Does 2017 = 2005 in Best Actor?
Sunday, January 28, 2018 at 11:00AM by Ben Miller
Film blogger Jordan Ruimy posited an observation a month ago on Twitter:
In 2002 Gary Oldman would have been a cinch to win Best Actor, in 2017 he's a major question mark. The Oscars have changed.
While the awards season definitely shifted thereafter, his tweet remains at least partially true. Look at the history of the Best Actor Oscar. From 1990 to 1997, every winner had a specific ailment (criminal insanity, alcoholism, AIDS), while 1998 to 2001 had a run of death scenes. Of the past 16 years, starting with Adrien Brody in 2002, 10 winners have been for portrayals of real people (Casey Affleck's win last year broke a four-year run of biopic winners). There are always patterns to Oscar behavior.
This year’s slate of Best Actor nominees has an interesting parallel with the Best Actor race of 2005. Let’s take a look back at the lineup...
- Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote (winner)
- Terrence Howard, Hustle & Flow
- Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain
- Joaquin Phoenix, Walk the Line
- David Strathairn, Good Night, and Good Luck
Right off the bat, the easy comparison would be Hoffman and Oldman. Both experienced character actors turning in technically brilliant performances in biopics. But they aren't of course exact equivalents due to the changes in awards season preferences over the years. Their careers were not at the same juncture either. Oldman has been considered overdue for the better part of two decades while Hoffman was on his first nomination. Capote won Hoffman every single award he was personally nominated for, with the exception of the London Film Critics Circle Award. Oldman's Oscar trajectory hasn't been as forceful. He didn't start dominating until the televised awards began with the Golden Globes.
The nomination / performance that's aged the best from 2005 came from the youngest nominee. Heath Ledger emerged from the shadow of young stardom to deliver a subtly devastating performance in Brokeback Mountain at age 26. Look no further than 22 year-old Timothee Chalamet in Call Me by Your Name for a modern equivalent. The comparison is even easier given that both were starring in gay romantic dramas. Ledger picked up a fair amount of nominations for his role, but finished behind Hoffman all allong the way. Chalamet, on the other hand, has been winning Best Actor and breakthrough awards, including from the two most important critics groups The New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.
(For a possibly wide variety of reasons, Oldman has been receiving some blowback for his role. Scan social media and you will find a hot take or five about how Oldman’s Winston Churchill is nothing more than skilled imitation while Chalamet is the one doing the real work. Despite being the frontrunner all season, this backlash only really began with the Globes. Attribute it to either Oldman’s troubling politics, or general attrition of the biopic as Oscar vehicle. Or maybe we can chalk it up to the desire for fresh blood.)
All Oscar lineups have the “happy to be here” performance that no one expects can win and they're often from breakout players. 2005 brought us Terrence Howard’s soulful rapper from Hustle & Flow, and for 2017 we have Get Out’s Daniel Kaluuya. Howard was (slightly) further along in his career in 2005 than Kaluuya is now but Kaluuya is moving swiftly. While critically lauded and successful, Hustle & Flow never had the zeitgeist force of Get Out, so Howard expanded his fame with Marvel's Iron Man a couple of years after that indie/Oscar breakthrough. Kaluuya, though, has already headlined a blockbuster and he won't even make it to Oscar night before he's playing inside the Marvel universe himself. Black Panther opens February 16th.
The nominations for character actor David Straithairn (Good Night, and Good Luck.) and the then-more mainstream Joaquin Phoenix (Walk the Line) are where the 2005/2017 comparison breaks down. You can't really compare them to Daniel Day-Lewis and Denzel Washington, two of cinema's most iconic legends and Oscar beloveds, too. But, to bring us back to the opening statement, you'll note that the former duo were starring in biopics (all the rage w/ voters for years) while the latter duo are crafting original characters.
What does this all mean?
As much as the Academy has changed, old habits die hard. The industry may like to think of itself as progressive and boundary-pushing, but expect them to revert to the norm and recreate 2005 down to the tee. Come Oscar night, Gary Oldman will walk away with the statue for his big biographical drama which might have won in any earlier year in history. Chalamet’s performance is revelatory but, for Oscar, there is comfort in repetition.
Related: Best Actor Chart
Reader Comments (50)
If Oldman wins this one, he would be the third Oscar winner for playing a British Prime Minister (after George Arliss and Meryl Streep), whereas we have (unless I am forgetting someone) only one Oscar winner for playing a US President (Day-Lewis).
@MrW That's a fascinating bit of trivia!
I think Hoffman's performance has aged quite well, thank you very much... I've seen Capote several times since and Hoffman managed to bring some subtlety within the mimicry and the high-pitched voice (I do have a hard time picking between him and Ledger over which one I like best, since they both amaze me every time I see their films).
I hope anyone than Daniel-Day Lewis wins . I really don't get all the hype for the "Phantom Thread"
I still think PSH gave the best performance. It has aged perfectly.
Is this the Film Experience? This article is so condescending, not to mention ignorant. We get it, you don't like Oldman, all black, gay themed, biographies and stories about young men are the same.
Straight guys playing gay has been a”take me seriously as an actor” move for awhile now. I loved Chalamet‘a performance, but would this nom have happened if he was actually gay?
Very odd that Janes Franco is not included on the best actor chart in ‘who was left out’. He clearly was in number 6 with Hanks in 7.
2005 was such a good year. Howard = Gold. Hoffman = Silver. Ledger = Bronze. But all would be worthy winners in any other year.
No.
Philip Seymour Hoffman gave the best performance of his year. Gary Oldman did not.
It's Ledger all the way in 2005 but Hoffman's a close 2nd,I thought Oldman was good but not one for the ages,a great mimic and honestly despite that make up nomination he looks nothing like Churchill,the only scene that took me out of his performance was the scene on the train which rang tonally false and KST seemed to be mimicking HBC'S gimmicky performance in The King's Speech.
Oldman best 3 performances for me are
The Contender
Prick up your Ears
Dracula
My personal winner is Jeemy Renner I haven't seen Denzel,timothee or Daniel yet.
PSH gave an all-time great performance in CAPOTE and fully deserved his Oscar over Ledger (I say this as someone who has BROKEBACK as their sixth favourite film, ever!)
I think it won't be Chalamet that undoes Oldman's Oscar bid but Day Lewis. Phantom Thread got a lot more support then expected and it seems to be peaking at the right time. Honoring Day Lewis honors his last performance and Anderson who probably won't walk away with an award.
OMG imagine if?
"Straight guys playing gay has been a”take me seriously as an actor” move for awhile now. I loved Chalamet‘a performance, but would this nom have happened if he was actually gay?"
- The character's not gay (more like bisexual/queer) and Chalamet's not a very well-known actor before this. Nobody knew anything about his actual sexuality anyway so I doubt it would be a factor.
Team Philip Seymour Hoffman. His oscar win did not aged well because after Heath Ledger died the media wondered why his Ennis del Mar didn't get him the oscar. I bet most of people didn't even bother to check the winning performance that year. Philip Seymour Hoffman's Capote was magnificent, one of the academy's best decisions and better than Ledger's.
"The character's not gay (more like bisexual/queer) and Chalamet's not a very well-known actor before this. Nobody knew anything about his actual sexuality anyway so I doubt it would be a factor."
Openly queer performs almost never get nominated because it is not considered as "brave" as when a straight actor goes queer. Academy history clearly shows this. Also in promoting the movie, it was made clear that both leads were straight. Not taking away from the performance but his true sexuality did play a factor.
Wouldn't it be something if Daniel Day Lewis and Meryl Streep both win their fourth Oscars on the same night?
I thought Timothée was gay and his boyfriend is Ansel Elgort.
I'm hoping Chalamet takes the Oscar, but maybe being the only biopic role may benefit Oldman. It's weird for me to hope Oldman loses because I was hoping he would win for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy a few years ago. Had he won for that one perhaps Chalamet would be sweeping this year?
Ledger gave a better performance than Hoffman- they are both playing gay men but while Ledger clearly enjoyed fucking Gyllenhaal in "Brokeback Mountain" Hoffman's "Capote" was asexual. The Academy probably thought Hoffman was a safer choice.
I'm torn this year. DDL is clearly the best for me, but a FOURTH Oscar? No, if I were an Academy member I wouldn't vote for him. Especially only 5 years after winning his third. Maybe if the others were unworthy, but I'd vote for Oldman, prosthetics and all. There's a real performance going on there, even if it is somewhat overrated because of the stuntwork factor.
And as for PSH, his performance is superb. But my problem is with Toby Jones in "Infamous" just a year later. He's also superb, and I really wonder if the two movies had come out in the opposite order, which performance I'd prefer. Oh, and my favorite performance of 2005 was Jeff Daniels in The Squid and the Whale. A total revelation.
while Ledger clearly enjoyed fucking Gyllenhaal in "Brokeback Mountain" .... wouldn't we all?
"Attribute it to either Oldman’s troubling politics, or general attrition of the biopic as Oscar vehicle. Or maybe we can chalk it up to the desire for fresh blood."
Or just a performance that's not as strong in a film that doesn't do anything but serve as a showcase? Capote is a genuinely great film, and Hoffman's work in it all the more impressive because of it. Quality of the performance is a big reason why people aren't behind it, despite many wanting to see Oldman crowned with an Oscar for years. That it's a product so blatantly made for awards turns off people even more.
I'm not entirely convinced that Oldman is going to win it. For now, he is the favourite. But it's a long time to the awards (not sure when the voting is happening) and his personal character may get called into question with all that is surfacing these days. Check out the Huffington Post today as an example. I think Chalamet has a chance. I'm not sure I'd bet money on it, but it's early still.
As part of the "Oldman Oscar blowback" (it's recency down to the fact that I only saw it less than a fortnight ago), I can honestly assert that Oldman's performance, whilst good (and parts of it could be arguably Oldman's best - I would have to re-watch TINKER TAILOR to be sure,) is not Oscar worthy in it's company (I haven't seen Washington's performance yet) or even in the company of those who missed like Franco. Churchill is just too much of a "character" for any performance to be regarded as subtle and rounded.
And it's not biopic weariness on my part either - I am one of the few people around here who absolutely believe that Streep's performance in THE IRON LADY was the rightful winner of the Oscar (and also thought/think she would've been/would be the rightful winner last year/this year).
I'm kind of surprised about the Washington nomination. I only saw the trailer and the character seemed annoying, And did anybody went to see the movie?
I agree Forever1267- but besides the physical challenges of having to make love to Jake ( who I'm sure wasn't complaining either) Ledgers gives a heartbreaking emotional rich performance which should have one him the first on many Oscars.
Oldman deserves it and, barring scandal, will triumph in a cakewalk.
Jaragon: I've seen Washington. He fully deserves his nomination. I'd even go as far as to say I think he's the best of the nominees. I thought he might be just a Meryl-style namecheck, but I think voters just felt his performance was too good to ignore. The character is a bit annoying, but that's by design. Roman Isreal is on the autistic spectrum and has zero social skills, so manages to piss off almost everybody he meets. But Washington makes him human, sympathetic and bearable, when he really could have ended up some Forest Gump-ish caricature in the hands a lesser actor.
I'm almost disappointed Washington's next gig is The Equalizer 2. Fences and Roman J Isreal, Esq show how much we've been missing the depth of Washington's talent in proper dramatic roles, and proves he really is the best in the business. Hopefully he'll dial back on the action movies and do more character dramas like his last couple of roles. Washington working with someone like Paul Thomas Anderson or Steve McQueen would be absolutely mouthwatering. Especially with Daniel Day-Lewis going into retirement mode, Washington is easily the finest working dramatic actor.
Sal: I agree with you about Washington. He is probably our most consistent movie star
2005 was a strong year in this category - not a weak performance in the bunch, even if I'd have preferred Phoenix or Strathairn winning, but then I'm in a tiny camp ken s alludes to - I prefer Toby Jones' performance as Capote.
Aw, 2005! Such a great year! I always thought Crash beating Brokeback Mountain would forever remain the best moment in Oscar history, but the Best Picture fuck-up last year now takes the top prize. Still, second best in 90 years is nothing to scoff at.
All this nonsense about Chalamet is getting embarrassing by now, people. Pull yourselves together! If, for some bizarre reason, Oldman loses the Oscar (and there is no reason to think he would), it will be to Washington (who holds an IOU for Fences) or to Day-Lewis, since his movie over-performed. The entire Academy votes on the final award, which makes Chalamet's chances of winning near zero. He'll probably finish fourth or fifth on the vote.
Hoffman was amazing in Capote.
Buzz around Oldman all year has been “will win” and never “should win”.
“PWIME MINISTAAAH!” -Gary Oldman’s whole performance in Darkest Hour + the undergarment bodysuit and prosthetic makeup
Ledger gave a great performance and it has aged very very well. Chalamet gave a great performance and it will age very very well. But you know, i m one of those people who people in oscars as opportunities to reward a body of work. Not a popular opinion because people are emotional but really the fair thing in my mind. Seymour Hoffman deserved a body of work recognition. Gary Oldman deserves the same. What is a 22 year old going to do with an oscar for one of his first roles. His role does not need oscar to live on forever.
Oldman is way better than Chalemet. Way better. Deal with it.
Did anyone see Chalamet in "Love The Coopers" (2015) in which he play a love sick straight teen? The movie is favorite guilty pleasure- feel good Christmas confection with an all star cast. My favorite couple is Oivia Wilde and goofy Jake Lacey/
Heath Ledger won the New York Film Crtics Circle award for Brokeback Mountain.
The number of critics' awards is just ridiculous anymore. Harry Dean Stanton won just one award this year. Daniel Day-Lewis and James Franco each won FOUR. Daniel Kaluuya has won SIX. Timothée Chalamet has won TEN Best Actor awards and TWELVE Breakthrough Performance awards. Gary Oldman has won TWENTY awards. However, has anyone else noticed that Chalamet has won all the big critics' awards - New York, LA, Chicago, London, Atlanta and Phoenix. While Oldman did win Globe and SAG, most of his critics' prizes came from podunk critics' groups like North Carolina, Columbus Ohio, Iowa, Oklahoma, North Texas.
In the past, New York and LA were the big prizes. Globes are not often taken seriously, and the SAG Awards have an awful track record over the 24 years of picking winners. The Best Actor race is not exactly a done deal.
I’m a little more admiring of what Oldman does in Darkest Hour than most on this site. He plays up the theatricality of Churchill, which I think is what Joe Wright required as director. I enjoyed it all in the moment, but I do think it’s probably impossible to give a new and/or surprising take on the character of Churchill in this period of his life. Like Queen Elizabeth, he has become a role that every actor over a certain age gets to play. Unlike Elizabeth, there’s just too much contemporaneous footage of how Churchill sounds and acts, making anything resembling risk-taking by an actor, subject to the criticism that it’s not ‘reality’. Thus we have various skilled mimicry performances, from excellent actors who only differentiate from each other in terms of how comic/dramatic the tone of the film expects them to be. If we are to have regular Churchill stories on tv or film (and I’m not saying we should!), I would much rather see what a younger actor could do with a role set in the Boer or First World War, with a more impulsive and active figure than the elder statesman of the 1940s
Critics awards and tweets are nice, but trophies are what matters for the Oscar race and Oldman is winning them all. Besides, Darkest Hour is not that bad and Chalamet is super young and we don't want him to become a new Adrien Brody at 24.
I think the academy members have shown that they liked The Darkest Hour more than most peopl already, so I think Oldman is pretty safe. I was going to predict an upset, but those five other nominations kind of seal the deal for me. In fact, I think he is the safest of the four front-runners. McDormand could run into an Adrien Brody situation where they want to give someone else the win. Janney may lose heat as I, Tonya somewhat underperform, and Rockwell...was not THAT good. So yeah, if asked, I would bet on Oldman first.
The thing that could sink Oldman has nothing to do with his performance- it's Time's Up and #MeToo. The movement knocked Franco out of contention and sent Casey Affleck running from the ceremony.
That 2005 line up is a favorite of mine. Every single one of those perfs were deserving. Any of them rightfully could have won.
I was more harsh towards Hoffman, I feel, at the time, because of Ledger, but the film and the performance are really wonderful. I'd still prefer Ledger, but what can you do?
Oldman, however, I just don't think is actually all that good in DARKEST HOUR. It's not so much that the performance is mimicry; rather, it's that the writing of the part is all expected beats, and Oldman, slathered in make up as he is, doesn't really get the chance to step outside of it. I can picture dozens of actors giving the exact same performance in the exact same make up and nobody noticing the difference.
That being said, I believe he'll win quite easily. I tweeted recently something a long the lines of "can you believe Alicia VIkander won the Oscar for THE DANISH GIRL in 2015 instead of 2001?" because that film felt so old and dated by the time the ceremony even came around and yet she won. Probably quite easily.
Day-Lewis has no momentum. He's not overdue. He's overrewarded. He has no precursor support and if voters want to honor Phantom Thread, Lesley Manville is right there. A great actress who has been underrated her whole career.
If somebody other than Oldman wins, it'll be Chalamet who is a revelation.
“And as for PSH, his performance is superb. But my problem is with Toby Jones in "Infamous" just a year later.”
It’s interesting that like Infamous coming on the heels of Capote, The Darkest Hour is the third onscreen depiction of Churchill in the last year, with John Lithgow on The Crown and Brian Cox in Churchill. Another parallel to the 2005 race.
For those thinking this should be a career award, one need only look to Ledger. Much of the thinking at the time was “he’s young, he’ll get another shot”— of course he did, but it wasn’t one he lived to see. Meanwhile Hoffman would’ve certainly won for The Master, arguably a far better performance than Capote, and a year when that category was all previous winners. Had Hoffman gone in without his Capote win, he almost certainly would’ve taken it.
My father is a Winston Churchill NERD and saw Darkest Hour by himself last night. He says he will be shocked and upset if Oldman doesn't win.
There's a lot of hindsight bias going on here.
2005 was an exceptional year for actors, and I actually find the Academy lineup to be nearly peerless; one of the very, VERY few times they nominated a group of actors who all deserved it, even if I would have still switched out Phoenix for Fiennes in The Constant Gardener, still his most underrated performance.
Anyway, how could anyone have known Ledger's future? Or that Hoffman would be continually nominated after Capote? For the record, Hoffman has rarely been better than in Capote (though I thoroughly enjoyed his work in A Most Wanted Man) and Ledger utterly deserved his entire awards run for Joker.
Hoffman's work need not be disparaged just for the sake of comparison: it is a master class in absorbing a persona and making it one's own. Ledger's work required almost entirely different muscles and textures and nuances. Same for Oldman and Chalamet; also, let's please not compare Ledger's work to Chalamet's, as they're on entirely different planes of existence, and I don't even mean performance wise.
I understand that The Film Experience and the Awards Community Internet at large and the Twitter-hordes adore Chalamet and worship the ground he walks on, etc., but this article just reeks of "Let's find yet another excuse to belittle Oldman's work and be obsequious acolytes to Chalamet" and not actually the fascinating comparison it could have been.
Guys, we totally get it, those of us on the other side of the pond (or at least a quarter of the way to the other side): Call Me by Your Name is the greatest movie of the year, and possibly of all time, and all the performances and below-the-line achievements sublime and immaculate and beyond reproach. I've stopped trying to have any conversation with anyone on the Internet about CMBYN because it always devolves into the same thing...
It's a pity, too. I've been coming to The Film Experience since 2005, when I realized my favorite actress, Rachel Weisz, actually stood a chance at winning things (and did win them!). I found it to be such a haven...
And now it's just as intricately politicized and discriminating as the agencies and bodies that inhabit them and that TFE deigns to criticize and put down.
There is no discussion here. There is only a side taken.
Enjoy your summer in Northern Italy, or better yet, enjoy your three and a half minute, fireplace-lit close-up of The Immaculate Chalameption, because winter has a name, and it is "The Best Actor goes to Gary Oldman in Darkest Hour."
Amy Adams should have won that year for supporting actress. That was category fraud by Weisz. Had she gone lead she would have deserved it over Witherspoon but I doubt she would have beaten her.
As for Chalamet, isn’t it great that people are actually excited about a young, talented actor? Or are we Chalamet fans just drunk on grappa and really have no ability to distinguish talent?
I saw Phantom Thread tonight - wow. I loved it. I am assuming it's divisive though. But all three lead performances are fantastic.
As for the best actor race, it's so odd to compare such different characters, in such different films, played beautifully by each actor. I guess this is always the case. That said, I wish we could celebrate all of them because each are spectacular performances in their own way. I'm not sure why Ben, who wrote this article, found it necessary to take down Oldman in such a negative way.
It's really not necessary to play the victim, Raul.
We both know the CMBYN community, and more to the point, the Chalamet community is a fever's pitch of barely restrained mania, which has nothing but vitriol and disdain for anyone who doesn't admit or claim that his is the best performance of the year, if not the greatest of all time, much less from a young actor.
There's a difference between celebrating something and someone, and going out of one's way to knock down other performances and actors (and movies) in order for one's favorite to stand taller and mightier.
It's petty, and also incredibly redundant and unnecessary, because, after all, if CMBYN and Chalamet are that impressive and mighty to begin with, no such knockdown would be necessary. They would literally speak for themselves.
But eh, the ride's almost over. I can thank Zeus for that.