According to the Academy...
After viewing the Academy Awards last night, I found myself mulling around some questions.
1) Is "knowing" an actor/actress (i.e. having more exposure the person and more experience with his/her work) an important part of judging a person's acting? How important/unimportant?
2) Is the public's judgment of quality filmmaking better or worse (or just different) than the judgment of those in the business (in other words, the Academy)?
1) Is "knowing" an actor/actress (i.e. having more exposure the person and more experience with his/her work) an important part of judging a person's acting? How important/unimportant?
2) Is the public's judgment of quality filmmaking better or worse (or just different) than the judgment of those in the business (in other words, the Academy)?
posted by Wicked Little Critta at 11:24 AM
16 Comments:
My initial thoughts are:
-Yeah, unfortunately. That's why Julia Roberts won Best Actress over Ellen Burstyn, even though her performance that year was nowhere near Burstyn's
-If this year's nominations are any indicator, then taste is getting better.
1) I actually do think, yes, knowing an actor's body of work helps you assess that actor's performance in given role X. Some actors can knock a given role out of the park in their sleep, but you don't get to know that until you've seen them a few times. And, consequently, you don't know which roles have caused them to go above and beyond.
2) And yes, I don't think the Academy is perfect, but I think they judge excellence better than the general public does. (All you have to do is look to the People's Choice Awards, where movies like Pirates of the Caribbean are winning Best Picture.)
question 1:
if it were up to me, each and every performance would be judged in a completely formalist sense, not taking into account any past performance from the actor/actress. does it really matter if an actor "knocks a given role out of the park in their sleep," as compared to someone who really struggles, as long as the performance is good? take Helen Mirren's 2007 Oscar-winning performance in The Queen, for example. let's say the same exact performance has been given by Maggie Smith, but Smith had struggled and stretched herself to the limit to do it. if, all other things being equal, Smith and Mirren's performances were identical, would Mirren deserve the Oscar but Smith wouldn't? Mirren may be the better actress, but we're not judging that; we're judging how good she was in the The Queen, and nothing more.
question 2:
to a degree. the Academy has more expertise in the area of movie-making than the general public does, but we're talking about film, a thing which is largely subjective. one of the most beautiful thing about film, and art in general, is that it is subjective; that a movie may mean something different to me than it does to Joe Schmoe; that we get two interpretations out of it, and neither one of us is wrong. but the thing to remember about the Oscars is that it's not a popularity contest. it seeks to judge the best in all aspects of film, not the most popular or the most widely known. also, sometimes the general public doesn't know what the hell they're talking about. why do you think there were four Saws and two Hostels?
PM's response to question one intrigues me, so I'd like to play with it.
I think what it comes down to is this: Are we judging a performance based on its value to a film? Or are we judging a performance to get a better idea of an actor's ability? If it's the first question, I'm with PM. If it's the second question (and, if I read WLC's post correctly, it is), then actors ability to stretch themselves comes into play.
I'll give my own case-in-point: Robin Williams. Love him or hate him, it's hard to deny that manic humor thing that he does is a talent that's pretty much unique to him. And it's a talent that's served him well for a number of films he's been in. But he's won an Oscar for exactly zero of those films, because audiences and the Academy recognize that that's just what he does. He's not exactly acting.
Robin Williams did win an Oscar, however, for his role in Good Will Hunting, which was a notable departure for him. And I think it's because the Academy realized that what he was doing there was, in fact, acting. He was--more so than in most movies--adopting and executing a mien that's not him, but convince the audience that it is.
Have I made sense? Do you have any counterpoints, PM (or anyone else)?
excellent point, DW; that adds a dimension to it that i wasn't really seeing. in furtherance of you Robin Williams example, take a look at What Dreams May Come. that, like his role in Good Will Hunting was a rather humongous departure for him, but it didn't win him an Oscar, and was indeed not a very good movie. so i think that just the acknowledgment that an actor is stretching himself is not enough; he has to stretch himself and be good.
but the other side of this cone is true as well. look at George Clooney, Best Actor nominee (though not a winner). he was playing very close to type, so in theory not stretching himself very much at all. yet his performance was stellar enough to warrant a nomination. this leads me to conclude that there are no hard and fast rules for judging performances in the Academy, which is just the way it should be for largely subjective medium like film.
Yes, true, I did leave it unsaid that the stretching has to be good. And it's also true that a performance can be good without being a stretch for the actor. But I think that stretch is what the Academy has started to look for in crowning its best actor/actress winners. Observe some recent results:
2007: Daniel Day-Lewis, a gentle, thoughtful, even slightly effeminate man, wins an Oscar for potraying a tough, heartless, and particularly masculine character.
2006: Helen Mirren, known for appearing nude in many films, wins an Oscar for playing the Queen, a beacon of cloaked decorum.
2005: Philip Seymour Hoffman, a talented actor who nevertheless gets cast in brash, unkempt, guyish roles, wins an Oscar for portraying Truman Capote, an effete near-anal-retentive.
2003: Charlize Theron, known as a paragon of glamour and sex appeal, wins an Oscar for portraying an entirely unappealing serial killer in Monster.
2001: Denzel Washington, who just reeks with a sense of uprightness and justice, wins an Oscar for portraying a crooked cop.
And I could go on...
Allow me to say you're over analyzing things. My impression is that in order to find a pattern with these awards you will come up with any rule that would explain some award or another.
Allow me to propose a simpler theory: it's all about politics. Robin Williams got an Oscar for Will Hunting because that's the only time he would play in a serious role. Besides, everyone that plays a weirdo gets an Oscar: Check out Charlize Theron, or better yet go back to Rain Man.
As for DW's point that the Academy judges better than the general public - so what? The only difference between them and your blog is that they have the logistics to throw down a big party.
Referring to the comment about George Clooney, that's actually what I was thinking about when I asked this question. I thought "Daniel Day Lewis really stretched himself in his role, and he won an award. George Clooney played his typical George Clooney type, and he hasn't won an acting award yet." At least, not that I'm aware of...
But for some reason, I feel that actors who show themselves to be more versatile to be more awarded, and those who stay in their typical type do not. That would be a pain to actually measure, though, and clearly, it's based on my very limited experience.
And the Academy doesn't always know what it's talking about.......witness Shakespeare in Love getting best Picture.
I'd like to get back to Moshe's point, if I may.
Moshe, you seem to believe I'm attributing significance where significance is absent (bad). But I just think I'm theorizing based on observable phenomena (good).
The playing-against-type theory is only one of many I've derived from Oscar history analysis. Others include the "vote for last year's snub" theory and the "when in doubt, vote for the most established Hollywood figure yet to win an Oscar" theory.
I won't say they're perfect, and they're constantly being honed. But I think you'd agree that one hallmarks of a good theory is its predictive ability, yes? Well, it just so happens that I've won 3 consecutive Oscar pools.
As a former Oscar winner might say, "How do you like them apples?"
Call me when you have reliable theories for lottery numbers.
George Clooney has won an acting Oscar, WLC: Best Supporting Actor a few years ago for Good Night and Good Luck. there, he didn't really play against type, except that he was a little more subdued than usual.
Robin Williams won an Oscar "because that's the only time he would play in a serious role", Moshe?
Ah, I don't think so. What about Awakenings? The Fisher King? Dead Poet's Society (even though that was a crap film)? I'm totally with you on that idea that at least part of the process is politics (for some of the Academy members anyway......remember that there have to be hundreds of them), but that particular example makes no sense.
I should have kept my mouth shut.
The point I was trying to make is just that, in my opinion, you're giving way too much credit to the awards by discussing them and analyzing them.
Any time two people or more get together, politics gets created. With 5000 people or so (don't take my word for it), lots of money at stake, and egos as big as, there will be tons of politics.
Point fully taken, Moshe. The Oscars don't define quality, by any means, and there is quite a bit of politics in the process.
But to be honest, that's why they intrigue me so much. I don't revere them as the final word in film quality, but I do enjoy analyzing them as a sort of sociological experiment.
And I'm still working on reliable theories for predicting lottery numbers, but I'm pretty sure I must be getting close ...
I know it sounds bad, but I know and identify with what you're saying (the social behavior analysis bit). I often find myself quite busy trying to understand what makes certain things work the way they do, most noticeably (lately) why the seat next to me is always the last vacant seat on the train.
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