Tuesday, May 31, 2022

For How Many Oscars was Joseph H. August Nominated?

By N.S.

Joseph H. August (1890-1947) was a top director of photography (DP) in early Hollywood, according to imdb.com with 160 credits, who died on the set at the age of 57, while shooting the William Dieterle classic fantasy, A Portrait of Jennie, starring Joseph Cotten and Jennifer Jones (the title was only coincidentally the same as Jones’ first name). Lee Garmes gallantly finished the job, without taking a credit.

In addition to Jennie, Joe August shot many other silent and sound classics and masterpieces, including Hawks’ first version of The Road to Glory (1926); his Twentieth Century (1934); Stevens’ Gunga Din (1939); Dieterle’s Hunchback of Notre Dame (also 1939); Ford’s The Informer (1935); The Whole Town’s Talking (also 1935); Mary of Scotland (1936); The Battle of Midway (1942); and They were Expendable (1945).

During the War, August served under Captain John Ford in the Field Photographic Unit of the Office of Strategic Services (which would later be renamed the Central Intelligence Agency, but the world and the American government were both very different places then), attaining the rank of lieutenant commander, U.S. Navy.

According to imdb.com, Joe August was one of the 15 founders of the American Society of Cinematographers, and the first DP to have “ASC” follow his name in the credits. However, August’s bio page also tells us that while August was considered one of the top DPs in Hollywood, he was only nominated for one Oscar while alive, for Gunga Din (1939), and then posthumously nominated for Best Black-and-White cinematography, for Portrait of Jennie (1948).

According to imdb.com’s page for Gunga Din’s awards, it wasn’t nominated for any Oscars. Although it was a masterpiece, one must keep in mind that 1939 was “The Year,” such that many brilliant pictures got short shrift (e.g., Destry Rides AgainShadow of a Doubt, and The Archers’ (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s) The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp—a Top 50 masterpiece—were also completely snubbed by the Academy.

As best I could determine, imdb.com was correct in saying that Joe August was nominated for only one Oscar, and wrong in saying that he was nominated for two Oscars.

Whoever has been running that site for Jeff Bezos has increasingly allowed for such sloppiness over the past 24 years.



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

jerry pdx
Chicago implements a race based grading system: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/05/31/chicago-high-school-to-implement-race-based-grading-system/

From the article:

A high school in a Chicago is implementing a race-based grading system “to adjust classroom grading scales to account for skin color or ethnicity of its students.”

The move is necessary, advocates say, because “traditional grading practices perpetuate inequities,” a slide used in a presentation said.

Students, depending on their race, will not be held accountable for missing class, misbehaving in school, or for failing to turn in assignments.

Oak Park and River Forest High School (OPRF) administrators will require teachers next school year to adjust their classroom grading scales to account for the skin color or ethnicity of its students.

School board members discussed the plan called “Transformative Education Professional Development & Grading” at a meeting on May 26, presented by Assistant Superintendent for Student Learning Laurie Fiorenza.

[The plan] calls for what OPRF leaders describe as “competency-based grading, eliminating zeros from the grade book…encouraging and rewarding growth over time.” Teachers are being instructed how to measure student “growth” while keeping the school leaders’ political ideology in mind.

The article notes that according to the Illinois State Board of Education, 38 percent of sophomores fail the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT).

The failure rate was 77 percent for black students, 49 percent for Hispanic students, 27 percent for Asian students, and 25 percent for white students.

Margaret Sullivan, associate director at the Education Advisory Board, which consults colleges and universities, said teachers have to recognize when “personal biases manifest.”

“Teachers may unintentionally let non-academic factors—like student behavior or whether a student showed up to virtual class—interfere with their final evaluation of students,” Sullivan said.

“OPRF’s administration will adopt language that makes and keeps the system visible and continues to name racism as a complex interconnected structure,” the report said. “We must recognize the unique challenges faced during the pandemic intensify the need for a systemic approach to confronting the racial and socioeconomic discrepancies often experienced by our underrepresented student population.”



Reading this article was surreal, I don't even know where to begin but the comments were great and pretty much sum it up. I'm posting a few here:



AntiCoyote
I keep thinking of the episode of "Good Times" in the 70s, where JJ gets promoted to a senior, and the principal tells them JJ should be held back but they are letting him move up a grade so he can stay with his class.

Florida and James are pissed off because, they say the school isn't teaching him anything and he'll graduate not knowing anything, so how is he supposed to make a living in the real world. In the end JJ is held back a year.


The darker your skin, the more proficient you become using a scale and making change for large bills.



NickTheTee
That's some math that they understand


sheepdog
Keep them dumb so they will vote Democrat.

Duties
But they seem so smart in every commercial on TV.

Grendel1950
This is like not arresting criminals and saying crime is down - oh, wait, Chicago does that, too.


Snake Plissken
They are saying in PC terms that blacks are stupid. Now that’s good ole fashioned Democrat racism.

primary focus
so blacks will be treated by professors as "handi-cap" even the high performing ones.

They will judge all others more harshly in grading

for a white person
8 out of 10 = C

for black
6 out of 10 = B

for asian
9 out of 10 = C

andreabeth7
For a black 2 out of 10 equals a C.


andreabeth7
0 out of 10 will be an excused absence..therefore never failing them

Anonymous said...

jerry pdx
Here in the progressive paradise of Portland Wokesters try to undo "gentrification" and lure blacks back to historically black neighborhoods: https://www.wweek.com/news/2022/05/25/the-city-of-portland-tried-to-undo-gentrification-black-portlanders-are-conflicted-about-the-results/
This idiocy underscores the contradictions and hypocrisies of "diversity ideology". On one hand, they extoll the virtues of "bringing us all together in some kind of global melting pot" and that segregation is an evil concept, yet here they are, trying to lure blacks back into segregated neighborhoods so they can proudly display them to the world like some kind of zoo.

You see, here in PDX we had the reverse of what happens in other cities...I called it "black flight", as opposed to White flight. Rather than Whites escaping from inner city blacks to the suburbs, we had blacks escaping their inner city neighborhoods to live in the burbs. This occurred in the 80's due to "gentrification", with Whites casting their greedy eyes on the well made but rundown homes in the Portland "ghetto". Blacks tended not to take great care of their homes, but the homes in North Portland were quality constructed with an artistic flair. Whites began to invade N. Portland and buy up those homes then fix them up to live in or resell at a profit. Black home owners decided to cash in their homes and sell, then move to the burbs. Black renters couldn't afford the rising rents so moved to the housing projects in the burbs supplied by our Woke city council, who claimed that it was an improvement for the negro to get away from "crime ridden" N. Portland. Of course, now the "affordable housing" projects are crime ridden and once nice suburban neighborhoods have become crime infested with regular shootings.

With the loss of the all black "ghetto" the liberals are crying about how we've "lost" cultural uniqueness of our very own negro neighborhood and are trying to draw blacks back to N. Portland. How crazy is that?

In their clueless hypocrisy these people are suggesting, but would never directly acknowledge, is that this ideology of a one world diversutopia where there are no boundaries and no individual cultures contradicts the very ideal they espouse. Diversity is created by geographic and cultural isolation, that's how different cultures become different, if they are all blended together then we become one monoculture where everybody is the same color, speaks the same language and lives the same way. Eliminating those boundaries that divide us actually genocide of the diversity they claim to worship.

I'm actually all for this re segregation. Let's put them all back in N. Portland then they can focus their criminality right back where it belongs...on themselves.