From "Andrea Riseborough doesn’t deserve Oscar nod — Danielle Deadwyler was robbed/The British actress’s performance in To Leslie is a one-note cliché, says the Times film critic Kevin Maher" (London Times).
Riseborough, a white actress, was touted by white actresses, and got a surprise nomination, and Deadwyler, a black actress, was, surprisingly, not nominated. Even though Oscar nominations are campaigned for, this particular campaign is deemed suspect because it worked so well and because it happened to undercut Hollywood's efforts to seem racially inclusive.
I haven't been blogging about this controversy. There are many other columns that I've seen and chosen not to blog, but Maher's column crossed my bloggability line because it brings up an old hobbyhorse of mine: the overvaluation of acting performances playing the role of a drunkard. It said the 3 words that trigger me on this subject: "Leaving Las Vegas."
Here I am back in 2008:
Cut me a big slice of that ham acting.
Bigger can be better. (Via Throwing Things.) Think Jack Nicholson in "The Shining" and Klaus Kinski in "Aguirre the Wrath of God" and George C. Scott in "Dr. Strangelove." Those are all named in the linked article, and I love them all. What can I add? Jeff Goldblum in "The Fly"! But I hate a lot of ham acting too. I'm still mad at myself for sitting through Nicolas Cage in "Leaving Las Vegas." Just remembering that performance makes me feel a little ill.
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Nicholas Cage has become famous for his overacting. It's at a level that many of us cannot stop watching, even when we know...enough. "Leaving Las Vegas" was one of the great 'Cage' moments. On the other hand, he's been fantastic in other movies, like "Raising Arizona", "Moonstruck", and others.
My favorite Hollywood drunk was Peter O'Toole in "My Favorite Year".
My favorite Hollywood alcoholic was Jack Lemmon, in "The Days of Wine and Roses".
Speaking of being cliched - lets have another story about blacks complaining.
I remember an actress talking about Dustin Hoffman's best actor award in Rain Man and saying she thought Tom Cruise' performance was much more impressive.
Dustin Hoffman's autistic Raymond could just be a collection of behavioral ticks and people will find it compelling. Cruise had the much harder job of acting like a regular person. We all know what regular people act like and we'll know when he's getting it wrong.
Ever since then, I can't stop noticing how how easy it is for an actor to get praise when they play a character with dramatic malady. We get caught up in the spectacle, the oddity. We just assume the acting is good if the character is memorable, but the memorability has very little to do with the quality of the acting.
What’s all this then!?!?
If they just gave all the awards to trans people they wouldn’t have any problems.
"Equitable" distribution of awards at award shows, especially the Oscars, along with college admissions have ruined both.
Judgement of the art itself is no longer what get's you a "nod". Grades, SAT scores, and hard work are no longer what gets you into a liberal American university.
And the Best self-flatulating, whiney, get over yourself liberal bullshit goes too...
...wait, we have a tie for the first time in history folks!!!...
"The Oscars and The University of Wisconsin!"
My favorite hammy performance is Nicolas Cage in Moonstruck. He's way over the top and it works perfectly.
Bail out of any movie with a drinking problem suddenly appearing. It's in the "Just fucking get over it" column of viewer concern.
Related is agonizing crawls towards a goal somehow just out of reach.
Pointless time fillers.
I'm not a fan of paralyzing flashbacks either.
I’m conflicted. Emily Blunt or Margot Robbie as Margaret Frankenstein in my “Frankenstein, Part II”?
Margot can skate and there’s a great skating scene.
No mention of Al Pacino?
Pacino once said that his technique is to play every scene like he's King Lear out on the heath raging at the storm.
(No. He didn't actually say that. But you know its true.)
Temujin -- you might like Cage playing himself in "The Unbearable Weight ..." (can't remember the rest of the title but you'll get it).
Like Althouse, I've watched the Leslie controversy without engaging. I didn't know she played a drunk. Ugh. Tedious.
My favorite drunk performance is Drew Barrymore in "The Wedding Singer". She apologizes for puke in her hair, which is one of the more real characteristics of being drunk.
“Pacino once said that his technique is to play every scene like he's King Lear out on the heath raging at the storm.”
Evidence:
“Cause she's got a great ass... and you got your head all the way up it! Ferocious, aren't I? When I think of asses, a woman's ass, something comes out of me.”
—- Vincent Hanna in “Heat”
I wasn't going to comment until I saw Tim McGuire. Yes, one short cut to an Oscar nomination seems to be playing, let us say, a compromised person. Cognitively impaired but with a heart of gold, and some noble ambitions that just need a chance to be expressed. Physically almost hopeless (My Left Foot). Catastrophically ugly or grotesque (Elephant Man--Jay Leno said after his burns, "Here comes the Elephant Man"). Such people/roles can be forgiven for almost anything (alcoholism is a disease, etc.), and the actor is probably encouraged to overact. Go ahead, throw a fit of rage. Ever since Hitchcock's "Psycho," it seems there is something to be said for a serial killer. All the "Silence of the Lambs" stuff: an elegant, charming gentleman, possibly on the spectrum somewhere, has these addictions he can't control.
Possibly a case can be made that there is more art in playing an ordinary person--or a person who is a bit above ordinary, as opposed to a bit below, facing a crisis. Gene Hackman in "The Conversation"--although again he may be on the spectrum somewhere. Michael Caine in "Little Voice" (I have to admit I struggle with the authentic British accents): he has to persuade a painfully shy teenager to sing on stage, rather than alone in her room with her late father's records. She did it once, with intense persuasion applied. Caine as a kind of seedy show business guy assumes now she is bitten by the bug, she'll want to go on tour or something. She refuses even a second performance. There's a great scene with the two of them, lots of close ups. He has to smile, cajole, flatter but not too much, he can't simply beg because he will personally be wiped out financially if she doesn't perform. A great performance.
Perhaps both the leading roles in "Tender Mercies." When McQueen was low-key he was great (so not "Papillon" I'm thinking). Newman tried low-key late in his life: "The Verdict" was pretty good (booze comes up, but he has to dry up to be at his best in court).
I actually like Jane Fonda in "The Morning After." I found a list of female roles that may qualify, but I don't know most of them. Audrey Hepburn in the original "Sabrina"? It's easy to crush on her, but perhaps even in "Wait Until Dark" it's not so much the blindness that's important (here we go again), but her character as an ordinary person who copes, sometimes but not always brilliantly.
I find myself impressed more and more with actors who can act just with their face. This can only be done on film, of course, and with close ups, but it is impressive. The actor who played Neville in Harry Potter did a wonderful job in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, acting with his face only. There was a scene in Dunkirk with Kenneth Branagh that was also moving - as he slowly realizes their predicament.
gspencer said...
Speaking of being cliched - lets have another story about blacks complaining.
2/1/23, 7:18 AM
THIS^^^
My favorite drunk is Nick Charles in the thin man series:
Nick Charles: Nicky, something tells me that something important is happening somewhere and I think we should be there.
[cut to Nora with a cocktail shaker]
Estrellita: Ma'am, did he hear that or did he smell it?
Nora Charles: That's Mr. Charles, isn't it?
Estrellita: Yes'm.
Nora Charles: This is a cocktail, isn't it?
Estrellita: Yes'm.
Nora Charles: They'll get together.
Let me check the box where I keep my fucks…. Oh plum out. Sorry, no more fucks to give about Hollywood.
The “pat ourselves on the back awards” were always bad. Then all the liberal bullshit preachy speeches made the show unwatchable. Now it’s devolved even further into the t-ball “make sure everyone gets a trophy” Special Olympics of award shows.
“Omigod the black/Asian/female/gay/trans/kleptomaniac got shut out - shame on all of us.” Besides, most of the garbage that passes as a “best picture” nominee is just that, Garbage. Banshees of Inishirin anyone? For the love of God.
I think they do it now as a marketing ploy. Pick 10 shitty movies that need a bump at the box office. Call them “nominees” for best picture and viola, a whole new set of moviegoers buying tickets. Throw in some others about best foreign film no one’s watching and best score and there‘s another bunch of tickets sold.
They need to change it to “the award for an acting person in a leading role” . . . “and this year’s trophy goes to”
If Leaving Las Vegas ended after the first 10 minutes, I would have thought Cage's performance was outstanding. That opening sequence, when he gets fired, was brilliantly done. Once Elizabeth Shue enters the film, she just relegates Cage to the background.
If you want to see Cage at his very best, watch 8mm, a very disturbing and under-rated film.
Cage may not be the best actor on earth, but I've never not been entertained when watching him.
As far as Hollywood stars go, that's a pretty big endorsement from me.
Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise are also in that mix.
They know they're not Olivier and don't try to be...
'Ever since then, I can't stop noticing how how easy it is for an actor to get praise when they play a character with dramatic malady.'
Never go full retard...
As for the controversy over the nomination of a white woman over a black woman- who the fuck cares any longer? We will eventually reach the point where critics like Maher will be complaining about how one lighter skinned black actress/actor was nominated over another less-fair-skinned black actress/actor. In short, it will never fail to be an issue of controversy again.
Following up on what Kate said to Temujin: Nicolas Cage extremely over-acting, playing Nick Cage, an actor known for his over-acting, in "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent". I watched it on a recent flight. I chuckled.
Terence Stamp in Superman II. "Kneel before Zod!"
Flash Gordon (1980), where the entire cast hams it up.
There's nothing like a good movie, and it sounds like all of these fit that to a 'T' - they're nothing like good movies.
Suspect (1987) with Cher and Liam Neeson was good even though Neeson overacted every scene painfully. You could ignore him since Quaid was the male lead (the guy that males identify with. "I could do that.").
I saw Al Pacino do something by Shakespeare. I felt bad for Shakespeare. Nicholas Cage's career has been one long Elvis Presley impersonation.
"Pacino once said that his technique is to play every scene like he's King Lear out on the heath raging at the storm."
Genuinely laughed out loud.
Of course, Pacino's greatest performances are in The Godfather I and II, where he played ice cold very well, and his dramatic outbursts were unexpected.
Concerning actors playing drunks, how could no one mention Dudley Moore?
The charisma of Tom Cruise, the good looks of Brad Pitt and the calm restraint of Jim Carrey: the perfect male lead?
Why don't we just have a separate Black Oscars? Oh, right.
Diversity, Inequity, Exclusion (DIE)
My favorite drunkard performance is Charlie Chaplin in "1 a.m."
All of this is moot because odds are Angela Bassett will be winning for Wakanda Forever.
Joe Smith "never not been entertained watching Nicolas Cage." Did you try the one about the truffle pig? I don't think the director was going for entertainment there. Certainly didn't find any.
But that's an exception for Cage. I think I too have enjoyed his work in every other picture I've seen him in.
A real beaut of a scene, surprisingly not on yT, from the movie Joe, where he teaches the Tye Sheridan character how to make "your cool face." (Can't remember now if the scene was left in the movie, or saw it as an outtake extra on the DVD.) Directed by David Gordon Green, one of the best.
Chaplin could pass for black with a mustache mask and bushy bro's. Hitler, too, with a nod to the elite.
There is no overacting. There is no underacting. There is just good acting and bad acting.
Rod Steiger was usually "over the top" or would underplay in a theatrical way. Sometimes as in
Heat of the Night, On the Waterfront, or Dr. Zhivago it works. Sometimes, as in Oklahoma or The pawnbroker, it does not.
I've heard 21st century criticism of Heston in "Planet of the Apes". Overplaying it, they say. well, he's running around in a loin cloth being chased by Apes. How is he supposed to underplay that?
As for drunks, I'd say my favorite is Jimmy Stewart in Harvey.
I love "The Hustler", and Newman is really working it hard in that one. He could've been more realistic or underplayed it, but how would that have improved it? Same thing with Burton in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" Or Laughton in "Mutiney on the Bounty".
Great drunkards on film? Steve Franken, who played Chatsworth Osborne, Jr.in the old Dobie Gillis television series. He was excellent (and very Chaplinesque) as an inebriated butler in Blake Edwards' "The Party". Also in a small role in "The Americanization of Emily".
Do they still have the Best Actor awards delineated by sex? Isn't that no longer appropriate?
(Not that I care--but it sure as hell seems like Hollywood does)
How soon they forget. Ronald Colman was perhaps the greatest ham of all time. I don't mean this as a knock. The ham content was what made the performances great. Random Harvest, Lost Horizon, A Tale of Two Cities: Those roles were meant to be melodiously overplayed. Who wants to see Sidney Carlton subtly underplay his final lines before going to the guillotine.....Here's an interesting trivia fact I know about Ronald Colman. Both he and Adolf Hitler were wounded in the same battle on the same day in WWI. It's interesting to reflect had Ronald been a somewhat better shot, we would have been spared all that WWII unpleasantness. On the brighter side, had Hitler been a better shot we would have missed out on Ronald's great performances so I guess it's kind of a trade off.
I saw Al Pacino in Searching For Richard. In the movie, Pacino plays both himself and Richard III. He'll suddenly shift from Al Pacino to Richard III. When he does, he suddenly becomes evil and malevolent. It was a remarkable transformation done in a moment. Richard III was definitely in his wheelhouse. He wasn't so good in The Merchant of Venice. He can play rage, but it's not a pitiable kind of rage.
I think Ray Milland in Lost Weekend was the first award winning drunk. I can't think of any prior. It's since become a staple. I haven't seen the movie in years, but I think his performance still holds up.....Acting styles change and what appears intense in one generation appears hammy in another. I think Marlon Brando's performance in Streetcar is way too over the top, but it used to be considered by actors to be one of the greatest performances of all times.
well neeson played a mute veteran, so his expressions carried the film
after Robbie's part in the Tarzan revamp, I think she could pull off Margaret Frankenstein,
I find myself impressed more and more with actors who can act just with their face.
Back in the day I took the wife to see “Letters to Juliet” in the theater. There’s a scene where Vanessa Redgrave totally out-acts the two young leads using just her eyes.
If anyone deserved an Oscar from Leaving Las Vegas, it was Elizabeth Shue. Also agree with person that would take Cruise's performance over Hoffman in Rainman.
What, no kudos for Foster Brooks? Dean Martin?
Is the accusation that the white actress nomination was suspect because people think we are avoiding award shows because there are too many minority nominees? That's not it. We're avoiding award shows because the movies they are nominated for tend to suck.
Hah! While bias is intrinsic, prejudice ("diversity [dogma]") is a progressive condition. They should make a movie about unqualified, monotonic processes: the one step, two steps evolution.
Baghdadbob,
I thought of Rio Bravo and Martin, but was too lazy to comment earlier.
I love "The Hustler", and Newman is really working it hard in that one. He could've been more realistic or underplayed it, but how would that have improved it?
I feel the same way. It interesting to me, at least, to compare Newman playing the role in "The Hustler" versus how he played it in "The Color of Money". The second time rang more authentic to me
Ronald Coleman was the perfect example of a movie star. Leaving aside, A Double Life, which shows he was quite a good actor, he played the more or less the same character all the time.
the suave English gentleman
Bull dog Drummond:
Raffles
Clive of India
A Tale of Two Cities
Prisoner of Zenda
Lost Horizon
If I Were King in 1938
Random Harvest
Like Cary Grant, what he did, he did very well.
In "The Cotton Club" Nicholas Cage shamlessly overacts. And Richard Gere underacts. In fact, he underacts so much, he disappears from the screen. Cage is much better.
Favorite drunk scene was when the guy put a Marlboro in each nostril, lit them and inhaled deeply.
Oh, wait, not an actor, new guy at AA meeting.
Wonder if he is still alive.
....and then blew smoke rings. Drunk, but talanted.
Just today, Amazon Prime Video, "Assassin's Bullet," the lady is early paralyzed by a flashback. Bail out. The film will continue to be offered now under "continue watching," the algorithm figuring that those are the films I liked. It will offer more like it.
well neeson played a mute veteran, so his expressions carried the film
Overacted painfully.
Two of my favorite all-time scenes in movies are when Scott is worried about the Russian seeing “the big board,” and his response when asked if there was any chance for Slim Pickens’s plane to get through. There were enough straight men like Peter Sellers and Sterling Hayden to allow Scott to be over-the-top. For the very few viewers who did not realize that “Dr. Strangelove” was a farce, or satire, or whatever label you want to give it, Scott’s performance was needed for even the most tone deaf to get it.
“Doctor Strangelove” is one of my favorite films and all players were perfect.
I thought Ben Dreyfus' take on the Riseborough nomination on his substack was enlightening.
https://www.calmdownben.com/p/oscars-so-white-capitalism-steamy-onset-romance?utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=auto_share&r=2hm88
It also inspired me to put the movie on my Amazon watch list.
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