Oscar Snubbery
It's the morning of the godforsaken Oscars and I am still not over the snubs of Amanda Seyfried (The Testament of Ann Lee) and Jesse Plemons (Bugonia).
It got me to thinking about compiling a list of the acting performances that were not nominated for Academy Awards that actually should have won the prize that year. This list is not exhaustive and, admittedly, a bit idiosyncratic. But these performances live on, in many cases, long after the actual winners were forgotten. Which is, hopefully, consolation to Seyfried and Plemons. But probably more a damnation of the Oscars and all they represent.
The 1956 Best Actor Oscar
Should have been won by John Wayne, for The Searchers. They gave Duke a conciliatory Oscar over a decade later for True Grit (over the two guys from Midnight Cowboy!), but this is the Wayne performance that proves he was an actor and not just a tall, slow-talking mannequin. As Ethan Edwards, a racist, vicious nightmare of patriarchy, who spends over a decade looking for his niece, who has been kidnapped by Comanches, Wayne goes to very dark places but also manages to move us. At the end as he finally finds Debbie we are not sure if he is going to kill her or embrace her, the tension and ambiguity is due to the complex, nuanced performance by Wayne. Not always easy to watch (the Comanche depictions are as unfortunate as one might expect from 1956), this film has influenced directors like Paul Schrader (Hardcore), Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver) and Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another), among many others.
Actual winner: Yul Brynner, The King and I. Give me a break, etc. etc. etc.
The 1971 Best Actress Oscar
Should have been won by Tuesday Weld, for Play It as it Lays. Weld was always underrated, presumably because she came into the industry as an ingenue, but she conveyed an intelligence and agency even from the beginning. In Frank and Elanor Perry's adaptation of Joan Didion's searing Hollywood book Play It as it Lays, she is Maria Wyeth, a burnt-out actress who has a slow meltdown. This is performed by Weld without histrionics or "big" acting, which was certainly in vogue in the early 70s. It is one of several great performances by Weld, including Lord Love a Duck, Pretty Poison and Who'll Stop the Rain. She was never better than here, her full maturation as a major movie actress, and the Academy missed the chance to reward a Hollywood lifer.
Actual winner: Liza Minnelli, Cabaret. I mean, I guess.
The 1957 Best Supporting Actor Oscar
Should have been won by Tony Curtis, for Sweet Smell of Success. Like Weld, Curtis was considered too pretty and inconsequential to be a great actor, which was always incorrect, but was proved indisputably otherwise by his iconic performance as Sidney Falco, ethics-free promoter in brassy black and white New York city in the late 50s. Falco will do anything to go "Way up high, Sam, where it's always balmy. Where no one snaps his fingers and says, 'Hey, Shrimp, rack the balls!'... My experience I can give you in a nutshell... dog eat dog. In brief, from now on, the best of everything is good enough for me." Over time, this has become one of the most revered performances in film history.
Actual winner: Red Buttons, Sayonara. Um.....what?
The 1961 Best Actress Oscar
Should have been won by Deborah Kerr, for The Innocents. Kerr was many-times nominated (but shamefully never won), but not for this, her greatest performance as the virginal and possibly insane (in Kerr's deft hands, one never knows) governess of two haunted children in the best of the movie adaptations of Henry James' Turn of the Screw.
Actual winner: Sophia Loren, for Two Woman. I love Sophia, but that is not a good movie or performance.
The 1986 Best Actor Oscar
Should have been won by Jeff Goldblum, for The Fly. Goldblum, known until now for comic other-guy roles, seamlessly shifts from charming nerd to putrefied human insect in a tour de force physical performance. David Cronenberg never got enough credit for his work with actors. He coaxed career-best performances out of not only Goldblum but Peter Weller (Naked Lunch), Jeremy Irons (Dead Ringers) and James Spader (Crash). While we are at it, Geena Davis was not nominated for this and should have been. She is heartbreakingly great as she watches Brundlefly slowly disintegrate.
Actual winner: Paul Newman, The Color Of Money. He should have won numerous other times but, like Wayne for True Grit, this was purely conciliatory and not one of his ten best performances (and, incidentally, Scorsese's worst film).
The 1998 Best Supporting Actor Oscar
Should have been won by Bill Murray, for Rushmore. The Academy had the chance to make up for this blunder a few years later, when a nominated Murray for Lost in Translation lost to the scenery-gulping Sean Penn in Mystic River. There is a scene in Rushmore. Where Blume goes to meet Max at the barber, and Blume realizes the barber is, in fact, Max's dad. And all of a sudden everything Blume needs to understand about Max, this high achieving pebble in his shoe, becomes clear. Murray conveys this empathy, this understanding with his eyes alone. It is the best movie acting you are likely to see.
Actual winner: James, Coburn, Affliction. Great character actor with an important career. But they really blew this one.
The 2001 Best Actress Oscar
Should have gone to Naomi Watts, for Mulholland Drive. Do you remember going to this Lynch film for Lynch (it was the thing he did just after Twin Peaks) and being struck by this unknown actress in the lead role? While Watts had a few credits, in her native Australia mostly, it is hard to imagine a more startling film debut.
Actual winner: Halle Berry, Monster's Ball. Oscar loves an ingenue going down and dirty, but this was just purely Oscar-bait acting.
I could go on and on, of course. Talking about acting in movies can be challenging. Sometimes you just know it when you see it. And these performances are timeless. Remember, none of these actors were even nominated. Conclusion? The Oscars are stupid.
