Next. and some Opening Night confession
I was thinking about what year / category to do next. After some thinking I decided to stick with the Best Actress category at least until I do a year for each decade of Oscar. It will be very interesting for me to tackle some older nominees. But unfortunately I have only two or three options / decade as some movies are still impossible to find here.
.
I would have went for the '90s next, but an accidental viewing of this movie made me go for the '70s first, 1977 to be more exact. The film is Opening Night, by John Cassavetes. I didn't really like the film, but Gena Rowlands was AMAZING in it! And, still, she DIDN'T :(( receive an Oscar nomination.
.
I obviously knew this, but watching her incredible performance, I was like: WTF, Oscar?? Didn't you voters see this?? It's a way of saying she was totally SNUBBED of a nomination and possibly a win.
And the year wasn't even that strong + she got a Golden Globe nom for it, so I don't see what happened. F*ckin' outrageous!
I won't do a profile, as she's not one of the nominees. But I'll just mention the plot: An actress suffers an emotional uproar in her personal life after a fan dies trying to see her. And I'll mention an interesting trivia: this was the inspiration point for Almodovar's (masterpiece) Todo sobre mi madre (1999).
Gena Rowlands is SO good especially in the first part, playing desperation and anxiety to perfection. It's not an easy character to follow and the film gets messy. But this is Oscar material to say the least and she gives a performance that should be a landmark and studied by any young actress outthere.
So Best Actress 1977 is next, to get a better look at the 5 ladies that stole Gena Rowland's nomination.
3 comments:
I love Gena Rowlands. Haven't seen any of her nominated perfs, but there's something very alluring about her.
What're your thoughts on her work in A Woman Under the Influence / have you seen?
And yeah, I know this is like 6 years after you first posted. Clearly I'm a troll. :P
There's a strange coincidence taking place.
I swear Opening Night was the 3rd of the 5 films I was going to ask you to see in our agreement. :) Not lying. Because I wanted to give you some actressing (that doesn't spoil the Oscar fun, other than All About Eve) that you might find fascinating.
And here you are, writing about it. Great minds think alike. :)
I have only seen bits of Woman Under Influence, and not sure it's my thing. But if this is a clue you might ask for '74, let's keep it a secret for now. [fyi: the 74s I've seen are Lenny & Chinatown, both a while ago]. :)
Gloria is a terrible film and Gena is both good and bad in it, but I guess you found my post on it.
Great minds indeed!!
And no, I'm very much planning on saving A Woman Under the Influence. '74 is a special year so I will go in completely blind. Was just curious if you had seen it since I stumbled across this post :D
Maybe you ought to choose like 10 stellar examples of actressing and I'll pick from there :P
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