Year: 1927
Director: Alan Crosland
Country: U.S
Language: English
Throughout cinematic history there have always been films that have made huge impacts with their role in the development of Cinema as we currently know it. Such films would include George Meiles' A Trip To the Moon, Orson Welles's Citizen Kane, and Alan Crosland's The Jazz Singer. This film is particularly important because it introduced sound into film which started the incredible crave for "talkies" and inevitably made careers while simultaneously destroying some.
In The Jazz Singer Cantor Rabinowitz is concerned and upset because his son Jakie shows so little interest in carrying on the family's traditions and heritage. For five generations, men in the family have been Cantors in the synagogue, but Jakie is more interested in jazz and ragtime music. One day, they have such a bitter argument that Jakie leaves home for good. However he finds balancing his relationships and his career to be quite difficult.
The Jazz Singer is a film made by Jews for Jews and is about Jews, which is quite interesting when you realize that the sound technology introduced by this film would be later exploited by Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler to assist in his attempts to exterminate the European Jews during the Holocaust. Though commonly considered the first "all sound" movie, many fail to mention that aside from the musical performances and some dialigoue this film is mostly silent.
The plot is relatively simple, a mix of vaudeville and melodrama, though the film as a whole stands for much more. It shows a clear generation gap between Cantor Robinson and his son Jackie Robinson, a shift of ideals and tradition that represent not just these two individuals, but the country as a whole. Silent films were coming to a stop and if you didn't board the "talkie" train then your career would die from the changing of time. A political critic named Michael Rogin would claim that this film also represents a Jewish transformation in our society; the racial assimilation into white America.
In conclusion, The Jazz Singer is a remarkable film which is both historically important and incredibly entertaining. You do not have to be a part of any particular religion to enjoy this film, though it would help if you're not a bigot. One might find Jackie's "blackface" to be a bit racist but this is a film made more than eighty years ago and it doesn't seem like the character is a racist so I'll let it pass. The first few words of this film definitley summarize the future of cinema. "You ain't heard nothin' yet" Praise it! 5/5
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