Best Picture (WON)
The Silver Screener loves an ensemble film. This is obvious when one considers my favorite films:
Nashville,
Everyone Says I Love You,
The Hours,
Magnolia...then there's a few character studies and
The Black Cat, but generally I adore ensembles. What's not to love? Several stories intertwine to present a common theme, something relatable about the human condition. Everybody is equal, because as Caden realizes in
Synecdoche, NY, everyone is the lead in their own story. Best of all, an ensemble means an all-star cast.
When MGM first conceived of adapting Vicki Baum's 1929
Menschen im Hotel as an all-star vehicle, people thought it crazy. An all-star cast would mean more money spent on the cast, on trailers, on production itself! Then director Edmund Goulding and cinematographer William H. Daniels, working with the production designers, of course, made a 360-degree shooting area, the better to see the hustle and bustle of the hotel as its ensemble worked its way through the narrative. This, too, was unheard of at the time, and revolutionized filmmaking; no longer did they have to depend on a stagebound mise-en-scene. Directors could direct! Oh, and despite sound still being in its relative infancy, the production features pre-Altman overlapping dialogue. Again, it's a hotel. There's stuff going on.
The gamble paid off. Yes, it was one of the studio's biggest grossers.Yes, it won the Academy Award for Best Picture. More importantly, though, it was -- ahem,
is -- an artistic triumph. It is as fine a comedy as it is a drama, as much a valentine to opulence as it is a defender of the working-class. When the wounded war vet Dr. Otternschlag claims that "nothing ever happens" at Grand Hotel, we feel sorry for him -- he does not see the romance and redemption, the crime and punishment, the sexy and saintly. Where else but the Grand Hotel would a dying accountant strike up a friendship with a debonair jewel thief? Where else would a stenographer and prima ballerina vie for that jewel thief's affections? Where else would a Dr. Otternschlag even be?
What's unusual about
Grand Hotel is not that it won Best Picture, but that it was only nominated in that category. I suppose things would have been different were this not in the days of wacky nomination numbers: eight in Picture, three in the acting categories, four in writing, five in sound...and we were still five years away from supporting categories. Maybe the actors all canceled each other out, because I would say there are four deserving nominees: John and Lionel Barrymore, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford. Director? Cinematography? Art Direction? SCREENPLAY? All, I'm sure, would have received nominations in a five-wide field. Alas.
Oh-ho, but if this was remade? You can bet there would be a hell of a campaign for the stars! A hell of a one! And the nominees could be (after the cut, of course):
