Boo! It's time for "Oscar Horrors"
by Jason Adams
There are a lot of images that probably flash across one's mind when one thinks of Kathy Bates' Oscar-winning performance in Rob Reiner's film Misery. Images as great and big and terrifying as those mountain peaks that line Annie Wilkes' farmland like prison-bars. Maybe you hear words like "cockadoodie car" call out, or maybe you see Annie swinging that sledgehammer with tears of love tipping her eyelashes and a swell in her heart - I certainly wouldn't blame you; that's a shock that leaves a mark, on Paul Sheldon and the audience both.
But when I think of Misery I immediately think of one scene, every time, and it's the quietest (and for that maybe the most terrifying) moment in the film...
Paul's been pounding out his new Misery Chastain manuscript (under some duress!) when the rain comes.
"Sometimes it gives me the blues," Annie says, her hair tousled and her bathrobe limp - only at this moment do we really see that, modest though it may be, she's been putting on her best front for him all this time; we've never seen her so disheveled in his presence.
"When you first came here I only loved the writer part of 'Paul Sheldon.' But now I know I love the rest of him too." Annie pauses and looks at him. "I know you don't love me. Don't say you do. You're beautiful. Brilliant. Famous man of the world. And I'm... not a movie-star type. You'll never know the fear of losing someone like you, if you're someone like me."
This scene became the rallying cry for not just Bates' triumphant march to the Oscar stage that year, but for her blessed career thereafter - she's never been "the movie-star type," thank goodness, and thank goodness we've made room for her. There's a fantastic interview with Kathy in the 1991 issue of Interview Magazine that I highly recommend where she talks about this...
"When I first went to interview for Misery, they were saying things like, 'You're not Michelle Pfeiffer, you know.' And I just don't get the relevance of that remark. I'm not Elizabeth Taylor, either. I'm not Sean Connery."
She is Kathy Bates damn it, and that's plenty! Heck if we had such distinctions here in the U.S. she'd be Dame Kathy Bates. It's tough to say here, 25 years on with 25 years worth of great performances behind her, that it was a singular match, Kathy & Annie coming together like two taxi cabs on Broadway (to borrow a turn of phrase from another character actress for the ages) - Kathy has had so much more to give us, and we've lapped up every drop with a smile on our face.
But I do know I can say, with far more sincerity in my heart than Paul Sheldon could muster, that I'm happy I got trapped in that cabin in the woods with her all those years ago. You'll never lose me, Kathy Bates. I'm not going anywhere!
Season 3 Oscar Horrors is a Wrap
The Bad Seed - Supporting Actress
Bram Stoker's Dracula - Makeup
Dr Jekyll & Mr Mouse -Animated Short
Flatliners - Sound Editing
Fatal Attraction - Film Editing
Kwaidan - Foreign Film
Pan's Labyrinth - Production Design
The Sixth Sense - Picture
Sleepy Hollow - Production Design
Sweeney Todd - Best Actor
The Uninvited - Cinematography
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? - Cinematography