Oscar Mythbusting: 'Weak' Best Actress Years (feat. "Tom & Viv")
Friday, December 6, 2019 at 1:20PM by Cláudio Alves
There's been much talk of this year being a weak one for the Best Actress category. That's nonsense. While it's easy to understand where such dreary thoughts come from, it's a foul myth. Every year has the potential to be great, you just need to look at films outside the Academy's usual favorites and our preconceptions about what constitutes awardable acting.
Take 1994, a year traditionally considered among the weakest for the Best Actress Oscar. While it's true the nominated five aren't a particularly stellar collection, they each bring something to the table. There's Winona Ryder and her anachronistic charm, Jessica Lange's primordial rage and lust, Susan Sarandon's solid reactions, and Jodie Foster's fearlessness. Finally, there's the lead actress of Tom & Viv, a film now celebrating its 25th anniversary…
Miranda Richardson plays Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot, T.S. Eliot's first wife. She's the titular Viv from Brian Gilbert's portrait of a famous doomed romance. When the film starts, the gloom of tragedy is still away and Richardson play-acts as a coquette whose crassness and vulgarity are part of her charm. Soon, however, the eccentricity curdles into madness and Richardson embraces all the grotesque possibilities Michael Hastings' script presents her with. Only Rosemary Harris rises above such contrivances, but her subtlety is the exception in a sea of fascinatingly bad decisions.
Throughout Tom & Viv, it's difficult to understand if the filmmakers want us to sympathize with a misunderstood woman's plight or the despair of a sullen writer. Such knots of ambivalence are never untangled by the main performers, too busy going against each other in a one-sided battle of wills. Willem Dafoe's T.S. Eliot is a bloodless creation, deadly subdued, his face a mask of tension at all times; he's an iceberg to Richardson's exploding volcano. Their collision doesn't so much generate sparks as it petrifies the film into a state of beautifully dressed immobility.
This could have been a brilliant portrait of toxic matrimony, but the filmmakers were hampered by the cinematic folly of pathological meekness. In other words, Tom & Viv is too conservative for its subject, both at a narrative and aesthetic level. Richardson, for her part, is having none of it, brisling against the rigidity, flailing about in hopes of tearing a hole of pure chaos in this soulless tapestry.
She's stilted and frustrating, but also genuinely interesting. She moves in brittle bursts, slumps her shoulders and lets her gestures become undisciplined and ugly. Her walk is a nightmare of heavy stomps and her voice a strident storm that never decides at what pitch to attack whoever is unfortunate enough to be in hearing distance. Most actresses would have tried to predigest the difficult character for the audience, but Richardson sharpens Viv's edges and makes all her contradictions more unavoidable, more painful. It might not be great acting in a traditional sense, but it's worlds above stodgy mediocrity.
What could be discarded as a 'weak' Best Actress year quickly starts to look like a great one if you stop to consider that the Academy could have taken risks and made bold choices. Looking outside Oscar's realm, we see how the year was a powerhouse of actressing. In Natural Born Killers, Juliette Lewis gives herself over to Oliver Stone's insanity while Gong Li breaks our heart in To Live. Jennifer Jason Leigh painted Dorothy Parker as a stylish mess in Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, while Julianne Moore dissected Chekov with Louis Malle for Vanya on 42nd Street, and Isabelle Adjani let herself be possessed by the bloody melodrama of Queen Margot. Julie Delpy and Irène Jacob gave life to Kieslowski's Three Color trilogy and the duet of Melanie Lynskey and Kate Winslet in Heavenly Creatures' shocked us with youthful mastery.
All in all, 1994 wasn't a 'weak Best Actress year' and neither is 2019; there's no such thing!
Reader Comments (42)
Mmmhmm, "weak Best Actress year" = lazy/short-sighted Oscar voters. Without fail.
P.S. Don't forget Linda Fiorentino (The Last Seduction), who would've been my pick for the Best Actress Oscar in '94—bananas disqualification be damned!
Reno Owen in Once Were Warriors.
One of the best performances of the decade.
Just stunning.
Also: Crissy Rock in Ladybird, Ladybird.
These two would are leaps and bounds above all five nominated performances.
Mareko -- I didn't mention Fiorentino because she was ineligible but she's wonderful indeed.
MrW -- Thank you for the recommendations. I'll add those films to my watchlist.
Jodie Foster was the best, but they'd never give her a third Oscar.
Crissy Rock is absolutely heartbreaking in Ladybird, Ladybird. My winner of 1994 for sure.
I always enjoy an appreciation of Miranda Richardson (although from what I remember of that year's nominees I'd have been with cal roth when it comes to voting). She's been so very good in so many things across decades.
Although yeah, it's a shame Isabelle Adjani and Julianne Moore weren't nominated that year.
Chrissy Rock in Ladybird Ladybird is astounding. Glad to see others remember her, also.
Her final scene is her best and a big a relief from the hamming but she doesn't earn it,maybe with a better more reactive co star it may have worked but Rosemary Harris provides the film with it's centre and heart,a gift of a nomination for a gift of a role,it could've been in someone else's hands a caricatute of old money she invests it with so much more although I know some say she does nothing in it.
Great post with many good points. I agree that 1994 was not weak for actresses, but the list of nominees sadly was,
And, frankly, I hated Richardson over the top performance. But I am so happy that Roemary Harris managed to snag a nod in a very competetive year for supporting actresses - what a beutiful, understated work.
Judy Davis, The Ref
Meg Ryan, When a Man Loves a Woman
And for those of us in Australia/Europe... Toni Collette in Muriel's Wedding (I know she wasn't Oscar eligible until the following year).
I will forever and always stand for Jessica's win. Her performance is truly wonderful. Mic drop.
Sigourney Weaver for Death and the Maiden.
I think Miranda Richardson is brilliant in Tom & Viv. I always think that this movie is about the era, and how women who had gynecological issues or menstrual cramps or, heaven forbid, mental health concerns were deemed to be hysterical and should be locked up. And Miranda Richardson plays it perfectly. And I think you don't get the tension with Dafoe because TS Eliot is presented as a stark contrast to Viv. It wasn't "proper" in the times to talk about menstruation or mental health. That's why there are a lot of shots of him just standing there looking lost and staring in space. He doesn't know what to do clearly. Rosemary Harris is highlight of the movie because her character is the only one who brings some sense of feelings into the situation.
The fact that Juliette Lewis, Julie Delpy, and Irene Jacob weren't nominated that year still pisses me off. That was a fucking weak year.
Jamie Lee Curtis in True Lies.
I think 1994 was the wrong year to discuss a Best Actress field with a dearth of strong performances. 1975 is so much more deserving of study. .
Serious consideration was being given to unknown Marilyn Hassett for the bio pic The Other Side of the Mountain, a vacuous tale of aspiring Olympic athlete Jill Kinmont who was left paralyzed after a skiing accident. Arguably the worst performance seriously being considered for Best Actress was Diana Ross as the fashion model/designer beset by a psychopath in Mahogany.
The previous year's Best Actress winner Ellen Burstyn was so appalled at the lack of strong female roles in film that she openly advocated for banishing the category from the 1976 Oscar ceremony.
Studios responded to the problem in creative fashion. A filmed West End stage performance of Glenda Jackson playing Hedda Gabler was rushed into LA theaters for limited engagements in hopes of snatching a nod. It worked.
Supporting performances from Louise Fletcher in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Ann Margret in Tommy were promoted as lead actress contenders. The strategy worked for them but failed to rouse nominations for other supporting roles promoted as leads including Marisa Berenson in Barry Lyndon, Faye Dunaway in Three Days of the Condor, Goldie Hawn in Shampoo, and Karen Black in The Day of the Locust.
In addition, former Oscar winners doing marginal work (Barbra Streisand in Funny Lady, Julie Christie in Shampoo, Liza Minnelli in Lucky Lady, and Anne Bancroft in The Prisoner of Second Avenue) were pushed into the fray but failed to generate nominations. Carol Kane surprised many by landing in the top five with the independent film Hester Street.
The only truly deserving nomination was young Isabelle Adjani in François Truffaut's lovely The Story of Adele H.
Kathleen Turner in Serial Mom
Sorry, but this year was epic for weakness. If you made anyone watch those five films in a row, it would induce nausea, vomiting or even death.
Natalie Portman in Léon
Patricia Reyes Spíndola in La Reina de la Noche
I'm gonna disagree on this a little. We can argue that it's down to lazy thinking if you want, but I'm gonna argue otherwise (or that it's a difference without meaning). I think that stating "it's a weaker year within oscar's traditional wheelhouse" is perfectly valid and calling it a weak year in general is assuming that caveat is unspoken, which is fair when discussing the oscar race, imo.
@James, Hedda isn't just a film of the play, there are several sets. Glenda did play the role in London, but this is a full film adaptation of that play. There are even outdoor scenes!
The Academy does not owe you an esoteric slate of nominees to avoid weakness for a ceremony. Their sensibilities are mostly rigid. Also, cal roth, Jodie Foster was never winning a third consecutive Oscar for acting. Absurd.
Winona Ryder in Reality Bites.
Carol Kane deserved that nomination for Hester Street. It's a wonderful performance in a lovely film.
I'm very grateful for all the feedback, both positive and otherwise.
Also, thank you for so many recommendations for good 1994 Best Actress contenders. Some I should rewatch, others I never watched and will now seek.
Jamie Lee Curtis, Kathleen Turner and Winona Ryder in Reality Bites were all very close. Thank you all for playing. The correct answer was Julianne Moore for Vanya on 42nd Street.
The producers of The Last Seduction were naughty. The film debuted on TV. So, it would have been eligible for the Emmys. They fooled the NYFCC into naming Fiorentino as Best Actress, but you don't mess with the Oscars.
Jodie Foster - Nell
Meg Ryan - When A Man Loves A Woman
Winona Ryder - Little Women/Reality Bites
Kathleen Turner - Serial Mom
Sigourney Weaver - Death & The Maiden
Calling it a “weak” year for actresses compared to actors has its advantages, it just goes to show how few “Oscar Type” movies are there with strong female roles that the race seems weak to the academy. I hope it gets studios to green light more of these movies
I believe had Glenn Close won for Dangerous Liaisons as she shld've!! Jodie Foster wld've collected her 2nd Oscar for Nell (She won SAG), n Lange wld've to content w her supp win for Tootsie.
I alws feel tt Blue Sky is a makeup Oscar after her previous 4 bids. It was made in 1991 but was shelved n only released in 1994 to qualify a win for Lange.
James - not only was Karen Black astoundingly great in The Day Of The Locust, she is 100% leading! The film is obviously batshit crazy and SO removed from Oscar's preferences that I'm always amazed that Burgess Meredith managed to make it in! It's also Donald Sutherland's most egregious miss (still our most overdue non-nominee, give or take a Danny Glover)...
Reminds me a bit of 2011, when the Academy completely missed the mark. Imagine if the lineup had been:
Viola Davis - The Help
Kirsten Dunst - Melancholia
Anna Paquin - Margaret
Charlize Theron - Young Adult
Kristen Wiig - Bridesmaids
1994:
Rena Owen - Once Were Warriors
Irene Jacobs - Red
Jodie Foster - Nell
Gong Li - Huo zhe
Crissy Rock - Ladybird Ladybird
with these five noms, 1994 would have been considered a strong year
Lovely article ! Thanks. Fosters Nell is absolutely worth a rewatch! ..and is Sarandons Client !
Academy members looking at the Best Actress field that year should have upgraded Weist and given her a lead nomination.
I like so-called weak years in that they sometimes result in very deserved nominations for work that ordinarily would go unnoticed.
Isabelle Adjani’s 1975 nomination for The Story of Adele H., a rare concession to a foreign language performance, is IMO one of the best in the history of the category. She’s genius in the film and deserved the actual award, but could have gone overlooked in a year with more conventional options. Wish she had managed a nomination for Queen Margot in 1994, too.
1977, on the other hand, was a very strong best actress year in that the nominees were all from Best Picture nominees, but I think Oscar’s slate was disappointing compared to what it could have been. Switch out three of the ladies not named Diane Keaton for Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek in ‘Three Women,’ a strange but brilliant film that perhaps could have scored nominations for its leads a year earlier, and Gena Rowlands in ‘Opening Night’ and the group becomes much more exciting.
Yeah, Karen Black was not supporting in The Day of the Locust. She (and Donald Sutherland) are the unequivocal leads, and both should've been nominated. (Rumor has it thet Black missed out on a nomination by only six votes.)
Interesting Mareko. Please link a source for the Black rumour.
Jennifer Jason Leigh, Juliette Lewis, Natalie Portman, Irene Jacob and Gong Li.
The youngest, most international Best Actress lineup that never was and never will be.
I don't think the term "weak" is agreed upon in its context and meaning. So, that's an issue.
When you have a year that doesn't have very many (if any) commercially and/or critically successful awards-type films featuring powerhouse female lead performances, then, yes, to some, it feels like a "weak" year for Best Actress, which is why some feel 1994 is one of the "weakest" years for Best Actress. If you look at the BP nominees, and the ones hovering underneath, the only leading ladies around were Andie McDowell and Irene Jacob. Neither performance was particularly strong or well-thought-of, and McDowell is barely a lead anyhow.
You can point to strong performances that weren't nominated, but then most of the mentions weren't performances that would have ever had a chance with The Academy.
But, not everyone interprets "weak" this way.