Fernanda Montenegro should have won!
Monday, July 26, 2021 at 11:14AM 
Glenn Close was right. During her latest awards campaign, AMPAS' favorite also-ran recalled the 1998 Best Actress race, concluding that the rightful winner wasn't Gwyneth Paltrow but "that incredible actress that was in Central Station." While that year's Oscar champion gets a lot of undue vitriol –she's excellent in Shakespeare in Love – it's hard to disagree that the trophy rightfully belonged to the great Brazilian thespian Fernanda Montenegro. The only Portuguese-speaking performance to be recognized by the Academy, this star turn has a special place in my heart. So much so that I feared my love was a product of nostalgia goggles. A re-watch disabused such notions. Montenegro's nominated work remains a towering achievement…
Growing up with a grandmother who loved telenovelas, Portuguese and Brazilian, Fernanda Montenegro has long been a familiar face. Her career, which goes back to the 1940s, started in theater but quickly branched out to television and then cinema. The actress achieved success in all those mediums, winning mountains of accolades and international renown. In summation, she's a living legend, which makes her a fitting recipient for the only Oscar nomination ever given to a Brazilian performer. Others have deserved it, for sure, but Montenegro, a veritable institution, feels like the correct holder of such a prestigious record. Also, she should have won. Many, at the time, agreed, including the jury of the Berlinale and many critics organizations. In retrospection, the race seems like a dispute between Paltrow and Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth, but Montenegro put up a mighty fight.
Walter Salles's Central Station came at a curious point in the actress' career. The late 90s and early 00s marked unsuccessful TV ventures, flops for which Montenegro still received sterling reviews. As her commercial viability as a small screen diva temporarily dwindled, the acting titan's cinematic misadventures paid off. Filmmakers seemed excited to explore her presence once again and not necessarily in tedious Grande Dame roles. For two years in a row, Montenegro appeared in Oscar-nominated pictures, with the 1998 picture becoming the most celebrated work in her extensive career. The project was years in development, and after a decade of wanting to work with Montenegro, Salles finally had a role worthy of the actress. Dora is indeed a formidable character.
She's a retired teacher who now works as a letter writer, selling her services to the analphabet masses that everyday traipse through Brazil's Central Station in Rio de Janeiro. Such descriptions could paint Dora as a saintly figure, but the reality is somewhat different. While she greedily takes money from the dispossessed, Dora seldom sends their letters, either tearing them apart after a critical re-reading or shoving them in a drawer, condemning the missives to oblivion. Not even a child's pleas to finally meet his absent father are enough to melt her frozen heart. Well, not at first. As it happens, moments after she has paid Dora for a letter, Josué's mother is hit by a bus, dying instantly. Bereft, the kid wanders around the train station. Eventually, after much insistence, Dora takes pity on the poor fellow, offering him a home. Or does she?
Overall, the basic plot of Central Station is rather cloying – tracing the process by which a grumpy old woman sees her heart grow ten sizes as she helps a little kid. There's Latin-American Neorealism driving the filmmakers' intentions, manifested in observing the country's struggles. However, the structure is trite melodrama. Of course, as in all narrative exercises, the key to success is not the story but how the story is told. In Central Station, the way a story is performed is what solves it, redeeming issues and elevating the cinematic edifice to celestial heights. Nevertheless, as a stage-trained actress, Montenegro feels like an odd choice for a film so interested in pairing her with non-professionals (the kid, most of her clients). Amid a cast working a strategy of authentic 'being' in front of the cameras, Montenegro is in a constant state of tone modulation, register negotiation. She listens, and she placates, lies too.
Her Dora is a pragmatic manipulator, a stern grifter with little patience for the plights of her fellow humans. What's more, Montenegro doesn't try to hide that essential nature, not even when the letter writer's engaging with her clientele. There's only the faintest hint of fake affability masking the depths of Dora's contempt, a surface-level illusion that would only convince the most desperate individuals. It's notable that the sole instances when Dora seems content, during the film's first half, happen at home, as she shares some hearty laughs with a trusted friend at her clients' expense. One must commend Montenegro's daring briskness, how ugly she allows the character to be, and the harshness she infuses into every line reading. Moreover, Dora seems to find her own cruelty amusing, building up walls that separate her from the world while smiling in merry misanthropy.
Whenever a conscience starts to emerge and our unwilling heroine finds herself caring for the child, Montenegro adds an undercurrent of disbelief to the gradual moral shift. At first, this quality shines in how the more righteous lines lose energy at the end. We see Dora is questioning her choices in media res. Later, the reverse starts to happen. Instead of benignity losing its breath to reveal cynicism, the truth of the sentiment is mushy and hastily covered by put-upon antagonism. It's all in what words she emphasizes or muffles. The anti-social alienation that came so naturally to Dora at the beginning increasingly requires effort, a laborious performance inside another performance. It's as if Montenegro plays Dora as someone who knows she's in a soppy tale about a grumpy old lady learning to love again. She knows it, and she hates it. Indeed, Dora behaves as if, internally, trying to resist where the narrative's pulling towards.
Fernanda Montenegro's presence at the center of this film isn't a shining triumph in the middle of a mediocre effort. Instead, Central Station can explore more heightened levels of sentimentality in its realistic milieu because the leading actress is always there to counterbalance. The relationship between performer and production isn't adversarial but symbiotic. By working in a game of contrast, Salles and Montenegro make each other's work better, more vital, and complex. Subsequently, the rare scenes when the two synchronize are overwhelming explosions of raw emotion. A Fellinian interlude, a nocturnal surrendering to spiritual ecstasy, is one of Montenegro's best moments. Suddenly bereft of the dialogue that characterizes so much of her performance, the actress becomes like a silent movie star. She projects a galaxy of contradicting emotions with little more than a lost look, glistening tears, the stilted physicality of someone giving in to helplessness, to guilt, an epiphany.
Dora's general countenance might soften, her attitude might mellow, but Montenegro never gives in completely. It's notable how the actress rarely regards her little costar as an equal, maintaining a perpetual note of adult condescension that separates them. Her humor is that of an old teacher who, once upon a time, used to placate insubordinate youths. Her kindness is that of a woman hurt so many times she's grown a hard carapace around her heart. Every sadness is surpassed within minutes. Every sorrow shoved into a drawer deep in her mind. Her attachment is that of a pedagogue who's seen many kids pass through her life, never to return. On a personal note, as someone who comes from a family of teachers, I've registered those same facets in many people. Watching Fernanda Montenegro's Dora, especially in Central Station's staggering final shot, is to see a more bruised version of the same women who have populated my life from a tender age.
Maybe all these personal caveats stop me from having an 'objective' reading on the performance. Even so, Fernanda Montenegro's work has enchanted many cinema-watchers since 1998, and, in the minds of some, she's the rightful winner of Hollywood's most coveted little golden man. Would you give her that Oscar?
Reader Comments (28)
She indeed should've triumphed - and if not her, then Watson.
Almost offended that you have to ask.
Only saw the movie back in '98 but never forgot it. Montenegro was just wonderful and the story was very touching.
What a beautifully written piece. And yes, I would have given her the Oscar, and more.
Have never seen this, but your review makes me want to. Out of the English-language performances I favor Watson's.
I couldn't agree more on. She is my number 1 by far, Then Blanchett, and Paltrow is my number 12.
100% deserved to win.
By far! It also marked, at least in my eyes, a noticeable change of consideration for foreign-language performances. Before then, I felt they had to be fairly major art-house hits (like Il Postino) to break into the races, or stay satisfied with just a critics' prize. This is one bright after-effect of internet chatter. Sometimes these performances make it (Maria Full of Grace) and sometimes they don't (The Piano Teacher), but I appreciate that they are firmly in the running.
Montenegro’s triumph reminds me of Frances McDormand’s Oscar winning work in Nomadland. Both are esteemed actresses working with a cast of nonprofessional actors to tell a story of significant social import. They are able to modulate their work in the moment to sustain the suspension of disbelief.
While I admire the performance, I don’t think so highly of the film. By the time Dora, desiring a new television, “sells” Josue to an orphanage that is a front for an organization that murders children to harvest their organs, we are flirting with poverty porn. The evolution of Dora as she softens is beautifully executed, but this is not a film I choose to rewatch.
Absolutely! Totally! Completely!
I only accept this opinion if you accept the equally valid opinion of Kael, Ebert, Alves. But maybe you just wrote this without conviction....
I still wouldn't give her the Lead Actress Oscar to her, if Penélope Cruz would have been nominated for La Niña de tus Ojos (The Girl of your Dreams)
I love this write up and the lack of sentimentally in the performance,there were lots of ways to play it and it could have been too sickly but Montenegro earns that final bus ride home shot/
Having said that I still think Cate B should have won,I would not have nominated Paltrow but she is really wonderful in it and I bet far better than Julia might have been in 93 had she got her film made.
My 1998 Best Actress nominees
Blanchett
Montenegro
Watson
Winfrey
Streep.
I saw at the time of its release with four friends who don't like movies with subtitles - they only see foreigners dubbed - and in the end the ones who weren't crying like me had watery eyes.
The movie enchanted us, but left us all miserable. Mainly for this woman's life and her journey. And what would become of the child if she had not rescued him from that house where she had left him?, etc. All so sad contrasting with the golden, solar cinematography. Without the Hollywood triumphalism we enjoy so much.
Only later were we able to discuss the technical aspects of the flick. I went to the movies again and again to have a more personal experience with Central Station and Fernanda Montenegro. What a Film! What an Actress!
The movie is the actress, the actress is the movie.
My assumption of my field, ranked:
1. Jennifer Tilly, Bride of Chucky (Yes, really. It's aged VERY WELL.)
2. Fernanda Montenegro, Central Station
3. Gwyneth Paltrow, Shakespeare in Love
4. Jennifer Lopez, Out of Sight
5. Franka Potente, Run Lola Run
Academy Plausible Ideal, though?:
Gwyneth Paltrow, Shakespeare in Love - Winner
Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth (Note: Her Elizabeth nominations are my two least favourite of the six of Blanchett's Oscar nominations I've seen for opposed reasons. Too small here, too big in The Golden Age.)
Jennifer Lopez, Out of Sight
Fernanda Montenegro, Central Station
Franka Potente, Run Lola Run (What? It's just as plausible a surprise as the other two "didn't get any other branch nominations, but did get into acting categories" movies. And this one...would have been cooler than either of those...?)
I had never seen that film but... I would totally agree with this choice. Gwyneth won because of Harvey Weinstein that prick.
Paltrow did NOT give an Oscar performance... Montrenegro did.
I’ve always been OK with Paltrow’s Oscar moment (yep, Weinstein campaigned a lot for her and SIL but it’s not that breakthrough Cate Blanchett was an outsider á la Sally Kirkland), but I see why someone would have rooted for Montenegro. Instead Streep and Watson weren’t particularly inspired choices that year, compared to Ally Sheedy, Jennifer Lopez and (I know it sounds crazy) Cameron Diaz
One of the five nominees I thought Montenegro should have won, but my pick for Best Actress was Cameron Diaz. I also agree with a previous comment that Jennifer Tilly was close.
Lenard: No, nonononono, noooooooope! I LOVE Tilly in Bride of Chucky, but NO WAY was she close, especially not at the time.
As a Brazilian, I say that no Brazilian artist has given us more pride and joy than "Fernandona" Montenegro.
But just one thing: Fernanda is not working with non-professional actors. Except for Vinícius (the kid), the most prominent roles in the film are played by true legends of Brazilian cinema such as Othon Bastos (his image as Corisco on the Black God, White Devil's poster is one of the strongest in Brazilian culture), Marília Pêra (our greatest theater actress) and Matheus Nachtergaele (considerably the best brazilian actor of his generation).
For those who appreciate her work here, I highly recommend They Don't Wear Black-Tie. She already deserved a nomination there.
Henrique Perez -- I should probably have been more specific in my writing. The prominent roles, kid aside, are actors, but I thought most of her clients, plus the other people in the train station, were non-professionals. Maybe I'm wrong. Thank you for the added information and for the recommendation.
I've corrected the text to be more accurate.
There was this scene in the movie where Salles helmed one of his beautiful scenes: this is where a group of pilgrims was paying homage to the patron saint. Unlike what was popularly assumed, that scene was supposed to be staged, but the moment the actual religious rite started, the pilgrims were suddenly no longer acting but actually getting into anointed delirium one expects in a similar ritual. And Dora and Josué were perfection in this scene, particularly Josué running in the lighted candles/torches. Hair-raising, really.
I remembered being touched by the story especially the actress who played Isadora Texeira. Her total commitment to her unsentimental role made me think she is not an actress but a woman who went through everything Dora went through. When I realised that Fernanda Montenegro is actually an actress, I thought she towered all other nominees that year. Deserving of an Oscar, sure. And because we understood the cultural logic of conferring an award to an individual we thought delivered the best performance, naturally many of us who were blown away by her wanted her to win. I am sort of glad she didn't. I thought she never needed that kind of validation. Montenegro's delineation of Dora ranked among the very best performances ever. But this is just another guy's subjective take: she will always be first among equals that year and after that.
Because this piece had to be written, thanks for doing it evocatively, Claudio <cue main theme on piano>. J'accord!
Glenn Close is always right. And also how about the recent Kennedy Center Honors honorees??? Y’all will do a post on them?
Fernanda should have won.
While on the topic, Isabelle Huppert also should have won over Emma Stone, another ingenue that Hollywood is trying to force on us.
@Rama -- I agree! Fernanda and Isabelle should have won in their respective categories in those years.
@Hei -- Yes, Glenn Close is always right! Especially her preference for Fernanda over Gwyneth.
Pretty down with this choice. Not just because she's Brazilian. Also a great film.
1998 wasn't bad at all.