The Battle of the Normans - We have a winner

After many weeks and four movies, we have a winner from the duel between Norman Jewison and Norman Taurog. Here are my reactions to the four movies and why the winner is Jewison:

Fiddler on the Roof

This movie was astoundingly well done in my perspective. It had all of the perfect elements of a musical and translated a theater production onto the screen beautifully. The addition of camera work and scene transitions enriched the story and movement of the characters. One of my favorite elements of camera work in the film is when Tevye begins a spoken internal monologue while talking with each of his daughters about their potential husbands. At this point, the camera suddenly shows that he is distant from his daughters physically as he talks to God about whether to allow them to marry. As I am rating movies based on how they make me feel, this movie carries a great deal of weight.

Boys Town

I can definitely see why this film was so impacting and important in its time. Coming from 1938, when the prevailing thinking was that someone was born bad and stayed bad throughout their lives (an idea which still pervades our current systemic and internal functioning), this film was progressive and possibly even subversive. The idea was shocking that someone could take a large group of orphan boys and foster in them a sense of community and responsibility. But Father Flanagan sticks to his belief that "no boy is bad" and viewers of the day were probably astounded that this story was based on reality. Beyond these powerful messages, the film was slightly stiff and formulaic, though there were moments from Mickey Rooney that were incredibly endearing, and the small, lovable orphan aptly named Pee Wee was irresistibly cute.

In the Heat of the Night

Oh my goodness. I can't believe I hadn't seen this amazing movie before beginning this tournament. Sydney Poitier helps this movie to burn with his apparent passion and commitment as an actor. The tension is palpable throughout the film, emanating from the screen and affecting the viewer. This is one of those films that so fluidly helps me to see another situation, another perspective and circumstance. This film is a sort of time machine that can help me better understand where we have been as a country and why. The acting, costuming, setting, and camera-work all came together to communicate with an audience. This movie is expressive and true and I loved it.

Pardners

Jerry Lewis is a master of physical comedy and the camaraderie and comedic partnership is apparent between him and Dean Martin. They bring the audience in to view their inside jokes and their own love for each other as great friends. I can't tell if this relationship between the stars puts up a slight barrier because we know that we can't be a part of it or whether I don't connect to the comedy as closely because it's from a different time period. Whatever it is, I found myself simply observing rather than enjoying a lot of the jokes. It is obvious that the two stars and the audience have come to expect a formula and they stick to it. But the movie is nevertheless fun.

So, our first winner is Norman Jewison! Congrats, Norman, you move on to face William Wylar. dun dun dun.

Battle of the Normans

The first competition of our director show-down will feature Norman Jewison and Norman Taurog. While initially I had never heard of either of these directors and they seemed to sprout from obscurity from my perspective of limited experience, they are actually incredibly influential, powerful directors with impressive carreers.

Norman Taurog was a director from the earliest days of American filmmaking in the 1920's. He primarily made short films in mass numbers. He became notable for the film Skippy, the adaptation of a comic strip involving impoverished children of the slums. This film won him his best director award in 1931. Unfortunately, we won't be able to watch his first big hit as it is not available on DVD. His next major film nomination came for the film Boys Town, which began Mickey Rooney's carreer. I'm very excited to see him as a teenager. From this point he became more known for comedies rather than hard-hitting dramatic films and his formula for easy-going, family films that involved elements of song was utilized when studios wished to bring Elvis Presley to the screen. Taurog and Presley teamed up for a number of films, all widely successful, including Jail House Rock and Blue Hawaii. Taurog's third most notable credit goes to uniting the comedy team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis for the first of many highly successful films. We will be watching Pardners, which is considered by many to be the quintessential Martin-Lewis team-up.

Norman Jewison was a highly successful director in the 60's and 70's working in the genres of light comedy, hard-hitting socially concious films, and musicals. One of Jewison's most notable musicals was Jesus Christ Superstar, which managed to tackle a grand theatrical story and bring the essence of the 1960's to the screen. The musical genre and social consciousness came together in the widely successful Fiddler on the Roof. This film granted him a nomination for Best Director from the Academy. He won Best Picture and Best Director for one of the most important race relation films of all time: In the Heat of the Night, which dared to talk about the highly current issue of race relations amid the riots occurring in the late 1960's. His work with race relations and film has never truly ended; in the late 90's, he produced The Hurricane, a film starring Denzel Washington as a boxer who has been wrongfully convicted of a crime and spends life in prison.

I´m very excited to see how this match-up turns out, but seeing as the victor will be meeting up with Wyler, they probably will only see two rounds.