t wouldn't be
Oscar season if our jaws didn't tighten up just a bit when we look over
the list of nominations and see contestants who shouldn't be there and look
in vain for others who should.
My own personal therapeutic suggestion? Kick ass and take names. Academy schmademy. Here are the most egregious overlooks for acting nominations in 1996 and some of the more questionable calls that bumped them:
Best Actor -- Gene Hackman for The Chamber.
"...when
Hackman lets the decades of suppressed, twisted humanity well up in this
reprehensible and pathetic figure, a man who otherwise nurtured might have
put a good mind and a passionate nature to other uses -- this great actor
somehow manages to reach out and break our hearts. The performance is everything
Hackman's done best for 30 years -- focused, unfussy, intellectually and
emotionally measured -- and more. It's one of those culminating roles for
a great film actor; supported by his famously self-effacing plainness of
technique, Hackman makes Grisham's point about generational intolerance
specifically human and, in doing so, transcends himself with an unforgettable
performance of stunningly complex emotional truth. With less than three
months to go, this is the 1996 Best Actor performance to beat." (HH,
October 1996)
Not even nominated. Hackman is taken for granted, and there seems to be some sentiment that because he won a Best Supporting Oscar five years ago for Unforgiven (after taking Best Actor for The French Connection nearly 20 years before) that he's "gotten his." Not fair. At 66, Hackman is doing some of the best -- and most varied -- work of his career.
Who got it? Woody Harrelson playing porn publisher Larry Flynt. There is less to maestro-of-the-large-gesture Milos Forman's The People vs. Larry Flynt than meets the eye. Harrelson's performance may be one of the best things about this much-vaunted "free-speech issue" film, but that's a left-handed compliment at best.
Best Actress -- Ellen Burstyn for The Spitfire Grill.
"The
most refreshing surprise of the movie -- given its tightly enforced coziness
and its penchant for dealing in archetypes -- is the central, nicely balanced
performance of Ellen Burstyn as Hannah, the flinty owner of the grill. Having
difficulty managing both the cafe and an increasingly troublesome hip, Hannah
reluctantly hires and boards the mysterious Percy; bit by begrudging bit,
she comes to trust and rely upon her. It's the sort of role that has become
the all-too-common bane of our maturer actresses' careers -- the Cute Curmudgeon
-- and its dread, scenery-chewing manifestations have made us, from time
to time, want either to weep in embarrassment for, or slap: Anne Bancroft,
Shirley MacLaine, Lauren Bacall, Piper Laurie (the list goes on) and, once
or twice, Burstyn herself. Here, she heroically skirts disaster, tripping
up only occasionally over the more insurmountable chestnuts with which writer-director
Zlotoff has strewn her way. Taken as a whole, it's an intelligently restrained
and graceful performance, and has cumulative power -- one of the best of
Burstyn's career; it may, quite possibly, earn her an Oscar nomination."
(HH -- September 1996)
Apparently not -- for two reasons: (1) a bit of controversy that attached to the film's provenance (it was produced as a profit center for a charitable organization), and (2) the legendarily gnat-like attention span of Academy voters. Spitfire had a pulsed release after gaining acclaim at the Sundance Festival early in the year, and a movie's chances for being remembered at nomination time -- and even more particularly, great performances in an uneven film -- frequently nosedive in direct proportion to the number of months that have elapsed since its release.
Who got it? Diane Keaton. Yes, we all love Diane, but her work in Marvin's Room really isn't even as distinguished as co-star Meryl Streep's.
Best Supporting Actor -- Gene Hackman for Birdcage.
Much of this remake lacks the subtle hilarity of 1981's La Cage aux Folles and -- though he is still endearing -- encourages all of star Nathan Lane's excesses. There is one performance, however, that utterly eclipses its prototype: Hackman as the beleaguered right-wing politician. The discomfort he registers in meeting his daughter's outre prospective in-laws -- most memorably in a brilliantly understated bit of distracted small talk that comes off like a comic precis of No Exit -- becomes not only one of the surest comic cornerstones of the film, but a classic textbook study of an actor transforming not very much into something remarkable. (And while we're at it: Hackman was also overlooked for a Supporting Actor nomination in '95 for another masterful comic turn in Get Shorty. He and the slightly convex orthodonture that he wore were the sly but undisputed stars of the show.)
Who got it? Armin Mueller-Stahl. A serviceable but relatively one-note job as David Helfgott's smothering father in Shine.
Best Supporting Actor -- Derek Jacobi for Hamlet.
Who got it? James Woods for Ghosts of Mississippi. Woods' version of white supremacist and murderer Byron De La Beckwith is formidable, but in the especially tough choices for this category this year, that rather shallow Academy preference for "aging" makeup over subtle complexities of characterization rears its ugly latex head. Jacobi's performance as Claudius is quietly astounding.