;)
Last weekend, on Mother's Day of all days, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore celebrated its 50th anniversary. The occasion calls for some acknowledgment here at The Film Experience, where actressexual Oscar obsessives abound. After all, Ellen Burstyn won the Best Actress race at the 47th Academy Awards, triumphing over what could be described as the greatest lineup in the category's history. Along with the eventual victor, AMPAS nominated Diahann Carroll in Claudine, Faye Dunaway in Chinatown, Valerie Perrine in Lenny, and Gena Rowlands in A Woman Under the Influence. They might have also nominated Liv Ullmann in Scenes from a Marriage had she been eligible, but we'll get there in time.
As Faye Dunaway presents a new doc at Cannes, the stars have aligned to relitigate the 1974 Best Actress race. Are you ready? Let's go…
Ellen Burstyn in ALICE DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE
Though nowadays it's not unusual to find actresses at the genesis of their own vehicles, it wasn't always like this. Before McDormand, Robbie, and many others, Ellen Burstyn was championing Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, to the point we can thank her for the picture existing altogether. After Robert Getchell's script had been passed around from studio to studio, it was her appeal that got Warner Bros. to sign up, and Scorsese was Burstyn's idea, too. According to her, when asked if he knew anything about women, the young director said no and that the picture would be a learning experience. That was a smashing answer, so he was hired.
As Alice, Burstyn starts the story in deep dissatisfaction, going through the motions of a dissolute marriage and a depressing home life. Even before she tickles the ivories, the actress sings the disappointment blues. Early on, it's a silent rendition, implicit like so many sides of Alice's character. Scorsese and his leading lady introduce her through such suggestions, sketching out the story of her adulthood in little more than the reactions to a husband's brutishness and a son's misbehavior. Even so, there's no overwhelming dourness in the portrait, for Burstyn keeps it loose, surprisingly funny, and so vital it seems the movie's alive with its own heartbeat.
Maybe because of that tonal limberness, the inciting incident of Alice's journey comes as a mighty shock. Her man has died, and she's penniless. Logically, it's time to go on the road with the kid in the passenger seat, looking for a new start somewhere else. Then again, the scene when Alice gets news of her sudden bereavement is a comedic masterclass. Playing along with Scorsese's jarring cuts, Burstyn bursts into tears like a gymnast tripping into a somersault. One recognizes reality in Burstyn's work, but an unbound excess makes it funny. This is not polite widowhood nor idealized grief, but it feels all the more authentic because of it.
I won't waste your time recounting every brilliant aspect and nuance of Burstyn's work, but some things merit special applause. Though singing was one of the actress's major insecurities when pursuing this project, there's a prettiness to her rustiness, a rhyme with the picture's general grit and disillusionment. Waves of frustration undulate beneath the tune, a level of self-consciousness only bested by those awkward scenes when Alice tries to sell herself as a lounge crooner. Then there's her dynamite dynamic with costars, be it the romance with Kris Kristofferson, the sisterhood forged with Diane Ladd, or the tentative and ill-fated attraction for Harvey Keitel. That said, her work with Alfred Lutter shines brightest, equal parts humor and annoyance, love and devotion and exhaustion.
In its first decades, the Academy loved to celebrate martyrized mothers and other sorts of sanctified motherhood in the Best Actress category. One could bend backward to say that's why Burstyn won with Alice, but the characterization runs away from such reductive talk. The rough edges matter most, even in a much-criticized ending that the thespian forces into functionality. Because of those departures from Oscar tradition, Burstyn thought she would surely lose. Though her contract for Same Time, Next Year on Broadway accommodated a night off for the Academy Awards, she decided not to attend.
Reading contemporary interviews and statements, one finds such quotes as: "I don't win. I never do. I just get nominated" – a premature statement for someone who had only two previous nominations under her belt by then. True, Burstyn had won nothing so far for Alice, but there were fewer awards back then, making precursor-based predictions a moot point. Indeed, she was the only nominee to miss the ceremony, leaving Martin Scorsese to accept the prize on her behalf. Later, reflecting upon it all for Women's Wear Daily, she said: "Did it mean that much to me? Well, I don't know. It changes your life like anything that will change your life. People react to it. I mean, it's not bad winning it."
Diahann Carroll in CLAUDINE
Diana Sands was supposed to play the title role in John Berry's Claudine. However, between development and the final shoot, the actress died from cancer at the age of 39. In the aftermath of this tragedy, Diahann Carroll was brought in to replace her. For the actress best known for television appearances, the part was an opportunity to shed an image of refinement and upper-class elegance she had become synonymous with. In other words, it was a chance to break with the typecasting mold, and Carroll was eager for the challenge. And goodness, was she up for it, delivering the best performance of her lifetime, maybe one of the best of the entire decade in American cinema.
Carroll's entrance is splendid, setting her up as a harried and busy woman, full of maternal concern and stress pouring out of every pore. It's evident in how she handles Claudine's brood of six kids, her decisive stride, and the grace maintained through it all. Another beautiful moment comes minutes later when the welfare-dependent single mother first crosses paths with James Earl Jones' Roop. The clandestine housecleaner and the garbage man hit it off instantly, but some poorly chosen words make her go from reticent attraction to weary caution. There's some trepidation in there, as if Claudine likes the idea of following her heart for once and doing something wilder than advised.
It's the little thrill of a cautious person indulging in a bit of incaution, savoring that risk like the finest ambrosia, a respite from everyday drudgery. At home, a self-satisfied smirk will complement the shock of her kids at knowing mother has a hot date, one of many small annotations that let us perceive Claudine's mood, her exhaustion at the end of a working day, and the excitement of what's to come. The date itself is a miraculous pas de deux between the two performers, the characters studying each other even as they are swept by the promise of a good time, maybe something deeper. There are hiccups, for Roop doesn't always know what to say, and Claudine won't apologize for her choices or her children.
All in all, it's a frank but rosy and optimistic look at middle-aged romance that feels rare, both in the context of 1974 and 2024. It's more remarkable still for how it presents those tones in a social realist milieu, eager to balance candid drama with the joys usually found in mainstream Hollywood larks. It's also carnal as fuck when given a chance, delivering us access to the character's intimacy even as it denies such insight to the other people in the frame. Watch Carroll go from forced cordiality to insolence once the visiting social worker goes too far, inquiring about Claudine's sex life. In other areas, the actress must contend with the character's contradictions, like the tough love she shows her teen daughter, who's trying to affirm her independence while still a kid.
With Jones, she can be incredibly dry and no-bullshit, like when her man's having a breakdown – more of a hissy fit – over the money he's got to send his kids from a past marriage. Carroll doesn't play it prickly, but neither is she totally accommodating. Instead, the actress negotiates caution and care, navigating between tenderness for this man she cares about and what his reaction may mean for her future. Or, more importantly, for her kids' future. In this and other ways, Claudine is a complex character, grounded and three-dimensional, sometimes inconsistent, but never difficult to understand. Through Carroll, we come to know her like an old friend.
Even so, the film bombed at the box office, setting itself up for a tricky traverse through awards season. Though pictures focused on Black characters were becoming more commonplace in the 70s, they rarely accrued the attention afforded to White-led prestige fare. Thankfully, a pioneering airing on cable TV during Oscar voting did the trick, bolstering the movie's chances. This way, though she had lost the Golden Globe to Raquel Welch in The Three Musketeers, Carroll nabbed a much-deserved Academy Award nomination. She also won the Image Award from the NAACP, joined by Jones, who took Best Actor.
Faye Dunaway in CHINATOWN
According to the diva herself, Faye Dunaway had been in a bit of a rut after the success of Bonnie & Clyde. Her star shined bright as the sun in the late 60s, but the beginning of a new decade dimmed that light a smidge. Though I admire many of her work from this period, it's easy to understand the actress' misgivings. In that sense, 1974 was a major triumph, reconnecting Dunaway with her audiences, with box office juggernauts, and challenging roles. In the space of a few months, she appeared in both The Three and Four Musketeers, The Towering Inferno, and, of course, Chinatown, that masterpiece of New Hollywood noir.
That's not to say making a movie miracle was easy or smooth sailing. Everyone, from director Roman Polanski to producer Robert Evans, has had some nasty things to say about Dunaway's on-set antics, often related to her maddening perfectionism and the need to control all aspects of her screen appearance. And yet, just as the horror stories pop up, they tend to end on the same note. Despite everything, it was worth it. And who can deny it when witnessing Dunaway's take on Evelyn Mulwray? She's a classic femme fatale twisted by Robert Towne's script and Polanski's direction into a symbol for Los Angeles' dark side, scars of exploitation, a landscape pillaged by powerful men, bruises and glamour embodied in a mystery cum feminine grotesque.
But no matter those men's heady ideas, she'd be nothing but an interesting concept if not for Dunaway, who takes everything into consideration to deliver a work that's both cogent characterization and beguiling star turn. She's an arresting presence from the moment Evelyn steps into frame, an arch judgmental presence in the fuzzy background until Jack Nicholson's gumshoe notices her, and she can come into focus. Not that the sharper image will help us get a grip on Evelyn. Whether smiling like the cat that ate the canary or breaking apart, she's an impermeable entity, fully realized yet distant from us. At points, it seems like she's alienated from the camera's gaze, concealed by a smokescreen of lies and deception, style and subterfuge.
None of it is accidental, mind you. Instead, these are deliberate choices by a mercurial performer adapting modern methodologies to a role fashioned out of outdated archetypes. Evelyn passes most of her time mid-pose, a brittle mannequin with cracks showing across its surface. With every passing, they spread like spiderwebs. Moreover, she's perpetually anxious, thinking on her feet and trying to safely escape a treacherous situation. As audience, we can see her ponder it all behind those eyes, so nervous and hurt, strategizing each word that comes out of her cupid-bowed mouth. It's a performance of utmost secrecy, a character that's neither innocent nor guilty, who's hard-pressed to disclose the ugly truths that underpin her entire existence.
Somehow, Dunaway makes it all legible, playing Evelyn like a consummate liar who is, nevertheless, far from a virtuosic one. Her deceits are easily unmasked, and her suffering is latent. Not to mention that, while the actress is shameless, Evelyn is full of shame, haunted by it like the heroine in a haunted house movie. Through Dunaway's craft, this spin on femme fatale duality accounts for new sensibilities and dramatic priorities, evoking vintage presentation without going archeological or anywhere near pastiche. Instead, it's more of an autopsy. Long before Evelyn meets her end on the streets of Chinatown, Faye Dunaway has already taken a scalpel to her and peered inside.
Like many of her fellow nominees at the 47th Academy Awards, Dunaway had little precursor support backing up her bid for Hollywood's most beloved trophy. A Golden Globe nomination was the main thing, along with a general reverence toward Chinatown as one of the year's best pictures. It also seems important to note that Evelyn is a borderline supporting role, existing solely in the detective's gaze and consistently defined by his limited purview. In that sense, she could be compared to another '74 contender whose category placement is highly debatable.
Valerie Perrine in LENNY
An erstwhile Vegas showgirl with little acting experience and no formal training to speak of, Valerie Perrine might not have looked like an obvious Oscar contender. Regardless, she was a favorite going into nomination morning, perchance her film's most unanimously praised element. Even Dustin Hoffmann's take on Lenny Bruce received less love from critics, while Perrine was a beloved sensation. This is interesting, though unsurprising, when considering Bob Fosse's black-and-white biopic. Though Lenny is putatively about its titular character, we rarely get to see him in the same way we see Perrine's Honey, the comedian's long-suffering wife.
Not coincidentally, Lenny starts on Perrine's lips, her mouth forming unsure words of reminiscence about Bruce's problems with the law. Voice soft like a silk caress, it becomes apparent she's being interviewed by some unseen filmmaker. Immediately, we're made aware of the picture's structural gambit, a Kane-like device in which Fosse portrays his central figure through third-party testimony and the man's standup act. And so, rather than seeing Bruce's interiority, we witness surfaces and projections, guessing what's going on inside by examining the façade. With Honey, however, the opposite is true. He's a historical notion, and she's a character.
Even if her screen time is relatively limited, the woman's perspective dominates Lenny, prefiguring Perrine as the performer who most ostensibly guides the viewer through the film. It's she who defines tone, starting with a burlesque introduction narrated with utmost candidness, a touch of embarrassment but genuine just the same. It's a club number bizarrely presented by Fosse, all about the mechanical motion of the strip tease, the plastic quality of the show rather than its sensuality. For her part, Perrine hones on her director's strange approach and delivers exactly what he requires. She does it repeatedly throughout Lenny, stealing the movie along the way.
From burlesque to a meet (un)cute, the picture cuts salacious spectacle into a raw realism that's rough to the touch. The actress' sleepy gaze remains, though. Some might describe it as bedroom eyes, but only those who don't register the forlorn weighting down Perrine's visage, her resting sad face. But how can one not perceive it when we get a direct contrast? No matter how gloomy Honey might look in flashback, she's almost radiant in the interview portion, a woman who has processed the trauma of yesteryear and heads into life with a hint of hope in her heart. Often, she seems much more tragic in moments of past joy than when remembering the shock of loss, the grief of domestic abuse, or addiction terrors.
The back and forth is startling, often heartbreaking, saying much while verbalizing very little. Perrine's Honey is the picture's grime given human form, sweaty and visceral to the point you can see the yellowed tobacco stains in black-and-white footage. She's its ugliness peeking through even when happiness rules the scene. Think of her reaction to a feast of flowers, delighted surprise going teary-eyed before a strident scream spoils the beauty the moment could have had. If a bruise covered with cheap makeup were a person, she'd be this fictionalized woman. She's mascara tears and the smile that comes the morning after, when you clean your face and decide to live another day.
A litany of fascinating choices demand remark, but, as with every one of these performances, you must stop at some point. I'll end with an odd revelation – that it's almost comforting when the melancholy of yesterday infects the now, leaving Honey in sober sorrow – "he was so damn funny." Because of such excellence, it's impossible to argue with the Academy's decision to nominate Perrine, even as some would fit her into a different category. In fact, she won Best Supporting Actress from NBR and the NYFCC. Post-Oscars, she also took a prize at Cannes and was nominated for the Best Actress BAFTA.
Gena Rowlands in A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE
What more can one say about one of the medium's defining works? Is there anything left to say about one of the greatest performances ever captured on film? Could anyone add new insight into an achievement whose recognition validates the Oscars rather than the other way around? Honestly, 'no' is the proper answer. I almost cower before A Woman Under the Influence, but this article's structure demands some words, so here I go into inevitable failure. After all, no description of mine will ever do justice to Gena Rowlands' Mabel Longhetti, who, according to legend, was conceived as a stage project before it became evident that no actor could tap into the necessary intensity eight times a week.
Under John Cassavetes's direction, Rowlands articulates the emotional scope of classic opera through the grammar of cinéma-vérité-style naturalism. Indeed, one of the first things Mabel does after finding herself alone is to put on an opera, though she usually prefers ballet. The sung-out feeling is twinned with the actress's solipsistic wanderings. On paper, it shouldn't work. Even when describing it, the pairing of tone and performance strategy reads as incompatible. Yet, the dysfunction is integral to the movie's genius and, consequently, Rowlands' performance. For what is A Woman Under the Influence if not its leading lady's tour de force?
People describe her as mad, angry, and fragile, delicate yet stormy enough that she could burn down the house if struck by a particularly bad mood. Fittingly, the isolation of mental illness is written all over Rowlands, whether alone with the camera or sharing the scene with other actors. Even with Peter Falk as Nick, Mabel's husband, Rowlands seems alone, lost within herself, for that is her character's constant state. But of course, constancy is something that's oft beyond the woman's grasp, even if self-knowledge might not be so far away. We and every man in the story may struggle to understand the woman, but Rowlands knows her inside out. It's a cliché to state such things, but the actress truly becomes her character. She is Mabel.
That doesn't preclude spontaneity, of course. At times, it feels like Mabel is trying to make sense of her behavior. But more than that, Rowlands looks like she's surprising herself, caught by the discovery of a new star system in the Mabel galaxy. Consider the midpoint in the movie, when Nick institutionalizes his wife. Rowlands' reaction is tender, like someone pressed on a bruise assumed to have faded already. But then, watch as the actress shocks herself out of it, and transitions to rage, a bubbling wave of scalding fury coming to the surface in fits and starts, an intermittent snarl. Her breakdown during that sequence is fire and fury, something mighty that crumbles to pieces before too long. It's the impotent panic of a trapped animal, powerless as it sees the cage door closing.
The work manages to be wildly demonstrative, constantly engaged with scene partners, yet essentially introspective. What could read like an overwrought cocktail of actorly tics becomes a distillation of raw human behavior, taken to its essence. If an explosion can be simultaneously implosion, that's Rowlands here. And we are made to believe in her, consumed by the humanity on screen, no matter the context or terrible choice foisted upon us by the characters. For example, at a bar, Mabel speaks to a stranger as if he's an old acquaintance, and one only realizes the reality of the situation through his reaction. Rowlands plays Mabel's truth, so acutely there's no space for doubt. As her family is trapped within the whirlwind of Hurricane Mabel, so are we.
But beyond a twister flick before its time, A Woman Under the Influence is a war movie of sorts. One that trades the trenches for the domestic front. And it's all the more painful since the factions have little fighting spirit in them, mostly acting against the other out of self-destructive impulse or good intentions turned harmful in practice. Nick and Mabel love each other so much it hurts. To witness it, powerless from the outside, hurts even more. That's why, at the very end, we're almost rooting for the mess to come back when the catatonia of a diffused Mabel beckons despair in those who love her. Not just the characters but the camera as well, for this woman possessed has passed her demonic curse onto the moviemaking machine.
Alchemical, mercurial, primordial, Gena Rowlands never, not once, pulls a punch or asks for the audience's pity. Instead, she earns our pity. Her work is such a powerhouse achievement that it feels gauche to say she should have won the Oscar. At least, she won the Golden Globe, the NBR, the award from the Kansas Critics and New York critics, and the San Sebastian jury prize to go with them. Still, considering the quality of the competition, this is one Oscar injustice that stirs up little outrage. Even with Rowlands in the running, who could be mad at a Burstyn win? Who could be mad at any possible result out of this lineup? Even a five-way tie would have tasted like justice.
SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE (1973) Ingmar Bergman
Still, an asterisk should always exist next to this lineup because Oscar's ruling disqualified one of the main contenders. I've written plenty about Liv Ullmann in Scenes from a Marriage already, so I'll direct you to that Almost There post and be done with it. My favorite part of that whole debacle might be the open letter many of the eventual Best Actress nominees wrote supporting Ullmann's Oscar bid. It's both hilarious and entirely expected that the only one who didn't sign it was Dunaway because, of course, she didn't. But maybe, in the end, that sense of industry support was more important than an actual nomination. Ullmann did say that "…all those actresses campaigning on my behalf is more gratifying than the award itself."
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MISS JANE PITTMAN (1974) John Korty
Another thespian deemed ineligible because of a project's televisual nature was Cicely Tyson, who, in 1974, delivered one of her career-defining star turns in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. Though she won the Emmy for it, the actress reflected, in later years, that she might have gotten that coveted little golden man had the film made it to the big screen. In Europe, where it did, Tyson was honored with a BAFTA nomination. Such actress-y excellence makes one find untruth in Burstyn's statement that "there are so few decent roles for women these days. If you work, you get nominated." You don't need to stay within the ineligible limbo of Ullmann and Tyson, either.
Cloris Leachman is a laugh riot in Young Frankenstein, for which she earned a well-deserved Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical. Within the realm of Academy-favored flicks, there's also something to be said about Jacqueline Bisset's turn as the starlet linchpin of Truffaut's Day for Night. Though they didn't get nominated, I imagine those two figured in some ballots. On another note, some of Ullmann's other 1974 performances might have benefited from the Scenes of a Marriage kerfuffle. She played a saintly Queen Christina in The Abdication and brought a zest of European anguish to Jan Troell's Zandy's Bride, an American western on themes of marital strife.
THIEVES LIKE US (1974) Robert Altman
That year also saw Sissy Spacek eligible for the first time with Badlands, a reactive sort of performance that would struggle to catch the Academy's attention in less stacked years than 1974. Still, it's remarkable work. Also filmed in the flatland vistas, there's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre whose leading lady, Marilyn Burns, is a scream queen for the ages. Shelley Duvall is another matter altogether, a humble wallflower full of wounded-bird melancholy in Altman's Thieves Like Us. Still in that milieu, one must give a shout-out to Goldie Hawn, who makes the dramatic swerves of Spielberg's Sugarland Express ring true even when they verge on road movie melodrama.
AMAZING GRACE (1974) Stan Lathan
In the land of Blaxploitation, Pam Grier is incandescent as Foxy Brown, while Moms Mabley delivers a comedic masterclass in Amazing Grace, her last grand big screen appearance and one of the best records of her genius. Rounding out this review of American contenders, Ann Sothern serves Mama Bates's realness and then some in The Killing Kind. That spin on the Psycho model with an even more pronounced Oedipal complex is a sleazy gem, managing to unearth the queer undertones of the original even while massacring pretty young things like any proto-slasher should. From there, one must travel across the Atlantic.
THE MOTHER AND THE WHORE (1973) Jean Eustache
Mariangela Melato acts up a storm in Lina Wertmüller's Love and Anarchy, surrendering to the titular themes, lust and reverie, to the greediness of desire and the stratagems of a freedom fighter. Charlotte Rampling is similarly inspired in her various '74 projects, including the Italian double bill of a fetishist nightmare, The Night Porter, and a period movie misadventure, 'Tis a Pity She's a Whore. On a more minor key, Bernadette Lafont and Françoise Lebrun are incredible as The Mother and the Whore, Jean Eustache's morose masterpiece on post-68 France. Of all these potential nominees, they're the two I'd be most eager to see in a final lineup, with Mabley close behind. But there are only five slots and a single winner. With such an embarrassment of riches, it's impossible to choose!
Who's your winner in the 1974 Best Actress race? And who would you most like to see break into the Oscar lineup?