A Year with Kate: On Golden Pond (1981)

Episode 45 of 52: In which Katharine Hepburn makes Oscars history by asserting that old people are interesting.

I’ll be honest: I’ve been really nervous to write about this movie. For the past few weeks, a storm has been brewing in the comments section regarding Kate’s final Oscar win. I’m not one to (intentionally) court controversy, so I’ve been debating all week how to best give a safe space to the righteous fury of the Oscars experts while also celebrating an important moment in Oscars history. Because whether you believe Kate deserved to win or not, this was a record-breaking win at the Academy Awards, and that shouldn’t go unappreciated.

Here’s my plan: we’ll speculate wildly for a bit on why Kate took home her fourth Academy Award (by “took home” I mean “still refused to accept in person”). Then you tell me who you think should have won. What follows is my list of...

POSSIBLE REASONS WHY KATHARINE HEPBURN WON BEST ACTRESS (in order from least likely to most)

5. Ernest Thompson's script was sweeter than mollases and twice as sticky - Let’s get this out of the way first. This is a bad script. This is a script so sickly sweet that reading more than two pages will give you a cavity. There are quirky old people, family drama, intergenerational bonding over fishing, and lots and lots of heavy-handed metaphors about loons (or as Kate calls them, “the loOOons”). That said, Ethel and Norman Thayer are two very meaty roles for older actors, which brings me to my next point.

4. Henry Fonda gave a good performance - Fonda gives the performance of his later career as the irascible octogenarian Norman Thayer, and his chemistry with Kate is the highlight of the film. Both actors elevate the material; grounding Ernest Thompson’s more egregiously cliche plot points in surprisingly natural affection. It is easy to believe that Norman and Ethel Thayer have been married over five decades. They speak with easy familiarity of partners who’ve already had almost every conversation already, but haven’t run out of things to say to each other yet. The best scenes in the film are between the Thayers as they needle, cajole, and love each other.

3. People like watching stars work through their issues onscreen - I’m going to disagree with some of you here. Kate’s performance in On Golden Pond is actually good. Enlivened by her curmudgeonly costar, Kate plays Ethel without whipping herself into stilted affectation or relying on blank movie star charisma. Instead she commits to Ethel’s Yankee optimism in the face of her husband’s decline, and plays Ethel's quieter moments with rare naturalism. Part of this may have to do with the way On Golden Pond so neatly mirrored into Kate’s own legend - Ethel’s constant support of her husband, whether by hauling firewood or by holding him through the pain (or by giving clunky speeches), fits nicely with her image as Spencer Tracy’s supportive partner. In fact, the film as a whole benefits from the meta-textual stories of its actors: Kate gets to play a happy onscreen version of her life with Spencer, and Jane Fonda gets to work with her father, Henry Fonda, before he passed away.

2. The Academy was feeling sentimental - 1981 was a good year for nostalgia. Chariots of Fire won Best Picture. The mean* age of the acting category winners was 70.5 years old. (Kate was 73, Henry Fonda was 76, John Gielgud was 77, and Maureen Stapleton was 56.) I don’t know if we’ve ever had an older group of winners. Blame Reagan, blame the recession, who knows? Even the Academy goes through sentimental cycles.

*Correction: this was originally mislabeled as "median." This error may explain my GRE scores, and further justifies my decision to pursue writing as a career instead of something math-based like engineering. Thank you Travis C. for pointing out the error.

1. Everyone really thought Kate was great - By 1981, the formerly publicity-shy actress was a media pro. She was on the cover of three magazines in the fall of 1981, including Time. She also gave interviews, the best undoubtedly being her disastrous TV interview with Barbara Walters. Kate was America’s favorite eccentric aunt. Her win was a chance for the Academy to celebrate its own legacy by smashing a record and rewarding one of its most highly decorated and longest-lasting stars. The appeal of that alone would be enough to convince some to vote for her.

As for the other best actress nominees in the 54th Academy Awards, I understand a little of the anger directed at Kate. Here were the nominees for Best Actress of 1981:

Katharine Hepburn - On Golden Pond
Diane Keaton - Reds
Marsha Mason - Only When I Laugh
Susan Sarandon - Atlantic City
Meryl Streep - The French Lieutenant’s Woman

That right there is an impressive list. So now I have two questions for you:

Who do you think should have won in 1981? If you could re-award Kate's four Oscars, what movies would you choose?

 

Previous Week: The Corn Is Green (1978) - In which Katharine Hepburn bids farewell to her lifelong friend and director, George Cukor.

Next Week: Grace Quigley (1984) - In which Katharine Hepburn makes a comedy about suicide with Nick Nolte because she's a living legend and she can do whatever she wants.

Comments

[Alfred]

I can't stand Hepburn in this terrible movie: she gives a mawkish Heroic Old Lady performance, the kind I would've thought impossible in 1935 when she looked immune to every cliche in Hollywood. I'll even take Marsha Goddamn Mason over Hepburn.

Better Hepburn performances:

Holiday (her greatest)
Stage Door
Long Day's Journey Into Night
The Philadelphia Story
Better than Hepburn (despite Cukor condescending to her almost as badly as Rydell does in On Golden Pond):

Better Performances than Hepburn in '81

Sissy Spacek - Raggedy Man
Faye Dunaway - Mommie Dearest
Susan Sarandon - Atlantic City
Nancy Reagan - First Lady