a story told again in Flowers of the August Moon). By the time we reach the present day (1930), Yancey’s been gone for years, Sabra becomes a member of Congress, their son has married a Native American girl (over his mother’s initial objections), and their spoiled daughter has married the richest – and seemingly oldest – man in town. A lot gets glossed over in the final moments, and Yancey’s sudden appearance at the film’s end seems very much a deux et machina.
Cimarron isn't necessarily good history, but it's really more about the kind of people who came to Oklahoma rather than what happened to the territory (and later state). Dix's character is one of those men who is always looking for adventure, who is never satisfied with whatever he has managed to conquer. I suppose that makes his fate in this film all the more tragic (although I honestly was not as moved as I think the filmmakers might have wanted me to be). As a portrait of a certain kind of individual, Cimarron is a modest success.
I do want to point out just how much the film is a product of its time period. The African American characters are subjected to ridicule here, particularly one young male character named Isiah (Eugene Jackson) who follows the Cravats to Oklahoma. There is much anti-Indian sentiment, most fervently expressed by Sabra Cravat at first, although she later does change her opinion to match more closely that of her sympathetic husband. There's a fair dose of anti-Semitism in the treatment of the character of Sol Levy, who nevertheless does remain a friend of the Cravats throughout the movie. The film even manages to make fun of someone with a stutter. It's tough to watch these moments and not feel sadness at the ways that Hollywood has depicted various groups of people over the years.
Some interesting awards trivia: Cimarron was nominated in every category for which it was eligible. It won three of the seven awards for which it was mentioned. Its seven nominations in the fourth year of the awards set a new record, as did its three wins.
Oscar Wins: Best Picture, Best Writing Adaptation, and Best Art Direction
Other Oscar Nominations: Best Director (Wesley Ruggles), Best Actor (Richard Dix), Best Actress (Irene Dunne), and Best Cinematography
No comments:
Post a Comment