The conclusions - Best Actress 1992

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Ok, so maybe this wasn’t the best Best Actress category ever. :p … to put it delicately. But to me all performances are interesting. It’s often more fun to criticize than to comment on brilliant performances. My #1 was one of the easiest picks I’ll ever get, even though the ratings tie at the top might suggest otherwise. Emma ruled it! and a weaker competition helped her shine even brighter.

None of the performances sucks and I respect all 5 actresses. With the exception of Michelle, all of them portrayed strong, intelligent women; this is not something you see that often in this category. There was no super glam, but also no deglam. And I’m glad I got to do Emma & Susan, two of the 90s divas.

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In the end I can say it was a very interesting lineup and a pleasure to watch these ladies again. So here they are; you can click on the name to get to that certain performance:

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1. Emma Thompson, Howards End

She gets the advantage of an excellent film and a juicy intelligent role. Emma is so subtle that you almost don’t notice the acting until the breakdown scene. But she’s so energetic, so natural in creating one of the most strangely original performances of her decade. Her work on the character’s arc is delicate, subtle and ultimately flawless.

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2. Susan Sarandon, Lorenzo's Oil

With just two scenes she breaks the cliché of the strong, devoted mother. She brings maturity to the part and her total honesty and acting with balls make this a memorable, often heartbreaking performance. Her “baby Jesus” moment is as touching as you’ll ever see.

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3. Mary McDonnell, Passion Fish

This is what happens when the alcoholic paralyzed bitch meets the sarcastic, intelligent woman, all in one character. It’s a lot for Mary to deal with, but for most part she does a very fine job. And most of all: she’s believable. The film might look TV, but the performance is Oscar calibre.

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4. Michelle Pfeiffer, Love Field

Let’s try to forget the shaky, overused Texan accent. What you get is a frail, but also irritating character. Michelle tries her best to make her acceptable to the viewer and also staying faithful to the role. Her best acting moments come in the second part, when she shifts towards the maturity and honesty of her character.

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5. Catherine Deneuve, Indochine

She plays the frigid card too hard in the beginning and it affects the mood of the performance. Even though she lacks passion in her acting, she still gets one or two scenes impressive through the power of her emotions. Unfortunately, it’s a bit too late, but at least we knew she had it in her.

***EDIT: As stated at the 100th profile celebration (HERE), Catherine's performance has been upgraded to  . ;)

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So I agree with the Academy on Emma. I always like to guess who was the runner-up for the Oscar: for sure, Susan was 2nd. I think Michelle was 3rd, based on popularity, Mary 4th and Deneuve 5th.

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Other Best Actress years discussed so far:

1965

1977

2000

2007

2008

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What’s next?

It’s gonna be lottery style again and I’m going really vintage this time. The options will be from the 30s, 40s and 50s (the years where I have all the movies):
3 possibilities for the 1930s (33, 37, 39)
4 possibilities for the 1940s (40, 41, 44, 48)
6 possibilities for the 1950s (50, 53, 54, 56, 57, 59)
Some of them are historical years for this category (1939, 1950), some are much lesser known (1933, 1944, etc). I’m very excited and curios. Soon.

Susan Sarandon, in Lorenzo's Oil

approximately 63 minutes and 22 seconds
50.5% of the film

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The film

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A boy develops a disease so rare that nobody is working on a cure, so his father decides to learn all about it and tackle the problem himself.

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You can find my short review of the film just by clicking HERE.

It’s actually an interesting story if you get past the direction mistakes and Nick Nolte’s awful accent and quite bad performance. It’ a tv movie disguised as cinema.

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Susan Sarandon as Michaela Odone

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I remember the days when Susan Sarandon used to be the image of strong, opinionated mature women. Her late 80s and 90s performances made her one of the most respected Hollywood actresses. Her 90s lineup of 4 Best Actress nominations in 5 years is not to be taken for granted. Those were all strong, meaningful performances, often enough above the material. This performance of hers in Lorenzo’s Oil is not an exception.

Susan plays the mother of Lorenzo, a little boy dying from a very rare disease, so, while running out of time, she and her husband try to find a cure or a treatment for the kid. Let’s be honest: the role of Michaela is almost a cliché. She’s the strong parent who won’t give up on her son’s life. She’s stubborn, she has a temperament problem, she loves him more than anything and won’t take bullshit from anybody. It’s the type of mother lion role: protective, maternal, fierce. Fortunately enough, we get Susan to play her, so the role is dug out of mediocrity.

First, Susan brings intelligence to the table. We look at her and we believe the character as both an intelligent, mature, 40-something woman, but we also see the mother, the softer side, it’s in the way she talks the boy. Her nicely portrayed relationship with Lorenzo is good for the performance, as a nuance to a mostly dehumanized role. We do not know Michaela, but we discover her through her connection to the kid and by the way she confronts them all.

When the film starts, she’s overshadowed by the real centre-story of the film: the disease affecting the boy and their lives. We see Michaela only with her husband by her side, as the devoted parents try to uncover this disease. There aren’t any moments to allow Susan to stand out, but we see her there and her intelligence reassures the viewer that this is a serious film.

To me, what makes this a very good performance can be identified in two major scenes. The first one is also the most heartbreaking moment in Lorenzo’s Oil. It’s around the middle of the film, the doctors don’t know what to do with Lorenzo and we get the idea that he might die. In the privacy of the hospital room, Michaela sits on a chair with her very sick & struggling child in her arms. She has tears in her eyes and she looks at him and she’s finally ready to let him die. When she says you fly as fast as you can to baby Jesus, we’re already melted (trust me!). The line can sound corny, but Susan puts so much devotion into this performance that you buy every second of it and the result is crazy heartbreaking (even though we know he’s not going to die in the middle of the film) because we see a mother ready to accept the biggest sacrifice.

The second one is sometimes before the ending: her husband comes to tell her that although their son will be kept alive, the scientific proof is that he is not able to communicate with them, he’s not even able to hear what his mother’s saying. Confronting this truth is devastating to Michaela, as she had been talking to the paralyzed boy, reassuring him and hoping he understands her. Susan’s achievement here is expressing emotion even before opening her mouth. She sits quietly, not moving, just listening to what her husband tells her. Her eyes do all the work, expressing the tragedy and the fact that she’s ready to admit this truth. All their work will help cure other children, as it’s too late now for their own.

Susan gives a strong, motherly performance. The role is a cliché and the film is no masterpiece. But with acting experience on her side, Susan is so believable in creating this woman that the kindness and honesty of her emotions get to us and the performance becomes not just essential to the film, but also the one humanizing factor and the true connection between the dramatic story and the viewer. It’s a 3.5, but I’ll go with .

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*** With this being the 5th performance of 1992, I'm gonna post the conclusions in a couple of days. It went very fast, partly because I want to see more and more Best Actress years; partly because I'm unhappily unemployed and have lots of time on my hands :)

Michelle Pfeiffer, in Love Field

approximately 63 minutes and 0 seconds

65.5% of the film

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The film

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1963. A good spirited woman desperate to get to JFK's funeral crosses paths with a black man and his daughter, creating drama in their lives.

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You can find my short review of the film just by clicking HERE.

It’s a little movie that I enjoyed. It’s always moving and almost never boring and it makes a good point on racial discrimination.

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Michelle Pfeiffer as Lurene Hallett

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Michelle, ma belle… She’s looking sweet here, but her character is ultimately annoying. I had seen her doing vintage 60s before and it suits her just fine (Hairspray), but playing a southern woman is not her best casting. Lurene is not an easy character to play, because she has to be dislikeable before you find her interesting (if that happens). But congratulations to Michelle for giving this little movie a chance.

Lurene is a woman obsessed with Jackie Kennedy. Just like Jackie, Lurene had just lost a child and uses her devotion for the presidential family as a strange way of grieving. When JFK is shot and killed, Lurene knows she most attend the funeral, even when her redneck husband clearly disapproves. So she goes on a bus ride from Dallas to Washington, a trip that will ultimately change her life. Her good intentions will provoke chaos in the lives of a black man and his little girl.

The character is written so that it gets on your nerves a bit. We admire her passion for Jackie and her friendly happy-go-lucky way, but she talks and talks and talks, she’s indiscreet and doesn’t mind her own business. It’s not her we identify with or root for, but the black man (very good performance by Dennis Haysbert) who unwillingly finds himself in lots of trouble because of this woman. So it’s a rough time for Michelle, who has to be faithful to the character, but also not make her too annoying, otherwise we’ll lose interest.

And she does a good job for the most of it. What pulls down the performance is the Texan accent that just doesn’t work at times or is simply overcooked. Her loudness is troubling, but true to the character. And it’s not the first time I ask myself this: what’s more important: loving a performance or respecting the actor for being faithful to a problematic character? It’s a tough call, but I am much allowed to be subjective. I can agree with some of her acting decisions, but I most certainly don’t love this performance.

The best moments in Michelle’s performance come in the second half of the film, once she calms down and the story becomes more involving. We get to see a bit of the soft touch of the character, we get to know this lonely woman who basically lives in a fantasy world, but, to her own tragedy, she’s much aware of this. This whole episode makes her confront her truth and also acknowledge that life isn’t always as she imagined it to be. Her naiveté towards what blacks were really going through is well played and Michelle really makes us believe that this entire journey is an eye-opening one for the Lurene.

The second part also gives us a more mature Lurene. She gets confrontation scenes with the black man she starts falling for and with her husband; good acting redeems Michelle and we dive deeper into the problems of the character.

Overall, this is an ok performance. At first I was tempted to classify it as a mediocre one, but I guess it’s that type of role that grows on you and with time you can discover the maturity of the performance and the complexity of the character. There’s lots going on, no doubt about that, but it’s the mature, honest Lurene that Pfeiffer nails best. This is not among Michelle’s highest achievements, but it’s a colourful character and a good performance. I give her , even though in real time it’s a 2,50.

Catherine Deneuve, in Indochine

approximately 59 minutes and 2 seconds
38.5% of the film

The film

It is the story of Éliane Devries, a French plantation owner, and of her adopted Vietnamese daughter, Camille, with the rising Vietnamese nationalist movement set as a backdrop.

You can find my short review of the film just by clicking HERE.

It’s a very long film with a second part that works better than the first half. When there’s action and tension, the film works quite well; other than that: not so much.

Catherine Deneuve as Éliane Devries

Theoretically, it’s always a delight to see a foreign actress receiving an Oscar nomination for a foreign language film. It gives a more exotic feel to the competition and it’s also an opportunity to acknowledge actresses who have been giving memorable performances for decades. Catherine Deneuve is a legend, partly because of her beauty, partly for dominating the French cinema for years and years. Her performance in Indochine however is not bad, but also not Oscar worthy.

The movie starts with her in full speed. She’s playing the leading character and a very colourful one: she whips her disobedient (almost slaves) employees, gets high on drugs and has a sexual fling with a gorgeous younger man. Are all these acted well? Hmmm. I found her to be rather stiff and often enough more frigid than the role required. At least if she would’ve gone all the way, but Deneuve undecidedly decides to keep Éliane somewhere in the middle, which generated a less than great result.

There are moments where she’s underplaying a bit too much and we don’t get the feeling that she’s fully dedicated to her character. We are not receiving the emotion we need to understand Éliane besides her whipping imperialistic attitude. The emotion comes a bit late and we get just drops of it: it happens when things don’t go well with her lover. That relationship itself doesn’t feel right on its own and lacks credibility. I mostly accuse Deneuve of not being seductive enough for the film romance to work. Yet although it feels out of place, the sex fling at least increases the intensity of a mostly boring movie.

It’s nice to show restraint, but keeping back more than enough is actually worst than overacting. Though subtle at times, Deneuve’s performance really lacks passion. I can feel that it’s not really there. She’s not in it with all her heart and soul. You can see that in line readings and you can mostly see it in the tango she twice dances with her daughter. Where’s the passion? Where’s the true intensity? These are hard to find in the first half of the film.

Strangely enough, as the film gets better, Deneuve’s Éliane is almost taken out of the picture. For almost an hour, she only gets brief appearances and some voice-overs. The voice work is truly superb (it really starts in the beginning of the film, but gets more relevant in the 2nd part), she’s a great narrator and it’s a pleasure to listen to her. [do notice that I also count voice-over as screentime]. Yet her biggest sin here is that the film itself gets better when she’s not around. How shameful is that for a leading actress, not being the one who can carry her own film.

Her best scene comes towards the end of the picture. It’s an excellent actressing moment with Éliane seeing her daughter after she’d been in prison for many years. Deneuve displays real emotion and great acting skills; she truly lets go and it’s her most humane scene in the film. You can feel the honesty of her tears and how much she’s been really missing her adopted daughter. Too bad there weren’t more moments like this in her performance.

Is it Deneuve fault or the screenplay’s? Hard to tell, but truth is she had the power to shape the character the way she wanted it. I think she misjudged the character in the beginning and didn’t set up the right tone for the performance. She started it shaky, rigid, without any passion. Her big scene towards the end proved her talent and that she had potential for greatness, but it was too late. I don’t think it’s a bad performance, but it has flaws and a rather weak feel to it. Maybe the nomination was worthy, considering the year was not that strong. I give her , just by comparison to the other gals.


***Edit: Watching some scenes again softened me a bit. It’s almost a 3 stars performance, but her competition up till now was superior. And I have to think of the previous 3 stars performances…

***EDIT: As stated at the 100th profile celebration (HERE), Catherine's performance has been upgraded to  . ;) 

Mary McDonnell, in Passion Fish

approximately 73 minutes and 20 seconds
55.5% of the film

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The film

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Soap actress May-Alice Culhane is paralyzed from the waist down in an accident. She returns to her old home in Louisiana, where she befriends her nurse Chantelle.

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You can find my short review of the film just by clicking HERE.

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It’s definitely not a film one would love. It’s a soapish film about an ex soap opera star. It’s done well, clean and the screenplay is enjoyable. But it might be a bit too vanilla for cinema.

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Mary McDonnell as May-Alice Culhane

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I cannot be considered a fan of Mary McDonnell. I loved her in the tv series Battlestar Galactica, but I hated her when guest starring in Grey’s Anatomy. She doesn’t always get it right, but she does it here. The nomination itself is a bit surprising, not because she’s bad or something, but this is not the type of film the Academy would consider these days. Today they do stuff like this for television and Oscar voters wouldn’t pay attention to it. But thankfully, they did back then.

It’s an edgy role to play, because it can always get a bit too cheesy. But screenwriter and director John Sayles knows better than that so he gives May Alice, his leading character, the gift or irony, wit and just enough feeling to make her likeable. McDonnell is aware that it’s a mature drama, so she always tries to balance the performance between I feel so sorry for her and this woman is a bitch. May Alice is not only paraplegic, but also a bit alcoholic; so there’s a lot of drama bait going on.

Her first scenes are the best: she wakes up in the hospital, doesn’t really remember the accident and she’s confronted with the cruel truth of being paralyzed from waist down. The film depends on what McDonnell can do with this scene; it’s the introduction of the leading character and a tense moment with lots of emotions floating around. And she does a very good job, giving us in one scene both the drama of the character but also its ironic and pessimistic way of being.

A couple of scenes later, though, are a bit shaky in terms of acting. There was a moment with her standing on the physician’s table, at their first session, where her acting didn’t feel as convincing. Maybe it doesn’t matter, but I can spot fake acting moments. Yet, I forgave her, because it only happened once during the film. For the rest of it, she was in character.

The desperation of this woman is done well. First, there’s her incapacity of confronting her situation and continuing to live her life. You can feel May-Alice’s frustration. Second, there’s the alcohol problem, an addiction that she develops to forget the state she’s in. It’s not a centre point in the story, but her battle, resignation and final win is beautifully portrayed.

One of the biggest accomplishments is her chemistry with Alfre Woodward’s character, Chantelle. Their relationship is the highlight of the film. They are two different women who in the end become friends: their connection in based on addiction experience, stubbornness and the desire to have someone close. Woodard is excellent, but mostly in the scenes where she’s on her own, so you can’t say she overshadows McDonnell.

Mary McDonnell gives a good, reliable and believable performance. There’s nothing brilliant about it, nothing way too flashy. The performance however has both heart and balls. You feel sorry for her, but you also admire the sarcastic point of view of the character and the actress knows how to give an intelligent performance. She’s a victim, a pain in the ass, a friend, a woman in love and a host; and Mary McDonnell does justice to all of the character’s layers. Again: a very reliable, solid performance; .