The Jazz Singer

The Jazz Singer

1927

Director: Alan Crosland

Starring: Al Jolson, May McAvoy

There are many reasons that films are considered “Must See.”  For many, it’s some certain inherent artistic merit.  For a few, it’s historical relevance.  In my opinion, The Jazz Singer may not be loaded with artistic merit, but there is no denying its historical relevance. 

Jakie Rabinowitz (Jolson) is the son of a cantor, and his family is very active in their synagogue.  His father has trained Jakie in music with the intent of him taking over as cantor one day, but Jakie loves to sing jazz.  This eventually causes his father to disown him, and Jakie changes his name to “Jack Robin” and takes his act on the road.  Striking it big as a performer and meeting a pretty girl along the way (McAvoy), eventually Jakie returns home to New York City to make his Broadway debut and tries to fix things up with his pa.  Naturally the conflict between family and career is only heightened.

  

The story is pretty standard, blatantly overtly sentimental fare.  The acting is not acting but over the top mugging.  To quote my teenaged students, “not gonna lie,” it gets pretty boring.  The Jazz Singer is NOT gripping entertainment.  It’s tough, especially when I compare it to some of the stand out silent films from 1927, like Sunrise, The General, The Unknown, and Metropolis.  The Jazz Singer falls so spectacularly flat in comparison.  So to me, if you’re looking for entertainment, go elsewhere, because I found precious little of it in The Jazz Singer.

And curiously, perhaps I should respond to the story because estrangement is, unfortunately, a very real part of my immediate family history (and that’s all I’m going to get into here).    But there was no wailing, no gnashing of teeth, no tearing of hair in the estrangement in my family.  Perhaps, then, I don’t react well to films that depict it in this way.  Kind of a “been there, done that, doesn’t look at all like you’ve portrayed it in your film.”  So despite what SHOULD be a bit of a personal connection to the story, I found absolutely none. 

 

But I will never quibble with The Jazz Singer’s inclusion in any kind of list that deals with significant film.  It’s hard to argue with “first feature length film that included sound.”  There was no one change that so utterly altered the landscape of film as the addition of sound, and The Jazz Singer is a huge part of that change.  It wasn’t that it was the first film to have sound (there were shorts that preceded it that had audio songs), but its enormous popularity – and the boatloads of money it made – signaled to the film industry that audiences would eat up “talkies.”  A misconception to the general public is that The Jazz Singer is the first all-sound film when it’s really a combination silent/sound film, with nearly all the dialogue and dramatic scenes done in traditional silent film style with intertitles, but the musical numbers are in sound.  Originally only intending to include sound for the musical numbers, Jolson improvised a dialogue scene with his mother in between singing.  This then made The Jazz Singer the first film with recorded dialogue.  When I first saw The Jazz Singer, I was seeing films chronologically by decade.  I had been immersed in silent films (a fact that helped me appreciate them better), and in all honesty, when Jolson talks to his mother, it was rather magical.  I can understand why audiences at the time couldn’t get enough.  As Jolson famously ad-libbed, “You ain’t heard nothin’ yet!”

Beyond its use of sound, however, The Jazz Singer also gets credit for single-handedly inventing the movie musical.  After all, you can have silent comedies and silent dramas, but there’s no way to make a silent musical.  The first sound picture burst on the scene with song and dance, and birthed an entirely new genre.  Vaudeville singers and dancers found they had a place in Hollywood too.  The outline of the backstage musical that The Jazz Singer presents would be used again and again (and again and again and again) throughout the ages – young person/couple/group has talent, starts small, takes it on tour, gets a following, gets an opening in The Big Show, gets opening night jitters and/or various complications, performs anyway and knocks it out of the park.  I honestly won’t bore you with listing the films that use this general motif because they are too many.  And as a musical fan myself, it’s important for me to appreciate that they all stem from The Jazz Singer.  There is no arguing with that.

  

This much is known pretty well to people who are aware of The Jazz Singer’s historical significance.  What I had forgotten about, however, was the fact that this story plays out against the backdrop of a traditional Jewish family.  I am not Jewish, but I have seen a lot of movies, and I have to say The Jazz Singer’s portrayal of Jewish customs *seems* authentic (but again, I am no expert, I am simply comparing it to other, perhaps more cartoonish cultural representations).  Moreover, no one really makes a big deal that Jakie is Jewish.  You could substitute in any religion and/or culture, and you’d have the same story.  Heck, you could simply substitute in overbearing traditionalist father and leave religion out of it, and you’d have the same story.  And that’s a good thing.  This is representative of a cultural acceptance that is, frankly, a bit odd to find in a Hollywood movie from the 1920s (tempered, most definitely, by the blackface scenes, but still accepting in a way).  Odd, but refreshing.  

Heck, Myrna Loy even pops up!

The Jazz Singer is a film that I can’t in good conscience recommend.  For those who have a passion for film history, yeah sure, see it, knock yourself out.  For the casual film fan, really, there’s no need to see it.  You’ve seen the same story played out in so many other films with better acting.  Unless the novelty of its historical significance sounds super intriguing to you because you’re OCD about film lists like me, this one warrants a pass.

Arbitrary Rating: 4/10. 

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

Sunrise
1927
Director: F.W. Murnau
Starring: George O’Brien, Janet Gaynor, Margaret Livingston

1927 was a turning point for Hollywood. With the commercial success of The Jazz Singer, audiences wanted to hear their films speak to them. At the same time, the silent masters were producing some of the true masterpieces of that era. Sunrise remains one of those masterpieces, making it onto Sight and Sound’s 2002 Critic’s List of the Top Ten Movies of All Time.

The story is, like most silent films, very straightforward. A man from the country (O’Brien) has been cheating on his wife (Gaynor) with a trampy girl from the city (Livingston). The trampy girl, seducing him, asks him to sell his farm and run away with her to the city, drowning his wife in the process. Horrified but unable to escape his girlfriend’s entrancing power, the man sets out to attempt to kill his wife, but guilt stops him at the last second. This is the first half of the film; the second half is a celebration, albeit a bit of an ironic one, of the renewed relationship between husband and wife.



From a very simple premise of infidelity and its repercussions, Sunrise manages unexpected emotional profundity. O’Brien’s performance is stellar. There is certainly some of the typical “silent film mugging,” but for the most part, O’Brien turns in a very honest portrayal of a conflicted man. We understand the attraction to the girlfriend, but also the guilt in seeing his affair through to its bitter end. When he is desperately trying to reconcile with his now terrified wife, we see him begin to understand how much he already has, and what he would be throwing away. It’s an impressive performance. I found myself quite unexpectedly crying in two scenes; the film had managed to sweep me up into its simple story.

Gaynor as his wife is angelic and demur, clearly representing “the correct choice,” what with her halo of blond hair and her sweetly open face. Livingston as the trampy city girlfriend has little to do other than wear black, smoke cigarettes, and generally treat people badly. She’s my least favorite character, and not because she’s separating O’Brien and Gaynor, but because she’s mostly a caricature. Frankly, she looks like Tony Curtis in drag from Some Like It Hot, and I did feel that I was being beat over the head with “Look at how horrible she is! She’s evil!” I could have done with a more subtle villain.

As strong as the emotional journey is, however, the biggest star of Sunrise is Murnau’s camerawork. This is camerawork beyond compare. The sheer inventiveness of Murnau in his shot composition is astounding. Early on, when the husband is contemplating running away with his mistress, the mistress appears as if a spectral ghost, surrounding him, caressing him, whispering to him. Given that there were absolutely zero computer effects in 1927, all these effects had to be done in camera. In this case, it was a double exposure. Later on, when the husband and wife are reconciling, they walk through a city street, only having eyes for each other. Using rear projection, we see all the cars in the street nearly missing the couple, but they don’t notice. Slowly the street fades and turns into a country path. All the while, our couple walks on, oblivious. These are only two examples of Murnau’s original camerawork, all coming to a brilliant head in Sunrise.



Additionally, Murnau was one of the first to use sound as a special effect. There is no spoken dialogue in Sunrise, and refreshingly few intertitles (because really, the story doesn’t need them), but Murnau does employ crowd sounds. Unlike early sound films, however, the sound in Sunrise is natural and unobtrusive. I barely noticed that the crowd was yelling, the horn was honking, or the church bell was ringing, until I remembered halfway through that this was a silent film and wasn’t *supposed* to have sound. I wish more directors had taken a cue from this film and not The Jazz Singer in their early employ of matching recorded sound with images on the screen.

While the special effects are fresh and unexpected, the shot composition itself is just stunning. Clouds, fog, light, and shadows all interplay effectively to produce what can only be described as a gorgeous film. Each shot looks like an expert photograph. The wide shots of the pastoral sets are deliberately reminiscent of Dutch paintings, with farmhouses that look far too idyllic to be real. The city shots of an amusement park seem surreal, they are so full of light and magic.


Seriously. How gorgeous. I mean honestly, how amazing is this shot?!?!?!

To be honest, the film does lag in its second half, when our couple is reveling in a night out in The Big City. The emotional core of the film is in its first half; the second half feels a little dragged out. Murnau seems to move from elegant photography and profound emotions to gimmicky hijinks and simple laughs. After going on a bit too long, though, Murnau brings the film back to its initial superiority with a brilliant ending, so we are not left with a sour taste.

How good is Sunrise? Let me put it this way: while gladly rewatching it in order to write this review, I honestly felt sad that sound came to movies. This movie is such an artistic triumph, so brilliant in what it manages to accomplishment, and yet with the commercial success of The Jazz Singer the same year as Sunrise, no studio was interested in producing this kind of film anymore. Early sound films were awkward and clunky. Sunrise is glorious and graceful. Sound, coupled with Murnau’s death in 1931 in a car accident, helped to ensure that Hollywood would not make a film like this… ever again. In that respect, Sunrise marks a glorious, bittersweet end to the willing production of brilliant silent films.

Arbitrary Rating: 9.5/10