And the Oscar winner I should be watching is?

If I mention the names Romeo & Juliet-how many people would know whom I’m talking about?  I would say most of us since most of us have some level of a high school education including the high school diploma.  Most middle school or high school English teachers probably choose this play of all of Shakespeare’s plays to introduce young people to the bard of Stratford on Avon because they’ll assume the average adolescent can easily relate to a drama of teenagers being madly in love with someone their parents will absolutely hate.  This of course leads to a wider question- Why is William Shakespeare’s plays even taught in middle school/high school English classes.   There are other famous playwrights like Sophocles, Moliere, Arthur Miller, Neil Simon, Tom Stoppard, Ibsen-why the focus on Shakespeare?  

Well, besides trying to stretch kids brains with Elizabethan “Thee”s and “Thou”s  and reminding kids of the 1700 words that got into the English Language thanks to William Shakespeare’s plays, the reason why most English teachers focus so much on Shakespeare is because William Shakespeare pretty much invented every conventional dramatic plot point in existence.   A play told from the villain’s perspective-"Richard III".  Battle of the sexes-“Taming of the Shrew”.  Revenge plots- “Merchant of Venice”.  Stuck in outlandish situations for comedic affect-“Midsummer’s Night Dream”. Presenting a Jane Austen romantic comedy 200 years before Jane Austen lived-“Much Ado about Nothing”.  Crossdressing genderbending-“Twelfth night”.   Heck Shakespeare even invented science fiction-“The Tempest”.   Even nowadays playwrights when they get writer’s block find ways to creatively steal those Shakespearean plots like when Tom Stoppard rewrote Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” from the perspective of two minor characters and it became a major hit for him.  

There are of course numerous other classical books/works of literature that most English teachers will present to their students as part of their pedagogy to show common values and themes everyone with a basic high school diploma should know.   The premise goes we need to keep these stories alive to pass along the life lessons/morals to the next generation.  

This leads into my strange segue into the 95^th annual Oscars presented this past Sunday, March 12^th, 2023.   I was hoping Stephen Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans” would have won best picture.  “The Fabelmans” is of course an unofficial autobiography written in the language Spielberg knows best-cinema.    Spielberg, of course is one of the most recognized film directors of all time.  To date he has directed over 60 projects and produced hundreds of others.  However, when it comes to the Oscars, he only has two for directing.  As for Spielberg’s other Oscar Losses, some of Spielberg’s best known movies-  “Raiders of the Lost Ark”,  “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, and “E.T.” have all been nominated for best picture and lost respectively to Warren Beaty’s “Reds” (1982), Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall”, (1978) and Richard Attenborough’s “Gandhi”  (1983) .  Now of those six films I’ve mentioned I wonder how many people have seen all six and of those which would you want to see again?  Furthermore, forty years from now which ones of those films will people still want to watch?   I think the answer is obvious since most people don’t care about the Communist takeover in Russia in 1917 or have the time to watch a three-hour epic about the life of Mahatma Gandhi or are ready to cancel Woody Allen because of the incestuous relationship he had with his teen aged stepdaughter Soon Yi Previn.   

There are other films I think Spielberg would recommend people would watch for forty years from now as well.  In a documentary on Stephen Spielberg he mentioned he always watches the epic “Lawrence of Arabia” every year since it came out.   It’s been awhile since I’ve seen Lawrence of Arabia, as stated I’m not sure nowadays if I have three hours to waste on an epic about the life of T.E. Lawrence & the founding of Saudi Arabia.    Still, it did win the best picture Oscar of 1963.

Furthermore, Spielberg’s last movie/Oscar nomination was a remake of the 1960’s West Side Story.  I’ll admit Spielberg/Tony Kushner provided a much better book/screenplay than the original movie and at least Spielberg make sure Maria & her brother Bernardo were played by Hispanic actors instead of white ones in dark makeup.   Yet, the 1960’s movie with Natalie Wood/Richard Beymer was still a great film on its’ own & won the 1961 best Oscar.   Do audiences no longer care about old movies?

Maybe it’s a numbers game.  There are over 500,000 moves that have been officially made since the invention of the Edison’s Kinescope camera in 1891.   I just don’t have time to watch all of those films and I feel most people don’t either especially when you factor in TV shows to binge watch & books to be read & video games to be played all night as well.

Still, I feel there should be a set of films everyone should be watching for various reasons.  For example, I thought “The Wizard of Oz” was one of those ubiquitous films everyone alive since 1939 has watched.  I was shocked when I learned my husband never watched “The Wizard of Oz”.  Why?  My husband doesn’t watch black & white films and of course the ‘39 film starts off with Judy Garland longing musically for a rainbow in sepia toned Kanas.   That film has had such a cultural impact poor Idina Menzel had to wear green pancake makeup for months when she brought the Wicked Witch of the West to life in the musical “Wicked” even though author L Frank Baum made no reference to the shade of the Wicked Witch’s skin color in the original Wizard of Oz book.    My husband’s prejudice against black & white films also means his is missing out on some the greatest film ever made per the American Film Institute’s top 100 films like “Citizen Kane” considered the greatest film of all time.    Prior to 2020 if anyone wanted to be a filmmaker they would have to study D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation” because D.W. Griffith’s movies wrote the book on cinematography.    Unfortunately, all of those great camera techniques on “Birth of a Nation” were used to glorify the start of the K.K.K.  and everyone is wondering why D.W. Griffith wasn’t cancelled out back in 1916.   

I’ve quickly reviewed the list of all of the 95 winners for best picture.  How may of us have watched the 1^st Oscar best picture film “Wings?”  How may of us have watched last year’s best picture winner “Coda”  or the winning film from 2013 “Twelve Years a Slave” or 50 years ago “The Sting?” .   As far as I can tell “Casablanca”, “The Godfather.”, some of the musicals (“My Fair Lady”, “Sound of Music”,  “An American in Paris”, maybe even “Chicago”) possibly “Gone with the Wind” (not sure of having the 1^st African American actor-Hattie McDaniel to win an Oscar in 1939 negates the fact she won that Best Supporting Oscar for playing a southern slave) and “Ben-Hur” are the only ones that seem to be viewed on a routine basis.   Legendary mystery/horror director Alfred Hitchcock was nominated six time for an Oscar and lost each time and yet we’re all familiar with the “Psycho” shower scene more so than a lot of other films from 1960.     As for other non-Oscar wining films I’d say most people have seen the Star Wars franchise along with the Rocky, James Bond, Jurassic Park, Marvel Cinematic Universe,  DC Cinematic Universe,  Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, Terminator franchise, even if you haven’t seen all the movies in the franchises. (I’ve been told to avoid any Terminator movie made in the 21^st century)    If you’re a girl you’ve probably seen all Disney princess movies a dozen times.      Depending upon your age you may have watched all of the Looney Tunes shorts from the 1940’s, 50’s & ‘60’s on TV along with Tom & Jerry and other Tex Avery creations. 

Still, I’m curious dear readers-if English teachers expose students to various books/plays to provide them a well-rounded literature background, what kind of movies should everyone know about so when I name drop Luke Skywalker & Princess Leia everyone will immediately get what I am saying?  What are your random thoughts?