• Pete Hammond can’t let go of this notion that “Michael Jackson’s This Is It” is a Best Picture contender. A bunch of number 10 slots aren’t going to cut it, Pete. [Notes on a Season]
• Adam B. Vary notes the curious absence of Gene Hackman from the silver screen since the 2004 bomb “Welcome to Mooseport.” [Pop Watch]
• Criminally underrated composer Clint Mansell spills a little on his plans for Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan.” [Little White Lies]
In one of the weakest years in memory, not just for performances but for great films, 2001 saw Denzel Washington and Halle Berry knock “two birds out with one stone,” as the former declared on Oscar night, as two African Americans won the top acting prizes for the first time ever. And it was difficult to argue with either.
Washington was superb in “Training Day,” clearly loving his role as crooked cop Alonzo, walking the line without ever going over the top, blowing everyone off the screen. In many ways it was a make-up award for his having lost for “Malcolm X” in 1992 to Al Pacino’s ranting work in “Scent of a Woman” and perhaps, though lesser so, for his loss for “The Hurricane.”
Berry gave a raw, sexually charged performance in “Monster’s Ball,” one of such searing truth and rage you could never look away from the screen. Robert Duvall called her performance the finest by an American actress he had ever seen and was not the least bit surprised when she won the Oscar for Best Actress.
My question remains: Should Denzel Washington have won over the non-nominated performances of Gene Hackman in “The Royal Tanebaums” or the vastly under-appreciated Jack Nicholson in “The Pledge,” one of his finest recent performances? Don’t think so.
There was a lot of love shown to Tom Wilkinson for his heartbreaking work in “In the Bedroom” as well as Russell Crowe (again) for his performance in “A Beautiful Mind,” which eventually won the Best Picture Oscar. I was very surprised that Sean Penn was nominated for his performance in “I Am Sam” because though I consider Penn one of the greatest actors in the history of the cinema, his work in that film represents one of the very few times I could “see” him acting.
After spending some time this summer watching some excellent films on DVD, I was inspired to write this piece about the great actors’ (living, with one exception) greatest performances.
Narrowing it down to one each (brutal, believe me), I think have come up with a list of actors, young and old, that represents some of the finest talent working in film over the last 40 years, and selected the performance I believe each will be remembered for. This is obviously a subjective endeavor, so if you feel different, tell us why.
Let’s dive in…
Jack Nicholson
Jack is not often given the credit for being the brilliant actor he is because we far too often expect him to be “just Jack.” But when he puts his actor’s hat on there simply may not be a greater actor in film history. For me he was never better than he was as Randall Patrick McMurphy in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” which is a breathtaking piece of work. Watch him when he’s not speaking and see the emotion he packs into this astonishing piece of acting.
Meryl Streep
There is no question here for me. As concentration camp survivor Sophie in “Sophie’s Choice,” Streep gave not only her best performance, but the single finest performance ever given by a woman, in my view. That terrifying silent scream paralyzes the viewer with heartache and dare I say, shame. Sophie may have survived the camp, but she walks through her life more dead than alive because her soul was left behind and somehow Streep conveys that to the audience.
Robert Duvall
This is a tough call because Duvall was so good in “Apocalypse Now,” but I think his best work was in “The Apostle” as a preacher challenged by his own flaws and forced to atone for his sins. A volcanic performance in which Duvall never seems to stop moving or speaking.
…but I’ll try. A sprint of sorts through deacades of deserving contenders (in my opinion, of course).
I ask you this: How did those lovable characters from “The Wizard of Oz,” portrayed so brilliantly by Ray Bolger (Scarecrow), Jack Haley (Tin Man), Bert Lahr (Lion) and Margaret Hamilton (Wicked Witch), fail to be nominated in any of the supporting categories? Any one of them should have won the damned thing let alone be nominated, but in 1939, each and every one of them was snubbed.
I love it!
When I began writing for this site it was my hope to be able to cover current Oscar material and reach back into the past to perhaps gain insight into how the Academy has thought, how that impacts today’s voting, and pay tribute to the films both honored and snubbed. Mr. Rutherford’s comments about 1973 got me to thinking about the best year in film, and while 1939 was a terrific year, as well as 1956, for me the finest year, with great films that hold up equally today is 1974.
Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro and Frank Langella seem to be the names bandied about for Oscar consideration this year, which would place them in some impressive company of nominees and winners these last 20 years. Of course, that said, there have also been some bizarre choices for the Best Actor award, which has often left me shaking my head in disgust and wondering what these voters were actually seeing.
Since 1988, there have been 10 winners that perhaps should not have been, the award arguably deserved by another of the nominees, or worse, an actor not nominated! Consider Dustin Hoffman in “Rain Man,” a widely acclaimed performance that asked that he not connect with anyone in the film, never make eye contact, rock back and forth and speak in a nasally voice.
Stop what you are doing right now and try what he did in the film, and trust me it is very easy to do. Now do you deserve an Oscar for doing what Hoffman did in that film? The real perfortmance in “Rain Man” was that of Tom Cruise, who we watched evolve over the course of the film, and of course the best performance of that year was Gene Hackman as the tough investigator in “Mississippi Burning.” Hackman was nominated, but he stood no chance in the wake of the juggernaut of support for Hoffman, who in fact should have won years before for his miraculous work in “Tootsie!”