Q&A Crumbs: Best of Best Supporting Actor + Legendary Why?
Saturday, December 10, 2011 at 9:22PM If the Q&A column were a TV series it'd be one of those painfully confusing ones that goes off the air unexpectedly only to return with 2 hour specials and extra webisodes and then go on hiatus again. I can't control it! It controls me. I've already answered small screen questions, and Thursday's column was on movie etiquette, crowd reactions, and purposefully bad acting. So here's are a handful of Q&A crumbs that I felt the need to answer and now we are dunzo until the next round. Whew.
As ever, I love to hear your answers to these questions in the comments. The more the merrier when it comes to movie discussions, don't you think?
MESHI: Are there any legendary performances (like, Vivien Leigh as Scarlet O'Hara-type legendary) that you just don't get what all the fuss is about?
I have a hard time understanding the fuss over Marlon Brando in Last Tango In Paris. To me it feels less Method then Show-Off with no one willing to say, 'pull it back dude. Modulate.' So, no, I don't get that one despite its enormous acclaim. I will entertain the possibility that I saw it when I was too young for it, though.
MARY: What are you most excited for? "Mirror Mirror" or "Snow White and the Huntsman"?
I believe you'll find my answer in if you click on the Snow White tag. I'm pretty good with the tagging at the bottom of each post to make things easy for y'all to investigate topics of interest. Short answer: Hunstman by a country mile on a horse drawn carriage with a bad wheel.
CAL ROTH: Call the next Oscar winners now in acting now. No guts, no glory. Don't think too much about it. Just say how do you feel about these races.
I hate doing this because it's a lose-lose proposition before nominations are announced. If you're right and you go with the party line (I guess at the moment that's: Clooney & Streep, Redgrave & Plummer) you risk being part of that horrible machine that takes all the fun out of Oscars by making it into one big echo chamber that reenforces lazy voting. If you're right but you appear to be wrong (hmmm: Pitt & Davis* & Spencer & Plummer?) because your answer sounds too "two months ago*" people don't remember and they just think you're not that good at prognosticating. Anyway, i much prefer predicting nominees to predicting winners which is TOTALLY BORING due to the echo chamber... particular in the last stretch when the same 4 people will start winning every award and people will only guess otherwise to have something to write about.
* I often wonder why people have perpetual amnesia about the fact that buzz volumes always rise when a movie opens or start screening (provided it's not bombing) and always subside when it's been out a few months and is "familiar". But... buzz volume levels rise and fall and rise again...and fall again. The only thing that matters is how volumous they are when voting is happening.
SOSUEME: As an avid reader of TFE for the last two years, I finally had my first Nathaniel dream...in it, you were moving to California...obviously, the dream has more to do with me than anyone else, but it got me thinking...would you consider moving to CA to be closer to the industry, the events, possibly more money, or does New York suit you just fine?
I'm happy right here though I'd totally be bi-coastal if I could. Writing can be a lonely activity so you need handy social escapes for sanity. Nearly all of my closest friends live here so I gotta stick around. Plus: New York City needs me ;) ...most of the Oscar pundits are in Los Angeles but AMPAS is bicoastal!
ONE MORE.... SPOTLIGHT QUESTION!
Best Ever Consecutive Run for Supporting Actor Oscar?
MITCHELL: What do you believe to be the most deserving performance to ever win Best Supporting ACTOR?
This is my least favorite of the four acting categories within Oscar because it seems to have the least correlation to actual quality year after year. For whatever reasons it's more beholden to other Oscar factors that aren't really about the work in question: career honors, which "types" they like, which films they like, fame levels before the nominations. This category is also particularly egregious in terms of category fraud. I mean you could argue that it's been five years since an actual supporting performance won (that'd be Alan Arkin) even though the last four winners were four kinds of miraculous in terms of actual quality [tangent: best run ever in this category if you allow for the fraud!]. Once you remove all the co-leads I think there are a few absolute essentials who not only did inspired work but who elevated already strong films by virtue of their lynchpin contributions to its tone, identity and overall aesthetic punch.
So without pouring over the books for too long I'd say I couldn't really live without Edmund Gwenn as Kris Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street (1947), Joel Grey as "the emcee" in Cabaret (1972), or Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood (1994).
But this list might change on a different day and I can't choose just one! Can you?
Reader Comments (39)
I totally agree with you about the last 4 years being the best run the supporting actor category hás ever had, which coincides with one of the best runs in the best supporting actress: Tilda Swinton, Penélope Cruz, Mo'nique and Melissa Leo are all amazing winners, all more than worthy of theirs win and none of them can be considered category fraud.
Also:
Joel Grey: best supporting actor win ever!!
Most deserving Best Supporting Actor performance was one I saw in theaters (and paid to see again several times) during the summer and thought to myself, "No one is going to catch him for the Oscar this year"...and no one did.
Tommy Lee Jones in "The Fugitive".
It's nice to hear that I'm not the only one out there who thinks Last Tango in Paris is devastatingly over-rated. As far as Supporting Actors are concerned, I might have to give the prize to Melvyn Douglas in Hud.
Best Supporting Actor to me sometimes feels like a disappointment, because a supporting actor who with limited screen time leaves an impression that makes the film is such a great idea for an award, and yet too many times the category's dominated by fraud. With this in mind, I cite as my fave George Sanders in All About Eve, who both leaves an indelible impression and actually supports the leading ladies and makes it their film.
I agree that the last four best supporting actor winners were totally deserving and delivered riveting performances...and all four dominated in awards season. I don't think we will see that this year, however.
A very intresting article. Will check back later for more articles .
Regard.
Cannot agree more about the last 4 years best actor competition!
For what regards this year Oscar race, I cannot say a lot, because in Italy where I live most of the movies haven't been released yet...
But Oscar season is open and I'm thrilled to share with you guys my thoughts.
Yesterday I finally watched THE HELP... and it really did impress me. I had not too many expectations about it... I just thought it was something like The Blind Side ( which I had appreciated then in a sense, but not totally), instead it was really brilliant. Lots of fun, and lots of tears. Viola Davis was wow in it and so were Octavia Spencer and Jessica Chastain. Hope the last two will be nominated for Best Supporting Actress and I root for Chastain.
The only doubt for me is about Viola role... The impression was that her part was not properly leading... I'd rather put it in the same level as Spencer. IMO Stone was the leading, althought not impressive a lot. What do you think about that?
And in any case, I really hope the movie gets a nod for Best Picture because it is really deserves it!
Having seen all but five Best Supporting Actor winning performances (I still have yet to see John Houseman's, Christian Bale's and all three Walter Brennan performances), I feel the very cream of the crop of Best Supporting Actor winners are (in chronological order) George Sanders, Joel Grey, Michael Caine, Martin Landau and Javier Bardem (although the latter won for a lead performance in my books).
My Top 10 would be filled up with Joseph Schildkraut, Peter Ustinov (for 'Spartacus', even although he delivered even greater supporting performances before and afterwards in 'Quo Vadis' and 'Lola Montès'), Walter Matthau (another lead performance, and that was back in the 1960s), Haing S. Ngor (a lead performance if ever there was one), Heath Ledger and Christoph Waltz. And yes, I know, my Top goes to 11.
Re: overrated legendary performances, I'm afraid I must put forward Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood. It's not that I don't get the acclaim, it's that I don't support it. To me, the performance is very hammy.
Re: Supporting Actor, I'm not quite so enamoured with the most recent run of winners in this category as some others. To me, Bardem and Bale's performances are overrated, and while Ledger is excellent, the part is slightly underwritten, which makes the Joker's presence eventually somewhat monotonous. I have no problems, though, with Waltz's performance or win.
Here are four of my 'best' Best Supporting Actor-winning performances;
Joel Grey in Cabaret. He beat the equally amazing Al Pacino in The Godfather, but I have no problem with Grey's win, partly because Pacino should have won for leading actor over Brando that year, but mainly because Grey was...perfect.
Jack Nicholson in Terms of Endearment. This performance is extremely loveable, even by Jack's usual standards. It contains all the winking fun of Nicholson, but he manages to make Garrett an essential, if supporting, part of the film. And even though (or maybe because) it's essentially a comic performance, when he turns serious, he is incredibly moving.
Michael Caine in Hannah and Her Sisters. I'm a Londoner, and Caine is beloved to many Londoners (and many Brits), but to me he was never so 'right' as in this performance where he is placed among New Yorkers. Caine's performance in Hannah is seemingly effortless: he is very nimble and he also makes Elliot entirely understandable.
Sean Connery in The Untouchables. Dodgy Irish accent aside, Connery is hugely enjoyable and memorable here - and as 'supporting' a supporting actor as I can imagine: Malone supports Elliot Ness; Connerey supports Costner and De Palma.
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I love your choices! I would add Robert De Niro in The Godfather Part II and Jim Broadbent in Iris.
Top Supporting Actor winners:
1 - Robert de Niro, The Godfather, Part II
2 - Christoph Waltz, Inglorious Basterds
3 - George Sanders, All About Eve
4 - Joel Grey, Cabaret
5 - Melvyn Douglas, Hud
6 - Walter Huston, The Treasure of Sierra Madre
7 - Anthony Quinn, Lust For Life
8 - Javier Bardem, No Country For Old Men
9 - Burl Ives, The Big Country
10 - Kevin Kline, a Fish Called Wanda
I see the point of these last supporting winners being co-leads, but I don't think they are cases of category fraud. They are in very gray areas, in movies that are kind of ensemble-ish pieces. Waltz is the most supporting of all of them. If he was a lead, Cruise in Magnolia would be too. They are not Casey Affleck in Jesse James. Still, they are debatable cases, not frauds.
Speaking of dreams and Oscar prognosticating, I had a dream (or part of it) a few days ago where Melissa McCarthy not only got nominated, but won for Bridesmaids. The fact that she was then not allowed to give an acceptance speech because she was too drunk means that these will either be the funnest Oscars ever or maybe it was just a dream after all.
I completely agree with you about Brando in Last Tango, and I didn't see it when I was too young. I saw it just a couple of years ago, and was amazed at how nonsensical most of what we was saying was. To me it was really an emperor has no clothes situation.
I also think you're right on with your best Supporting Actor performances. To me the frustrating yet amazing thing about two of them (Grey and Landau) is that they came at the expense of at least two other legendary performances - Pacino (and Duvall?) in the Godfather and Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction. It pains me that neither Pacino nor Jackson won for their iconic roles, but I completely understand it in both cases - Grey and Landau were at least as great and legendary. It's the old "almost any other year they would have won" thing that makes the Oscars so wonderful.
@gwynn1984 Pacino should have won Best Actor for The Godfather, Part II, still his best performance ever. His first nomination should have been also as leading, since he has more screentime than Brando, but still, I would gave the Oscar to Brando.
5 Best winners (genuinely supporting):
Ives
Ustinov
Melvyn Douglas (1st time)
Denzel
Landau
5 best winners (clear "they're co-leads" category fraud):
George Kennedy
DeNiro (sorry, but that was the structure of Godfather Part II)
Walken
Kline (A Fish Called Wanda was really a three lead film. Palin was a support.)
Spacey (sorry, but how was this supporting? The whole film's about Verbal Kint.)
Top 5 (debatables):
Sinatra
Nicholson (Terms of Endearment)
Del Toro
Chris Cooper
Ledger
cal -- Totally agree!
Last summer I had the opportunity to watch The Godfather Part I and II on a big screen and well, what can I say? they're both memorable and their influence under the movies, tv-series, directors, screenwriters we love and follow today is indisputable.
Rest of the clear fraud:
Walter Huston (Madre was a three lead film)
Malden
Haing S. Ngor
Bardem
Bale
(haven't seen enough of these winners)
De Niro is probably the best performance to ever win, but in reality, I don't know if I would have given him the trophy in 1974 had John Huston received a nomination for one of the biggest snubs in history, for Chinatown. About the only other snub that comes close to that in this cateogry is in Once Upon a Time in the West, where Hank Fonda should have been the easiest of easy wins.
John T: Oh, yeah, it's a JOHN that should have won, but I think it's Cazale for Godfather Part II, not Huston. Also: Henry Fonda (shock casting and little else) over Jason Robards (a full bodied comic almost star turn)?
Best supporting actor of all time is clearly Claude Raines in Casablanca. Except he didn't win.
I second Nicholson in "Terms" and am also a fan of Gig Young in "They Shoot Horses..." and Pesci in "Goodfellas."
FAVORITE WINNERS:
1.) Christopher Walken in THE DEER HUNTER, '78
2.) Christoph Waltz in INGLORIOUS BASTERDS, '09
3.) Heath Ledger in THE DARK KNIGHT, '08
4.) Van Heflin in JOHNNY EAGER, '42
5.) Martin Landau in ED WOOD, '94
6.) Joel Grey in CABARET, '72
FAVORITE NOMINEES:
1.) Jude Law in THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY, '99
2.) Ralph Fiennes in SCHINDLER'S LIST, '93
3.) Clive Owen in CLOSER, '04
4.) James Mason in THE VERDICT, '82
5.) Montgomery Clift in JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG, '61
6.) Kevin McCarthy in DEATH OF A SALESMAN, '51
MY LEAST FAVORITE WINNERS:
1.) George Burns in THE SUNSHINE BOYS, '75
2.) Don Ameche in COCOON, '85
3.) Alan Arkin in LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, '07
4.) Dean Jagger in TWELVE O'CLOCK HIGH, '49
5.) Melvyn Douglas in BEING THERE, '79
6.) George Clooney in SYRIANA, '05
I've never understood all the praise for Bardem. He's terrifying, yes, but he's terrifying because he impassively kills people with a cattle gun, which is hardly a feat of acting; there's little separating Bardem's role from Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator.
Not a slight against Bardem, who does everything the role requires; but the role does not require much.
MOST EGREGIOUS SNUBS:
1.) Dennis Hooper in BLUE VELVET, ‘86
2.) Rupert Everett in MY BEST FRIEND’S WEDDING, ‘97
3.) Samuel L. Jackson in JUNGLE FEVER, ‘91
4.) Kevin Spacey in L.A. CONFIDENTIAL, ‘97
5.) Joseph Cotton in CITIZEN KANE, ‘41
6.) Clifton Collins Jr. in CAPOTE, ‘05
Sean C. - I completely agree. That just isn't a role that one should win acting awards for.
How about the best year for Supporting Actor? 1993 -- all brilliant:
Tommy Lee Jones in "Fugitive"
Leo in "Gilbert Grape"
Malkovich in "Line of Fire"
Pete Postlethwaite in "In the Name of the Father"
Ralph Fiennes in "Schindler"
I think Jones, who won, is probably my fifth favorite of these -- I think Malkovich or Fiennes deserved it.
DC -- that was an incredible year. My vote woulda gone to Fiennes. And not just that year but for the entire decade. Best of the 90s.
Jan and Sean C.: The main difference between the two is SCHWARZENEGGER BARELY EVEN SPOKE. Unspeaking AND unfeeling killer like the Terminator who's only there to drive the plot forward? I agree, that's not deserving of being considered the best performance of the year in any way. A SPEAKING and unfeeling killer who has actual performance beats to work his way through and make convincing and scary? Fair argument to consider that a best performance of the year in any category. Put another way: CONGRATULATIONS YOU TWO. You both think Robert Mitchum's performance in The Night of the Hunter shouldn't be considered the best role of his career.
Steinke: I don't mind Arkin's that much. Mostly because I think he should have won for Grosse Pointe Blank, over the other, sappier, psychiatrist role that won, but Arkin actually had an exemplary career up to that point with a few performances that could be argued to deserve wins. The other five I agree with. Four because they didn't have a good enough career, one because his career was good but not enough for two, and the final because...his film wasn't really that good. If I were to toss out a sixth, it'd be Louis Gossett Jr.
I had to stop at 31
1. Robert De Niro - The Godfather Part II (1974)
2. Martin Landau - Ed Wood (1994)
3. Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight (2008)
4. Christopher Walken - The Deer Hunter (1978)
5. Gene Hackman - Unforgiven (1992)
6. Christoph Waltz - Inglourious Basterds (2009)
7. George Sanders - All About Eve (1950)
8. Barry Fitzgerald - Going My Way (1944)
9. Sean Connery - The Untouchables (1987)
10. Martin Balsam - A Thousand Clowns (1965)
11. Harold Russell - The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
12. Christian Bale - The Fighter (2010)
13. Walter Matthau - The Fortune Cookie (1966)
14. Frank Sinatra - From Here to Eternity (1953)
15. Ed Begley - Sweet Bird of Youth (1962)
16. Peter Ustinov - Spartacus (1960)
17. George Burns - The Sunshine Boys (1975)
18. Haing S. Ngor - The Killing Fields (1984)
19. Jason Robards - All the President's Men (1976)
20. Javier Bardem - No Country for Old Men (2007)
21. Red Buttons - Sayonara (1957)
22. Jack Albertson - The Subject Was Roses (1968)
23. John Houseman - The Paper Chase (1973)
24. Denzel Washington - Glory (1989)
25. Anthony Quinn - Lust for Life (1956)
26. Jack Nicholson - Terms of Endearment (1983)
27. James Coburn - Affliction (1998)
28. Melvyn Douglas - Hud (1963)
29. John Mills - Ryan's Daughter (1970)
30. Kevin Spacey - The Usual Suspects (1995)
31. James Dunn - A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945)
Consecutive supporting actor wise I quite like: Christopher Walken, Melvyn Douglas, Timothy Hutton, John Geilgud - Douglas being the obvious weak link
If Houseman is very good then: Ben Johnson, Joel Grey, John Houseman, Robert De Niro could be strong.
I Love Connery and Kline's wins so I could also see a case for: Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Kevin Kline, Denzel Washington. Maybe start at Connery and add Joe Pesci at the tail end.
Best and worst in Best Actor: 1984. Understand perfectly where they were coming from with four of the nominees. Worst would be 1989 mostly because of the fact that it's maybe the only year where a blatantly supporting performance (Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society) got nominated in a lead category and, if they wanted to be honest, Martin Landau (Crimes and Misdemeanours structure means he's co-lead) really should have switched places with him if that's all they could come up with.
Best and worst in supporting actor:
Best: Agree with the concept of 1993 but the only other one I'd toss it is 1976. Even if there's one I personally wouldn't nominate (Robards), it's still a ridiculously strong vintage with no category fraud.
Worst: This is not a knock on the actual quality of the performances, but I have to anoint 2010 the category's worst year. Why? THREE OR FOUR CASES OF CATEGORY FRAUD. (Sorry, but The Kids Are All RIght is a four leader (as I've said before: The adults and Wasikowska are actually fairly even in terms of screentime.) Renner's Coghlin is a debtable, leaning toward co-lead.) No matter how good the performances are, the fact that that many lead performances got in leads me to think they need to do three things to partition the categories more. 1. Use their money to set up arbitration boards completely independent from the studios, 2. Boost the lead actor category to 8 instead of 5 and 3. Actually go onto something closer to a points system. Say three performances get 88% of the number ones. Two performances take the remaining twelve percent of the #1 votes fairly evenly, while there's two OTHER performances that have taken, roughly, 50 and 30% of the number two votes. Who should get in? Currently the Academy says the former, though I think they should change it to the latter.
Loved the last four run of winners iin supporting actor! It's hard to ask for more than Ledger, Bardem, Waltz, and Bale. This year might be seen as a letdown to some after those, but honestly for me, if either Brooks or Plummer take it (and it's looking that way more and more by the week), I'd extend that run to 5 for 5. Best supporting actor run ever? That's a tough one to answer, and I'm not that well-versed on the early winners in the category.
I feel a list coming on! Best run of Oscar winners in each acting category! I'm on it.
If Clooney, Streep, and Redgrave do in fact win this year, would that make this the year with the most repeat winners in history? I can't think of any other years in which 3 of the 4 acting awards were given to previous winners.
John-Paul: I know it's happened at least twice before: 1938 (Spencer Tracy, Bette Davis and Walter Brennan) and 1994 (Tom Hanks, Jessica Lange and Dianne Wiest). But if it happens this year, it will trump those years, because Streep already has two Oscars!
I found the commonly mentioned performances like Waltz and Ledger to be seriously overrated. My personal picks are
1) Martin Landau- Ed Wood
2) Gene Hackman- Unforgiven
3) Melvyn Douglas- Hud
4) Christopher Walken- The Deer Hunter
5) Robert De Niro- The Godfather Part 2