Stars: Al Jolson (Jakie Rabinowitz), May McAvoy (Mary Dale), Warner Oland (Cantor Rabinowitz), Eugenie Besserer (Sara Rabinowitz), Otto Lederer (Moisha Yudelson)
Director: Alan Crosland
Awards / Honors
- 1 Oscar Win - Special Achievment
- 2 Additional Oscar Nominations -Best Writing (Adpated Screenplay), Best Engineering Effects
- #90 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list (1997)
- #71 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes list - "Wait a minute, wait a minute. You ain't heard nothin' yet!" (2005)
- In 1996, The Jazz Singer was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Genre: Drama / Musical (mostly a silent film with recoded musical numbers and limited recorded dialogue)
Running Time: 1 hour, 29 minutes
Format: DVD (not yet available on Blu-ray)
Odyssey Rating: 3 Stars (John - 3 Stars, Beth - 3 Stars)
John's Take
OK, we are finally up to the first really famous / infamous film on the list – 1927’s The Jazz Singer. This is one of those movies that many people have heard of – most likely when they took a “Film 101” class their freshman year of college – but few have actually seen. Speaking anecdotally, this is because most professors don’t want to expend the effort needed to deal with the baggage associated with movie in a class that is essentially just easy credits for the participants and is almost always run exclusively by TAs. Sure, they will spend a few moments talking about how it is important technically / historically, but it is usually too big a hassle to actually show it. That is a shame, because despite being over 80-years old, I believe that people would find it a great deal more entertaining than one might think – even considering the issue surrounding the film.
Like it or not, you cannot watch, or talk about this film (and a few other films our big list of 125) without talking about the star(s) performing in blackface. While I could easily write 1000+ words just on this subject, let me just sum up my personal views on the subject:
I find the act of performing in blackface, at best, an odd thing to do and slightly uncomfortable to watch. At worst, I am downright offended by it. Ultimately, it depends on the performance.
For example, Fred Astaire’s performance in blackface in Swing Time (I will talk about that more in the next post) is not fundamentally different in manner or intent than Jolson’s in The Jazz Singer. However, I find Astaire’s performance much more offensive than I do Jolson’s. Why? I am not sure, but I do.
For those of you that find the whole concept offensive, I totally understand. I am in no way trying to defend the practice in any manner. The portrayal of African Americans and other minorities in American film during the first half of the 20th century was often down-right disgusting. However, the film contains what it contains. Did the use of blackface strike me as odd, unnecessary, and did it negatively affect my overall impression of The Jazz Singer? Yes, those scenes are a little on the creepy side. However, did I find the scenes offensive? No.
And least you think that elements or themes of a movie taking on lives of their own outside the intention of the filmmakers is something that only happens once the film is viewed through the prism of the passage of time, think again. If fact, it is easy to find a number of parallels can be drawn between an 83 year old movie like The Jazz Singer and the most recent “king of the blockbusters” – Avatar.
How you say? Well, for one thing, both films are considered the technical marvels of their day. The Jazz Singer is most often recognized as the film that gave birth to the “talkies” and heralded the end of the age of silent film. Avatar has achieved its acclaim through though its use of computer animation and 3-D effects. However, the similar places in history these two films share have as much to do with the promotion of the two films as it does with their actual advances. For example, there had been a number of short films that had released prior to The Jazz Singer that used the same Vitaphone sound technology. Nor was the Vitaphone technology the only type of its kind around. Fox Studios had been using / experimenting with their own Movietone process and would release their own full-length motion picture, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (# 106 on the Odyssey list), just months later which used it. Likewise, Avatar was hardly the first movie to feature 3-D effects (which have been around for decades) or computer animation / motion capture (The Lord of the Rings anyone?). Despite all of that, there is no question that these movies changed how films would be made going forward – whether they were truly “the first” or not – due to the perfect mix critical and financial success they enjoyed (the full impact of Avatar still waits to be seen, but there certainly has been a short term effects – such as the quick adaption to 3-D of Clash of the Titans and the rash of 3-D movies slated to be released this year).
However, both movies are also more than just platforms for their technology. They both have something to say, and surprisingly for two such radically different movies, some of the themes of their respective stories are surprisingly similar. The Jazz Singer is, at its core, a story concerning the struggle between cultural heritage and cultural assimilation. Avatar touches on similar themes, although seen through the prism of colonialism and cultural / environmental exploitation. Surprisingly, both films also suffer from similar faults. The themes of both these films can get lost in the noise caused by viewers offended by certain elements of both films – the aforementioned blackface performances of The Jazz Singer and the “only-a-white-man-can-save-indigenous-peoples” element perceived in Avatar (i.e., Dances with Smurfs).
So what am I trying to go with all of this? I believe that one does not have to resort to the dreaded “for-its-time” caveat, to say that The Jazz Singer is a pretty good movie. However, looking at it with a modern sensibility, I think you have to use that caveat if you are trying to make an argument that it is a great movie. So, as far I as I am concerned, the film will just have to settle for being a pretty good, cinematically historic motion picture that deserved to be removed the 2007 AFI list of greatest American movies.
And lest you think that this sort of fade from cultural prominence can’t happen to modern films, don’t forget the loose ties that this movie shares with the ridiculously successful Avatar. It easy to dismiss some of the criticism directed at Avatar as simply backlash. Remember, however, that hardly anyone found The Jazz Singer offensive in 1927. "The film received favorable reviews in both the Jewish press and in African American newspapers such as the Baltimore Afro-American, the New York Amsterdam News, and the Pittsburgh Courier" (Wikipedia), as well “white” newspapers. Any negative comment concerning Al Jolson in blackface would have been seen then as simply “backlash”.
So, as a film that is showing its age, I give The Jazz Singer – 3 Stars.
John
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