If I Was To Create a Soundtrack for Each Best Supporting Actress Oscar Winner (Part I)

Recently, I made a pair of videos tracing every Best Supporting Actress from 1936 onwards. 

Through the process of making my own YouTube videos, I've discovered that choosing your own music to provide background is one of the more creatively fulfilling parts of the project. I always thought it was obnoxious of documentarians to overly indulge in their own music as part of their narrative.

I'm pretty old school with my music collection. I don't use Spotify or Itunes plus. I just have my own cloud-backed collection of songs that numbers around 275 right now. With an exception or two, I thought it would be fun to just stick to what I had in my library. Here's how I settled on my choices for this video.

1936: Gale Sondegaard, Anthony Adverse

Testing 1, 2, 3, Barenaked Ladies

 

1.       I make a pun about how Anthony Adverse can be mistaken for school-house rock, and Barenaked Ladies has always struck me as a kindergarten-friendly band.

2.       Testing, 1, 2, 3 sounds like a good way to kick off the series

3.       I wanted to set the template right away as a series in which I would be anachronistic in my selections

4.       The line in the song “Can anybody hear me?” is the way I feel about the series, and it’s sung in a more shruggish way, which I hope to adopt.

1937: Alice Brady, In Old Chicago

How High the Moon, Hoagy Carmichael, performed by Todd Lines

 

1.       Simply an old-timey song for a movie set in the 1880s

2.       A need for balance from the Baranaked Ladies

 

1938: Faye Bainter, Jezebel

Ex’s and Oh's, Ellie King

1.       Jezebel is a film about a woman who’s shamed for being sexually loose.  The narrator of Ex’s and Oh’s  is clearly promiscuous and unapologetic

2.       The line in the chorus “the Ex’s and Ohs they haunt me” is symbolic of the shunning that happens in Jezebel

 

 

1939: Hattie McDaniel, Gone with the Wind

Set Fire to the Rain, Adele

1.       To honor the first Black Oscar winner, it seems fitting to have something that feels gospel-like and Adele’s voice feels like comparable to a Black diva like Whitney Houston or Aretha Franklin.

2.        Hattie McDaniel’s win also marks social change, and setting things on fire seems sweeping.

3.       The city of Atlanta literally burns down.

1940: Jane Darwell, Grapes of Wrath

Hoedown, Aaron Copeland

 

1.       Pretty simple here. It’s a film set alongside Westward expansion. Copeland was pure Americana and Hoedown (the “Beef, it’s what’s for dinner” commercial soundtrack) is synonymous audially with the West

1941: Mary Astor, The Great Lie

Hollywood, Marina and Her Diamonds

1.       In this installment, I discussed Astor’s past of scandal and how it almost ruined her.

2.       This song is sung by a European popstar who is obsessed with Hollywood. I suspect the narrator is speaking more of the tabloid culture of Hollywood

2.       The glamour of Hollywood might be better represented in the Maltese Falcon—the movie with the tagline “The Stuff Dreams are made of”—that came out in the same year

 

1942: Teresa Wright, Mrs. Miniver

Extraordinary, Liz Phair

1. Extraordinary is a descriptor of Wright’s talent. She was such a remarkable catch on Broadway that multiple studios bid over her

2. Teresa Wright was also determined to be taken seriously for her acting and not as a sex symbol. She went so far as to create a contract by which it would be virtually impossible to portray her in a sexy manner  

3.       3. I'm not that familiar with Liz Phair outside of some songs she heavily plugged on the talk show circuit in the 2003-2004 era when I was more glued into Live with Regis and Kelly and the late night talk shows. But this is very much a girl power ballad

1943: Katina Paxinou; For Whom the Bell Tolls;

Another Life, Soundtrack to Bridges of Madison County (performed by Whitney Bashor)

1.       I’m digging the idea of linking one soundtrack to cover.

2.       This is one of the films I didn’t’ see, but it’s about a romance during a war. Written by Hemmingway, it can’t be anything but nostalgic which is what the song is drenched with

3.        

 

1944:  Ethel Barrymore, None but the Lonely Heart

I’ve Got Rhythm, George Gerswhin, covered by jazz pianist Hiromi

 

1.       I love Japanese jazz pianist sensation Hironi. Like someone a little more obscure like Marina and her Diamonds, it’s fun to promote them

2.       The Barrrymore family clearly is a talented one

1945: Anne Revere, National Velvet

Sports Song, Weird Al Yankovic

This song is a parody of spectator sports, and what can I say, National Velvet is kind of a bland movie. Not every song in my library is one that I like. Sometimes you download something based on the artist's previous reputation and the title of the song. At least I have a use for it now.

1946: Anne Baxter, Razor’s Edge

Everything’s Just Wonderful, Lilly Allen

Baxter plays an alcoholic on the verge of losing it. Allen’s song -- with a whirling chord structure that intentionally deceives the listener about where the tonic is (Coldplay's "Clocks" is another example) -- has a sense of spinning out of control with the music while the lyrics falsely belie a sense of coming together.
 
1947: Celeste Holm, Gentlemen’s Agreement
Caution, The Killers

1.       This was not an easy one to pick because there weren’t that many songs in my library about infiltrating the Jewish community to fight anti-semitism. I thought the movie wasn’t particularly credible so I don’t think the hippie-ish songs in my library really captured how I felt about the film

2.       Again, I liked something anachronistic here.

3.       There is an unbridled optimism of the song which reflects both Celeste Holm’s character, Anne Dettrey, in the film along with the closing speech of the film by (a somewhat jarring) speech by  Gregory Peck’s mom that she  thinks the future is going to be a better place.

4.     Gregory Peck’s character is certainly a muckraker, which matches this sort of gleeful lyric:
“If I don’t get out of this town. I just might be the one who burns it down”

5.     Anne is a character who’s kind of glamorous and the film explores class in a lot of ways, which matches the lyrics:

“Never had a diamond on the sole of her shoes

Just black top, white trash

Straight out of the news”

1948: Claire Trevor, Key Largo
Kokomo, Beach Boys

This is the obvious choice because these are the two first words of the song and it does take place in a tropic climate. If I were to be really nitpicky, I would point out that this is more of a noir than a beach film like the Tom Cruise flick Cocktail. But I had to work with the confines of my library.

1949: Mercedes McCambridge, All the King’s Men
Saints Hallelujah (Traditional/G.F. Handel mash-up),arranged and performed by Canadian Brass

 

1.       All the King’s Men is about the governor’s race in Louisiana, so I knew I had to go with the wonderful array of New Orleans jazz

2.       This song mashes a traditional New Orleans tune with a classical element. Louisiana is a big melting pot anyway.

3.       This song also has a call and response element with jazz riffs (typical to New Orleans jazz) that echoes the energy between a politician and his supporters at a rally. Even the word Hallelujah can be used as an “amen” in response to a political point

 

1950: Josephine Hull, Harvey
Human, The Killers

The song is about a narrator re-examining his humanity. This is what Josephine Hull’s character is badly in need of in this film about a man whose positive contributions to the world are through an imaginary rabbit.

1951: Kim Hunter, Streetcar Named Desire

Summertime, George Gerswhin, covered by Scary Pockets featuring Olivia Kuper Harris

 

1.     The film is set in a poor multi-cultural neighborhood in New Orleans. It’s a Southern setting (again, New Orleans), so I wanted something jazzy again.

2.       Gerswhin was a precursor to big band jazz and the funk group  Scary Pockets gives this jazz tune a fine remix. I didn’t want something that was squarely in the jazz era

3.       You have to admit this gives the jazz tune a nice twist

4.       There’s a sense of the sweltering heat in this tune

1952: Gloria Graeme, Bad and the Beautiful
Entry March of the Boyars, Johan Halvorsen, performed by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra

I haven’t seen Bad and the Beautiful, so I mostly riffed off the circus film “Greatest Show on Earth” which came out in the same year. I always associate circuses with Eastern European gypsy culture. This is a Russian march.

1953: Donna Reed, From Here to Eternity
Don’t Worry Baby, Beach Boys

This is the quintessential Hawaii film so the Beach Boys fits. Additionally, it’s a very fitting theme of quelling the calm before the storm.

1954: Eva Marie Saint, On the Waterfront

Diamonds are Forever, Shirley Bassey

This has more to do about the fact that Eva Marie Saint’s role in North by Northwest was a predecessor to the classic Bond girl than anything with the movie.

1955: Jo Van Fleet, East of Eden

Hazy Shade of Winter, Bangles

1. The song begins: “Time, time, time, see what’s become of me, as I look around to my possibilities” (matched by a very odd uncanny valley between major and minor resolution). This film is an allegory for the Garden of Eden where time didn’t really exist and then it did when they were banished

2. Additionally, a lot of the shots of Jo Van Fleet as brothel owner Kate look old and withered

3. The song is also very place-specific. There’s a verse of the salvation army band (religious allegory, again?)

4. James Dean, the star of the film, is also frozen in time

1956: Dorothy Malone, Written on the Wind

Havana, Camilla Cabello

Although it’s set in Texas, I tried to make the point that Douglas Sirk was the predecessor of R-rated envelope-pushing drama.  So I needed something very sensual and modern to push the envelope.

1957: Miyoshi Umeki, Sayonara

Chinatown, My Chinatown; Glenn Mills, arranged by Luther Henderson, performed by Canadian Brass

This jazz number--more tin pan alley than dixieland—is a lively tune that couldn’t sound more oriental when It first crosses your ears. This is to honor the first East Asian actress to win an Oscar. I’d almost be concerned it was just a flat racial stereotype, but Umeki also appeared in Flower Drum Song.

1958: Wendy Hiller, Separate Tables
Marriage of Figaro, Mozart

This is a stuffy British film (albeit a good one), so I needed something classical.

1959: Shelley Winters, Diary of Anne Frank

Inside My Mind This Time, Welcome to Florida

I figured there wasn’t anything I could use to capture the tragedy of the Holocaust. My only other option was Schindler’s List but I figured that would be too derivative. In place, I felt that this punk rock song about doing things by your own tune was the best.

1960: Shirley Jones, Elmer Gantry

Henney Buggy Band, Sufjan Stevens

This film is about a Midwestern preacher and huckster. It’s an inversion of Midwestern Americana. Shirley Jones most famous roles are in the most Middle American of musicals in The Music Man and Carousel. This is very much a Middle American song: A peppy folk number.

Key Largo, Identity Thief, and Jack-of-all-Genres Movies

Key Largo (1948):
Starring Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall, Lionel Barrymore, Claire Trevor, directed by John Huston, based on a play by Maxwell Anderson

Identity Thief (2013):
Starring Melissa McCarthy, Jason Bateman, John Cho, Amanda Peet, T.I., Genesis Rodriguez, Eric Stonestreet, Robert Patrick


I've always had a fondness for this John Huston semi-classic due to the fact that it features my favorite place on Earth. My grandparents retired to a spot in the upper Florida Keys (approximately three miles below the southern tip of Key Largo) and being in the Keys has always been a calming happiness-inducing experience for me so it's fitting that the film is thematically centered around the redemptive powers of Key Largo. If you think about it, there's no overt romance between Bacall and Bogart's characters, and his resolution comes through finding peace with his new place.

The story follows a World War II veteran Frank McCloud (Bogart) as he travels to a hotel in Key Largo to meet the father, Mr. Temple (a wheelchair-bound Barrymore), and widow, Nora (Bacall), of a fallen comrade in the Italian theater. Warm feelings are shared between the three and it's established that Mr. Temple is a beloved community advocate of the Indians.

Since the film can't be entirely about three people reminiscing, drama eventually happens when it's revealed that all of the hotel guests hanging around the lobby are employed by notorious gangster Johnny Rocco (Robinson) and in a sudden flash, the jovial atmosphere turns into a hostage situation. If you're watching the film blind (having no knowledge of  the plot), as is often the case when you're watching TCM, that split second where everything turns topsy-turvy is a very effective moment.

The film is adapted from a play so it's fitting that it takes on a meditative tone. As various characters point guns at and try to outmaneuver each other, there's a lot of philosophical discussion. At the core, the film is about Frank and his lost sense of idealism. Does he believe only in self-preservation or heroism? There's also a parallel sentiment among the gangsters who mourn the glory days of the prohibition. A number of these thematic undercurrents, however, are left dangling. One gets the sense that the remiss gangster who keeps muttering to himself that prohibition will be back again, or the relationship between Temple and the Indians are remnants of the stage version that dealt more fully with these issues.

In the third act, the film goes back to full-on action mode as McCloud becomes a man of action on the high seas. Many of Huston's films have an adventurous tone, and this is no exception. Although, Key Largo isn't as acclaimed as Huston's films African Queen or Treasure of the Sierra Madre, it has a lot of strengths relative to those films. It's more tightly scripted, succeeds better at creating suspense, and the final set piece tops any scene  from either of those two films. The film also won an Oscar for Claire Trevor

Ironically, anyone who's spent any time on Key Largo knows that the island's most famous classic movie landmark comes from another John Huston film: At the Holiday Isle resort, the boat from the African Queen is on display and visitors can even take a tour on it.  While most of the film was shot in Los Angles, the exterior shots of Key Largo were shot at the Caribbean Club and while the property still exists today, much of the old exterior was destroyed in a pair of fires.


In thinking about how Key Largo combines action, staged drama, meditative dialogue, quasi-romance and the gangster genre, I was thinking about a recent article I read that said that Hollywood is pressing movies to include as many genres as possible.

This is why the latest buddy films (i.e. Hangover, Horrible Bosses) and romcoms (i.e. Date Night) often have a few action scenes added in and why the super hero genre is being infused with massive amounts of buddy action (Green Hornet), humor (Iron Man), or light-hearted romance (Spiderman).

The latest example of this is The Identity Thief starring Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy which would be a perfectly substantial film if the characters' lives were never in danger. Rain Man; Planes Trains and Automobiles; Trial and Error, Every Which Way But Loose, and the very recent Due Date all work as road trip buddy films without needing to double as double as action films.

Nonetheless, Identity Thief works and it's hard to argue that the action scenes detract from it. The film is paced well, genuinely sentimental at times, and features surprisingly good chemistry between Bateman and McCarthy. I didn't jump on board the McCarthy bandwagon when she was unexpectedly nominated for an Oscar for Bridesmaids, but she won me over here. As great of a script as Bridesmaids was script, the humor serves McCarthy even better in this one (read: far fewer fat jokes).

It's also interesting in the wake of his slightly darker turn in Arrested Development's Season 4,  Bateman plays a guy who's unapologetically an asshole if he needs to be. It would be even more interesting if I saw Arrested Development and this film in the order they came out, but still.

Harvey and Year of Living Dangerously

2 More film reviews:
Also reviewed Network and 12 Angry Men here

I watched both of these films in an effort to keep up with supporting actresses in my supporting actress survey (click on supporting actress tag below):

Harvey (1950)
Harvey is a very uplifting and sweet film based around the peculiarly conceived notion that a man, Elmer, imagines himself to be in the presence of a 6-foot bunny rabbit. The film works well because the storyline makes some clever shifts. The film’s first act is about a mix-up in which Elemer’s sister Vetta accidentally gets locked up in a mental institution instead of her crazy brother. The second act centers around the rabid pursuit of Elmer after his sister is freed. In the third act they finally catch him, but convincing the doctors and themselves that he’s crazy is a whole other battle.

Josephine Hull won an Oscar (Supporting Actress) as the fussy sister who's somewhat of a social climber and hopes to marry her daughter off to a respectable man. James Stewart was also nominated as Elmer. The fact that you hardly notice that he keeps inviting people to dinner and that later becomes a significant plot point is what I think is most clever about this film: Elmer's sweetness really sneaks up on you.

The film isn't as much chaotic fun as a comedy like "Arsenic and Old Lace" or "His Girl Friday" but I found it very endearing. It had a great message about how people who are different or "crazy" might really be very valuable to the people around them if we stop to open our eyes.


Year of Living Dangerously:
When some middling reviews came out on “The Way Back,” there was some quote in the press (too lazy to look it up at the moment) that it was a big surprise because people felt that Weir never made a bad film. As far as I’m concerned, that’s pretty accurate. I’ve seen four Peter Weir films to date-Truman Show, Dead Poets’ Society, Witness, and Master and Commander-and they all rank among the best films I’ve ever seen. Weir was hired to direct “Witness” because making a film about the Amish needed to be treated with great cultural sensitivity and it was assumed that as an Australian, he’d approach their way of life as an outsider.

The same can be said for “Year of Living Dangerously” which makes a noble attempt not to look at the 3rd World through Western eyes. The story’s protagonist is Guy (Mel Gibson) an Australian reporter on assignment to cover political tensions in Indonesia. He’s greeted at the airport by an eager local photographer, Billy (played in an Oscar-winning gender-switching performance by Linda Hunt), who strikes up a professional partnership and serves as a local guide. As tensions rise and the country becomes closer towards violent revolution, so does the relationship strain between Billy and Guy. Part of that strain between them is over a complex triangle of affections between the two and an enigmatic attaché at the British Embassy played by Sigourney Weaver. More importantly, Billy questions whether Guy came to the country with intention of helping the people of Indonesia or exploiting them.

The film is beautifully shot, features excellent performances from the three leads, and is very well-paced.

Best Supporting Actress Grades of All Time (Pt II)

Part I is here

I've also written historical highlights over on helium:
http://bit.ly/hHFGG2

Best Best Supporting Actresses of All Time (Part II):

1991 Mercedes Ruehl, Fisher King C+
Character: Anne, girlfriend of an out-of-work radio DJ (Jeff Bridges) who's (and I'm referring to the DJ, here) guilt-stricken over inadvertently causing a shooting spree




Analysis: I like this film very much and was originally going to give Ruehl a decent grade because she create a unique character and commands attention when she's on screen. Then again, the shrill domineering wife stereotype (never mind that she's not yet a wife, she still fits that stereotype) has been around since the days of W.C. Fields and beyond. My other problem is that Amanda Plummer, a shy bookworm who's sworn off men through adulthood, gave a more memorable performance. Ironically, neither Plummer nor Ruehl had very prominent careers after winning the Oscar.

1992 Marisa Tomei, My Cousin Vinny D-
Character: Mona Lisa Vito, Loudmouth car mechanic and girlfriend to "Cousin Vinny" (Joe Pesci)

Analysis: I'm pretty sure that no other award in the history of the Oscars generated speculation in the Hollywood Reporter that Tomei was only rewarded the Oscar because the presenter (Jack Palance) that night read the wrong name off the teleprompter. That's literally how far below the standard she was. How awkward it must have been to be Marisa Tomei that night: Going to all the post-show galas with many of the people who are congratulating her don't actually believe she legitimately won! Nonetheless, Tomei made up for her "fluke" win by legitimately earning two more nominations.

As for my judgement? I'm in the camp that it was a pretty unremarkable performance. If I'm marking Ruehl several points down for playing to a stereotype, than I can't ignore Tomei whom I would mathematically express as something like Ruehl's stereotypical shrill squared. Not completely flunking her because it was an honest effort and I'm not questioning the legitimacy of the award.

1994 Dianne Wiest, Bullets over Broadway B+
Character: Helen Sinclair, an aging Broadway diva who commands a lot of attention for cast and crew around her

Analysis: Anyone else see the irony that Woody Allen-- largely incapable of writing outside his own personal experiences and still hated by all of womanhood for dumping Mia Farrow-- has been able to write and direct the women in his films to five Oscars?
Oddly enough, I'm not the only one who picked up on the notion that the quality of Woody Allen's characters declines the further they stray away from the mold of nebbish Jewish men living in New York. While the sheer volume of quality movies proves this is an oversimplification, I can't help but notice how well this film plays into that theory. The main character, played by John Cusack, is a neurotic New York playwright with a confusing love life. Wiest's character isn't a fully fleshed-out person but rather a distraction for Cusack's journey to artistic self-confidence.

At the same time, that doesn't really take anything away from Wiest's performance which is an entertaining part of an otherwise unremarkable film. Wiest's role is fairly stereotypical but she really owns it and has fun with it.



1995 Mira Sorvino, Mighty Aphrodite A

Character: Linda Ash, a prostitute who begins a platonic friendship with the protagonist (Woody Allen) after he discovers she's the birth mother of his adopted daughter

Analysis: I really liked this character. She's just a giddy ball of energy and I was completely disarmed by her. There was just the right amount of room in the script for Sorvino to launch off from and do something with it.

Although I was not following the Oscars at this age, I do know that not everyone has felt like Sorvino winning was a good thing. She hasn't had much of a career after this film and she is the daughter of a famous enough Hollywood actor, so those are a couple reasons to resent her right there. Additionally, I do think Kathleen Quinlam could have also done Oscar justice by taking home the trophy, but I don't bear a grudge towards Sorvino because, as I said, she was terrific.

1997 Kim Bassinger, LA Confidential B-
Character: Lynn Bracken, a prostitute who becomes romantically entangled with a pair of cops in a noirish expose of police corruption

Analysis: This is an odd one because I could put forth an argument that this was a moving performance and a deserving win, but I can just as easily argue the opposite. I can see her as being a prostitute with a heart of Gold (sort of like Donna Reed and others) who infuses the very bloody story with some brighter moments. On the flip side, if you take the performance away from the context of the story, it's not particularly memorable. Similarly, if you're watching the film expecting a juicy crime thriller, she's kind of chewing up scenery and getting in the way from the good stuff. So let's call it a split decision with a B-

1998: Judi Dench, Shakespeare in Love F
Character: Queen Elizabeth I 

Analysis: Epic fail! Dench did very little except dress up and wear a stern facial expression for 12 minutes of screen time. I am aware that Straight won an Oscar on half that screen time, but she was actually doing stuff. Dench largely sat on a throne and looked regal. This was clearly a make-up for Dench not winning the year before for "Mrs. Brown." It also highlights the Academy's compulsion to award an Oscar to anyone or anything that has to do with British royalty. Dench went on to score four more Oscar nomintions but a lot of them are for movies that seem designed just to get best actress nominations.


2000: Marcia Gay Harden, Pollock B
Character: Lee Krasner, wife of the brilliant but perpetually drunk and child-like artist Jackson Pollock (Ed Harris)

Analysis: Major bonus points for that distinctive New York accent.It is true that Marisa Tomei and Mercedes Ruehl donned a New York accent (or perhaps a New Jersey accent for Tomei? She sounds like the women of Jersey Shore) but I felt like if Rex Harrison's character from My Fair Lady were on a street corner with Lee Krasner. Anne and Mona Lisa Vito, he would be able to pinpoint Krasner to within a 3-block radius in Queens, he would call out Mona Lisa for being a fake, and plead for Anne to stop talking because her shrill voice was annoying the hell out of him.



In other words, Harden did her homework. It's easiest to measure the effectiveness of Harden (and Harris, for that matter) on the basis of how into the film you are, since it's really a relationship film that rests on their shoulders. I was pretty engaged for the first half, got a little tired two-thirds of the way in, and nearly tuned out with 30 minutes to go but held on. So that would be somewhere in the range of a grade of C. On the other hand, it's a testament to Pollock and Harris that the relationship between the brilliant crazy artist and the long-suffering wife has its own uniqueness here in that it's nothing I've quite seen before.

Jennifer Connelly, A Beautiful Mind A
Character: Alicia Nash, wife of brilliant mathematician John, who gets more than she bargained for in her husband when it turns out he's a schizophrenic (in addition to being socially awkward).

Analysis: I've always felt that Connelly won this one from the trailer alone. Specifically, that one tear-inducing line which is cemented in my brain from all the TV spots I must have seen too many of in 2001: "I need to believe anything extraordinary is possible." (In the extended cut of the trailer, she actually follows that line with "Boo yah! How do you like them apples, Maggie Smith?") In all honesty, I liked the movie a fair amount and find the performance very deserving. I just specifically don't remember that line ever popping up in the film or even working in the context of the film.



Anyways, this is a undoubtedly great performance when you consider the fact that Alicia Nash is a terrible character on paper and, therefore, if you feel any sparks flying between Connelly and Crowe, you have to credit that entirely to Connelly. For example, has anyone noticed how awkwardly scripted the John-Alicia romance was in the film? In an earlier scene, John tried to pick up a girl using the ill-advised method of treating her as if she were a biological specimen.



Later, Alicia shows up and asks him to dinner for a reason that isn't really given and he tries to consummate their relationship by saying he dislikes social protocol and would prefer to skip to the intercourse. Is the film suggesting growth on John's part? He hasn't really picked up social nuance since the earlier scene. Perhaps, we're meant to believe that John has just found the right woman for him (and by that I mean one who will tolerate idiocy)? If this seems too good to be true, that's because it isn't. The real Alicia Nash divorced John after just six years of marriage and the two were remarried nearly 40 years later in the year of the film's release, 2001 (publicity stunt?).

Catherine Zeta-Jones, Chicago D+
Character: Velma Kelly, an inmate on Chicago's death row who passes the time singing and dancing with her new gal pal Roxy Hart (Rene Zellweger)

Analysis: This analysis gets interesting when you consider that Chicago has become one of the most popular plays in the last 20 or so years and there have probably been many famous stars who played the role of Velma. I know that everyone from Wayne Brady (Who's Line is it Anyway?) to Usher to Jerry Springer has played Billy Flynn.

Whoever played Velma before Zeta-Jones (internet broadway database lists the originator as Bebe Neuwirth) must have been an improvement, because Zeta-Jones' performance rung hollow for me. It never resonated past the singing and dancing. For that reason, it wasn't the least bit memorable. Zellweger, on the other hand, infused her part with pathos underneath all the glitz and glamor.

2003 Rene Zellweger, Cold Mountain B+
Character: Ruby Thewes, a tomboy hillbilly helping the more lady-like Ada Monroe (Nicole Kidman) defend their plantation against evil homesteaders

Analysis: Zellweger's win had been a pretty easy target for haters and I'm not surprised that she was voted the Worst Supporting Actress Winner of All Time. This was the first Oscar season I closely followed so I have some sense of context for this one. For one, this was a year in which Miramax (controversial movie studio known for actively campaigning for their films) hate was pretty high and "Cold Mountain", a late December release got the bulk of the hype that year. I don't know what the Oscar voters were thinking, but the purveyors of the internet at the time were reacting to Cold Mountain's snub as if the Wicked Witch of the West had finally been melted. From that point of view, Zellweger's anti-conformist tomboy can be seen as carefully crafted Oscar bait.



Personally, I have seen A LOT of films from 2003 and, while it's a close call, I unabashedly maintain that Cold Mountain is the best of all of them (See my article celebrating the talents of Anthony Minghellia for more). Likewise, I understand how you can make a joke that Zellweger comes off as she's auditioning to replace Ellie May Clampett on "'The Beverly Hillbillies" but that's only because we're likely to make fun of anyone who wins an Oscar for playing a Hillbilly. The fact of the matter, however, is that Cold Mountain boasts several great acting performances and Zellweger sticks out in the cast. She brings an energy and provides a sort of Han-Solo-like comic relief to the epic. I think it's based on whether you buy the film as a whole.


2004 Cate Blanchett, Aviator C
Character: Katharine Hepburn, the 4-time Oscar winning actress

Analysis: I wasn't really impressed with this. I think the Academy just loves Katharine Hepburn and four Oscars wasn't enough. It also makes more sense when you consider that it was a great way to honor her because she literally died the previous year. Personally, I don't even think this performance channeled Katherine Hepburn as much as it did a slightly raunchier version of Hepburn's character in "Bringing Up Baby" or "Philadelphia Story." I never felt like watching her performance got me any closer to realizing Hepburn as an actual person.

Between the ladies of The Aviator, I preferred Kate Beckinsdale's saucy take on Ava Gardner which went virtually unnoticed throughout the entirety of awards season.



2005 Rachel Weisz, Constant Gardener A-
Character: Tess Quayle, activist traveling to Africa accompanying her Diplomat husband and sticking her nose in the business of evil pharmaceutical companies




Analysis: Oscars in the supporting categories ideally should go to scene stealers and Weisz's character really lit up the room in the film's initial scene. While her husband-to-be is conducting a question and answer session at an official state function, Weisz stands up and makes a lot of noise about how the British are really just imperialist pigs disrupting the whole stuffy Victorian affair. From that point on, she has your attention and while it's the way the scene was written that first hooked you onto her character, she sustains it.

The character drifts from present to past (by which I mean she lives on in the memory of her husband) and so Weisz is playing the image of a woman from the point-of-view of a man who's in love with her. If she appears overly idealized in some cases, that's why. It's a very clever role and Weisz is a very good actress. I'm happy to see her enjoying a respectable career since her Oscar.


2006 Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls A-
Character: Effie White, a singer being given the chance of a lifetime by a Motown-like recording artist

Analysis: It's a pretty big coincidence that this was the only season of American Idol I watched start to finish, so I was familiar with Hudson beforehand. Her singing and dancing are, of course, up to the standard of what you would expect in a musical like this and the singing is what you remember more than anything else. That's how all musicals are.



In my book, however, Hudson won this on the acting. Lots of people can sing and you can't sing anyone with pipes into a film and have an Oscar. There have been a lot of musical stars like Rex Harrison, Yul Brenner, and Liza Minelli who have won Oscars but I believe they all cemented their wins through acting. Hudson herself was only the 7th best singer in her season of American Idol. The character had an arc that went upward and downward and I think Hudson got on both slopes of it.



2007: Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton A
Character: Karen Crowder, A corporate attorney and spokeswoman for the morally dubious multi-billion dollar conglomerate of "U North."

Analysis: "Michael Clayton" was a movie of fascinating characters and Swinton's Karen Crowder was no exception. In an early scene the camera lingers on her looking at herself in the mirror without a shirt and adjusting her bra. She's a woman who's heavily invested in image from a professional sense and who also knows of the challenges she has as a woman in a man's world. Perhaps, she also knows the advantages of being a woman as well as no one would think of her as malicious if she were to do something deadly. The reveal that she is the antagonist is a twist but Swinton has a darkness underneath her all along and it's a potent performance because you can see it lurking underneath the surface.

2011: Octavia Spencer, The Help B-

Chracter: Minny Jackson, a sassy maid in 1960's Mississippi who displays impressive resilience after being fired and blacklisted by one of the the town's most prominent society debutantes

Analysis: I enjoyed Octavia's character for what she was meant to be: A satisfying  B-story and comic relief. I would even go so far as to say that I don't think Octavia had a false note in her performance. At the same time, the sassy black maid is a little bit too stock of a character for me to be pleased to see earn it someone an Oscar.

Mind you, there was a sizable backlash to this film when it came out that there are better role models to glorify than African-American maids in the 1960's, but I'm not in that camp. I agree with the counterargument voiced by Viola Davis in interviews that it does a greater disservice to limit true and courageous stories about the African-American experience because they aren't exclusively of positive
role models.

My problem is that it made the most sense for the Academy to give Octavia an Oscar for mostly strategic purposes. Viola was Oscar-worthy but Meryl Streep was immsensely due after 12 successive losses and they decided to award Octavia instead. In addition, Jessica Chastain gave a better performance (at least, in my opinion) but after getting negative press for failing to nominate a black actor the previous year (which statistically was not really that big of a deal), the Academy didn't want to hear grumbling over racial diversity again. In short, Chastain didn't stand a chance.






 

Best Supporting Actress Grades (Pt I)

A list of every Oscar-winning performance I've seen for Best Supporting Actress with my grades and assessments.

[Edit: Since originally posting this list, I have now seen:

Jo Van Fleet, East of Eden, 1955; Ruth Gordon, Rosemary's Baby, 1968; Meryl Streep, Kramer vs Kramer. I might to add them in a bit]

1939 Hattie McDaniel, Gone with the Wind C+
Character: Mammie, the house servant

Analysis: Imagine that you know nothing about the Oscars but are armed with a relatively good knowledge of the Civil Rights movement and have seen your share of old-timey films. Now someone asks you when do you think an African-American first won an Oscar. Your guess would probably be way later than 1939.

It’s a pretty remarkable, forward-thinking achievement that the Academy honored someone like McDaniel this early in history. At the same time, McDaniel’s character is controversial because it was very much a stock stereotype (known in cultural studies textbooks as “the Mammy“ which I believe was named after her) that contributed to the negative perceptions of blacks as joyfully subservient to white overlords. The debate when discussing McDaniel has always been centered on whether she transcended the mammy stereotype. I’d say only marginally.


1947 Celeste Holm, Gentleman’s Agreement A


Character: Magazine fashion editor Anne Dettrey who befriends and takes up the cause of the crusading journalist protagonist (Gregory Peck)

Analysis: It’s a testament to Holm’s staying power that most comments I’ve read about this film come from people who are baffled as to why Peck’s crusading journalist character ended up with Dorothy McGuire’s weak-willed heiress rather the outgoing fashion editor. Holme’s Anne Dettrey is spunky and outgoing and I might have considered her a little over the top until I came to the conclusion that her profession basically required her to be a socialite. I could have easily seen Holm's character cut out of this film and pasted into a screwball comedy in place of Barbara Stanwyck or Rosalind Russell. At the same time, it never feels like Holm is in the wrong movie here.




1948 Claire Trevor, Key Largo B+
Character: Gaye Dawn, a washed-up floozy hanging out with a  band of mobsters as they seek refuge a hotel in Key Largo, Florida amid a storm

Analysis: I like to see a film like Key Largo rewarded here because while it's not quite a classic, it's a solid film that’s overshadowed by other entries of a legendary director's filmography. The film might very well contain John Huston's best set piece and could be arguably counted as his most suspenseful and tightly scripted piece of drama.

What's interesting to note here is that Dawn was mostly  superfluous to the plot. For most of the film, she's neither vital towards Rocco's plans nor the protagonist's development. When she does finally impact the plot, it's not a particularly well-thought-out plot point (she took one gangster's gun but what about the other 3 on the boat?). 

I only mention that as a curious side note because it really has no bearing to how I viewed the character. Trevor's portrayal of Dawn was a little deeper and a little sadder than your average floozy helped out by a couple of stand-out scenes. Dawn's sad tolerance of her gangster cronies insulting her and her begging her  boyfriend not to leave her are both stand-out scenes. What likely clinched her the Oscar, however, was her a capella rendition of "Moanin' Low" sung as a last-ditch effort to get one more drop of alcohol. Trevor has the hard job of singing well but not too well as she's supposed to be playing a has-been.

The backstage story here is interesting:  When Trevor learned that she had to sing, she asked Huston if she could take singing lessons. Although Huston granted her request, the director wanted her to sound unrehearsed so he surprised her by shooting that scene before her first singing lesson and the rest is history.
 

1950: Josephine Hull, Harvey B
Character: A middle-aged woman, Veta Louise Simmons, mistakenly incarcerated in a mental institution when she tries to seek mental help for her brother (Elwood, played by James Stewart)

Analysis: Josephine Hull reminds me a lot of Aunt Bee from “The Andy Griffith Show” or Margaret Dumont from the Marx Brothers movies. The stuffy quasi-motherly old lady upon who (in the case of the latter) makes a perfect foil to the chaos and comedy that engulfs the scene.



I'm going to make it a rule to avoid comparing the Oscar winners to their competition in that given year, but that doesn't mean I can or should avoid comparing these actresses to past versions of themselves. If Hull, for example, is being rewarded for adding a dark twist to the prissy aunt character (trying to lock up her brother so that she’ll once again fit in with her society friends and attract a proper suitor for her daughter isn’t really the most honorable of intentions), then this role pails in comparison to her performance in "Arsenic and Old Lace." As Aunt Abby, Josephine Hull seems like the sweetest old lady until we learn 20 minutes in, that she and her sister lured old men to her basement to poison them. Her past self is the ultimate in dark humor and it's hard to ignore the comparison here.

The clincher in Hull's performance is the film's resolution which centers around her understanding and empathizing with her brother. It's an emotional moment pulled off by Hull that justifies the film's status as something more than a simple popcorn comedy.

1953: Donna Reed, From Here to Eternity A
Character: Alma Burke, a sophisticated call girl (aka prostitute) in Hawaii as the bombing of Pearl Harbor nears, who gets romantically entangled with a rebellious young private (Montgomery Clift).

Analysis: “Analysis” might not be a fitting term here because I just loved this character and there’s not much more to it that. Montgomery Clift’s antihero character is so enigmatic and Alma’s slow crawl to his heart is just about the only thing that makes us empathize with him.

1961: Rita Moreno, West Side Story A
Character: The fiery Puerto Rican Anita is the proprietor of a dress shop and confidante to Natalie Wood’s Maria

Analysis: There's a personal authenticity to this role as Rita Moreno herself was one of the few Latin American actors in Hollywood at the time who didn't whitewash her name (although it should be pointed out that Moreno isn't her real last name but you get the point) or ethnicity (see Rita Hayworth, Martin Sheen, etc). It's also a well-known fact that Moreno was also raped as a child and channeled those repressed emotions during the scene where she's roughed up by the Jets in Doc's general store.

My praise isn't just reserved for Moreno, however. The demanding nature of the song and dance numbers leaves me impressed with the entire ensemble. Each of the three secondary leads (Moreno, Russ Tamblyn as Riff and George Chikaris as Bernardo) brought their own talents to the mix and it's just as sweet that Chikaris also won an Oscar for that film.

1966: Sandy Dennis, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf  B
Character: Honey, an invitee to a small dinner party that descends into a night of hostility and chaos

Analysis: For any fans of the Office out there, the fourth season episode "Dinner Party" was modelled after this film.

This performance topped the list by Movieline.com of the 10 most histrionic Oscar-winning performances for a supporting actress ("She sells a performance that should be shown at Alcoholics Anonymous Meetings"). It also topped an internet poll for best in show.



It is certainly a performance that's out there. The play as a whole is just a bizarre piece of drama in which four people (two couples) are constantly changing from being offensive to being offended to being giddy and carefree, to being devastated, to everything in between. The screenplay alone requires all four actors to clear massive hurdles before the storyline begins to make sense to the audience. I think Sandy and the others completed it. My only issue is that I felt like the other three actors were leading the race (to continue the hurdling analogy) while Sandy Dennis was struggling to stay in the field.

1970: Helen Hayes, Airport D+
Character: Ada Quonsett, a scheming senior citizen who cheerily scams her way aboard several flights and racks up frequent flier miles at the expenses of the airlines.

Analysis: Jacqueline Bisset as a flight attendant who is coping with her newfound pregnancy at the hands of her lead pilot; Jean Seberg as the whipsmart right-hand man of the workohaulic airport manager; and Maureen Stapleton (an eventual Oscar winner 11 years later) as the preoccupied wife of a potential suicide bomber are all better choices than Helen Hayes here. Hayes' character provides some welcome comic relief and there's a certain delight in discovering that Ada Quonsett is not all that she seems, but there's a difference between how a character might bring a lot to the story verse an actor bringing a lot to the character.

The only silver lining here is that the film that served as the inspiration for the now-more-famous Jerry Zucker comedy "Airplane!" is an unexpectedly rich and entertaining film with characters that go very deep. With great performances by Bisset, Seberg, Stapleton, as well as Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, George Kennedy and Van Heflin, Airport has a very underrated ensemble for a disaster film and I'm glad that at least someone won an acting Oscar for this film.



1974: Ingird Bergman, Murder on the Orient Express C-
Character: Greta, a Swedish missionary on board a train car the night someone is murdered


Analysis: There are few standards by which I can universally measure all of these performances but a cold and hard rule should be that you shouldn't expect an Academy Award if you can't even outact the other supporting actresses within your own ensemble. Granted, the film boasts one of the best ensembles of the decade and the equal share of screen time between Bergman and three or four other ladies might lead to a splintering of opinions on who stands out the most. Still, I have trouble even seeing the argument that Bergman is the ensemble's stand-out character. In my opinion, Bergman has nothing on the flamboyant performances of Lauren Bacall or Jacqueline Bisset in terms of dramatic impact. Although there's something to be said for the power of a quiet performance, Bergman is  practically invisible in this large ensemble piece. Besides, it's not that much of a stretch playing Swedish when you consider that's Bergman's home country.

1975: Lee Grant, Shampoo C-
Character: Felicia Karpf, the wife of a Los Angeles businessman who introduces her on-the-side lover and hairdresser to her husband so that he may invest in his hair salon

Analysis: If I fail to touch on any prevalent attitudes about what Shampoo is really about in this analysis, bear in mind I'm writing about this performance and film in somewhat of a vacuum, as I know nothing about the film except what's on the back of the DVD cover. With that being said, Grant also commits the cardinal sin "Thou Shall Not be Overshadowed by your Costars and Expect to Win an Academy Award."

To be fair, the story demands that she be a forgettable character: The thematic thrust of the film is that the protagonist has lost his moral compass in his sex life and, as a result, the three women he's screwing are all interchangeable to him. Goldie Hawn plays the woman he begins the film with, Julie Christie plays the woman he hopes to end with, and Lee Grant's character is just a conduit in the middle. So to be fair to Grant, her character's not supposed to be remarkable because the story's told from the point of view of a person to whom Grant's character is insignificant. Of the Oscar races I'd like to see unfold in real time, Lee Grant's would be an interesting one because I have no idea what Oscar voters saw in her.


1976 Beatrice Straight, Network B
Character: Louise, the estranged wife of a television executive engaged in an extramarital affair

Analysis: Straight was on-screen for five minutes and forty seconds, making her performance the shortest of any Oscar winner to date. It seems a little unfair that for just six minutes of on-screen work, someone should be granted what now amounts to the greatest honor an actor can have. At the same time, if you took the highlight reel of some of these other performances, you'd probably get about six really good minutes.




That being said, this is a film that will make drama teachers' mouths water. There are several scenes that should be watched a minimum of fifty times by aspiring drama students. Beatrice Straight's one big scene (she's in another scene that lasts about 10 seconds) where she confronts her cheating husband fits that bill. She descends into all kinds of different emotional levels and it's a very convincing transition through each of them. When she goes from yelling at her husband to facing the fact that neither of them knows what to do, her delivery of the line "I'm not gonna give you up that easily Max" is just so perfect in the moment.


1980 Mary Steenburgen, Melvin and Howard B
Character: Lynda Dummar, a go-go dancer married to a perennially unlucky drifter of a husband

Analysis: Well, the feminist movement can be relieved that this award didn't start a "Show your boobs and get an Oscar" trend. For those who are curious, Steenburgen shows significantly more skin here than Auntie Clara in Back to the Future III. I was not expecting that.

Moving on...., Steenburgen's character has a little bit of ditziness to her which adds color to the character. Underneath that, however, she's not only a forward-thinking woman, but she is more mature than her down-on-his-luck husband and can see that he has no place in her future. It's a performance to which there's quite a bit underneath the surface.

1982 Jessica Lange, Tootsie B
Character: Julie Nichols, Soap opera actress and single mom who's the object of the cross-dressing protagonist's (Dustin Hoffman's) affections

Analysis: The question I'd like to pose here is: Does it take more acting effort to fall in love with someone than to be the person that someone is falling for? In the case of the latter, you have to sell the audience that you're the kind of girl who's worth all the trouble. Lange also has to make the character innocent (or at least naive enough to be fooled by Dorsey/Dorothy's ruse) but not entirely stupid. With her trademark Southern charm, Lange sells those qualities-innocent, virginal, charming- in every film she's in. Nothing new here, but it's a role that highlights her pretty well.

1983 Linda Hunt, Year of Living Dangerously A
Character: Billy, a half-Chinese photographer who gives professional and personal guidance to an Australian foreign correspondent (Mel Gibson) covering the Indonesian civil war.


Analysis: When I wrote "Billy" in the synopsis, I was not misspelling "Billie." The character in the source novel is male and director Peter Weir opted to cast a female. Supposedly, it's not some commentary on gender roles but rather Weir just felt Hunt was best for the part. This would make sense in a high school play where your star drama student is a female and maybe there aren't enough guys trying out. But this is Hollywood where there should be more than enough capable males showing up to audition for any speaking part in any movie you are casting for.

In the end, I have absolutely zero complaints because even if I'm not reading the film as any commentary on gender and don't award Hunt any "degree of difficulty" points for switching sexes, it is a terrific performance. Billy's eager smile when he meets Guy fills the mood with a childlike enthusiasm. It later resonates in a haunting way as he/she bears that grin with his/her last words. It's also a testament of just how seamlessly Hunt fit into the role that the interplay between Billy and his unrequited love (played by Sigourney Weaver) comes even halfway close to working. The sight of Sigourney Weaver dancing with a woman nearly two feet shorter than her who has romantic longings for her is highly jarring (and must have been even more so in 1984 when lesbian pairings were less common on screen) but it halfway works here (to be fair, it probably wouldn't work with anyone), but it would be a complete disaster if Hunt hadn't played it so well.

1984: Peggy Ashcroft, Passage to India B-
Character: Mrs. Moore, a liberal-minded woman in England traveling to visit her son in India. She does not share his racist views and wishes to see the "real India"



Analysis: Ashcroft had been acting as early as 1935 (she was in the Hitchcock movie "39 Steps") so it's been a long time coming for the lady. I'm a softie for awards that are given to someone at the end of their career if it doesn't come off as a lifetime achievement award. In this case, it didn't. Mrs. Moore displays a certain amount of youthful exuberance and she's enigmatic enough to make the deep levels of symbolism work.