Was This Worth an Award?

What makes a movie worthy of an award? Could it be the story? The Cinematography? The acting? The editing? In the plainest of terms the answer to all of these is absolutely yes. The motion picture academy of arts and sciences actually gives awards in all these categories. But what makes me think a movie is worthy of an award? Frankly, I have to walk away from the theater completely blown away . The most striking example I can remember has to be “Schindlers List”. What struck me the most was the only color shot in the film. It was a red coat being worn by a small girl in the Jewish ghetto. You see her walk into a doorway as the Nazis are rounding up people for depottation and then you don’t see her again. Later on in the film you see the coat on a pile of clothes that belong to the recently murdered. That stuck with me for years, along with many other striking scenes that drove home the horror of the holocaust. That is the kind of impact that makes a movie award worthy.
Perhaps the second film that stands out to me was a smaller budget film entitled “Prey for Rock and Roll” by Eric Steyermark and starring Gina Gershon. It is the adapted life story of Cheri Lovedog and chronicles her journey trying to make it big in the punk rock scene in the 1980’s. The film takes the viewer on a journey of hope, great effort, frustration and tragedy. You are ultimately led to the conclusion that not everyone achieves fame and fortune despite great effort, but that you can still achieve personal satisfaction and happiness. The movie is punctuated with a hard hitting punk rock soundtrack that keeps the movie moving at a good pace.
From the standpoint of modern editing, “A Trip to the Moon” was a disaster. Horrible splicing and jumpy camera work. But it must be remembered that it was amongst the very first films ever made so just about everything in this film was groundbreaking. There really was nothing that it could be compared to. The advancements of a mere year between “A Trip to the Moon” and “The Great Train Robbery” were staggering. The editing was smoother; the camera angles showed great evolution in the art of cinematography and the ability to tell the story without words was greatly advanced. I think what struck me most about “A Trip to the Moon” was the sheer arrogance. In the first scenes a dissenter to the attempt at space travel is ridiculed and pushed aside. Once the “expedition” arrives on the moon they quickly begin forcing themselves upon the original inhabitants, killing several of them-including the ruler of the moon people. I would call “The Great Train Robbery” much more award worthy than “A Trip to the Moon” based solely on these points.
As an interesting side note, I was recently in a furniture store (of all places) when I heard a song from the 90's that I had not heard in a long time. "Tonight, Tonight" by the Smashing Pumpkins. I turned to the screen and saw the video being played and was surprised to see that the entire video was an homeage to "A Trip to the Moon". Although I had seen the video many times before I viewed it entirely in a new light after seeing "A Trip to the Moon" again. I honestly do not know how I did not see the correlation before that moment. In the end scene of the video the two protagonists are rescued after splashing down into the ocean by a boat named the SS Melies, an obvious nod to director Georges Melies. Unfortunately because of copyright laws I could not repost the video here, but if you get the chance to see it you'll know what I'm talking about.