Sunday, August 29, 2010
From the Vault: Malcolm X
Certain to be both overpraised and overcriticized, the best assessment of Malcolm X is that it's a good film with many flaws, though the problems are cinematic, not political. Adapted by Spike Lee from Malcolm X's autobiography and a screenplay by the late Arnold Perl, Malcolm X approaches its subject epically in both scope and length but still fails somehow to make the civil rights activist's evolution from drug-addicted thief to martyred leader consistently compelling.
Much of the problem lies in the fact that while Malcolm's early life of crime and love of lindy-hopping is fascinating, it doesn't justify taking up more than a third of the film's 201-minute running time with Lee's stylized, nostalgic look at that chapter. While it is important and inspiring to see where Malcolm came from and what he overcame, the reason Malcolm X is well-known is because of what he did following his prison conversion to Islam, not before.
The film itself best emphasizes this point as it picks up speed once the imprisoned Malcolm (Denzel Washington) begins to learn about and becomes a follower of Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad (Al Freeman Jr.). Despite the drag they make on the entire film, the early sequences are notable for containing the film's best performance, Delroy Lindo as West Indian Archie, who becomes a sort of criminal mentor to the young Malcolm.
As for the latter two-thirds of Malcolm X, the news is much better as the slain leader's words and deeds fill the screen with powerful sequences, including a march on a police station when an acquaintance is beaten and arrested. There also are quieter sequences that work, such as Malcolm's gradual realization that Elijah Muhammad may not be all that he says, culminating in Malcolm's Hajj to Mecca, as well as a prison debate between Malcolm and a priest (a nice cameo by Christopher Plummer).
One of the film's other major weaknesses is an instrumental score by Terence Blanchard that is so overblown and intrusive, I had to check the credits to make certain Lee hadn't hired John Williams by mistake. When the soundtrack relies on music of the different eras, it works, but Blanchard's composition is often distracting.
For anyone who has read The Autobiography of Malcolm X, they may have some questions about the choices Lee makes. For example: Why does Malcolm's pilgrimage to Mecca, a pivotal chapter in the book, seem to take up so little screen time? When Malcolm announces how the trip changes him, the film audience isn't as clear on what caused the effect as a reader of the book is.
Why was the composite character of Baines (Albert Hall) created? In the film, Baines is supposed to be a fellow prisoner who reinforces Malcolm's grammatical skills, turns him on to Elijah Muhammad and grows jealous of Malcolm's notoriety to the point of omitting him from the Nation of Islam's newspaper. Readers will realize that these actions were attributed to (at least) three different individuals: a prisoner who only helped Malcolm within the prison's walls, his brother Reginald, who brought Malcolm into contact with the Nation of Islam and Elijah Muhammad's son, who ran the publication.
Finally, why are Malcolm's siblings, such as half-sister Ella and the aforementioned Reginald, nonexistent in the film when they each played important roles in Malcolm's life?
Washington's performance is subtle. There are few big moments, but plenty of small ones, from a marriage proposal by phone to the small smile of relief before assassins shoot him down.
As for Lee as writer and director, he has again failed to hit the artistic heights of the incomparable Do the Right Thing. His direction is obvious and plodding at times and, once again, his script seems to lack structure and focus, though this may have something to do with how he adapted the previously written screenplay.
Despite my reservations about the film, Malcolm X is often riveting and works well as a sort of historical Cliff Note on the life of a man few today know much about. By the time, Lee brings Malcolm's story to a close with two powerful epilogues, most of the gaps the film has had until that point are filled and Malcolm's message becomes loud and clear, resonating with the viewer long after the credits end.
By the end, one has witnessed the evolution of a man and his philosophy, and a scope of American history seldom seen on screen. It's a shame that so much of what precedes those final passages is sloppy, but the power of its ending and of isolated moments before make the journey more than worthwhile.
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Labels: 90s, Denzel, John Williams, Plummer, Spike Lee
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Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Oh, The Plays You Can See
By Hannah W
Now that Tony nominations are out, we might be kicking ourselves for not seeing this play or that play, especially the ones that earned four, five or maybe even six of these honors. How can you predict the Tony winners if you haven’t seen the productions? Luckily, many of the nominated plays are still up and running on Broadway, and you have until June 13 to make your predictions.
Amazingly, every play that opened this season (and therefore is eligible for a Tony) and is still running has been noticed in at least one category. No matter what you decide to see, you’ll see a show that has earned a Tony nod.
As expected, Fences, the August Wilson revival that opened at the Cort Theatre on April 26, is the leader in Tony nominations. With a total of 10 recognitions, including Best Revival of a Play, Best Direction, Best Leading Actor and Actress, one has to assume that there is something to this production.
Though the commercial power of the show stems from its Tony nominated leading stars, Denzel Washington and Viola Davis, the show has also been hailed for its scenic design, costume design, lighting design, sound
design and original score. Yes, score. Though Fences Branford Marsalis wrote jazz music for the scene breaks that can have you dancing in your seat. This music is seamlessly incorporated into the production so well that you almost forget you’re really waiting for the actors to return. Fences is the story of Troy Maxson (Washington), a trash collector in 1975 Pittsburgh. Troy is dreamer with dashed dreams. He constantly tells stories to his wife, Rose (Davis), and his best friend, Bono (played by Best Featured Actor nominee Stephen McKinley Henderson) of amazing things in his life, past and present. However, he is terrified his son, played by Chris Chalk, will go farther and become something more than Troy ever could.
Another leading contender that comes as somewhat of a surprise is Red, John Logan’s play about famed expressionist painter Mark Rothko. As with Fences, Red is up for Leading Actor, Featured Actor, Best Direction, Scenic Design, Lighting Design and Sound Design, but this play’s seven acknowledgements are rounded out by a Best New Play nomination.
Red is about Art. Through the years, we’ve seen a number of Broadway plays and musicals question Art, what it means to create Art and why Art exists. Perhaps the most well known is Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George, last seen on Broadway in 2008.
Though both shows deal with artists struggling with what they want from their art, the Mark Rothko of Red has already achieved his fame. Red takes place during the two years he spent creating a series of murals for the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York City. The discussions that take place between Rothko, played by Alfred Molina, and his fictional assistant, Ken, played by Eddie Redmayne, unveil the two men’s opinions on Art, what Art means and the kinds of people who are able to see Art, versus the ones who should have that privilege.
The play is completely staged in Rothko’s art studio, with red paint on the floor and large expressionist paintings line the walls. During each scene break, a new painting is displayed to the audience, giving an idea for how Rothko wanted these murals to exist. The deep reds, crimsons and blacks of these paintings reflect the growing despair Rothko feels in sharing these murals with diners who can never appreciate them as he does.
Most of the time it seems that the only plays nominators take notice of are heavy dramas. Not this year. Ken Ludwig’s 1986 farce Lend Me a Tenor is up for Best Revival of a Play, among others. Though the cast consists of well known comedians such as Tony Shalhoub (TV’s Monk) and Justin Bartha (The Hangover), the standout performance is giving by Jan Maxwell, for which she has received a Best Featured Actress nod. Maxwell plays Maria, the jealous wife of a famed Italian tenor, who travels with her husband to Cleveland. A comedy of errors ensues in a Cleveland hotel between the opera manager, his assistant, his daughter, the chairwoman of the board, the opera diva and the bellhop. And we cannot forget the costumes in this production. If you remember Roger De Bris’s Anastasia (or Chrysler Building) dress from The Producers, be aware that it makes an encore appearance.
Making its Broadway debut is another comedy, this one dark, starring the Tony nominated Christopher Walken. Martin McDonagh’s new play, A Behanding in Spokane, might be a disappointment to those who loved his earlier work. True McDonagh fans might leave upset over the relatively blood-free stage (though this is not true of body parts). The true genius of Walken, plying a man who has spent half a century looking for his dismembered hand, is evident by his comic timing and dry humor, so that you might not miss the gore.
Two of the recognized plays, Collected Stories and Race, are structured to make you deconstruct both sides of an argument that doesn’t have a clear right or wrong answer. While that might sound like it can’t possibly result in entertaining theater, the performances give life to these very wordy plays. Collected Stories, the second Donald Margulies play produced by Manhattan Theatre Club this season, is essentially a series of discussions between two women, a celebrated author and her up-and-coming student. Linda Lavin, who plays the author, is up for Best Leading Actress for this strong performance. Race, the second David Mamet play to be seen on Broadway this season, uses the backdrop of a law firm defending a white man charged with raping a black woman to discuss the difficult topic of race relations. Noticed for Scenic Design, Race also received a Featured Actor nomination for David Alan Grier, playing the black lawyer on the case.
Much more plot-based than either Race or Collected Stories, Geoffrey Nauffts’s Next Fall is extremely
thought-provoking in a different way. Next Fall presents two different ideas of Christianity and religion in general, seen from both an agnostic and Christian standpoint. The play centers around a gay couple, Adam (agnostic) and Luke (religious), as they try to overcome this major disparity in their relationship. At times funny (Jesse McCartney music makes an appearance) and at times heartbreaking, the struggle of these two men is shown without judgment. The audience members are the judges, most of whom picked a side before entering the theater. Next Fall is recognized for Best Play and Best Direction, due to Geoffrey Nauffts' ability to present different views on religion and write a compelling love story at the same time.
Originally a limited run at Manhattan Theatre Club, Time Stands Still closed March 27, but if you missed this Best New Play contender with Laura Linney, a Best Leading Actress nominee, you’re in luck. The first Donald Margulies play of the season is coming back to Broadway in the fall as a commercial production. Time Stands Still tells the story of photojournalist Sarah (Linney) and what happened to her life after she is injured while on assignment in Iraq. Sarah is so devoted to her job of observing the world that she finds it hard to participate and connect without her camera. We can’t escape the news reports of the war our country is currently engaged in, but rarely do we stop and think about those people who bring us our information. Time Stands Still places them firmly in our consciousness.
Of the eight plays currently running on Broadway, seven are Tony nominees for the 2009/2010 season, and God of Carnage, the only other play, is last year’s Tony winner for Best New Play, though it will close June 27. You have your pick of comedy or drama, new play or revival. The season has been kind to the playgoing theatergoer, as every play has something to offer. Which plays are you going to see?
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Labels: Awards, Denzel, Laura Linney, Mamet, Sondheim, Theater, Viola Davis, Walken
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Sunday, May 02, 2010
From the Vault: Philadelphia
Just because a film covers an important subject, that doesn't make it a success by default and that's the case with Jonathan Demme's Philadelphia, a film whose earnestness gets in the way of its drama.
Philadelphia tells the story of Andrew Beckett (Tom Hanks), a smart lawyer at a prestigious law firm. In addition to being an excellent lawyer, Andrew happens to be gay and infected with AIDS, two facts he's hidden from his conservative colleagues.
When the firm (headed by Jason Robards) begins to get an inkling of the truth, they frame him for incompetence and fire him. Angered by the injustice done to him, Beckett seeks an attorney to argue a wrongful termination suit against the firm. After several lawyers turn him down, he settles for Joe Miller (Denzel Washington), an ambulance chaser who's just as homophobic as Beckett's ex-colleagues.
While Philadelphia boasts excellent performances (Hanks and Washington are equally good), the script seems determined to avoid even the slightest venture into gray areas. The movie spells out everything neatly and clearly.
Beckett's family stands solidly with him in his fight and the firm's defense gets as much serious consideration as the lone gunman theory got in JFK. They even feel compelled to toss in a shot of the firm's defense attorney (Mary Steenburgen) muttering how much she hates this case.
Anyone with a brain, a heart or both knows what the verdict should and probably will be. As a result, instead of creating a vivid drama concerning AIDS discrimination, Demme and screenwriter Ron Nyswaner fashion a film that won't change any minds. Some will cheer justice, others will cry propaganda and few in between will be swayed.
What Philadelphia does have going for it are the performances of Hanks and Washington. Hanks soars as the AIDS-stricken lawyer and Washington plays his role intelligently enough that his gradual change of heart doesn't seem sudden or artificial. In fact, you can't be positive he even has one.
Philadelphia isn't a horrendous film, just a tremendously disappointing one. Instead of being a thought-provoking landmark it ends up playing more like a two-hour episode of L.A. Law.
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Labels: 90s, Demme, Denzel, Hanks, Robards
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Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Robert Culp (1930-2010)
His best-known roles always placed Robert Culp as part of a team or in the role of a sidekick, but that gives a bit of short shrift to the career of the actor, who has died at age 79 after taking a fall at his home.
His first big hit was as the agent teamed with Bill Cosby on the landmark 1960s series I Spy. In the 1980s, he aided the unlikely hero in the campy sensation The Greatest American Hero. Those were far from the only things on Culp's resume however.
Beginning in the early 1950s, he worked on many of the standard dramatic and episodic television series such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents and the various theatrical series. His first regular series, Trackdown, was a western where Culp played a Texas ranger tracking down an assortment of bad guys. The series lasted 70 episodes over three years and its main director was a man named Sam Peckinpah.
His first feature film appearance didn't arrive until 1963 in PT 109, the story of JFK's experiences in World War II. Perhaps his best-known film role was in 1969's Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. He also played the president opposite Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington in the adaptation of John Grisham's The Pelican Brief.
For me though, some of my favorite Culp memories are his four appearances on various episodes of Columbo, particularly the one where he played a motivational expert who used subliminal messages to lead to a murder. R.I.P. Mr. Culp.
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Labels: Denzel, Hitchcock, Julia Roberts, Obituary, Peckinpah, Television
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Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Digging for ideas within a genre
By Edward Copeland
Some films have so much going for them, are so close to hitting the mark, that it's frustrating as you watch the missed opportunities. This is certainly the case with Ridley Scott's American Gangster which, despite having a top-notch cast and interesting themes, just doesn't quite finish with a win.
Written by Steven Zaillian, American Gangster tells the true story of Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington), who went from a driver for the kingpin of the Harlem mob to an enterprising player who dominated the heroin trade in New York in the 1970s.
It also tells the parallel story of Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe), an honest N.Y. detective attending night school to become a lawyer who ends up heading a federally sanctioned task force to make inroads in the war on drugs.
The plot sounds like numerous fictional and nonfictional accounts of crooks and the cops who chase them, but American Gangster has a more interesting take on the genre buried within its surface. Unfortunately, the plodding pace of the overlong film holds the movie back from being truly great.
The movie sets up its theme in the opening, when Lucas, still a driver for the Harlem kingpin Bumpy Johnson (played in an uncredited cameo by Clarence E. Williams III), hears Bumpy lament the disappearance of the middle man as chain stores started replacing mom-and-pop operations in the late 1960s. When Bumpy passes on, Frank decides to pursue that entrepreneurial spirit his boss decried, setting up direct dealings with opium merchants in Southeast Asia, an operation enabled by the Vietnam War.
The script's almost anthropological approach neatly sets up the parallels between Lucas and Roberts, as both are upsetting "the natural order of things" on both sides of the law.
Crowe gives one of his most subdued performances as Roberts, but Washington's work as the ultracool and slick Lucas dominates the proceedings.
Living in the flashy, Superfly-like world of gaudy gangsters, Lucas realizes that "the loudest one in the room is the weakest one in the room" and does his best to operate below the radar, without the flash that would attract attention. In an interesting way, Lucas is really the better family man, taking care of his aging mother (the great Ruby Dee) and assorted kin, while Roberts neglects his son and pursues several brief flings.
In another respect, Lucas really isn't the most villainous character in American Gangster. That goes to Josh Brolin as a particularly corrupt and vile detective. 2007 has really been a breakout year for Brolin, with his great work here and in No Country for Old Men.
The fantastic ensemble also includes solid turns by Chiwetel Ejiofor, Armand Assante, Idris Elba, John Hawkes, Ted Levine, Jon Polito and the best role Cuba Gooding Jr. has had in more than a decade.
Scott does well creating the atmospherics of the film's '70s milieu, but he takes so long getting the story going that by the time it gets to its payoffs, it feel rushed. It's a shame, because there is a great story within American Gangster that wants to raise questions such as whether it's really in anyone's business interests to stop the drug trade, but much of that gets lost in the film's flab.
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Some films have so much going for them, are so close to hitting the mark, that it's frustrating as you watch the missed opportunities. This is certainly the case with Ridley Scott's American Gangster which, despite having a top-notch cast and interesting themes, just doesn't quite finish with a win.
Written by Steven Zaillian, American Gangster tells the true story of Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington), who went from a driver for the kingpin of the Harlem mob to an enterprising player who dominated the heroin trade in New York in the 1970s.
It also tells the parallel story of Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe), an honest N.Y. detective attending night school to become a lawyer who ends up heading a federally sanctioned task force to make inroads in the war on drugs.
The plot sounds like numerous fictional and nonfictional accounts of crooks and the cops who chase them, but American Gangster has a more interesting take on the genre buried within its surface. Unfortunately, the plodding pace of the overlong film holds the movie back from being truly great.
The movie sets up its theme in the opening, when Lucas, still a driver for the Harlem kingpin Bumpy Johnson (played in an uncredited cameo by Clarence E. Williams III), hears Bumpy lament the disappearance of the middle man as chain stores started replacing mom-and-pop operations in the late 1960s. When Bumpy passes on, Frank decides to pursue that entrepreneurial spirit his boss decried, setting up direct dealings with opium merchants in Southeast Asia, an operation enabled by the Vietnam War.
The script's almost anthropological approach neatly sets up the parallels between Lucas and Roberts, as both are upsetting "the natural order of things" on both sides of the law.
Crowe gives one of his most subdued performances as Roberts, but Washington's work as the ultracool and slick Lucas dominates the proceedings.
Living in the flashy, Superfly-like world of gaudy gangsters, Lucas realizes that "the loudest one in the room is the weakest one in the room" and does his best to operate below the radar, without the flash that would attract attention. In an interesting way, Lucas is really the better family man, taking care of his aging mother (the great Ruby Dee) and assorted kin, while Roberts neglects his son and pursues several brief flings.
In another respect, Lucas really isn't the most villainous character in American Gangster. That goes to Josh Brolin as a particularly corrupt and vile detective. 2007 has really been a breakout year for Brolin, with his great work here and in No Country for Old Men.
The fantastic ensemble also includes solid turns by Chiwetel Ejiofor, Armand Assante, Idris Elba, John Hawkes, Ted Levine, Jon Polito and the best role Cuba Gooding Jr. has had in more than a decade.
Scott does well creating the atmospherics of the film's '70s milieu, but he takes so long getting the story going that by the time it gets to its payoffs, it feel rushed. It's a shame, because there is a great story within American Gangster that wants to raise questions such as whether it's really in anyone's business interests to stop the drug trade, but much of that gets lost in the film's flab.
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Labels: 00s, Denzel, Josh Brolin, R. Scott, Russell Crowe
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Monday, November 19, 2007
Oscar's rules for GLBT characters
By Edward Copeland
This post was for the Queer Blog-a-Thon hosted at Queering the Apprentice, which apparently no longer exists. Be warned: the words below will contain spoilers for a lot of films, too many to mention, so don't read it and whine later.
The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has been fairly generous in the past 20 or so years in nominating (and sometimes rewarding) actors and actresses who play gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered characters on screen. However, this does come with a price. Not to their careers, but in deciding whether or not the role gets nominated in the first place.
There seems to be only two types of gay roles that get deemed worthy of Oscar recognition: ones that are comicly broad or one where the gay character in question either ends up dead or alone. Look at just a couple of highly praised roles that got snubbed come Oscar time. Everyone thought Dennis Quaid was a lock for a nomination with his tortured married gay man in the 1950s in Far From Heaven, but he didn't make the cut. In the end of the film, his character has accepted his sexuality and found a boyfriend: no nomination for him.
Rupert Everett was a lot of fun as Julia Roberts' best gay friend in My Best Friend's Wedding, but his character was out, proud and presumably in a relationship. Strike him from your nominating ballot.
Now, here come the spoilers, as I look at all the performers who did get nominated or won an Oscar for playing a gay character. I'm only counting characters that are explicitly gay, not implied ones such as Clifton Webb in Laura For sake of simplicity, I'm going chronologically.
Peter Finch in Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971)
The first openly gay character that I can find with a nomination set one of the patterns: He's alone at the end.
Al Pacino and Chris Sarandon in Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
Sarandon's character of Leon is already institutionalized (and wants nothing to do with Sonny) when we meet him. Sonny (Pacino) ends up alone and in prison.
James Coco in Only When I Laugh (1981)
The first instance (post Dog Day Afternoon) of Oscar nominating an openly gay character was for Coco's broad comic turn in this lesser Neil Simon outing.
John Lithgow in The World According to Garp
Robert Preston in Victor, Victoria (both 1982)
Preston's great turn definitely belongs more in the broad comic category, though he might also be an exception since he is allowed to have a boyfriend by film's end. Lithgow, as the NFL player turned transsexual in Garp, might be an exception. He's alive at the end, but his role is mostly played for laughs and the film never provides him with a significant other.
Cher in Silkwood (1983)
Another possible exception, though the film makes it unclear if she's alone at the end, though she certainly looks guilt-stricken over possible involvement in her friend Karen's death.
William Hurt in Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985)
Ding ding ding. We have a winner. While the movie was certainly a drama, Hurt does a lot of histrionic flouncing AND he ends up dead in the end, even after his straight cellmate (Raul Julia) gives him a mercy fuck.
Bruce Davison in Longtime Companion (1990)
It was five years before another gay character earned a nomination and Davison's character got the double whammy. First, he has to watch his lover die of AIDS, leaving him alone, and then he dies as well (and not even on screen).
Tommy Lee Jones in JFK (1991)
Here's another example of a broad performance in a drama and while Jones' character lives in the end, it is complicated by the fact that he is portrayed as a villain (and with some over-the-top gay orgy scenes that only Oliver Stone could dream up). In contrast, Joe Pesci playing the less showy gay character who does get killed, didn't earn Academy notice.
Jaye Davidson in The Crying Game (1992)
First, Dil's lover gets killed during an IRA kidnapping and then when he/she falls for his captor, Fergus (Stephen Rea) gets sent to prison and Dil waits patiently, even though Fergus shows no intention of abandoning his heterosexuality.
Tom Hanks in Philadelphia (1993)
Gay and dead takes home the prize again, though at least Hanks' portrayal wasn't a broad one, even if Denzel Washington gave the better lead role in the film.
Greg Kinnear in As Good As It Gets (1997)
I don't think Kinnear's character had a significant other by film's end, but I do remember he took a bad beating.
Ian McKellen in Gods and Monsters (1998)
Here is an openly gay actor nominated for portraying a true-life openly gay director. Alas, James Whale dies in the end (as he did in real life) but the real travesty was that McKellen (and Nick Nolte and Edward Norton) lost to Roberto Benigni (Life Is Beautiful).
Kathy Bates in Primary Colors (1998)
Bates was great as a take-no-prisoners political operative working on the campaign of a Bill Clinton-like candidate. Alas, her lesbian character had principles and ended up firing a gun into her head.
Hilary Swank in Boys Don't Cry (1999)
Swank won the first of her two Oscars for lead actress by playing the gender-confused Brandon Teena. It also was the first of two times that Swank made it to the winner's circle by getting beaten to death.
Javier Bardem in Before Night Falls (2000)
Based on a real person, Bardem's character has to fight problems in Cuba before getting to N.Y. for one of the longest death scenes (from AIDS) I've ever seen.
Ed Harris in The Hours (2002)
The same year that the Academy snubbed Dennis Quaid for his fine work in Far From Heaven, they nominated this awful performance by the usually fine Harris as an artist dying of AIDS.
Nicole Kidman in The Hours (2002)
If Virginia Woolf hadn't walked herself into the river, this nomination and win probably would have never happened.
Julianne Moore in The Hours (2002)
In a way, her character here is similar to the one Quaid plays in Moore's other 2002 film. She's married, but unable to accept her sexuality. By the film's end, she appears to be alone, so she gets a pass while Quaid got snubbed. It may also explain one of the rare occasions where Meryl Streep didn't get an Oscar nomination since her lesbian character in The Hours had a lover in the end and doesn't die.
Charlize Theron in Monster (2003)
Another win based on a true story. Theron took the executed lesbian serial killer right up to the winner's circle.
Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote (2005)
This may be the true exception to the rule. Based on a real life character, the story didn't follow Truman Capote to his death and he did have a longtime companion. The closest this comes is denying him his crush on the executed killer.
Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Two nominated performances of gay character, so the Academy got to take one of each: Gyllenhaal's character ends up dead, Ledger's ends up alone.
Felicity Huffman in Transamerica (2005)
I'm not sure where to place this performance of an in-process transsexual. She doesn't die in the end.
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This post was for the Queer Blog-a-Thon hosted at Queering the Apprentice, which apparently no longer exists. Be warned: the words below will contain spoilers for a lot of films, too many to mention, so don't read it and whine later.
The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has been fairly generous in the past 20 or so years in nominating (and sometimes rewarding) actors and actresses who play gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered characters on screen. However, this does come with a price. Not to their careers, but in deciding whether or not the role gets nominated in the first place.
There seems to be only two types of gay roles that get deemed worthy of Oscar recognition: ones that are comicly broad or one where the gay character in question either ends up dead or alone. Look at just a couple of highly praised roles that got snubbed come Oscar time. Everyone thought Dennis Quaid was a lock for a nomination with his tortured married gay man in the 1950s in Far From Heaven, but he didn't make the cut. In the end of the film, his character has accepted his sexuality and found a boyfriend: no nomination for him.
Rupert Everett was a lot of fun as Julia Roberts' best gay friend in My Best Friend's Wedding, but his character was out, proud and presumably in a relationship. Strike him from your nominating ballot.
Now, here come the spoilers, as I look at all the performers who did get nominated or won an Oscar for playing a gay character. I'm only counting characters that are explicitly gay, not implied ones such as Clifton Webb in Laura For sake of simplicity, I'm going chronologically.
The first openly gay character that I can find with a nomination set one of the patterns: He's alone at the end.
Sarandon's character of Leon is already institutionalized (and wants nothing to do with Sonny) when we meet him. Sonny (Pacino) ends up alone and in prison.
The first instance (post Dog Day Afternoon) of Oscar nominating an openly gay character was for Coco's broad comic turn in this lesser Neil Simon outing.
Robert Preston in Victor, Victoria (both 1982)
Preston's great turn definitely belongs more in the broad comic category, though he might also be an exception since he is allowed to have a boyfriend by film's end. Lithgow, as the NFL player turned transsexual in Garp, might be an exception. He's alive at the end, but his role is mostly played for laughs and the film never provides him with a significant other.
Another possible exception, though the film makes it unclear if she's alone at the end, though she certainly looks guilt-stricken over possible involvement in her friend Karen's death.
Ding ding ding. We have a winner. While the movie was certainly a drama, Hurt does a lot of histrionic flouncing AND he ends up dead in the end, even after his straight cellmate (Raul Julia) gives him a mercy fuck.
It was five years before another gay character earned a nomination and Davison's character got the double whammy. First, he has to watch his lover die of AIDS, leaving him alone, and then he dies as well (and not even on screen).
Here's another example of a broad performance in a drama and while Jones' character lives in the end, it is complicated by the fact that he is portrayed as a villain (and with some over-the-top gay orgy scenes that only Oliver Stone could dream up). In contrast, Joe Pesci playing the less showy gay character who does get killed, didn't earn Academy notice.
First, Dil's lover gets killed during an IRA kidnapping and then when he/she falls for his captor, Fergus (Stephen Rea) gets sent to prison and Dil waits patiently, even though Fergus shows no intention of abandoning his heterosexuality.
Gay and dead takes home the prize again, though at least Hanks' portrayal wasn't a broad one, even if Denzel Washington gave the better lead role in the film.
I don't think Kinnear's character had a significant other by film's end, but I do remember he took a bad beating.
Here is an openly gay actor nominated for portraying a true-life openly gay director. Alas, James Whale dies in the end (as he did in real life) but the real travesty was that McKellen (and Nick Nolte and Edward Norton) lost to Roberto Benigni (Life Is Beautiful).
Bates was great as a take-no-prisoners political operative working on the campaign of a Bill Clinton-like candidate. Alas, her lesbian character had principles and ended up firing a gun into her head.
Swank won the first of her two Oscars for lead actress by playing the gender-confused Brandon Teena. It also was the first of two times that Swank made it to the winner's circle by getting beaten to death.
Based on a real person, Bardem's character has to fight problems in Cuba before getting to N.Y. for one of the longest death scenes (from AIDS) I've ever seen.
The same year that the Academy snubbed Dennis Quaid for his fine work in Far From Heaven, they nominated this awful performance by the usually fine Harris as an artist dying of AIDS.
If Virginia Woolf hadn't walked herself into the river, this nomination and win probably would have never happened.
In a way, her character here is similar to the one Quaid plays in Moore's other 2002 film. She's married, but unable to accept her sexuality. By the film's end, she appears to be alone, so she gets a pass while Quaid got snubbed. It may also explain one of the rare occasions where Meryl Streep didn't get an Oscar nomination since her lesbian character in The Hours had a lover in the end and doesn't die.
Another win based on a true story. Theron took the executed lesbian serial killer right up to the winner's circle.
This may be the true exception to the rule. Based on a real life character, the story didn't follow Truman Capote to his death and he did have a longtime companion. The closest this comes is denying him his crush on the executed killer.
Two nominated performances of gay character, so the Academy got to take one of each: Gyllenhaal's character ends up dead, Ledger's ends up alone.
I'm not sure where to place this performance of an in-process transsexual. She doesn't die in the end.
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Labels: Bardem, Capote, D. Quaid, Denzel, Hanks, J. Gyllenhaal, Julia Roberts, Julianne Moore, K. Bates, Lithgow, Neil Simon, Nicole Kidman, Oliver Stone, P.S. Hoffman, Pacino, Pesci, R. Preston, Tommy Lee Jones, Whale, William Hurt
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Monday, April 23, 2007
Tales Told By Idiots: Bad Bard, Bad Bard, Whatchagonnado?
This post is part of the Shakespeare Blog-a-Thon being coordinated at Coffee, Coffee and More Coffee. Check there for links to other posts.
By Odienator
Shakespeare wrote some of the most stirring and beautiful lines trapped in paper, but you wouldn't know it listening to some of the actors who tried to speak them. For every Gielgud, O'Toole and Olivier, there are double the number of actors who just couldn't get their mouths around that iambic pentameter. Why do they even try? Is it the paycheck? Or the notion that reciting Shakespeare will win you an Oscar, as it did for Sir Larry O and Richard Dreyfuss?
In honor of the Shakespeare-Blog-a-Thon, here is a brief list of actors who should never have attempted to tell us what a piece of work man is, or who did so for nefarious Oscar purposes. Who should have taken Shakespeare's "and the rest is silence" seriously?
Stunt Casting, Thy Name is Kenneth Branagh
I used to think Kenneth Branagh was a great Shakespearean actor, but I am starting to question if he seemed so good because he cast people who were so bad and played scenes with them. I appreciate how he tries to bring Shakespeare to the groundlings of today, and I've liked most of his adaptations, but he sure likes his stunt casting. The phenomenon is not new — John Wayne as Genghis Khan, anyone? — but Shakespeare's dialogue is a perilous mixture of rhythm, elocution and emotion. It is not about the physicality of the actor, it is about their vocal delivery. Director Branagh, in his admirable desire to make the teenagers saddled with reading Shakespeare grow to love it, apparently ignored the train wrecks he witnessed in his viewfinder. For every great performance he recorded (Derek Jacobi, Emma Thompson), Branagh gave us:
Believe it or not, Keanu Reeves can be an effective actor. I'm not one of those people who pick on "Mr. Whoa" because it's fashionable; credit is deserved where it is due. While he is nowhere as bad as some have reported, he is still out of his league. Reeves has a perpetual scowl and a flat delivery; he is a verbal deer caught in the Bard's headlights. Reeves would have benefited greatly if Ted Logan had met Shakespeare in that time-travelling phone booth. I had an easier time buying that Reeves and Denzel Washington were brothers than anything coming out of Reeves' mouth.
Jack Lemmon was so effective in Glengarry Glen Ross because his vocal pauses, stammers and ticks fit well with Mamet's "cuss cuss cuss pause cuss cuss pause pause cuss cuss cuss cuss pause" style of writing. Like the Bard, Mamet's dialogue is musical and needs the right interpreter to make it sing. Can you imagine Bob Newhart doing Marc Antony's speech in Julius Caesar or Christopher Walken doing Hamlet? ("What ... a piece of work is man How noble ... in reason...") Lemmon's tics and Shakespeare's verse fit as well as Slowpoke Rodriguez singing a rap by Krayzie Bone, or Shirley Bassey doing Metallica. Every line is delivered differently as Lemmon tries in vain to bend the Bard toward his Lemmon-isms. It's painful to watch him flail. As much as I love Jack Lemmon, his performance here lives up to his last name.
In the court of Hollywood, I propose the Cruz-Depardieu Law, which states that Gerard Depardieu and Penélope Cruz should NEVER act in English. In Hamlet, Depardieu becomes Depar-don't, an amazing feat since all he has to say is "Yes, my lord" about 12 times. While I'm proposing laws, might I add the "Williams Anti-Caricature Law," which states that, if clueless on how to play a role, Robin Williams must never fall back on stereotypical racial and homosexual voices. Williams' Osric has an odd gay vibe that thankfully distracts from his horrendous line readings. Perhaps he was trying to get an Oscar; it worked for Richard Dreyfuss' Chelsea boy Richard III.
As Felix Unger Would say: Oscar! Oscar! Oscar!
Sometimes actors think they can tackle Shakespeare simply because they have been praised or honored for other work. Others believe their star is so big that they are invincible. Still others believe that Shakespeare is the way to that elusive Oscar. This is why some of these actors tried their luck at the Bard.
Look up "feast or famine" in the dictionary and you'll find a picture of Jessica Lange. Either she's superb (Men Don't Leave, All That Jazz, Frances, Tootsie) or superbad (God, where do I start? Hush, Big Fish, King Kong). The failure of Titus rests on the shoulders of director Julie Taymor whose film completely misses the point of the Bard's play: this is a sick parody. She turns it into a sick ABC Afterschool Special Done by MTV. The play's violence is so gruesome and over-the-top, and the situations so telenovela-dramatic that it is impossible to take with the seriousness and the underlying social commentary Taymor tries to push. If any Bard adaptation screamed out for the geeky, caressing hands of Quentin Tarantino, it's this one. After Lange played Blanche DuBois opposite daughter cusser-outer Alec Baldwin, she started adding Blanche to almost every role she played afterward. As the Queen of the Goths, she looks less Goth and more Glam, like Ziggy Stardust crossed with Divine, and she attacks her lines as if she were the Queen of the Southern Gothics. Vengeful lines come out goofy, seductive lines come out cold, and she is histrionic in all the wrong places. There is no rhythm nor rhyme to her performance, and for Shakespeare, that's the kiss of death.
I once heard this anecdote about A Double Life: during the course of the film, one of the audience members turned to his wife and said "So when does he sing 'Mammy?'" Whether this is true I've no idea, but Colman's performance as an actor driven mad by his performance in Othello couldn't have been any worse had he done Jolson's signature tune. While there is less Shakespeare in this film than in the aforementioned adaptations, what's here plays an integral part in this loony film noir directed by George Cukor. Colman plays the original Method Actor, a man who becomes the characters he plays. Knowing this, someone still suggests he tackle Othello. (Why not Joan of Arc? At least he wouldn't kill anybody.) Colman starts spouting Othello's lines at inopportune moments, then takes his delusion to its logical conclusion by giving Shelley Winters a really effective neck rub. Colman's Othello is so hammy it makes Vincent Price's turn in the superior Theater of Blood look like vintage Gielgud, and I found myself feeling envious for Shelley — at least she didn't have to listen to him anymore. Oscar fell for it, and they gave him Best Actor. Colman strangled the Oscar onstage during the ceremony. (Just kidding.)
Unless you can give me another reason why the Washington Wizards player even attempted Shakespeare in this film, I'm going to have to go with the Dreyfuss Defense: Quoting Shakespeare gets you an Oscar nomination! At least he didn't play a rapping genie like that OTHER basketball player.
in A Midsummer Night's Dream
Both Flockhart and the usually reliable David Straithairn have a hard time convincingly spouting their dialogue. Straithairn is stiff and uncomfortable and Flockhart is an 18th century Ally McBeal clone, as if that series had been reimagined as Black Adder. Her last scene in the film made me want to poke my eyes out and ram Q-tips into my ears.
Peter O'Toole CAN do Shakespeare. My beef (and I realize I'm cheating here) is that he does it solely to get an Oscar nomination. There is no need for him to do it in this film, and considering that we already know how great he is at it, I saw his Venus recitation as a shameful pander. There really is nothing here that is Oscar worthy — O'Toole playing a dirty old boozy pussy hound actor is akin to me playing someone with a Y-chromosome — so this is thrown in to remind us how good O'Toole once was and why Oscar should be shamed into giving him the Oscar he so richly deserved elsewhere. Thankfully, it didn't work.
There are many others (Bruce Willis in Moonlighting's "Atomic Shakespeare" episode, to name one) but as Polonius said, "brevity is the soul of wit," so I shall exeunt here. Parting is such sweet sorrow.
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Labels: Blog-a-thons, Branagh, Cukor, Denzel, Emma Thompson, Gielgud, J. Lange, Lemmon, Mamet, O'Toole, Olivier, Penélope Cruz, R. Colman, Robin, Shakespeare, Shelley Winters, Television, Walken, Willis
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Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Spike's 2nd 2006 home run
By Edward Copeland
Spike Lee has roared back in 2006 in a big way. I had all but written off the talented filmmaker, but then this year brought a one-two punch of a great documentary and a great action film. Inside Man actually preceded his great When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, but I just caught up with it on DVD and I was impressed. It's probably the film of his I've liked best since his work in the early 1990s.
Looking back at old reviews of his films I wrote at the time, I noticed the recurring theme of fault usually lay with Spike Lee's screenwriting. In the case of Inside Man, he works from a script by first-time screenwriter Russell Gewirtz and it seems to have freed Lee up as a director and he moves this heist thriller along at a breakneck pace with much style.
Sure, he still feels required to use that damn moving sidewalk shot that he's been using in practically every film he's made for more than a decade, but it's so brief that you let it slide. Hell, Lee even manages to get a score from his favorite composer, Terence Blanchard, that enhances the film instead of serving as a suffocating distraction.
The story, which I'll only provide in the vaguest of terms in order to let the movie unfold for those who haven't seen it, concerns the takeover of a Manhattan bank by a team of thieves led by Clive Owen. Thanks to a vacationing detective, Detective Harry Frazier (Denzel Washington) and his partner Detective Bill Mitchell (Chiwetel Ejiofor) get the assignment, despite the fact that Frazier remains under suspicion for stealing some money from a case. The setup seems familiar from many other films, most notably Dog Day Afternoon and more fictional heist tales, but Lee and Gerwitz's script keeps springing surprises on the audience and makes the entire enterprise fresh. On top of the great performances by Washington and Owen, who has to act most of the time beneath a mask, Inside Man also includes a mysterious fixer played by Jodie Foster in her best role in ages and the bank's aging founder (Christopher Plummer) who secures her services to make certain that some things in the bank don't get out with the robbers. I can't recall a performance from Foster that seems less mechanical or embraces glamour the way she does here as Madeline White. Her screen time is limited, but she gives the movie a jolt every time she appears, whether she's opposite Washington, Owen or Plummer.
Still the real star of Inside Man is Spike Lee, who seems to have rediscovered his talent both in fiction and documentary. After many years of disappointments from him, it brings a smile to your face to know Lee still has it. It makes you wish Woody Allen could follow his cue and film someone else's script. Aside from the great movie itself, the DVD offers an often funny commentary by Lee (so much so that he often cracks himself up). He even offers advice (If you ever meet Christopher Plummer, do NOT bring up The Sound of Music) and gives lots of insight as to how shots were set up, asides about gangsta rap and even frequent updates about how the movie crew's baseball team performed. Inside Man provides a great ride — and I for one am grateful that Spike Lee seems to be back and I hope he gets to make his long-sought project with the 93-year-old Budd Schulberg (On the Waterfront) about Joe Louis.
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Labels: 00s, Clive Owen, Denzel, Jodie Foster, Plummer, Spike Lee, Woody
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Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Lead or supporting?
By Edward Copeland
It's a debate that's been going on almost from the moment the Academy Awards instituted the supporting acting categories in 1936. Most often, people get put in the "wrong" category for marketing purposes. For example, the producers of Ordinary People had to know in 1980 that Timothy Hutton was a long shot to win lead in a year with Robert De Niro's Jake La Motta in Raging Bull, so they followed the old young performer conceit and stuck him in supporting actor where he won. Here are some examples through the history of the Oscars where I though people were in the wrong category. At the Tony Awards the use the criteria (though it can be overturned) that if you are above the title you are a lead, if you are below you are featured. This had led to cases where Joel Grey got left out of a nomination for the Broadway revival of Chicago and when the same role can be featured some years and leads others (such as the King in The King & I and the M.C. in Cabaret. Feel free to agree or disagree or add your own.
1936: In the very first year, they really sort of messed up by putting Luise Rainer up as lead in The Great Ziegfeld. She won anyway.
1937: Even though Roland Young was as much a lead as Cary Grant and Constance Bennett in Topper, he got relegated to supporting actor where he lost.
1939: An insanely strong years for movies and performances, somehow Greer Garson made the cut as lead in Goodbye Mr. Chips when she shows up late in the film and disappears soon after.
1940: Walter Brennan won his third supporting actor Oscar in five years for his great performance in The Westerner, but he was as much a lead as Judge Roy Bean in that film as Gary Cooper was.
1944: The Oscars themselves got screwy this year nominated Barry Fitzgerald's turn in Going My Way in both the lead and the supporting categories. He won supporting and they changed the rules after that so the same performance couldn't pop up in both. In the same year, they relegated the great Claude Rains to supporting actor for his title role in Mr. Skeffington, where he is barely off screen for most of the movie.
1947: Many people argue over this one but I think that Edmund Gwenn's Santa Claus in Miracle on 34th Street is a lead, but he won in supporting.
1950: Some people think that Anne Baxter was supporting in All About Eve, but I think they were right to put both her and Bette Davis in lead.
1956: I think the great James Dean was clearly supporting in Giant and who knows — if they'd stuck him there, he might have won.
1958: Really the entire cast of Separate Tables was supporting, which made David Niven's win all the more ridiculous. The same year, it can also be argued that Shirley MacLaine was really supporting in Some Came Running, though she snagged her first lead nomination for it.
1959: Practically the entire field of best actress contenders could have been considered supporting. Only Doris Day and Audrey Hepburn were true leads. Neither Katharine Hepburn nor Elizabeth Taylor can really be called a lead in Suddenly Last Summer and that year's winner, Simone Signoret in A Room at the Top, is definitely supporting — though she is great.
1962: One of the first instances of sticking the young in supporting. Mary Badham's Scout is really the lead of To Kill a Mockingbird, but she got stuck in supporting with another arguable young lead — Patty Duke in The Miracle Worker.
1963: Patricia Neal deserved an Oscar for her work in Hud — but it should have been in supporting actress. There really is no question here — she's not a lead.
1967: Both Anne Bancroft's turn in The Graduate and Katharine Hepburn's in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner are arguably supporting turns.
1968: Ron Moody's delightful Fagin in Oliver! is yet another supporting role that sneaked in the lead field. In the same year, Gene Wilder's Leo Bloom in The Producers was on screen nearly as much as Zero Mostel's Max Bialystock, though he got stuck in supporting. When the musical version hit Broadway decades later, both Max and Leo were nominated as leads. When the musical was turned into a lame movie, Matthew Broderick's Leo was campaigned as supporting, to no avail.
1970: Again, they were reaching to fill out the lead actress slate and that's how Glenda Jackson got nominated there for Women in Love and won.
1972: Many people believe that Marlon Brando and Al Pacino are in the wrong categories for The Godfather, that Pacino is the true lead and Brando supporting. I go back and forth on what I think and I've never settled on a decision. That same year, Paul Winfield and Cicely Tyson were both nominated as leads for Sounder when young Kevin Hooks is the real star. Winfield is especially out of place, since he spends much of the film off-screen in prison.
1984: Haing S. Ngor won supporting actor for The Killing Fields, but I say he is a co-lead with Waterston, since the second half of the movie focuses on his character almost exclusively.
1988: Again, a young actor gets stuck in the supporting ghetto by virtue of his age. There can be no argument that Running on Empty was about River Phoenix's character, but he didn't get a shot at lead.
1989: To my eyes, Dead Poets Society is an ensemble about the kids and Robin Williams' teacher was supporting. The same year, I think a case can be made that Martin Landau was the lead of Crimes and Misdemeanors.
1991: We get to probably the most obvious of all cases of mistaken categorization: Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs. Hannibal Lecter is in the 2-hour film for less than 30 minutes, he doesn't enter right away and once he escapes, he's never heard from again until the film's coda. There is no doubt in my mind — Hopkins is supporting here and he should have won supporting.
1996: A less-argued case here, but one I feel strongly about. Frances McDormand should have been in supporting for Fargo. She doesn't enter the movie for 30 minutes and then she disappears for significant stretches. William H. Macy who was nominated for supporting actor actually has more screen time than McDormand. When you time it, the film is almost equally divided between McDormand, Macy and Steve Buscemi, so they are either all lead or all supporting in my book and I say supporting. Also in 1996, Geoffrey Rush's work in Shine is really more limited than you'd think for a lead performance. I've never timed it (because I didn't want to sit through it again) but I bet Noah Taylor has almost as much screen time as the younger David Helfgott.
2001: Another case where marketing trumpeted facts and Ethan Hawke got put in supporting actor for Training Day when he's in the movie before Denzel Washington and after him as well with no significant absences.
2002: A mess of issues involving The Hours, where there again is really no lead and it sure seems like the supporting-nominated Julianne Moore and the non-nominated Meryl Streep have as much if not more screen time than lead winner Nicole Kidman.
2004: One of the biggest miscategorizations and unnecessary nominations of all time: Jamie Foxx in Collateral. He's so clearly the lead in that movie, in it before and after Tom Cruise shows up. It's not like Foxx wasn't going to win lead for Ray, so this nomination boggles my mind.
2005: This year has one glaring questionable categorizations Is Jake Gyllenhaal any less a lead in Brokeback Mountain than Heath Ledger? I don't think so. Of course, I also think Gyllenhaal's work is noticeably weaker than Ledger's, but that's not part of this discussion.
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It's a debate that's been going on almost from the moment the Academy Awards instituted the supporting acting categories in 1936. Most often, people get put in the "wrong" category for marketing purposes. For example, the producers of Ordinary People had to know in 1980 that Timothy Hutton was a long shot to win lead in a year with Robert De Niro's Jake La Motta in Raging Bull, so they followed the old young performer conceit and stuck him in supporting actor where he won. Here are some examples through the history of the Oscars where I though people were in the wrong category. At the Tony Awards the use the criteria (though it can be overturned) that if you are above the title you are a lead, if you are below you are featured. This had led to cases where Joel Grey got left out of a nomination for the Broadway revival of Chicago and when the same role can be featured some years and leads others (such as the King in The King & I and the M.C. in Cabaret. Feel free to agree or disagree or add your own.
1936: In the very first year, they really sort of messed up by putting Luise Rainer up as lead in The Great Ziegfeld. She won anyway.
1937: Even though Roland Young was as much a lead as Cary Grant and Constance Bennett in Topper, he got relegated to supporting actor where he lost.
1939: An insanely strong years for movies and performances, somehow Greer Garson made the cut as lead in Goodbye Mr. Chips when she shows up late in the film and disappears soon after.
1940: Walter Brennan won his third supporting actor Oscar in five years for his great performance in The Westerner, but he was as much a lead as Judge Roy Bean in that film as Gary Cooper was.
1944: The Oscars themselves got screwy this year nominated Barry Fitzgerald's turn in Going My Way in both the lead and the supporting categories. He won supporting and they changed the rules after that so the same performance couldn't pop up in both. In the same year, they relegated the great Claude Rains to supporting actor for his title role in Mr. Skeffington, where he is barely off screen for most of the movie.
1947: Many people argue over this one but I think that Edmund Gwenn's Santa Claus in Miracle on 34th Street is a lead, but he won in supporting.
1950: Some people think that Anne Baxter was supporting in All About Eve, but I think they were right to put both her and Bette Davis in lead.
1956: I think the great James Dean was clearly supporting in Giant and who knows — if they'd stuck him there, he might have won.
1958: Really the entire cast of Separate Tables was supporting, which made David Niven's win all the more ridiculous. The same year, it can also be argued that Shirley MacLaine was really supporting in Some Came Running, though she snagged her first lead nomination for it.
1959: Practically the entire field of best actress contenders could have been considered supporting. Only Doris Day and Audrey Hepburn were true leads. Neither Katharine Hepburn nor Elizabeth Taylor can really be called a lead in Suddenly Last Summer and that year's winner, Simone Signoret in A Room at the Top, is definitely supporting — though she is great.
1962: One of the first instances of sticking the young in supporting. Mary Badham's Scout is really the lead of To Kill a Mockingbird, but she got stuck in supporting with another arguable young lead — Patty Duke in The Miracle Worker.
1963: Patricia Neal deserved an Oscar for her work in Hud — but it should have been in supporting actress. There really is no question here — she's not a lead.
1967: Both Anne Bancroft's turn in The Graduate and Katharine Hepburn's in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner are arguably supporting turns.
1968: Ron Moody's delightful Fagin in Oliver! is yet another supporting role that sneaked in the lead field. In the same year, Gene Wilder's Leo Bloom in The Producers was on screen nearly as much as Zero Mostel's Max Bialystock, though he got stuck in supporting. When the musical version hit Broadway decades later, both Max and Leo were nominated as leads. When the musical was turned into a lame movie, Matthew Broderick's Leo was campaigned as supporting, to no avail.
1970: Again, they were reaching to fill out the lead actress slate and that's how Glenda Jackson got nominated there for Women in Love and won.
1972: Many people believe that Marlon Brando and Al Pacino are in the wrong categories for The Godfather, that Pacino is the true lead and Brando supporting. I go back and forth on what I think and I've never settled on a decision. That same year, Paul Winfield and Cicely Tyson were both nominated as leads for Sounder when young Kevin Hooks is the real star. Winfield is especially out of place, since he spends much of the film off-screen in prison.
1984: Haing S. Ngor won supporting actor for The Killing Fields, but I say he is a co-lead with Waterston, since the second half of the movie focuses on his character almost exclusively.
1988: Again, a young actor gets stuck in the supporting ghetto by virtue of his age. There can be no argument that Running on Empty was about River Phoenix's character, but he didn't get a shot at lead.
1989: To my eyes, Dead Poets Society is an ensemble about the kids and Robin Williams' teacher was supporting. The same year, I think a case can be made that Martin Landau was the lead of Crimes and Misdemeanors.
1991: We get to probably the most obvious of all cases of mistaken categorization: Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs. Hannibal Lecter is in the 2-hour film for less than 30 minutes, he doesn't enter right away and once he escapes, he's never heard from again until the film's coda. There is no doubt in my mind — Hopkins is supporting here and he should have won supporting.
1996: A less-argued case here, but one I feel strongly about. Frances McDormand should have been in supporting for Fargo. She doesn't enter the movie for 30 minutes and then she disappears for significant stretches. William H. Macy who was nominated for supporting actor actually has more screen time than McDormand. When you time it, the film is almost equally divided between McDormand, Macy and Steve Buscemi, so they are either all lead or all supporting in my book and I say supporting. Also in 1996, Geoffrey Rush's work in Shine is really more limited than you'd think for a lead performance. I've never timed it (because I didn't want to sit through it again) but I bet Noah Taylor has almost as much screen time as the younger David Helfgott.
2001: Another case where marketing trumpeted facts and Ethan Hawke got put in supporting actor for Training Day when he's in the movie before Denzel Washington and after him as well with no significant absences.
2002: A mess of issues involving The Hours, where there again is really no lead and it sure seems like the supporting-nominated Julianne Moore and the non-nominated Meryl Streep have as much if not more screen time than lead winner Nicole Kidman.
2004: One of the biggest miscategorizations and unnecessary nominations of all time: Jamie Foxx in Collateral. He's so clearly the lead in that movie, in it before and after Tom Cruise shows up. It's not like Foxx wasn't going to win lead for Ray, so this nomination boggles my mind.
2005: This year has one glaring questionable categorizations Is Jake Gyllenhaal any less a lead in Brokeback Mountain than Heath Ledger? I don't think so. Of course, I also think Gyllenhaal's work is noticeably weaker than Ledger's, but that's not part of this discussion.
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Labels: Bancroft, Bette, Brando, Denzel, Garson, Hawke, Hopkins, James Dean, K. Hepburn, Landau, Liz, Luise Rainer, MacLaine, McDormand, Niven, Pacino, Patricia Neal, Rains, Robin, W. Brennan
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Friday, December 23, 2005
From the Vault: Mo' Better Blues
Peeking out beneath three of the actors on the Mo' Better Blues poster are posters of Spike Lee's previous film, Do the Right Thing. It's as if Lee knew the inevitable comparisons that would be made between his new film and last year's masterpiece.
Comparison won't be the main factor behind the disappointment with Mo' Better Blues. Instead, the lack of a cohesive screenplay and the presence of a script in need of major reworking dooms the new movie.
Mo' Better Blues stars Denzel Washington as Bleek Gilliam, a man who hated taking trumpet lessons as a child but who learned to make a living off the instrument anyway. Bleek's selfishness requires the attention of two women (Joie Lee, Cynda Williams) to meet his needs. but he still chooses music over both of them, at least initially.
Bleek's loyalty proves to be another flaw, continuing to let his childhood friend Giant (Spike Lee) manage his career despite the fact he does so poorly. At least that's the impression viewers are expected to take away from the film. Lee's script seems to be a filmed outline of plot points that were never fully fleshed out and doesn't allow much in the way of character development.
The audience never fully understands where their interest should focus. Is this the story of a man and his music? A story of a man and two women? Perhaps it's about loyalty and relationships between friends who work for and with each other. The answer seems to be all of the above but, as in Lee's School Daze, the strands fail to form a cohesive whole.
Selected bits remain that work, such as a wonderful scene where Bleek's two-timing ways catch up with him in his bedroom, though most scenes go nowhere. The worst of this comes near the end where a situation begins and rushes to completion as the film covers six years in about 15 or 20 minutes.
Furthermore, unlike School Daze, whatever story Lee desires to tell fails to be readily apparent. School Daze failed because it tried too hard to do too much. Mo' Better Blues fails because it doesn't try hard enough to do anything of note.
Surprisingly, the music itself also weakens the movie. Granted, the story concerns music but the film's score intrudes continuously in every scene to the point of distraction. On the other hand, two numbers ("Pop Top 40" and "Harlem Blues") manage to give the film some lift it desperately needs, possessing all the energy and spirit the rest of the film lacks.
Lee's work always excites visually, but this time the story and structure do nothing to enhance his arresting imagery.
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Labels: 90s, Denzel, Spike Lee
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