Oscars 2012: Best Actress down to Streep and Davis
Ten years ago I was blogging the Oscars the year Halle Berry and Denzel Washington both won in a surprise upset. Russell Crowe or Sissy Spacek were expected to take one of the slots. The thinking was that the Academy would never award two black actors the same year. It was unheard of for a black woman to win — and in fact, Berry, like President Obama, is half-white or mixed race, which makes it awkward, always, to say that she was the “first black actress to win,” but in fact, that is how the American public views race. What got me then and what gets me now is that no one really wants to talk about it. It was apparently okay for 74 years of Oscar history to have never awarded black female star in the lead. It was okay because awarding Hattie McDaniel back in the 1930s kind of got them off the hook for the next several decades.
The Academy won’t see it the way I see it because to them they’ve been awarding plenty of “black folk” since Halle Berry and Denzel Washington won – Mo’Nique, Jennifer Hudson, Forest Whitaker, and Jamie Foxx, to name some. So where’s the problem?
To get at that knot we have to first look at what winning an Oscar really means. We have to understand what it represents at its best and at its worst. We have to understand what drives publicists and stars to work so hard for them and why there aren’t any to be had for black actresses. And we have to really understands the dynamics at play this year. It has come down to Meryl Streep and Viola Davis.
It is nearly impossible for a big star who is young and fuckable to get the kind of role that leads to Oscar. It doubles if that actress is older than 40. It triples if that actress is over 50. But it’s off the charts for actresses for whom there is simply no handy narrative pathway to create that character in the first place. The white community has a short history of what black stories are and when white filmmakers try to tell those stories they are accused of being racist. To confront the times in which The Help was taking place is to confront ongoing segregation in the South. Look at Mississippi now and you will see that dynamic continuing to occur — the politics there are still white.
But what we have in Hollywood is mostly quieted down segregation and imposed apartheid. White and black are mostly separate. The narratives don’t cross over because white storytellers had their hands slapped by the black community for trying to tell their stories and black filmmakers are mostly ignored by the white community for the stories they want to tell. And on and on and on and on and on it goes. No one wants to shake the tree. No one wants to take a look at how it really is.
The veteran: When Meryl Streep was young, so she admits in her Fresh Air interview with Terry Gross, she’d gotten hold of a Barbra Streisand record and memorized every tiny note and inflection, “every breath.” Even though she wouldn’t be known as the World’s Greatest Actress until much later, the seeds were planted for the kind of artist she would evolve into: someone equally good at technically manifesting a character as she was intelligent enough to bring that character to full fleshed life. She made a conscious decision, she said, to dumb herself down to be more attractive to boys (no opinions), bleached her hair and became a cheerleader. Remaking herself was her first and maybe most important acting challenge because she learned how to be wanted. When audiences first got a look at the blonde, chilly Streep in her early career Oscar really loved her for the win — with her long blonde hair and her high cheekbones, and tears that seemed to come naturally she won two Oscars for Kramer vs. Kramer and then later for Sophie’s Choice. Streep was the love interest. She was the leading lady. She was fuckable. She was wanted.
But after she did Sophie’s Choice so came a series of brilliant performances that many people accused of being “just about the hair and the accent.” During the 1980s, believe it or not, Streep had the reputation of being just a great mimic. She had then and she has now a knack for being the only good thing about a movie. Maybe to get those parts you have to accept their lousy scripts. But to win an Oscar, most of the time, it’s important to be in a strong Best Picture contender. Best Picture contenders with women in the lead are dwindling now. They are almost always about men – if they are about women they are about fuckable women like Natalie Portman or Jennifer Lawrence. Youth rules Hollywood and it rules the Oscars.
The worst insult to Streep, probably, was losing to Sandra Bullock whose one and only chance to get to the Kodak was handsomely rewarded. Not just because she was Sandy Bullock — friend to all who tread the boulevards and hang out on movie sets — but because she had been such a faithful product for Hollywood. That year alone, in her 40s, she had brought two movies over the $100 million mark, The Blind Side alone went over $200 mil. That is some hot sauce at a time when movies have to be sequels or effects movies to make that kind of coin.
Many said that she hadn’t won an Oscar in 29 years because she never campaigned hard enough. Enter Harvey Weinstein. If you want to win an Oscar, Weinstein is especially your guy. Not only does he know how to play the awards race voters but he knows how to play the press — he knows that you have to do something extra in order to get attention and he knows that you have to act like you want to win. So, with “the punisher” pushing her to push herself, it looks like 2012 might finally be the year Streep gets that third Oscar. It would only be her second lead Oscar but third overall. She holds the record for the most nominations. She received the Kennedy Center Honor this year, was on 60 Minutes, Fresh Air, even appeared at an AARP dinner. This is an actress who wants to win. And who could blame her? If she wins for The Iron Lady she will win because she gave yet another brilliant performance. She will win because it will cap off a brilliant career and she wants to win in competition before it becomes about “lifetime achievement awards” and she will win because she has the hardest charging PR team backing her up.
Moreover, the filmmakers were careful to make Margaret Thatcher, of all people, as tame and sanitized as you can get so that it had to be only about the performance and not in the least bit about who Thatcher really was. Streep nails the part, dives into all of the stuff she’s great at — the breathing patterns, the vocal inflection, the objection in tone — she wants to win the argument, said Streep. But what’s lacking in Streep’s performance is a “there” there with Maggie Thatcher. That isn’t Streep’s fault, of course, because in order to find that thing that would define who Thatcher really was Streep, and the filmmakers, would have to take a side. And they didn’t want to do that for fear of offending audiences or probably more importantly, Oscar voters; if they hate the character they ain’t going to vote for Streep. So what you have is a boiled down version of an Iron Lady — an elderly woman trying to hold things mentally together, trying to recall who she was way back when.
Should she finally win again, which she probably will, her many fans would be joyful and proud and the world would celebrate a woman who has given decades of brilliant turns, incarnations, soulful renderings — much more than the “the hair and the accent.” The force is with Streep this year and it is too hard to fight. It’s like when Daniel Day Lewis won his second Oscar, and Sean Penn and Jodie Foster — at some point you must step aside and let it be.
The Help was a film Viola Davis had to really think hard about before taking on. To be in 2012 and have your first leading role be a maid in the Civil Rights South, told from the point of view of a bleeding-heart white writer who loved her nanny so much she wrote a whole book about her. How could this woman have possibly known what motivated the help back then? She saw the one side she was shown, the side black workers had to show white workers — and it’s an attitude we white folk know all too well, eh? And the one we’re most comfortable with. The Blind Side succeeded for many reasons, but one of them was absolutely the idea of the magical negro whose bowed head and submissive manner made him putty in the hands of well-meaning white Christians who could pull him out of his crack den and make him a football star.
What makes Viola Davis (and Octavia Spencer’s) performances so brilliant is that they flesh out what most writers haven’t until now. They give their black maids full spectral light. And Hollywood has no idea whatsoever what to do with Ms. Davis. Here is a serious actress who attended Juilliard School for four years and has done a lot of theater but when it came to Hollywood no one was going to do what they did with the blonde, blue-eyed Streep. There are no narratives for leading black characters, not when Davis was coming up, and certainly not now. Things were different back in the 1970s, of course, but those days are long gone.
Davis has had to pay her dues in smaller ways, taking character parts and always making them more interesting than they were written. It has become her career trademark: if you want your movie to be better put Viola Davis in it. She will write her character way better than you ever could. Steven Soderbergh saw that and cast her in Out of Sight, Traffic, and Solaris. But what would have really shaken up the status quo? Casting Davis in the Julia Roberts part in Oceans 11. It isn’t Hollywood’s job, of course, to shake up the status quo, just like it isn’t television’s or print magazines’; they are tucked safely behind their need to survive by making lots and lots of cold hard cash. The buying public has been conditioned over many years to respond to the white narrative, the white star. Breaking into that world? Well, let’s just say it’s not every day that an Oprah Winfrey or Denzel Washington comes along.
When you’re talking about the Best Actress race you are talking about Hollywood history, the status quo and the industry’s unwillingness — and the audiences unwillingness — to shift their perspective. Two of the roles — Margaret Thatcher and Marilyn Monroe are icons in the white community, of course, because no black actress during Monroe’s time could have become Monroe, and no black citizen of Britain could have ever gotten close to being Prime Minister — can you imagine? In all of their history, the BAFTA has never given their top acting award to a black woman. What that says is 1) there aren’t many black heroes whose story Hollywood wants to tell that will sell (they try, audiences ain’t buying). For all of the talk of apartheid and segregation and Jim Crow, Hollywood itself plays that out every year when the Oscar race rolls around. Black women are fine and well to be rewarded in supporting, but lead? That says something entirely different about the power dynamic, doesn’t it? An actress like Viola Davis, despite her training and ability, could never be in Streep’s position because there would never have been a time when she would have been plucked from her world of theater and thrust into the leading lady roles as Streep was. Davis could never have simply bleached her hair blonde in order to accommodate the Aryan tastes of the American public.
Viola Davis in The Help, though, has broken all of the rules and in so doing created one of the most memorable and moving characters of the year. She led a film that made $165 million dollars. She found a way to access her character that far transcended the cliche of the black maid and in so doing she kicked down a wall. No one can make the argument that films with black characters can’t make money off of white audiences.
Maybe she doesn’t get as much screen time as other characters, maybe. But as Davis always does in any movie she’s in, whether it’s a tiny character part, or a decent sized one — she blows that shit out of the water. She commands the frame. She draws you right into her internal world and keeps you guessing about what it is she’s thinking and feeling until all at once her emotions burst forth. I don’t know how anyone can look at the two performances side by side and not lead towards Davis for soul alone.
But I also recognize Streep’s greatness. What she does with The Iron Lady (despite the fact that one really has to only regard it as a portrait and not a great film about that historical figure) is simply genius. She is probably the only working actress in Hollywood that good at nailing voice, movement, and stature of people. Streep disappears into Thatcher. The only key thing missing is who she really was — not what she looked and sounded like, but who she was — what drove her. But perhaps that doesn’t really matter in the end. Perhaps this win for Streep will be to cap off a brilliant career as well as a grand performance. No one is going to complain. On the contrary, she will get a standing ovation.
But here’s the rub. The status quo is a hard thing to shake up in Hollywood. When Streep said to Hollywood at large to “please give Viola Davis a movie” she might never have thought that it would be at the expense of her own win. With Streep, though, there are opportunities aplenty. She shows no sign of slowing down and has many more great performances in her. She is the first person who gets scripts handed to her because filmmakers know she will make them money as well as hitting the performance out of the park.
The other three actress in the race are worth noting — Rooney Mara completely reinvented herself as Lisbeth Salander, dug deep into it, challenged every preconception about who she was and what she could do. She faced the subsequent gauntlet for doing so but there is no question that her career was made this year. Michelle Williams also took it to another level. Her emotional expression is already known but her ability to mimic someone totally outside of herself was proved with her Marilyn. And Glenn Close — an artist who was supposed to be the winner this year will once again have to take the back seat, a nomination in this case, considering how the movie was received, an acknowledgement of her ability as well as her likability in Hollywood.
And so it will go. As the Best Actress race once again becomes the most heated category. And so Hollywood will keep turning as it’s always turned. And the Oscars will do what they’ve always done – now their cronyism more deeply embedded than ever before — the Oscar race driven and manipulated to perfection by Harvey Weinstein so much so that it’s hardly worth even trying to fight that kind of far-reaching impact anymore. They want it that bad, by god, they can have it. At some point, when you write about them and study them hard enough you inevitably come to the conclusion that it amounts to a popularity contest. They like you, they really like you on this day, in this year, and the rest is history. It’s a shiny gold statue sitting on the top of someone’s toilet tank.
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Streep may have won the BAFTA, but my guess – and it’s just a guess based on how AMPAS differs from BAFTA – is that Davis will squeak by for the win.
I think Davis should have won for DOUBT and Streep should have won for JULIA AND JULIA (my favourite of all her performances) and for A CRY IN THE DARK.
I hope it’s Streep to win this year although I do think it will be Viola Davis.
The scenes when she is novice Margaret Thatcher were a little too Julia-like but the old age performance was absolutely phenomenal.
Another thoughtful, passionate piece. Great work, Sasha.
I have to give credit to Quentin Tarantino. For all the crap he’s taken about the racially charged language in his films, he cast Pam Grier in a lead role, took Samuel L. Jackson into the superstar stratosphere, and wrote a big ol part for a black actor once again in Django. As an aspiring writer, I feel like every time I write a black character, I’m faking it, so I stay in my comfort zone and write white. Tarantino doesn’t care and his films are better for it.
When Viola got that standing ovation at the SAG awards–it was all over. Streep won BAFTA because she portrayed a British icon. I would be shocked if Davis didn’t win on Feb 26th–the same for Dujardin.
I don’t think it’s up to white people to create black characters. In fact it bugs me when white people try to tell black stories. There are a lot of black people telling black stories who are perfectly capable of doing that….we just need to support them.
I hope Meryl wins this year. Painful as this could seem, a win for Viola won’t mean much to her career. She won’t receive better parts because of the Oscar. That’s the sad case. If she loses, I’m sure she will win in the future – for a supporting role. Otherwise, things cannot change, unfortunately. She’s a brilliant actress.
Still, I’m hoping for Meryl to win. Period. It’s about f-ing time for her.
I hope it will be down to the performances, I think they both want to be rewarded on the merits of their work, not something else.
It’s disgusting BTW that Meryl lost to Bullock. That might arguably cost Viola an Oscar. And come on: Viola Davis. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Bullock
Davis received better parts because of her nomination (and Meryl’s plees) what makes you think she won’t get better parts if she wins? A win will do nothing for Streep.
I’m hoping Streep wins as I found Davis’ performance overrated. I thought she did much better work in “Doubt.”
So, Sasha hates the Academy Awards? Who’s Sasha? Oh yeah, she started a site feeding off Oscar only to bite the hand that feeds her.
On a different note: what’s up with Meryl Streep, anyway. She forgets her glasses at the GG, last night her shoe comes off, and when she won the Oscar for Sophie’s Choice in 1983, she dropped her speech and Sylvester Stallone had to pick up the scrap of paper for her.
Streep will lose the OSCAR because her movie isn’t nominated for BP nor Best Director.
‘It’s a shiny gold statue sitting on the top of someone’s toilet tank.’
so why do we all care so much?
Because it is so much more than just a shiny gold statue sitting on the top of someone’s toilet tank.
Sasha, I love your writing and you really did your best to find the balance here.
Just a few words–firstly about Meryl’s 80s films, you wrote:
‘Maybe to get those parts you have to accept their lousy scripts.’
What 80s films that Meryl starred in had lousy scripts? Surely not Silkwood, Out of Africa, Ironweed, Heartburn, A Cry in the Dark? Perhaps she made a few odd choices like Still of the Night (but that was Benton again) and Falling in Love (reunion with DeNiro) but ‘lousy scripts?’ I don’t thinks so. Not in the 80s anyway
And as for saying about Davis:
‘She led a film that made $165 million dollars.’
Let’s not forget Emma Stone and her draw.
I am guessing few people went to see THE HELP for Viola Davis. On the other hand, I bet most people who go to IRON LADY do so for Meryl.
Those issues notwithstanding and taking my personal feeling about the two performances out of the mix–it’s quite an exciting race this year. I truly think Viola will win the Oscar. Meryl won the BAFTA because she’s playing a Brit figure in a very Brit film. Davis won the SAG because her performance is a VERY popular one with actors–the major voting AMPAS body. And many more people saw and loved THE HELP than saw and loved THE IRON LADY. I will easily concede that THE HELP is a better film.
And as a side note for everyone complaining about Viola’s reaction to Meryl’s BAFTA win…rewatch the moment for Christ’s sake. Viola’s reaction was great. She was laughing and there was nothing snarky about it. Why must people make trouble where there isn’t any.
By the way I am a Meryl supporter all the way as I simply feel her performance is better, but right is right. And I will be fine with a win either way because both ladies are truly gracious and gifted actors.
“On a different note: what’s up with Meryl Streep, anyway. She forgets her glasses at the GG, last night her shoe comes off…” etc etc…
stage business – incidental activity performed by an actor for dramatic effect
Meryl Steep can rivet attention with more schtick getting from her seat to the podium than most actors manage their entire careers.
If I was Academy member and I read your articles I would certainly not vote for Davis – even if she was my number one. Simply: because your articles are extremely irritating. And I would vote for Streep.
Besides: Streep is the best of the bunch this year and she SHOULD win the Academy Award – if Davis wins it will be certain for people all over the world that she won because she’s black – and no one will consider her Academy Award “just” or “deserved” and her name will be for ages quoted as one of the worst decisions Academy have made in her history – as is very often said about Berry’s Oscar – and it will be unfair for Davis who deserves her award more than Williams or Mara [I haven't seen "Albert Nobbs" yet] but does not deserve to win with Streep and certainly SHOULD NOT!. It won’t change her career certainly, if she wins (as it did not change Berry’s career who did not play in anything interesting after MONSTER’S BALL and it did not change Swank’s career – though she won Academy Awards TWO times) but it can ruin her career if she wins undeservingly because of the baclash it will certainly cause.
My heart is sayin’ Streep, my head is sayin’ Davis…it’s going to happen…
To see this race come down to two women over 40 is a wonderful thing. We all ought to take a breath and savor that, because that is as rare as a unicorn.
We keep hearing that Davis deserves because opportunities like this don’t come along often enough for women of color. Left unsaid is the best support for that position: the fact that this category is that principle in overdrive. Radical feminists have long said that we should abolish the Best Actress category (just make both genders compete for one acting award), but the rest of us usually react: well, women don’t get enough chances anyway, so let’s make sure they keep getting this one. Basically, before voting for Davis or Streep, you should ask yourself which side of the line you’re on, there. If you’re not on the radical feminist side, then your vote for Davis should be easy.
Also left unsaid is that after this race is over, it won’t be “read” as a race race. That will not be the legacy to future films. The legacy will be: If Davis wins, they will say it was the BP nom factor. If Streep wins, they will say it was the bio-pic factor. So there.
They are so damn close, I can’t even tell now which one is the frontrunner and which one is the damnclose runner-up…hmm, sure it will never happen, but what about A) TIE B) split votes resulting a Williams victory ?
@Someone says:If I was Academy member and I read your articles I would certainly not vote for Davis – even if she was my number one. Simply: because your articles are extremely irritating. And I would vote for Streep.Besides: Streep is the best of the bunch this year and she SHOULD win the Academy Award – if Davis wins it will be certain for people all over the world that she won because she’s black – and no one will consider her Academy Award “just” or “deserved” and her name will be for ages quoted as one of the worst decisions Academy have made in her history – as is very often said about Berry’s Oscar – and it will be unfair for Davis who deserves her award more than Williams or Mara [I haven't seen "Albert Nobbs" yet] but does not deserve to win with Streep and certainly SHOULD NOT!. It won’t change her career certainly, if she wins (as it did not change Berry’s career who did not play in anything interesting after MONSTER’S BALL and it did not change Swank’s career – though she won Academy Awards TWO times) but it can ruin her career if she wins undeservingly because of the baclash it will certainly cause.
At least Sasha makes coherent points with proper use of grammar, pronouns, adjectives etc…while you just write incoherent “jibberish” comments devoid of logic or sense!
@Brian
Well, Sophie’s Choice was not nominated for BP or BD either.
But no, let’s not go there.
1982 was definitely her year and she’d won nearly everything for Sophie (except BAFTA-but it was maybe she won the year before).
That she’d won major awards for TIL, a VERY controversal potrait with mixed reviews, is kind of astonishing, still.
Yes, I’m glad she’d won BAFTA now. After so many years…
And the Drama Globe! After so many years…
If that’s really all there is, is simply fantastic.
But I think it’s Viola’s time to shine and Meryl will be very happy and welcome her as a Best Actress winner.
Terry Gross interview with Davis just aired on NPR
http://www.npr.org/2012/02/13/146708601/viola-davis-the-fresh-air-interview
“Your job as an actor is to piece together whatever you’ve learned in your training, or whatever you have experienced in your life, to piece together a person,” she says. “Otherwise, nothing that you’re doing really has … value. … So I imagined everything about her. I imagined her childhood, I imagined what her dreams could have been, I imagined even what her love life was.”
“My grandmom worked as a maid for most of her life, and she worked in the tobacco and the cotton fields, whatever she could get,” Davis says. “My mom would always say that [my grandmother] had employers who treated her very bad — just made her work sunup to sundown, taking care of their children as well as cleaning her homes.”
For me, the best performance of those nominated is Michelle Williams performance. She can give a surprise. Statistics are also in her favor.
By the way, the last time a race was this close was arguably Nicholson vs. Day-Lewis. And we know how that turned out…just sayin…
Where’s the Michael Jackson popcorn .gif when you need it? xD
I’m so happy that we have such an open Best Actress race. Awards like Best Actor and Best Director, which, for a time, may have seemed equally open, have now solidified in The Artist’s favour, but this is one race which hasn’t resolved. The last acting race like it was Sean Penn vs. Mickey Rourke. I’m actually quite excited. With such a dull year for Best Picture, I’m glad neither actress is firmly in the lead at this point.
I’d also be very happy for either actress to win. Sometimes I feel like the only person on here who feels that way…(I know I’m not though)
Wow, Sasha, the BAFTA win really seemed like it got to you. All of a sudden you’re predicting Streep to win for sure, and heavily pointing out that it’s Weinstein manipulation. And if Meryl does win, I doubt it will be to “cap off” a fantastic career as I think that she will be back for some more competition in the future.
But it’s nice to see some kind words about Streep’s performance
. She deserves it because of that, both performance were great but in my opinion Streep had the tougher job and pulled off scenes where you clearly see why Thatcher was hated, and why there is reason to see her as human as well. Davis, though she is fantastic, had the better script to work with and in my opinion I don’t see how she leaped so much from the cliche of a black maid. Though there is no question that any leading roles for black actress will come to her door first after this second nomination.
All that to say though, everyone will have their opinions (thank God) and there’s a good case to be made for the both of them and their performances. Right now I’d say it’s too close to call with this race but I would hope that your words ring true Sasha and that the force stays with Streep.
This is getting ridiculous. Should win the one who gave the best performance. In my opinión was Streep (Davis is right close behind), but art is subjective…
I´m sure now Meryl Streep will win! Searching for reasons (standing ovations at SAG) why Viola Davis will win is in my opinion ridiculous. Meryl Streep didn´t win because she played Thatcher. She did win because it was a good performance. That´s all!
They are so damn close, I can’t even tell now which one is the frontrunner and which one is the damnclose runner-up…hmm, sure it will never happen, but what about A) TIE B) split votes resulting a Williams victory ?
It is incredibly close. Of the three only one has a Best Picture nomination plus SAG ensemble and SAG actress win so perhaps Davis has the edge. But for some reason I feel it will go Streep’s way.
So, Sasha hates the Academy Awards? Who’s Sasha? Oh yeah, she started a site feeding off Oscar only to bite the hand that feeds her.
Hate to break it to you but the Academy Awards don’t feed me – the studios that want the Academy Awards do – and since there are routinely more losers than winners every year the bitterness can be catchy. Follow my drift?
Davis received better parts because of her nomination (and Meryl’s plees) what makes you think she won’t get better parts if she wins? A win will do nothing for Streep.
Her fans will stop harping on it, though, and for that I will be thankful.
And I know that this website is “supporting” Viola Davis. But if you look outside the US no one knows Viola Davis! This is different, for example, to Sandra Bullocks Oscar win. Sandra Bullock was the “talk of the town” here in Germany, when she had been nominated for the Oscar. And this is not the case in terms Viola Davis.
Jesse, you’re right – and David Fincher, too, for casting Morgan Freeman in the lead. But I’m seeing, as the economy tightens, and Hollywood runs scared, they are relying more and more on what they know sells – that writes minorities mostly out. Just look at the magazines.
By the way, Viola Davis-Fans are not better than Streep-Fans!
I think Davis should have won for DOUBT and Streep should have won for JULIA AND JULIA (my favourite of all her performances) and for A CRY IN THE DARK.
My favorite Streep performances from best to least, as follows (note how most from her later career where she has truly flourished):
1. Sophie’s Choice (maybe the best performance ever by any actor)
2. Postcards from the Edge
3. Julie and Julia
4. Doubt
5. Silkwood
6. A Cry in the Dark
7. Bridges of Madison County
8. The Devil Wears Prada
9. Kramer vs. Kramer
10. Manhattan
11. The Deer Hunter
12. One True Thing
13. Ironweed
14. Adaptation
15. Heartburn
16. Defending Your Life
17. The River Wild
18. Music of the Heart
19. It’s Complicated
20. Mamma Mia
And then you get to the ones I didn’t care for as much:
Plenty
The Iron Lady
Before and After
etc. Iron Lady is in the category of “I will never watch that movie again.” All of the others I have seen over and over again. Many many times.
“When Viola got that standing ovation at the SAG awards–it was all over”
Not really. People who say that are forgetting that actors are not the only ones that vote in the Oscars, and it’s clear that ONLY actors had any love for The Help, since it was shut-out in other categories (apart from BP). Plus, Streep was already a SAG winner.
I’m not saying Davis can’t, or won’t win, but the SAG certainly doesn’t prove much.
And can someone please stop using race as a reason for Davis to win? If she delivered the best performance, that’s the only reason she needs to support her cause (I haven’t seen the movie, so no opinion there). If she didn’t, then she has no reason to win.
When Halle Berry won, she did it for the sole reason to be the best black actress to ever win (OK, she also had the babe factor), and let me ask: did that help anyone, including Halle Berry herself? Did a lot more opportunities arise for black actresses to the point that her win was a game changer?
You all know the answer. The only thing that it did was to give the Academy a chance to pat itself in the back and say “Hey, look, we ain’t racists no mo’ (not that we ever were)” or “You see? Black actresses have the same opportunities as everyone else, you can stop complaining now.” And it also robbed more deserving actresses of the Oscar they deserve, including Sissy Spacek and Naomi Watts (who WASN’T EVEN NOMINATED).
“Davis received better parts because of her nomination (and Meryl’s plees) what makes you think she won’t get better parts if she wins? A win will do nothing for Streep.”
By that way of thinking, the less known actor should always win- let’s give Best Actor to Damien Birchir, Actress to Rooney Mara, Supporting prizes to Hill and Bejo and be done with it.
By the way, Viola Davis-Fans are not better than Streep-Fans!
Well they seem to be nicer, imo.
And I know that this website is “supporting” Viola Davis. But if you look outside the US no one knows Viola Davis! This is different, for example, to Sandra Bullocks Oscar win. Sandra Bullock was the “talk of the town” here in Germany, when she had been nominated for the Oscar. And this is not the case in terms Viola Davis.
I hope the American voters are smart enough to change the status quo. And someday what you’re talking about, Wolf, will change.
@Sasha: That´s your opinion! But I don´t think so.
Thanks Bob for the link.
There is no such thing as a “cliche of the black maid”. There are however a cliches called “Maid”, “Actress” and 19 more. See Female Clichés
By the way, the last time a race was this close was arguably Nicholson vs. Day-Lewis. And we know how that turned out…just sayin…
This has been on my mind a lot as well. How exciting would that be???
Margaret Thatcher = British
BAFTA = British Oscars
Meryl won the Bafta because of that.
surprise ?? NO surprise
Here’s hoping that Michelle Williams pulls an Adrian Brody!! I truly felt her performance was the most difficult and brilliantly done.
But I don’t see Meryl winning, Viola has this already, we debate and debate and debate about the possibilities but she has two of the major precursors, Critic’s Choice and SAG. I think personally she deserved it for Doubt and this performance is in a sense an extension of that same character…plus she’s always been lovely in SVU episodes !
So many things about this article I find disturbing -’black folks’, ‘Berry, like Obama, is half-white or mixed race, which makes it awkward’, ‘nearly impossible for a big star who is young and fuckable to get the kind of role that leads to Oscar.’
It’s as though the 20th century never happened.
it’s just a popularity contest – that’s all. Very, very rarely does the ‘best’ performance win, sometimes not even nominated. So relax. Stop trying to make a pseudo-sociological point about race/gender/money/control/culture when writing about two actresses.
It’s a close race – good. That and tragedy, is who people watch. The element of surprise. Who knows, maybe these TWO GREAT actresses will split the vote and, like Adrien Brody, Michelle Williams will get the gold.
I`d be OK if Davis won for some reasons this site has pointed in the past few weeks. I just think her performance is not better (although she`s a better actress than the ones I will list) than Julia Roberts, Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Halle Berry and even Sandra Bullock, all regarded here as undeserving wins that I always defended because the Oscars need to reward its stars too. As they need to rewards efforts like Viola`s. And they need to give more recognition to their best actress of all time. It`s a very close race. But I support Meryl to win.
Viola was amazing in Doubt but Penelope absolutely deserved it.
I agree — and have said before — that the audience reaction to Davis’s SAG win gave us a very good indication of the way this race is going. Yes, the actors make up only a part of the Academy, and actors are about 111 out of 5700 Academy members, but 1100 voters is, statistically, a very healthy sample from which to draw certain conclusions.
All along I’ve believed Streep would win, but I have switched my prediction to Davis.
Whatever happens, I will be ahppy and sad — happy fgor whichever is the winner, and sad for whichever is the loser.
The thing I loved about Streep in the Iron Lady is that it allowed us to see both Meryl as the great, technically skilled mimic (in the Thatcher in power years) and Meryl as the great actress (in the spectacular scenes of her as an old lady). I think that any actor/actress who plays a well known person is going to be accused by some of merely being a mimic, because to some extent the role has to involve some amlunt of sheer technical impersonation or the performance is not convincing at all. So Meryl did have to learn to speak, move her head, focus her eyes etc. in a way that is very accurate. And since Meryl is so fantastic at these technical things, she then gets accused of being “merely” a mimic. But just because the role necessarily calls for mimicry, and Streep does that brilliantly, does not mean that the role is confined to that.
But if Streep wins, it will be because the “old lady” scenes seem less obviously to be “mere mimicry” and are truly touching and riveting.
The great thing about Davis is the intense concentration and focus of her roles. She has a great ability even when she is being quiet and still to suggest deep reserves of intelligence and character. That is a rare skill for an actress to convey in such quiet ways.
Damn, I wish it could be a tie.
Sasha: Funny thing, I would put PLENTY in my top five favorite Streep performances. Also, did you ever see her in THE SEDUCTION OF JOE TYNAN?
Another great, early, performance was HOLOCAUST.
Could Davis and Streep split their vote, allowing Mara or Close to sneak in? Clooney and Pitt are splitting their vote, making it easy for Dujardin to win.
Josh, it’s true that the vote could be split. But again, having the Best Picture nod helps — Viola Davis is the only actress of the five that has a corresponding Best Picture nomination – is that incredible or what.
I really hope Meryl Streep will win, but even if she doesn’t she’s building a TRIPLE ATTACK:
2011 – The Iron Lady;
2012 – Great Hope Springs;
2013 – August: Osage County
On the other hand, Oscar or no Oscar, Viola Davis will indeed have some of the best scripts ever for a black woman knocking at her door. And this is based on the smash hit that “The Help” is, the publicity, the interviews, the hype. Career wise, the Oscar win won’t do much for either of them. In Viola’s case the recognition and the nomination alone have already done wonders and will continue to do if her upcoming films are successful with the critics and/or the audience.
By the way Sasha! A perfect point about Halle Berry and her ethnic belonging. The woman is a mix and you can tell that from a mile, yet the black community seems to have recruited her permanently and won’t let her go. Same goes for Mariah Carey, who I have always believed to be white when I was a teenager and only changed my position when I read the facts.
Back to Berry, I pointed this out last year or 2 years ago, when she spoke about Lena Horne at the Oscar ceremony, again a strikingly pale black woman. Now… ask yourselves why these women have had huge success in Hollywood.
Finally, the biggest problem starts with the need for a sense of belonging. People really can’t stop labeling themselves as black, white, red, Asian, brown, Latino, Eastern European, middle-eastern and what not.
The white community’s narrow-minded view of a white person as being someone who’s blond and blue-eyed or a complexion somewhat close to this, is disgusting.
Reversed racism that I’ve witnessed from black and Asian people, however, is equally brutal.
“Viola Davis is the only actress of the five that has a corresponding Best Picture nomination”- This could also mean the other way around! That she can lose.
If Meryl loses, I can just hope Sally Field (I like her a lot but not to win a 3rd Oscar) loses next year and Meryl takes it either for Great Hope Springs or August: Osage County (it would be a dream to see Meryl and Julia winning together).
“But again, having the Best Picture nod helps — Viola Davis is the only actress of the five that has a corresponding Best Picture nomination – is that incredible or what.”
It does, this is true. I have a feeling that were the BP nominees down to 5 as before, The Help wouldn’t have made it and then THAT would of been something to write an article about for sure.
As it stands now, Davis has the slight edge with that BP nom, but it’s too close to call.
Oh and GoOnNow, I doubt “Great Hope Springs” will be a threat at the Oscars, most likely a threat at the Musical/Comedy branch at the Globes. “August: Osage County” though, that’s going to be big.
I know it’s not for another year but after the past two years of such strong female performances (especially this year), it was even hard to think of t h5 best because of the of great female performances. So I would like to ask that if any of you could see any female leading performances realy be stunning. And i would also like to ask if Sally Field can make it 3/3 or a younger actress winning. What do you all think.
I am troubled by statements like this, “By the way Sasha! A perfect point about Halle Berry and her ethnic belonging. The woman is a mix and you can tell that from a mile, yet the black community seems to have recruited her permanently and won’t let her go.”
Halle Berry is black. She will always be black in this world. The black community IS her community. God, this type of shit kills me. Grow up being Halle Berry and then try to say she isn’t black. For fuck’s sake.
Oh and then on another note: Viola Davis is the only actress of the five that has a corresponding Best Picture nomination – is that incredible or what.
Yes, it’s an incredible indicator of what a huge failure their Best Pic nomination experiment was.
Sasha,
I would add “The Hours” to list of Meryl Streep’s best performances—probably right after “Doubt.” Also, “Marvin’s Room”?
I think Viola gives the best performance of the year and she absolutely deserves this award on merits alone. But I just wanted to make a couple of points…
I haven’t seen anyone yet do an in-depth look at the American/Europe divide in terms of The Help (and The Iron Lady to a lesser extent). A lot of the commenters on this site are European I think and maybe don’t realize just how gigantic The Help is. The Help is an *American* movie, through and through. The book was a huge success here (its still a bestseller), the movie was a tremendous blockbuster, and the story is one that many want to be told. My grandmother goes to the movies maybe once a year, and this year she went to see The Help (last year was The King’s Speech). Not that her going means anything, just that it’s THAT type of movie that draws people into the theater that wouldn’t normally go. So I think a European looking into our awards race would be a bit surprised to learn just how much of an “event” this movie was for Americans. If you look at it just in terms of box office, The Iron Lady made $30m overseas and $20m in the US. The Help made almost the same overseas ($36m) but nearly 10 times as many people have seen it here in the US ($170m) as The Iron Lady. The Help even made DOUBLE what War Horse has made, a Spielberg epic based on a bestselling book and very popular play. Just goes to show you that it was a phenomenon and that voters LOVE giving awards to the two actresses that were the lifeblood of the movie. I, myself, cannot imagine Octavia winning without Viola, especially after the SAG embrace of Viola, and especially after Viola’s two speeches. Those are my own biases, but I don’t think those biases are unique.
On the other point, if Meryl were to win for The Iron Lady, it would be the lowest-rated film to win a Best Actress award since Liz Taylor in Butterfield 8 back in 1960 (it was her 4th nomination in a row and they finally gave one to the biggest star on the planet). The Iron Lady has a 6.2 on IMDB and it’s “rotten” on Rotten Tomatoes. I’m not denigrating Meryl’s performance, but please realize that Academy voters would seriously have to plug their noses to vote a top award to even a great performance from the film. Except through extenuating circumstances, it just doesn’t happen that a movie this universally panned wins a top award.
@ Mel, I agree that people have the right to define themselves the way they want to, and I respect that. But Berry is not black, in terms of color she just isn’t, you can tell she’s a mix and if you have a problem with that, then this is your problem
Yes, it’s an incredible indicator of what a huge failure their Best Pic nomination experiment was.
Agreed.
I would add “The Hours” to list of Meryl Streep’s best performances—probably right after “Doubt.” Also, “Marvin’s Room”?
Sorry but I hated The Hours. And all of the performances in it.
You seem to be the one who has a problem with it. I’m perfectly fine knowing she’s a black woman and acknowledging it.
I was making a point, Mel, and after that I stated that my personal problem is the “sense of belonging” syndrome, which is the disservice almost everywhere, in any country, in any society.
If Halle Berry sees her self as a black woman and if the black community sees her as black woman – fine; the facts, however, speak differently.
And finishing off with who has a problem, just take a quick look at the words you’ve used, and you’ll realize who has a problem
The frustrating thing about the Best Actress race is how uninspiring the list of nominees is (and one could say the same thing of both of the supporting categories too).
You could make a compelling argument that the best performances by actresses in the past year came from Kirsten Dunst (by far the most impressive work I saw in Melancholia), Elizabeth Olsen, Carey Mulligan (in a couple of roles but especially Shame), Charlize Theron and Rooney Mara. Obviously, Mara has been recognised but how much better would that overall line-up be? And yet each could rightly be described as young, white and sexy. Does that devalue the work? Is there, in fact, a different kind of discrimination at play?
The truth of the matter is that actors of different colour, race and ethnicity are recognised with greater frequency than ever before in the Academy’s history. Is the situation perfect? Of course not. Are there deserving performances by minorities that are overlooked? Absolutely. But no more than the deserving work of others as far as I can tell.
The biggest problem with acting nominations every year, whether they be male or female, is the emphasis on rewarding those that play famous personalities. I’m old enough (just) to remember Thatcher when she was in power and every time I see a clip from the film I can’t take it seriously. It looks like a piece of comedy theatre. But regardless of the film’s worth (or that of Streep’s performance for that matter), I think we’re rapidly approaching a time when a category for Best Act of Mimicry is introduced so we can get back to celebrating actors playing proper characters again, whatever their age, race or colour.
Viola Davis is a great actress and I’ll be perfectly happy to see her win, but let’s face it, evaluating who is the best in this category feels like an empty exercise as they bare so little resemblance to the true best work of the year.
@GoOnNow
First off Halle Berry identifies herself as black. Noone is forcing her to do that. If thats how she identifies thats her business. The black community is not “holding on to her” as you put it. Dont make it seem like black people are pathetic by accepting Halle Berry as a black woman just because she achieved something great.
Second I see black women like Halle Berry all the time with two black parents and who are not directly mixed and some who “look” more mixed than she does who have two black parents so I dont know where youre coming from with that.
And yeah we shouldnt being so race obsessed but if that was the case then this article wouldnt exist. I love people think they know everything about black people..its really quite funny.
@Ken: But does this mean that an actress or an actor should only win an award, if his movie is a big box office hit? This is ridiculous. An actress or an actor should win because of his performance!
@ Carm
I think people don’t know much about themselves in the first place, what kind of ancestry they have, where they really came from and what kind of a genetic/ethnic mix they might be.
It is a scientific fact that generations can pass and something that was hidden pops out and makes a certain person less white, less black and so on.
A tie would be pleasantly awkward around here.
To confront the times in which The Help was taking place is to confront ongoing segregation in the South. Look at Mississippi now and you will see that dynamic continuing to occur — the politics there are still white.
Sasha, have you ever been to Mississippi, let alone the South? If I were you, I’d refrain from throwing around stereotypes as if they are 100% solid fact. Not everyone in the South is racist and/or sexist and/or whatever else you want to label them. This statement about white politics, in particular, holds true throughout ALL of the United States – including NYC and your hometown Los Angeles – and all of the Western world, for that matter. I’ve lived in Mississippi, LA, NYC and Germany, and racism, sexism, and every other -ism is an equal-opportunity employer EVERYWHERE. You’ll just look foolish if you keep throwing blanket statements out like this.
Perhaps Hollywood should come up with a new narrative for movies about Mississippi that DON’T have something to do with racism, the Civil Rights movements, black vs. white, etc. It’s extremely annoying to know that every mention of the South in our mainstream media always comes with this negative stigma attached to it. This stereotype that is continually brought-up time and again IS the reason people such as yourself think the South still lives by Jim Crow. Stereotypes such as “all New Yorkers are bitchy awful people who just want to swindle you out of every cent you have” or “all women in LA are coke heads and have boob jobs, facelifts, and tummy tucks.” These statements might represent a lot of people there (possibly even the majority), but they’re not true of everyone. Not to mention you can find these people all over the world, too. Things in the South ARE better. They certainly may not be ideal, but then again can you name a place anywhere in the world that doesn’t have bigotry, hate, and prejudices looming around every corner? No.
So please stop pointing the finger at the South like we are the only racist people who have ever lived and walked the face of the earth, and that there’s been no changes. Otherwise I’ll have to start calling you some bleach-blonde crack whore with a bad boob job who can’t tell the difference between clean air and smog.
I’m leaning towards a Streep win. Many people have been saying that Octavia and Viola will win, making “The Help” the only movie to garner two acting Oscars for African Americans. I think for something like that to happen, the film would have to be in contention for Best Picture. “The Help” is nowhere close.
What do I know though…either way Best Actress is really the only race left in this year’s Oscars. Meryl all the way for me! People remain enamored by her and love seeing her onstage, which was evident by her BAFTA speech yesterday. Plus, Meryl gave the best performance last year, hands down.
“Iron Lady is in the category of “I will never watch that movie again.”
I felt the same way about The Help.
The Academy made a great error when they didn’t give Streep and Oscar for Julie and Julia. As much as I want her to take home her long overdue third Oscar, I really want Viola Davis to win Best Actress, and I think she will.
I don’t get how this is even a discussion? Viola will win the oscar in a landslide. Streep performance wasn’t even one of her best. The academy is so custom to having her in the race that i believe they vote for her nominations like robots. I consider myself a streep fan, which is to say that i see every movie she is in, and i got say, i don’t believe for a second the academy will choose her over davis. Isn’t it obvious the englishman voted for an actress playing thatcher? davis will take her well deserve oscar. I think best actor race is closer. I still think dujardin will take it but with all the love for clooney in hollywood, who knows?
Let’s face it: the argument over Davis or Streep HAS devolved EXCLUSIVELY to “deserves it as due”. Cause both sides proponents have given in to THAT argument, I hope one of the other 3 noms gets the award.
The academy has made alot of mistakes but even though Meryl gave an oscar worthy performance but Gabourye Sidibe should have won the oscar. Meryl should already have 5 oscars for KvK, TFLW, SC, OOA and ACITD, this year she should make it seix instead of maybe three oscars.
Viola Davis for the win. I think she deserves it, too. Not only does she nail the part, but she does it with class and humility.
Meryl is fantastic as well (as well as classy). But she will have other roles and other chances. Like Sasha said, I’m sure Meryl gets a zillion scripts a year and she has pick of the litter – so to speak.
I don’t want a tie. It would just be awkward and I always feel like there’s no “real” winner when there is one.
On another note – perhaps I will be in the minority here, but doesn’t the argument that Davis would never have been cast in a white part hold true the other way around. Sure there were white maids, but in this particular situation could Meryl Streep have played a black maid? I guess what I’m saying is the street works both ways… what sucks is that the system is white-centric and white-run. Advantage Streep.
Meryl FTW!!
I don’t see how people won’t vote for Viola Davis. Even I would, and I love Streep. Viola is gonna win this.
Great piece Sasha, by the way
Streep for the win all the way. I am comparing to two of the greatest actresses of all time and she comes up as a clear favorite. The Iron Lady is a much better film than Casablanca, Notorious, The Lion in Winter and Philadelphia Story. And her performance here makes Bergman and Hepburn pale in comparison.
Well, Viola Davis may win the Oscar, however The Help did not get much “help” when it wasn’t nominated for Best Director or Best Screenplay. At least Precious was nominated for Director and Editing (overrated but the Academy loved it) and it got not the expected 1 (for Mo’Nique) but 2 (surprise Screenplay). With The Help only getting 4 nominations, I suspect Octavia Spencer will win the only win for the film.
Katharine Hepburn has won 4 Oscars, making her the most Oscar winning actor ever, and yet Meryl Streep is the only actor to receive the most nominations, and she only has 2! Should she receive the Oscar this year, it will be terrific. Should she lose, well, it probably wasn’t the right role. In any case, she will still be around, will still receive nominations, and will most likely win, either this year or in years to come.
Sasha, great piece! As always. Can’t believe the writers of some of the comments above give you loads of crap, but yet, they come back to read more of you. Please keep ignoring those and keep writing your passionate essays, one after another.
Just a question– care to elaborate a little on why you hated THE HOURS; and all the performances in it? I know this could be an essay in itself; but maybe just why you hated Streep’s performance in it? I really loved that film as a whole– so I am curious about your thoughts. Thanks!
naruse:
“The Iron Lady is a much better film than Casablanca, Notorious, The Lion in Winter and Philadelphia Story”
Are you drunk?
By the way, Viola Davis-Fans are not better than Streep-Fans!
Well they seem to be nicer, imo.
… and hotter
.
At least, with some sense of humour. Though I must say I don’t understand why being a fan of one of them means not being a fan of the other. And btw, in this case why isn’t it called fanboysm? Maybe it’s the language barrier, but I don’f get why it’s used for Nolan hardcore fans but not for Streep’s. Both can be equally unreasonable.
Sasha Stone
“It is incredibly close. Of the three only one has a Best Picture nomination plus SAG ensemble and SAG actress win so perhaps Davis has the edge. But for some reason I feel it will go Streep’s way.”
I agree, Viola Davis seems to have the edge because of the bp-nod AND the great SAG-love, latter is crucial considering actors are the biggest part of the Academy. Well, I’m still predicting Viola Davis, clearly Meryl Streep wouldn’t be a surprise, either…but my NGNG-pick will be either a TIE or the ‘lucky third’, Michelle Williams. A few days ago I posted 10 reasons why Williams might be closer to this, than we think, do you think these are viable reasons that might result a surprise, or they won’t matter at all, in the end ?
1. Williams won the most critics group Best Actress awards this season (10)
2. she received all 4 big nominations (SAG-BAFTA-BFCA-HFPA),and won a Golden Globe
3. she ALSO has the Weinstein-machine in her corner
4. she has the babe-factor, something we should NOT underestimate
5. she is ALSO considered overdue, this is her third nomination, second in a row
6. based on critics’ scores, she is in a better film than Streep AND Davis
7. she is playing an AMERICAN CINEMATIC ICON…shouldn’t that hit closer to home than a British politician and a 60s era maid ?
8. she is playing an icon who NEVER even received a nomination from the Academy…it could be their way of ‘awarding’ her
9. the 50th anniversary of Marilyn Monroe’s death is this year (August 5)
10. if you look back at the Best Actress winners of the last 15 years or so, you will realize that – as weird as it sounds – she is around the perfect age to win an Oscar
Would LOVE to see Viola Davis in a new movie adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire as Blanche DuBois and an all black cast. Or in an Ibsen play. Davis is really talented
First: I am from Germany and every serious German film lover knows Viola Davis. That Sandra Bullock won for The Blind Side was a bad joke. Anyway, I don’t think it was Meryl’s year to win.
Here are my winners for best actress for the last years. You will notice that I give the cudos to the best performances not to extra stuff like popularity, showcasing etc:
2011 Rooney Mara (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo)
2010 Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone)
2009 Carey Mulligan (An Education)
2008 Melissa Leo (Frozen River)
2007 Ellen Page (Juno)
2006 Judi Dench (Notes On A Scandal)
2005 Felicity Huffman (Transamerica)
2004 Annette Bening (Being Julia)
2003 Samantha Morton (In America)
2002 Diane Lane (Unfaithful)
2001 Judi Dench (Iris)
2000 Laura Linney (You Can Count On Me)
1999 Janet McTeer (Tumbleweeds)
1998 Emily Watson (Hilary and Jackie)
1997 Helena Bonham Carter (The Wings Of The Dove)
1996 Brenda Blethyn (Secrets & Lies)
1995 Meryl Streep (The Bridges Of Madison County)
1994 Miranda Richardson (Tom & Viv)
1993 Emma Thompson (The Remains Of The Day)
1992 Emma Thompson (Howards End)
1991 Jodie Foster (The Silence Of The Lambs)
1990 Joanne Woodward (Mr & Mrs Bridge)
If Viola Davis loses this year, she better not win in the future for an inferior performance. I still find it hard to believe that Blanchett won for The Aviator when she’s been better in several other films.
I think that Davis does have the edge. Her movie is widely seen, nominated for Best Picture, and well liked, even w/o passionate supporters. Is there anyone who really liked The Iron Lady? I haven’t seen it, so I’m curious.
“Sasha Stone says:
February 13, 2012 at 11:31 am
By the way, Viola Davis-Fans are not better than Streep-Fans!
Well they seem to be nicer, imo.”
Maybe because this site has always supported Davis, imo.
@Phantom – i always value and process your arguments – but i think with this set of Actress nominees, the ’3rd’ player simply won’t garner enough votes to split the two front runners, even with all those considered reasons for a Michelle Williams victory. It is a rare year to have two 60 somethings and a forty something actress up for the prize. When two of those are Meryl Streep and Viola Davis, i suspect the share of votes would more likely go like this:
Davis 35% – her SAG & BFCA wins & the narrative around her and the film
Streep – 30% – GG & BAFTA and the narrative around her
WIlliams – 20% – some precursors, young, respected and versatile…..
Mara – 10% – film was embraced pretty well by AMPAS, a star is born…
Close – 5% – The ‘due’ factor, history, likeability etc.
It still feels to me that the two main competing actresses will be quite close and garner the larger piece of the pie. Williams would have needed more publicity, more narrative in her favor, and in my opinion she is not due for an Oscar in the way that a Glenn Close is or a Linney/Moore/Bening name. Amy Adams perhaps.
What will decide whether Davis or Streep wins, will come down to whether enough voters think Streep’s FILM is Oscar worthy (performance notwithstanding – as it always seems to be with her) or whether Davis’s role is substantial enough – a true LEAD and a showy eough turn. I believe it is a quiet but intense and poised performance that sometimes is overlooked by AMPAS, but will push her over the line. Out of context, The Iron Lady clips work against Streep, whereas the Help clips enhance Davis immeasurably – and i think in a world where it seems voters do not see all the films or the performances, the performance steeped in history – American history will linger longer for a majority of voters – and Viola Davis becomes a rightful member of the club that includes Susan Sarandon, Jessica Lange and Meryl Streep – actresses of great intensity and longevity.
Are you aware of how vulgar your writing has become? All this business of ‘fuckable’ actresses and ‘blowing that shit out of the water’ etc. I’m not being prudish, but you know it is possible to write an interesting article without resorting to such trashy language. Of course, this is the difference between bloggers and real writers, I suppose. Editorial control.
“And can someone please stop using race as a reason for Davis to win? If she delivered the best performance, that’s the only reason she needs to support her cause (I haven’t seen the movie, so no opinion there). If she didn’t, then she has no reason to win.”
Yes, this is how i feel too, especially when I’ve read the latest posts and comments on this site.
The standing ovation at the SAG does not mean Viola will win. Julie Christie also was in the same situation. Exactly the same. Just take a look at a video of her taking the SAG. I have Viola as the winner in my predictions but nothing to do with the SAG or standing ovation.
@Albert Starling: Totally disagree. Sasha retains her own voice when she writes and is thus more entertaining because of it. Some journalists convey a more erudite tone and can write effectively in that manner as well, but great writing can certainly employ slang and cursing. Hunter S. Thompson on the journalism side, Philip Roth on the fiction side…they used vulgarity to enhance their prose and should not be held to any different standard simply because they sold a lot of books.
Ya dig, muthafucka?
this is the difference between bloggers and real writers
Ever read much Hunter S Thompson? We’re gonzo around here.
seriously, “blowing shit out the water” bothers you?
Thankfully, Hemingway opened the door to writing like real live people speak.
Are you aware of the encroaching effort to sanitize and desexualize American culture? Where flipping a middle finger at the Superbowl gets puritan panties in a knot? Because yeah, SuperBowl audiences, they’re all so Miss Manners.
“How vulgar your writing has become?” … “Become” since when? Since I started writing this way in middle school? It cost me a few trips to the principal’s office, but he never punished me. Just let me hang out in his office and read. Because maybe he didn’t want to muzzle a kid who had some fire in his gut.
[I wanted to say "had some fire in his balls" -- but toned it down, and now regret it. I see now that would've sounded better.]
I’m not offended by a Streep win at all, but Davis would have made a better Thatcher.
Plus Meryl Streep herself used the term fuckable to distinguish between young and old actresses, on that Fresh Air interview Sasha mentioned. Lots of actors and actresses curse freely, it’s part of every day conversation. Saying a curse word or two doesn’t diminish your class, value or respect. Soo..that was a pretty weak dig Albert Starling.
@daveinprogress: very true about the Iron Lady clips working against Streep, it’s really too bad because if they showed the “old” Thatcher clips it would do her lots of favors.
@m1: the film is flawed, but is nowhere near the garbage that people are making it out to be. It’s good, made great by Streep’s portrayal. Id rank it 3 out of 5 stars or 7/10.
And finishing off with who has a problem, just take a quick look at the words you’ve used, and you’ll realize who has a problem
Yes, I had a problem. With your ignorance. Not with the fact that Halle Berry is a black woman.
@Nik – yes its odd, but when i was watching the Iron lady in the cinema, the performance and the film sat entirely comfortably with me – as in, Streep inhabites not impersonates Thatcher, but seeing random clips, i can see how others find it a caricature – but as you say from the opening scenes in the milk bar, the scenes sitting on the bed with her daughter and those dementia ridden moments alone in the bedroom sifting through her belongings – Streep is at her most vulnerable and humane – and she gives Thatcher that humanity like anybody else who faces a debilitating condition. Meryl has always copped the ‘dial an accent, Streep’ or that her method is too evident – but i was really impressed with her use of her body, posture, and voice. Great screen acting.
Please stop comparing Halle Berry to Viola Davis. Yes, they are both African-American actresses, but the similarities stop there. Berry is, at best, a mediocre actress. Her win for Monster’s Ball was a fluke – her post-Oscr career proves this. Ten years later, and Berry is doing what she does best – starring in shitty films and showing her boobs.
Oscar or no Oscar, Davis is leagues above and beyond Berry. Ten years from now, Viola Davis will not be starring in trash like “Dark Tide” – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1507563/
Davis deserves the Oscar for The Help, and I hope the academy gives it to her rather than a make-up Oscar in 2015 or something for a lesser role.
As a Streep fan, I absolutely do not see the Oscar happening for her this year. If we look at the pre-cursors she won, in particular the Globe and the BAFTA, the rewarding body of those awards were from the Hollywood Foreign Press and the British Academy, respectively. Those two are far more likely to vote for Streep in the role of Margaret Thatcher. Davis obviously has the actors behind her, which if I’m not mistaken, make up the largest voting bloc of the AMPAS.
“Sorry but I hated The Hours. And all of the performances in it.”
Oh thank you for saying that – I hated that thing. I’ve wanted to say that for years.
And I really want to tell Albert to fuck off, but I guess that would not be a proper thing to do.
@Sasha: “What got me then and what gets me now is that no one really wants to talk about it.”
Thank you (and Ryan) for talking about it. It needs to be talked about!
“Davis obviously has the actors behind her, which if I’m not mistaken, make up the largest voting bloc of the AMPAS.”
She does have actors behind her, but as it was stated before, not enough people saw TIL by the time SAG rolled around, a lot more saw The Help which was a much bigger box office hit, and much more of an actor’s film (it being an ensemble piece and all). Plus, Davis never won SAG and Streep did, I’m sure that factored in as well. SAG does not equal Oscar, and though the actors make the largest block there’re still others to consider..
How many more times are we going to hear that Davis is definitely winning because of the SAG and/or standing ovation? It’s not definite by any means.
If I read another article that mentions that Davis is black and McDaniels win in the 30′s, I’ll
No, I’m NOT racist…..I just think the Oscars must reward the best performance, by a black, white, asian or whatever person. Giving the Oscar to Davis to compensate how bad they’ve been with black people is just unfair and plain hypocrisy.
Streep is the best this year……A couple of years ago Sidibe should have won. That would have been a fair win, she deserved it and not just because she’s black.
Or they fall in love with a mediocre actress who was a bit better than usual (Bullock) or they give the Oscar to an overdue for an underserving performance (Winslet maybe, DENCH, and many others), but they rarely give the Oscar to the best performance of the year.
And why are Mara and Close nominated and not the great Swinton?? She was snubbed for Julia a couple of years ago, and now she is snubbed again….
Streep should win. If Davis wins, she’ll go through that awkward post best actress phase where they try giving her mediocre leading roles and if, god forbid, any flop, it’s hard to bounce back. Streep for the win. Davis for the continually evolving career.
daveinprogress
I didn’t think exact numbers, but now that you did – VERY convincingly, I might add – , I agree…the ‘lucky third’ scenario is most certainly ‘No Guts No Glory’ territory.
@Seba: “I just think the Oscars must reward the best performance, by a black, white, asian or whatever person.”
And do you really think that in 84 years, the only black actress to give the best lead performance was Halle Berry?
Sasha’s post is only partially about Davis — it’s really about the history of the Oscars and the way black women have been awarded only for supporting roles. How is it that so few women of color have even been nominated for leading actress over the years?
I refuse to believe that women of color are less talented than white actresses. The problem must lie in how studios decide what stories are worth producing and in how AMPAS voters what performances are worth honoring. And the quality of the performance is only a tertiary factor…..
Meryl’s win at the SAG awards a few years ago was a fluke, primarily because she is the most well-liked actress by her peers bar none.
The largest pool of voters for the Oscars is that of the actors, and Viola Davis won the SAG award this year. Sadly, her performance epitomized “dreary all-suffering sentiment” which is something the Oscar voters love. So sadly, I believe Viola’s performance will win her the Academy Award.
And the most obvious discrepancy with race in terms of quality roles given out is the fact that any strong performance by a black actress have to be about the fact that she is black – which is the most ridiculous thing. The issue is that roles for white women are never about the fact they are white, and the exact opposite is true for black women. Pity, because then award season becomes a battle of the black community and supporters throwing weight behind a performance based completely on race rather than the actual best performance.
Mind you, the best performance of the year was actually Kristen Wiig for BRIDESMAIDS or Kirsten Dunst for MELANCHOLIA but the Academy hate recognizing comedies as of the last 20 years or so.
@brainypirate: I actually do think that in the last 84 years, virtually all of the best performances were from white actresses. But it’s not a TALENT issue, it’s an OPPORTUNITY issue, which becomes even more problematic when we consider how women in general receive fewer great roles than their male counterparts.
Phantom, your approach is one that i wish i could do more conscientiously, but don’t have the lateral thinking process for… We all wish we could get inside the heads of the voters, and find an empirical way to fathom the way things turn out, but alas… rarely can we do it, no matter how intelligent the methodology. As Sasha pointed out on another post, the chance of The Artist being the first since Oliver in 1968 to win BP/BD after its Golden Globe Musical comedy win, is not statistically a good one, but the signs are that it will break a 44 year record! Prognosticate onwards! And Upwards.
Why is people blaming Streep for being blonde and having blue eyes???
Yeah, it was harder for Davis, blah blah blah. I don’t care, give the Oscar to the best performance!! And it’s not Davis….
First of all, Davis is supporting in The Help, not lead. Second, Davis performance was exactly the same as in Doubt, just extended.
Give the Oscar to Streep!! Yeah, the movie was so so, but her performance was amazing.
I can name many actresses who whould have done what Davis did in The Help…..nobody can play Thatcher like Streep did.
I love both these ladies, and I will be happy for whomever wins come Oscar night, but I don’t know that Hollywood ever considered Meryl to be “fuckable.” Meryl was always considered somewhat odd-looking – yes, she was a high-cheekboned blonde, and I think she’s gorgeous, but she doesn’t look like your typical starlet (e.g., Sydney Pollack didn’t believe she was sexy enough to play the lead in Out of Africa, so she had to wear stage make-up and a push-up bra to her audition with him). The 1980s weren’t really a big period for awarding “fuckable” actresses Oscars anyway – that came with the late 1990s and 00s, and winners like Gwyneth Paltrow, Hilary Swank, Reese Witherspoon, etc.
Shame at these delusional Meryl fan boys for being so vile and cruel to VIola, because she’s given Meryl a SEVERE run for her money for the Oscar. Viola’s performance is sublime, and should win! Also, FYI, anyone who thinks having a corresponding Best Picture nomination is just plain foolish. It’s not the finality, but it sure as HELL Helps, do pardon the pun. GO, VIOLA!!!
And there we go again………NO, I don’t think the Academy has been fair with black people, they were overlooked mostly because Hollywood movies were mostly about white people.
Yes, the Academy was racist if you want to say that, but giving the Oscar to Davis just to compensate it’s ridiculous. The Oscar is for the best performance!!!
It’s called “best performance by a female actor in a leading role”…….Davis is not the best and she was not lead, so it’s twice a joke.
Why has Meryl to pay for all the overlooked talents in the past??? In the recent years we’ve seen many black people winning…….Mo’Nique, Whitaker, Freeman, Berry. Yes, the Academy is embracing minorities now, wich is great.
Please, don’t give the award to Davis just to say “oh, I’m sorry black community, here you go, enjoy this”.
Ok Viola, we give this to you because you’re black. Neh, you’re not the best this year but you are black and that must have been terrible for you. No, we are not going to treat you like the white actresses, you are black so you recieve a special tratment, like with special children. It’s a burden being black darling, so please take the Oscar so we can presume we are not racists!!
See my point?? That’s racist, it’s hypocrisy and ridiculous. Davis MUST be treated like a very talented actress, not like a very talented black actress.
If the Academy wants to be less racist, then it should be fair with everyone……black, white, asian, latin.
I’ll repeat this: Sidibe deserved the Oscar a few years ago on merit, now Davis doesn’t, but she’ll win because her movie is about racism and the Academy suddenly remembered they have to compensate for their white loving past.
The article highlights the personal narrative and the system the frontrunners exist in. This is a factor borne by voters.
For this demographic, look at the voter profile–more male, late baby boomer and some older, more older women than young women–they like to think themselves as counterculture progressive, but are really “champagne socialists” who are just as capitalist in newer ways of enrichment.
So where personal narrative is concerned, they are Streep’s generation or older. Their connection to Streep or Close is more personal and relatable. So they vote within their comfort zone.
Viola, Rooney and Michelle are other narratives. Viola is the non-majority alternative, Rooney and Michelle are younger and in the process of grooming to be stars, who will take the pantheon when the Academy renews itself constantly.
For Viola, as representing a minority, that remains, the minority narrative, so long as the majority society-audience taste is such, the studios cater to that. Aside, compare and contrast with the Grammys (death of Whitney made me contemplate this), but this is not a music awards site, apologies.
America likes to idealize itself as a melting pot, in reality, as experienced by many multiracial societies in the world, the dominant majority dictates the system. Instead of melting pot, they use terms like salad, mosaic. These are euphemisms for cultural apartheid, the separateness, yet, these societies are much franker, more accurate, and less PC, in describing the truth of the human condition. Why should America be exceptionally different in the way humans are treated?
“I agree — and have said before — that the audience reaction to Davis’s SAG win gave us a very good indication of the way this race is going. Yes, the actors make up only a part of the Academy, and actors are about 111 out of 5700 Academy members, but 1100 voters is, statistically, a very healthy sample from which to draw certain conclusions.”
So, we should assume The Help is a favorite to win BP? It won every award it could in the SAG and clearly had overwhelming support. And yet it has no chance, and quite probably wouldn’t have made the best picture line-up if there were only 5 nominees.
“Meryl is fantastic as well (as well as classy). But she will have other roles and other chances.”
You know, I’m sure a lot of people said the same when River Phoenix was nominated back in 1988. Or Heath Ledger for BBM (although, to be fair, he did ended up winning), just to mention a few examples.
It’s quite possible Meryl Streep is hit by a truck tomorrow, or has some sort of health problem (she’s 62, after all, not young anymore)- of course, I’m hoping she doesn’t, but you never know. So this “she’ll have other chances” anympore argument, is, with all due respect, crap. You don’t know if she will.
Again, why can’t simply the BEST PERFORMANCE WIN? No bullshit arguments about race, being overdue, or having other chances.
I find it ironic that the site’s motto is “the trick is not minding”, and yet every year Sasha makes a big deal out of the stupidest things.
Bringing the race card to justify Viola’s win? Please. The performance speaks for itself- as does Streep’s. I’m glad the race is down to these two women, at least I know this year we’ll have a deserving winner in the category.
@Jesse: I can agree with you on the opportunity front — like Sasha points out, there just aren’t the opportunities for black women to get leading roles that (1) studios want to make and (2) AMPAS wants to vote for.
Still, I’d take Stephanie Zacharek’s point about the biases regarding “good” roles for women and say that there have probably been some really great performances by women of color that simply were never considered viable as “Oscar roles”.
@ Seba, excluding the ” Davis … was not lead” statement, I practically agree with everything you’ve said, and you’ve said it in a very truthful and humorous way, I laughed out loud
:D:D
keep up the good work!
The only things I listen are:
- Davis is black
- The Help is better than The Iron Lady
- Davis is black
- Streep will have another shot and Davis may not
- Davis is black
- The Help made a lot of money and The Iron Lady didn’t
- Davis is black
The only thing I would love to listen is a healthy discussion about the best performance of the year by an actress.
I don’t care about race problems, the movie itself, money, “overdueness”, future chances.
Just discuss the best performance and give the award to the one who gave it.
I can’t believe how many people are saying if there wasn’t more than 5 nominees, The Help would’ve missed out. Well, guess what, IT MADE IT! LOL! Not My Week With Marilyn, The Iron Lady, not Girl With A Dragon Tattoo, and not Albert Nobbs. Why? Because The Help was more universally liked by the Academy.
FWIW: I don’t believe it’s possible to award simply on “the best performance,” since our notions of what makes a performance good are already heavily grounded in other notions regarding race, gender, class, etc. Aesthetics cannot be separated from the cultural prejudices of the age. And those prejudices determine how we decide what types of performances — and what types of roles — we consider good.
OMFG!!! I’m sorry Sasha but you hated The Hours and the performance in it???
I will always consider my favourite movie of all times…….and yes, I’ve seen Citizen Kane, Casablanca and hundreds of classics.
I continue to be alarmed at the idiocy of some of the commenters on this site. It’s shocking. Sasha brings up Viola Davis’ race because it’s important and relevant, but I don’t hear her claiming that she ought to win because she’s black. I hear her claim that she ought to win because she deserves to win.
I see comments from people who take such offence at the concept of Davis winning, at the concept of Davis being in lead, at the concept of Meryl Streep losing. No, I don’t think Davis gave the best performance of the nominated five, but I don’t feel any requirement to hate on her, repeatedly and with such fury that it goes way beyond her performance and, in some cases, approaches casual racism. That’s bringing up Davis’ race in a context wherein it is IRrelevant.
Why bother? What’s the inspiration? What’s the thought process behind it, that drives people to whine on and on and fucking on about what a disaster it will be for society if Viola Davis wins an Oscar? Why not just let it lie? Go off and let your questionable social politics stew in your head, not on these pages, I say.
fantastic article! I felt after the BAFTAs that Viola would win the Oscar. I then replayed her win at SAG…it was rapturous…now I am certain she will win…I love all the other performances as well….but it goes to Viola!
The suggestion that BAFTA is that bit more racist than the Oscars is pretty unfounded. Halle Berry didn’t win a BAFTA, largely due to a late release in Britain so loosing her momentum and putting up against Nicole Kidman for the Hours. Since it started BAFTA has nominated 7 Black actress in lead (Dorothy Dandridge, Diana Ross, Cicely Tyson, Cathy Tyson, Halle Berry, Gabourey Sidebe, Viola Davis) compared to Oscars 9(Dorothy Dandridge, Cicely Tyson, Diana Ross, Diahann Carroll, Whoopi Goldberg, Angela Bassett, Halle Berry, Gabourey Sidebe, Viola Davis). For Asian actress BAFTA leads 3 -0. Its pretty shameful on both sides- and there are glaring ommissions, Pam Grier for Jackie Brown, Alfre Woodward for Passionfish and Crooklyn, Tracy Camilla Johns for She’s Gotta Have It. But it doesn’t make BAFTA that much more racist.
I agree with your assessment of Viola Davis’ career and how she elevates every film she’s in (particularly in Solaris, Doubt, and Far From Heaven). I also agree with the power control in Hollywood and how many black stories are simply not told (although I would argue more heavily that this is due to the xenophobia of Hollywood producers, and not necessarily American audiences). I really do think that many American audiences would have no problem in seeing minority actors (not just African-Americans, but Hispanic, Asian, Middle-Eastern, etc.) in leading roles but Hollywood is simply not interested, and I think a large reason for this is that they are afraid that these films will not reach international audiences and recoup their profits (just look at George Lucas’s dilemma in getting Red Tails made). This is totally wrong and unjustifiable and needs to be fixed.
And please do not take offense to this, but I find your constant ploy of describing actresses as “young” and “fuckable” highly questionable. I know you are the farthest thing from a sexist, but I find this argument slightly sexist and demeaning towards all award-winning actresses and it’s insulting to members of the Academy that you accuse them of voting for these performers simply based on their looks and sexuality. We know many factors go into the Oscars other than the merits of a performance and obviously there are some sleezeballs in the Academy who probably voted for actresses like Portman and Witherspoon because they were “hot” or “sexy”, but you have to acknowledge that the Academy is unequivocally the epitome of the film elite in Hollywood and is full of many distinguished artists who are passionate about their craft and the work they do. So undoubtedly many voted for these women you call “fuckable” because they responded well to their roles and admired their work ethic and dedication to their characters. It’s unfair to them as artists to reduce their talents to superficial sex appeal. And also, how in the world can you describe Jennifer Lawrence as “fuckable” in Winter’s Bone? Yes, she’s attractive in person, but she played a downtrodden, destitute daughter of a meth addict who tries to secure a brighter future for her poor family. I wanted to reach out and give her a hug. Not fuck her. What a weird analogy. But hey, to each their own.
Also, what is this?:
“When audiences first got a look at the blonde, chilly Streep in her early career Oscar really loved her for the win — with her long blonde hair and her high cheekbones, and tears that seemed to come naturally she won two Oscars for Kramer vs. Kramer and then later for Sophie’s Choice. Streep was the love interest. She was the leading lady. She was fuckable. She was wanted.”
How can you reduce Meryl Streep as a “wanted”, “fuckable” “high cheekbone[d]” “blonde hair[ed]” woman and not mention the REAL reason why Hollywood was impressed with this talented actress? I can’t think of anyone other than (possibly) Jessica Chastain who came into Hollywood with such a one-two-three punch with The Deer Hunter, Manhattan, and Kramer vs. Kramer. All three were instantly critically-acclaimed films, two Best Picture Oscar winners. All three in this day of age are considered American masterpieces. In all three Meryl Streep instantly displayed her chameleon-like ability to completely transform into whatever part she was given. Yet again, I don’t understand how you can reduce Meryl to a simple sex-object of the Academy when in reality she has NEVER been such a thing. She’s always been respected for her craft and talent and audiences have always responded to SIMPLY that. And although she was a beauty, she was never considered a “fuckable” (your word) icon like her contemporaries Farrah Fawcett or Ali MacGraw.
And what is this constant obsession with “mimicking” that Meryl has always been criticized for and which seems to be a common condescending undertone to this article? As someone who has studied acting, I admire performances like Viola Davis who has to build a character from what is written on the page, but there is nothing at all demeaning and certainly nothing devoid of “soul” about Streep’s biographical performances, particularly in The Iron Lady. I would argue it’s often harder to portray someone who is MONUMENTALLY well-known (like Thatcher or Marilyn Monroe) because the expectations are so exponentially high because you often have to balance the public’s perception of this figure and you also have to satisfy your own understanding of this character’s life. For a fictional character you go into the theater with a blank slate and it’s always a joy when someone burns through the screen and inspires you with their full-bodied performance. With characters like Thatcher and Monroe you enter the theater with a completely subjective view of the characters onscreen…and it’s a testament to the talent of these women that we come away from the theater knowing a LITTLE more about these characters that we didn’t know before. Could you imagine if these women failed at their task? It would be so easy to crucify them because we already have references for these real-life women and if they didn’t satisfy them, then they failed. What I’m trying to say is that there is nothing easy about “mimicking” or whatever you want to call it for behind all the “technical” aspects like voice, mannerism, walk, posture, etc., you HAVE to bring the soul and the history, too, and both Streep and Williams accomplished this beautifully and they should be lauded for it…not dismissed as a simple “impersonation”.
Sorry for the novel, just my two cents.
JP-
The standing ovation for Davis at the SAGs absolutely means something, and something quite different than Julie Christie’s. Davis leads a film that is beloved and is a huge box office smash about an issue that people want to pat themselves on the back about (I loved The Help, by the way). Christie was in a movie that literally nobody say, made no bank whatsoever, never got a wide release — her ovation was for Julie Christie, period. That wasn’t enough. There is far more sentiment this year in Davis’ corner because she is in her career best in a movie people love. Different ovations, different meanings and I believe there will be different outcomes on Oscar night.
As of last weekend, I have now seen all five of the performances nominated for Best Actress. This may be recency effect, but I find myself wishing Glenn Close would somehow sneak in between Davis and Streep, and finally take it home. I will admit that her having been passed over other times when she seemed to me to have deserved it (Garp, Dangerous Liaisons, and arguably Fatal Attraction–I might have given it to Streep for Ironweed that year, a film few other than I seem to love) and because this may be her last chance for a competitive Oscar and because it is the culmination of a thirty-year commitment to the material, but there is something so finely observed in her depiction of Albert, so deeply felt (despite the mystery the character remains in so many ways) that feels like film acting (as opposed to stage acting) at its best–same with McTeer in that film. Having said that, the only one I would eliminate from my own consideration is Mara–she was fine, but the film just didn’t seem to me to give her as much to work with in creating that character (obviously I’m in the minority on this).
I suspect it is down to Streep and Davis and I could be happy with either–they are both such fine actresses. I would hope Davis will have greater opportunities as an actress than this role, but within the constraints of the character (as written in the novel and in the screenplay), she works wonders. Same with Streep–also, the writing doesn’t help her.
“… in order to find that thing that would define who Thatcher really was Streep, and the filmmakers, would have to take a side. And they didn’t want to do that for fear of offending audiences or probably more importantly, Oscar voters; if they hate the character they ain’t going to vote for Streep.”
Seriously, you think the film-makers (director and writer) didn’t take a side because they didn’t want to offend the audiences or the Oscar voters!!! Why can’t you accept they made a bad movie, and no ulterior motives behind it. It focus way too much on the 2-3 present days and not enough on her 30+ yrs of public service. If you think about it, she was in makeup for more than half the movies, and that’s usually a reason ONE WINS AN OSCAR!
She’s a British Prime Minister from the 80′s. I very much doubt most of people outside of UK knows that much about her before watching the movie so they can “take a side.” If you embellish the facts, you can still make a very good movie and even get Oscar Gold. Look at Amadeus, Forman made a huge rivalry of Salieri v. Amadeus and NO FACTS what so ever supported this. He used Salieri as a antagonist for Amadeus to have a theme for the movie.
Most had this movie as a vehicle for Streep’s next great chance to win Oscar as soon as they heard she was cast. Playing a real-life figure is Oscar bait, as long as you made a good movie. They lessen her chance of winning by making a very slow movie.
Blanchett’s rise to fame has been absolutely phenomenal too and has to be mentioned if we’re going to talk about Streep and Chastain:
1998: Elizabeth
1999: The Talented Mr. Ripley
2000: The Man Who Cried, The Gift
2001: The Lord Of The Rings, The Shipping News
she’s also been in 7 Best Picture nominated films
Again a classically trained, world-class thespian, with eloquence that’s fascinating beyond belief.
And as I’ve mentioned before, her collection of directors is unmatched by any of the actresses in discussion.
Well. Blanchett is DEFINATELY the Meryl Streep of her generation
Seba is on the money.
“I’m sure a lot of people said the same when River Phoenix was nominated back in 1988. ” (in ref to he’ll have another chance)
This is one of the things that’s wrong with the way people decide who to vote for. The category is “best performance by…” not “best..”, or “my favorite..”, or “most due…” No other knowledge is required. No longer relevant info: previous wins, previous losses, previous snubs, future job opportunities, red carpet behaviour, fashion sense, hair color, country of birth, record of arrests, number of foster children, family lineage, or team dog/team cat.
Vote for what the category is asking – if Viola, in your opinion, gave the best performance, then great. If Meryl turned your crank, fabulous. Somebody else? Don’t be bullied or hang your head in shame – vote for her instead.
Also been reading in a few places lately about the anachronistic gender separation between actor/actress. Most occupations, including every other AMPAS category, do not differentiate by sex. Let’s try gathering a herd of 10 top performances and vote for one. That tightens the broadcast by an hour, easily. To settle the lead/supporting argument, throw them all into the same mix (no, it’s not unfair, Waltz or Mo’nique would’ve kicked major ass a couple of years ago).
All I’m saying is, it should be about the performance; i.e. those working minutes onscreen creating a character. The rest is just nonsense.
@Girls, Girls, You’re Both Pretty
I say know since Damages is ending Close will make a new film career for herself and maybe win an oscar. I think she has a juicy supporting role for in the 2013 release Therese Raquin, maybe that’s how shw wins her oscar.
For Sasha Stone this is all about race. Not quality of performance but race. It is all about Sasha Stone feeling noble by becoming an advocate for black actresses. It is all about white guilt.
I have a suggestion. Going forward lets disqualify all white actors until black actors even the numbers. No white actor can win an Oscar until we have an equal number of black actors with Oscars.
Let’s do the same with Hispanic actors.
Let’s do the same with Asian actors. Lets do it for all the races.
Why doesn’t Sasha Stone become an advocate for Glen Close. How many actresses over 60 win Oscars? Oh right Close has the wrong skin color. It doesn’t make Stone feel noble. nd the whole Oscar thing is about making Sasha Stone feel morally superior.
I still maintain that they will pass over Meryl again for the Oscar knowing that she has another great performance in her, while Viola Davis may not. They always seem to go for the actress who is hot at the moment but may not have another chance at the little gold man. History will judge Meryl not on the amount of Oscars she has won but by the incredible and consistent performances she has given. I am not a Sandra Bullock hater, but Meryl will never have a Speed 2 on her resume.
“JP-
The standing ovation for Davis at the SAGs absolutely means something, and something quite different than Julie Christie’s. Davis leads a film that is beloved and is a huge box office smash about an issue that people want to pat themselves on the back about (I loved The Help, by the way). Christie was in a movie that literally nobody say, made no bank whatsoever, never got a wide release — her ovation was for Julie Christie, period. That wasn’t enough. There is far more sentiment this year in Davis’ corner because she is in her career best in a movie people love. Different ovations, different meanings and I believe there will be different outcomes on Oscar night.“
I will never buy this idea that Davis leads the film. Emma Stone leads the film but your arguments are well written and I think you could be right.
And by the way, after reading a statement (probably the stupidest thing I read in Awards Daily this season) that Viola Davis would have played a better Tatcher, it`s good to read well written arguments that bring something to the discussion even when I don`t agree entirely with it.
The problem Davis has is that Streep has given cinema a body of work to rival no other actress and has not been rewarded adequately by the academy. Enter Harvey, to remind AMPAS that is has been 29 years since her last win. Also, the Academy must realize the Bullock catastropy and they have a habit of rewarding actresses for the wrong movie (and Streep has a long list of movies which she should have won). Also, Streep has been campaigning hard with Harvey and the Academy likes the hard sell.
I can’t see Streep losing again or it will be Sally Field winning a 3rd Oscar in 2013 before Streep.
“Hate to break it to you but the Academy Awards don’t feed me – the studios that want the Academy Awards do – and since there are routinely more losers than winners every year the bitterness can be catchy. Follow my drift?”
So if Weinstein was paying you more than Dreamworks would you be promoting Meryl over Viola? Are you influenced by who buys the most adspace? Will they pull ads if you diss their product? How does it work?
One thing we’re forgetting–if social symbolism is a factor, the Oscar voters would feel by rewarding Best Supporting Actress to Octavia Spencer is ample reward. Giving 2 awards is outside their comfort zone.
No award exists in isolation.
Sasha bringing up the racial factor in the personal narrative enriches this debate. But to me, that debate is less an issue for rich people in California.
You know why Iron Lady captivates these ecotopia rich zeitgeist of today? Their money! Many have funds, and their portfolio has been dented by the tumult of the Euro markets, where one member’s profligacy affects another’s thrift. Maggie Thatcher was the champion Euro-skeptic, who believed the European integration of widely dissimilar national spending behavior would eventually bring a heavy toll, in which national electorates wouldn’t tolerate. Look at the riots in Greece.
So many of the monied recall Thatcher’s caution. Even though these are not fleshed out in the film thoroughly, they are fully familiar among fund managers and their wealthy investors. And the Academy voters are older rich investors.
Zeitgeist of the rich. It’s more about class than race or gender.
The racial narrative isn’t as strong a zeitgeist today in America ever since Obama won, for those who have money and power. Their tastes–the Academy reflects. Mirror mirror on the wall.
I will be very happy if either actress wins. They are both great.
If a split happens (and it’s very likely) I would also be very happy with Close or Williams winning. One is due as hell and the other is a still young interesting actress.
What would be, for me, the most awful thing on Oscar night would be Rooney Mara to win. I still think she stole the attention from Noomi Rapace, the real Lisbeth Salander.
As far as the other acting categories go, they are all locked. Anyone who thinks differently is kidding him or herself. Dujardin, Spencer and Plummer have their names all over those gold men.
I’d like to add what a pleasure it was to see Viola Davis in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, doing what she does best. It did make me re-think her for Best Actress but I wish I could get behind that performance more. I’ll be glad when all this is over, maybe they can give that award first! This debate is so beneath the two people being discussed.
Somehow I can’t see Academy voters tick BOTH Best Supporting Actress and Best Actress from the Help when both are coming from comparably similar narratives. Spread the “wealth”.
The Halle Denzel combination was due more to Russell Crowe’s unacceptable behavior which cost him votes, as actually said by many prominent in the Industry, notice he wasn’t nominated for a long time thereafter.
So they vote for Octavia, but tick someone else who’s not from the Help in the other major category.
I think the editors (especially Sasha) are still bitter about the Social Network and Fincher snubs. anyway, I don’t like the arguments and the tone on this site lately, so i don’t think I’ll be returning here any soon.
Please refer to the President as President Obama even if you don’t like him .unlike George W. he was elected.
This is truly brilliant writing and analysis.
Please, please PLEASE can we have a tie? It happened in 1968, maybe it could happen again.
FSM, I wish the Academy released vote totals!!
From the moment I heard that Meryl was laying Margaret Thatcher I was sure that this would be her winning role, and then when that picture came out my jaw dropped. But I thought her big competition was going to be Glenn Close.
I refused to see THE HELP in movie theaters, finally catching it on a plane. I was actually surprised by how moving it is, but it is moving in a manipulative, emotionally insistent way (very reminiscent of THE BLIND SIDE actually).
It would be heart-breaking for Meryl two years in a row to a performance in that kind of movie.
I do understand what a huge deal it would be for Davis to win an Oscar, but honestly, what has HALLE BERRY or JENNIFER HUDSON or FOREST WHITAKER done with their Oscar win? The idea that a win for Davis will lead to the monochromatic nature of the Hollywood elite is a proposition with very little evidence to support the claim.
edkargir
nice advice, thanks.
fixed.
i feel sorry for both actresses that they are forced to be viewed and judged based on race and overdue-ness, the whole thing is distasteful!
i’m black and i don’t think davis performance is the best this year , she was solid in the movie, i read the book, didnt watch the movie because of her, i find octavia spencer was the best performance along with jessica chastain in that film!
if viola is that good of an actress which her background suggests than i’m sure she won’t regress as an actress anytime soon and will get the role where no one will be able to deny her, if the academy says this is that role fine for her but i don’t agree! I too will be happy the day a black person wins for a performance and not because emphasis was on character been black!
are there no stories to be told in black communities that aren’t base on who they are in relation to whites?
Hollywood is just one of the symptoms not the deep-rooted cause,expecting change to start there is the wrong way to go about it. but what do i know? I didn’t have to grow up as a black person in america maybe i’d feel different!
all that said its just a competition you lose some you win some! i rarely ever agree with the winners at the oscars, the last two films i wanted to win who actually won were lord of the rings and the king speech!!! usually my faves lose regardless of categories
Viola Davis will win, I’m sticking with it!!!
This year reminds me of Julie Christie vs. Marion Cotillard. Marion won because she played the flashier role in a biopic. Christie’s role was more subtle and emotional.
I think Streep takes it. Oscar loves biopics and over the top performances.
i would love to see sally field winning a third oscar, she is a very good actress, she has fucked up so many times i know, but she is also a likeable actress and person, so if she gives the best performance why not? but i think her chances will be in supporting, i think next year its keira´s year, she has a very likely box office hit with steve carell, she has a good resumen even with the trilogy of pirates, she has been snubbed , she has a previous nomination,she will be 28 and plus she is a good actress, so i think she has a very good shot since now…
i like viola but she is not the leading on the film PERIOD, and she is not nicole kidman or has the power that kidman had that moment, she is not sandra bullock who america loves and she is not the best performance of the year, so why she has to win? because she is overdue? SHE IS NOT! if helen mirren had to wait until her 50´s to win why viola cant???
about the person who talks about noomi rapace , wait and see, she will get a nomination sooner or later, she is a very good actress, a lot of directors wants to work with her , and yes mara was good but she wasnt nowhere near as good like tilda in WNTTAK…
mad professa,
what does FSM mean?
re: Sasha’s use of “fuckable” — I don’t think that idea started with Sasha. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen other Oscar pundits talk about the fuckability factor for actress nominees in both categories. (And think of the famous story about how Jennifer Beals got the part in Flashdance.)
Does anyone know who first brought that issue to our attention?
If Streep and Davis split the vote, who wins it? Williams?
@jorge
Do you not think it will be Anne Hathaway’s year next year. I mean Hathaway will be probably in the bigest box office of the year “The Dark Knight Rises” then she is in a beloved Musical done by the recent oscar winner.
You know what pisses me off? the fact that these award shows never select Meryl’s best clips in The Iron Lady. Bafta played the parliament clip for crying out loud. I was like wtf?? why would you choose that? The dementia-stricken Thatcher is really where the meat of that performance lies. I mean, it is unlike anything I have ever seen onscreen.
brief movie etymology of “fuckability”
An Actress explains Fuckablity in Hollywood
(min 0:35)
“Just when we’re getting good and ripe and interesting, just when we’re finding our true selves and becoming comfortable with that self we find, just when we have the most wisdom and insight to share with others, we’re cast aside for a younger perkier model, with a higher “fuckability factor.” That’s show-biz.”
Searching for Debra Winger (2004)
Holly Millea: An Officer and a Gentleman was on television last night.
Debra Winger: I did not have a great time on that set. Studio mishegoss. I was being really jerked. And most of those guys are dead now. So I don’t feel bad. People like Don Simpson — they were pigs. I’m sorry, may he rest in peace, but he’d go to dailies and bring me a water pill. They treated girls very badly. I was trying to stand up to it. And it was hard. I was really young. “Is she fuckable? Do I want to fuck her? Will I get to fuck her?” That’s all it’s about in that world. And I don’t go to the movies for that. It wasn’t about finding a guy I wanted to fuck. It was about dreaming about life.
New York Magazine, Feb 25, 2002
“She is severely fuckable, ain’t she?”
Alien: Resurrection (1997)
I confess I’m a little ignorant on this whole splitting the vote business. Is it really if Meryl and Viola get the exact, identical number of votes?
If that’s it, wouldn’t that be a tie? Also, if that’s it isn’t it practically impossible that they have an IDENTICAL number of votes?
Am i missing something here?
Streep herself said during the NPR interview she was never fuckable.
The race is really too close to call. Right now I think Streep has the momentum. She won BAFTA last night and is headed to Berlin for an award tomorrow night. She gets headlines for this. I think this is to her advantage, so Streep wins by a nose for a truly outstanding performance.
Sasha, I think your posted article was at least a fair analysis.
Why do people say Streep gets all the best offers, best roles, all the best films yet NO ONE is satisfied with the films she does make. I say hypocritical! If she got all the best offers, best roles she would be in all the best films. I don’t see evidence of that. Hypocritical!
@Eoin…yeah, Anne Hathaway has a big year coming up but she’s playing Fantine in Les Miserables and it’s not a leading role (unless they expanded it, which I doubt cause much of the context of the film revolves around Fantine’s death at the beginning). I’m sure she’ll be talked about in supporting, however.
This year I’m really excited about Keira Knightley in Anna Karenina, mostly because I think she’s such an underrated actress and Joe Wright is such an exciting director at the moment.
Seba stated:
It’s called “best performance by a female actor in a leading role”…….Davis is not the best and she was not lead, so it’s twice a joke.
I totally agree with this sentiment, especially she was not lead. Davis was part of an ensemble cast, not a lead actress. Let’s award the Best Lead Actress.
I also don’t see how Davis possibly elevated Far From Heaven. She was hardly in it. Like maybe 2-3 minutes? No overdueness with Davis. That is a laughable statement.
@Nik: “I confess I’m a little ignorant on this whole splitting the vote business. Is it really if Meryl and Viola get the exact, identical number of votes?”
No, splitting the vote is when most people have Streep and Davis at 1 and 2 (or vice versa), but neither one gets enough 1st place votes to beat the 3rd place contender. Because the tabulation system doesn’t count 2nd place votes, Streep and Davis cancel each other out.
Imagine there are 70 voters, and 40 of them put Williams third behind Streep and Davis, but the other 30 put Williams first. Because the system doesn’t count 2nd-place votes, either Streep or Davis must get more than 30 1st place votes, or else Williams wins, even though a clear majority of the voters had her in third place. Streep and Davis literally split the 1st-place vote between them and allow Williams to sneak through.
This is why I wish the final voting also counted 2nd place votes.
Aaron
I am equally excited for Keira Knightley in Anna Karenina as well. From what I’ve read, the filming style is very experimental but I have faith in Wright.
totally agree sasha!it will be meryl’s year this year. her performance in iron lady is the type that will earn her her 3rd oscar. she shoud have won in prada and doubt but alot of people thought her performances were half baked and over the top. in iron lady, she was perfect in all aspects. i even have to remind myself that she’s meryl streep while i was watching the movie. she is simply divine!
@Deena
I’m glad someone else is excited for Anna Karenina. I absolutely loved what Joe Wright did with Atonement and especially Hanna this past year, so I’m hoping he keeps his good streak going…
And I’m also being serious when I ask (because people have brought it up here) if any of you really think Michelle Williams could pull off a surprise win a la Adrien Brody? If people are really torn between the two front runners do you really think Williams has enough support to garner enough #1 votes? I’m not completely buying the Brody comparison because The Pianist garnered so much broad support at the last minute (surprise director and screenplay wins) and it looked like Chicago just BARELY eked out that best picture win. Williams and Branagh are the only two nominees from “Marilyn” so it obviously doesn’t have the love that The Pianist. I don’t know, it would be shocking and completely unexpected if she somehow won (although not undeserving, as I thought she was excellent in the film).
Me too… Looking forward to Anna Karenina especially Knightley’s performance… But why do I have this feeling she’ll deliver goods as well in comedy for Seeking a Friend for the End of the World?????
Will win: Viola Davis
Could win: Meryl Streep
Should win: Viola Davis
Should have been there: Tilda Swinton
Regarding Knightley:
Anna Karenina has been tackled by some of the best actresses ever, including Greta Garbo and Vivien Leigh. Neither one could do much with it.
The problem with adapting Anna Karenina is that, like The Great Gatsby, the books greatness lies with the writer’s prose not the plot.
So, unless Wright has found a way to translate Tolstoy’s prose to the screen, I don’t have great hopes for it.
The same goes with The Great Gatsby. Actually less since Baz Luhrman is directing it. In 3D, no less.
@brainypirate: thank you for that explanation, it was very clear.
I’m starting to get a really good feeling that Meryl will win this one!
I heard Anna Karenina is being shot on only one location, and the physical set will closer to theater than film (a la Dogville, I guess). Sounds very interesting. But the photos I’ve seen look incredilbe and Knightley looks poised for at least a nomination.
I have higher hopes in Wright’s interpretation than with Luhrman’s. Wright has managed to successfully translate literature before. Luhrman is the better showman, but who wants Gatsby with 3D sparklers?
I heard a rumor about The Great Gatsby, well more second hand information. I’m well connected to the theater industry in Oz and one of the our absolute best live performers will feature in the movie. Not sure what his role is, but if he sings, takes his shirt off, some physical theatre, or all of the above – he will floor everyone. Girls will cry, straight men will turn, gay men will fall into a heap.
It will mean nothing to any of you, but it gives me much hope for what Luhrman is attempting here.
A star will be born.
@Mattoc: As soon as I heard that Luhrmann cast DiCaprio as Gatsby and Maguire as Nick, I was sold. Perfect duo. I’m trying to think of who a great looking guy would play just based on the book. Maybe the effeminate photographer Nick Carraway has an “incident” with on an elevator. There’s a rather major suggestion that Nick is gay or bisexual in the novel, so I wonder if that will be hinted at in the film…
@Jesse
I think it will absolutely be hinted at in the movie. Let’s bring this fucker up to speed.
This performer I am talking about, probably will not have a character to play, maybe he will who knows. But I am imaging a cabaret performance, and if Baz points his camera in the right direction, it will be the best ‘ jaw drop’ moment of the year.
I am also looking forward to Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina…the experimental approach will either make it a masterpiece, or an instant flop…but seeing his track record, latter is unlikely in my opinion. It’s nice to see a young actress NOT chasing fame : she had all the fame any young starlet could hope for after a string of international hits (Pirates trilogy, Pride & Prejudice, Atonement), and then she ignored blockbuster-screenplays (including Captain America) and went for GREAT roles in little films like The Duchess, Never let me go, A Dangerous Method…I REALLY hope this will be her year…Seeking a Friend for the End of the World has sleeper hit written all over it, and then she will be back to her roots with Joe Wright in ‘Anna Karenina’…definitely sounds promising.
Meryl doesn’t get the best roles offered. She MAKES them the best roles offered for an actress her age. That’s a huge difference imo.
She gets attention for everything she does, plain and simple, despite the film is good or not or something in between.
Even in a year, when she’s not nominated, in where she takes a break from all this crazyness, people can’t stop talking about her.
She has passionate supporters this time. I know you don’t like them and find them annoying, Sasha. Some of them are and I’d partly include myself, although I really don’t have anything against Viola and wouldn’t mind seeing her winning. I still think she does. BAFTA or not, she still has many advantages going for her.
But it’s really astonishing an actress over 60 can still have passionate supporters. There are even some for Glenn here.
The win of the BAFTA this time means so much to Meryl, I’m sure. More than Oscar, maybe. She still is american, played a british icon and no, it was not 100% safe she would win. Obvious, yes, but not safe. Thatcher still is seen very divided in Britain, so they might could have still left that ship.
@Emil Jannings: Of course, “serious film lover” knows Viola Davis. BUT she isn´t known to “normal” people. She hasn´t the popularity as it is in the US.
I´m repeating, but I´m sure Meryl Streep will win. You have to know that in Germany (I know I repeat myself) no one knows the Sag award! There is no mention of the Sag awards in the news. Only a little bit in the Yellow press. And in these press articles they didn´t mentioning that Viola Davis did win! And I know, only “serious film lovers” knows that this award exists. Outside of the US it looks much more different. I think only in these forums people think Davis can win. My opinion is that is now a really, really tough and close race.
Who cares whether or not people know Viola abroad, tell me why that would be a factor with the Academy, I’m sure there are dozens of German actresses we don’t know…..
@D: The situation, when Sandra Bullock won her Oscar was complete different as it is now. Even Natalie Portman is her well known. (Btw. I found “The Black Swan” was a terrible movie, but her performance was great.)
And what I mean is that people here in Europe would be totally surprised, if Viola Davis would win. That is what I´m trying to say.
Sometimes I have the feeling that (some) Americans think that if a person is popular in the US she is in Europe, Asia etc popular too. You know what I mean?
@D: I forgot: You can´t compare american actresses with german actresses. For German actresses or actors it´s tough, almost impossible to become famous in the US. Or can you name me one german actor/actress?
Max Schell (German-speaking/Austrian-born); Marlene Dietrich, Emil Jannings were major, in their day.
“Sometimes I have the feeling that (some) Americans think that if a person is popular in the US she is in Europe, Asia etc popular too.”
Conversely, if a foreign actor has no rep in the states, it is assumed he/she is a newbie (Dujardin, case in point)
@wolf: Well my uncle and his family live in Oslo, Norway; and I’m willing to bet they all know who Viola Davis is. I would sincerely hope that Europeans based Awards off of merit and performance, not popularity. That is and has always been my hope for the Academy as well.
@Steve50: Thanks, I forgot to address that as well, but you proved my point, good looking out!!!
@Steve50: Looooong time ago! By the way, Max Schell is not German. He is an Austrian-born swiss actor.
But it is really tough for foreign actors/actresses to become famous or even just to get some work in the US. First of all it is the language, which is one reason, why they don´t get a job in the movie business. I mean, the dialect stands in their way.
That is my point too, that the Academy should give an award, because of a great performance and not because of a huge box office hit movie!
I agree totally with Albert Starling on Sasha’s vulgar use of English.
“Blowing shit out the water”
Tsk. Really.
It should have read “blowing shit out of the water”
For fuck’s sake.
@wolf and D
It’s frustrating. I adore Franka Potente, but she always been relegated to a shadow of a character in English lang. films; same with Diane Kruger – only Tarantino has capitalized on her talent and her beauty.
Other favorites – great actors you can’t take your eyes off – are Jurgen Prochnow, Thomas Kretschmann and Benno Furmann. Wish somebody on this side of the ocean would give them something great to do because there is an entire audience that is really missing top acting talent.
@steve50: Are you an American? I´m surprised you know these people! They are really good.
“When audiences first got a look at the blonde, chilly Streep in her early career Oscar really loved her for the win — with her long blonde hair and her high cheekbones, and tears that seemed to come naturally she won two Oscars for Kramer vs. Kramer and then later for Sophie’s Choice. Streep was the love interest. She was the leading lady. She was fuckable. She was wanted.”
Yeah, sure. Streep won oscars in the past for being “fuckable”, hahahaha. Seriously, WHAT’S GOING ON? Streep is average (to not say anything worse) in her looka… and has always been. She has never ever been Catherine-Zeta Jones, Halle Berry or Natalie Portman!!!
Nope – Canadian.
I was blown away by The Princess and the Warrior years ago and made a point of seeing eveything I could of Tywker, Furmann and Potente. Kretschmann caught my eye in The Pianist, so, same thing, I tried to see as many of his films as possible.
There is a huge mine of talent out there, not just Germany. The mob demanded more Fassbender after Hunger, so why can’t we do the same for others?
@steve50: Ah, interesting. Yes, there are a lot of foreign actresses/actors, who are great in their job. Just one example: Noomi Rapace played the first Lisbeth Salander and she was better than Rooney Mara.
Skandinavian movies, especially crime movies, are great. For example the (sweden) movies “Wallander” from the author Henning Mankell are worth to watch.
wolf
Diane Kruger and Michael Fassbender are definitely on the rise as far as German actors go. I know, Fassbender is considered more ‘Irish’…but considering he was born in Germany and his father is German, I think he qualifies. AND I just realized they were BOTH in ‘Inglourious Basterds’. So was Daniel Brühl, who had some Hollywood success, too (Inglourious Basterds, The Bourne Ultimatum), had the privilege to play the male lead opposite Judi Dench and Maggie Smith in the surprisingly charming ‘Ladies in Lavender’ AND might come close to the Awards Season soon, considering he plays the legendary Niki Lauda in Ron Howard’s ‘Rush’. I REALLY liked his breakthrough film ‘Good Bye Lenin!’ (we had to watch it in high-school for German class almost a decade ago). The remarkably talented Bruno Ganz capitalized (sort of) on the success of ‘Der Untergang’, too, although he should be given better and bigger parts than the one he played in Liam Neeson’s ‘Unknown’. Martina Gedeck was in ‘The Good Shepherd’ which wasn’t a masterpiece, but it still looks good on her resume that she was in a film with Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, Robert de Niro AND she could be also Oscar-bound considering she is the co-lead in Istvan Szabo’s ‘The Door’…and the other co-lead is Helen Mirren. Then there is David Kross who is only 21 and has been already in 2 (!) best picture nominees (The Reader, War Horse), he worked with Steven Spielberg, Stephen Daldry, Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes…clearly his breakthrough film, ‘Knallhart’ helped him get there. Sibel Kekilli was also a German actress who gained some US-tracion after her stunning turn in ‘Die Fremde’ which probably helped her land ‘Game of Thrones’, the show that clearly served as great exposure for her. And the list goes on…
Viola Davis was mentioned in a NY Times blog….
http://carpetbagger.blogs.nytimes.com/
I just love her!
Bruno Ganz is a swiss actor and Michael Fassbender is here in Germany, I think, quite unknown.
Isn’t Til Schweiger German? And he’s getting parts in American movies.
Helmut Griem may have been one of the most beautiful men ever to grace the screen. He makes me weak in the knees when he seduces Michael York.
@wolf
Oh, I think Michael Fassbinder is quite a name in Germany now. In every article I’ve read about him they proudly mentioned he’s half-german.
But yes, the lack of mentioning Viola in Europe (especially Germany) is sad somehow.
I don’t think that will happen after Oscar night.
If its about acting performance…ITS MERYL STREEP. period!
Viola Davis…mmm…she was OK. But Meryl Streep is superb in “The Iron Lady”. She will win. Black actresses allways do the same thing…sufering (Viola, Halle, Monique) and screeming (Jennifer Hudson). Its such a sin that meryl streep only win twice…she deserves it.
Ignorant people always say ignorant things ^!!
Black actresses allways do the same thing.
I’ve taken the liberty of correcting your spelling:
*always
*screaming
Viola Davis…mmm…she was OK. But Meryl Streep is superb in “The Iron Lady”. She will win. Black actresses allways do the same thing…sufering (Viola, Halle, Monique) and screeming (Jennifer Hudson). Its such a sin that meryl streep only win twice…she deserves it.
Dumbest comment I’ve ever read on this site and that’s saying a lot. A sin! A sin! Oh my god, if Meryl Streep doesn’t win the whole world will stop turning! Please. I hope she does win just so that everyone will stop whining about it. Good god.
Hahahaha. This is getting so out of proportion. It’s just an statue of a golden little man!! (it don’t talk or love). It’s not something that is going to be useful next to the grave of anyone, it’s not the secret of happiness of any actress… actually, most actress careers went downhill after an oscar win.
I will prefer a Christopher Plummer in his “Sound of Music” days than an oscar!!!
Didn’t Viola Davis play essentially the same character in “Doubt” that she played in “The Help”? I think her performance was a “repeat” of the earlier film.
For the record, no Asian or Asian-American actress has EVER been nominated for Best Actress, so it’s not as if only black actors are the only minority out there. Besides with the number of wins and nominations by black actors in the past decade or two…it’s not as if they have been ignored by the Academy.
Didn’t Viola Davis play essentially the same character in “Doubt” that she played in “The Help”? I think her performance was a “repeat” of the earlier film.
my gosh! how come nobody has noticed this before?
yes! she played a black lady in both movies.
good catch.
Quick question, and forgive me for my ignorance (and lazyness to make some research, but you guys sure have more knowledge than any wikipedia): was there ever a tie in the Academy Awards – I mean, two people actually receiving the award for winning in the same category?
There should be no contest. Streep is transcendent (and profoundly ‘comical’) in this role, especially as the ageing and alone Thatcher. Davis’s technically proficient performance never rises above sentiment. Dare I say dreary sentiment.
If this turns out to be another year like that Bullock fiasco, Streepers around the world I promise you will not make it pretty. Meryl could have easily done that role in the Blind Side but there is no way Bullock could have pulled off Julia Child. The only reason Meryl could not do the role in the Help is simply because of race and I’ll bet with the help of Roy Helland, I bet Meryl COULD pull it off. Let’s face it, there’s nothing Meryl can’t do…no role she’s can’t perform, flawlessly. She’s in a class of her own and if she get’s overlooked again…shit’s gonna hit the fan this year.
All right, I just watched a video in which a stunned Ingrid Bergman announces a tie between Katherine Hepburn (The Lion in the Winter) and Barbra Streisand (Funny Girl) – but that was a long time ago (1969).So, it´s possible, but also very rare …
Correction: 1968, not 1969.
“Sometimes I have the feeling that (some) Americans think that if a person is popular in the US she is in Europe, Asia etc popular too. You know what I mean?”
Yes, yes we know what are you trying to say. It’s the sad daily American truth about the sacred daily American ignorance. But that’s the way it always has been. And now, I (a simple cinephile from the Balcans) should care about how talented black actresses never get awarded because of their skin color. Well i certainly appreciate good movie, good direction, excellent acting (Davis’ and Streep’s performances and nothing less but magnificent), fine score, immense screenplay etc etc etc…. but i can’t accept as a valid argument the opinion that Davis should win because she’s too close + she’s BLACK. and correct me if I’m wrong but that’s the idea Sasha is pushing for the last couple of months.
I’m being serious here. I am starting to hate how these insane Meryl Streep fans are making me turn on the actress herself. I love her, but for fuck’s sake their ridiculousness and insanity actually is turning my emotions against her and I have to keep catching myself. You guys really do someone you supposedly love a HUGE disservice when you act like twats supposedly in her honor.
I think its meryl’s year. I hope she wins…i just dont understand why viola davis is so strong in the race.
Here’s an interview with Meryl Streep!
http://news.yahoo.com/meryl-streep-fears-she-might-overrated-190230153.html
You gotta love her.
“my gosh! how come nobody has noticed this before?
yes! she played a black lady in both movies.
good catch.”
You seriously see no connection between the way she played in Doubt and the way she is in The Help? Honest question.
Some Streep fans sound a little too crazed, for sure. I just think it’s because her performances were snubbed at least three or four times minimum when they were pretty clearly the best of the nominated ones (Adaptation, Julie & Julia and Doubt to name the most recent three). So i think it’s just a feeling of “enough is enough” already with this crap. It tends to turn people a little mental, no doubt.
Hopefully she’ll win it this year because again, and this is just my opinion, she is the best of the nominated five.
Meryl Streep is by far my favorite actress, but even I have to admit that Viola Davis deserves it this year. She elevated the material and made the film hers, even with a great ensemble cast.
?m going to update my rank of perfonal bests this year:
1. Streep
2. Davis
3. Wiig
4. Olsen
5. Bejo
BY the way. When you think you can’t love more this woman: “Streep described the awards season as an “out of body experience”.” Hahahaha.
Sasha, I’m from Argentina, I’ve been reading your site for many years now and I love it. That being said, don’t you find it unnecesary to qualify some opinions as “dumb”? I truly admire how passionately you write your articles and I’m pro defending certain ideas both with argument AND heart, but I think this hole Viola Davis vs Meryl Streep thing made you lose focus on how you take other people’s opinions. Some of us really consider Viola Davis performance as overrated and it´s a fact that is not a lead role. And she is a fantastic actress, but a little affected in The Help. I don´t think that make us dumb. And I think Rooney gave the best performance of the five nominees. Just wanted to point out that, as a blogger myself, last year I defended The Social Network blindly and that made me kind of disrespectful towards other people’s opinions. Do I think that The King’s Speech was better? No. But I really do think that the key is to enjoy an argument without the necessity of undermining other views.
Hope you don’t mind my comment.
Fighting Kid states:
Didn’t Viola Davis play essentially the same character in “Doubt” that she played in “The Help”? I think her performance was a “repeat” of the earlier film.
I totally agree and have said so on previous posts to this very website. She essentially plays the same character as she did in ‘Doubt’, Mrs. Miller.
With respect, Brandz, i don’t see how the two performances or characters are the same at all. In some 3 scenes, and maybe fifteen minutes of screentime, Viola Davis in Doubt, with a minimum of dialogue, but a maximum of sheer emotional intensity, conveys a whole gamut of truths and suffering – painting a portrait of a woman caught between the proverbial devil and deep blue sea with her young son, and for the viewer, or this one at least, revealing that horrifying moment of honesty that she would rather her son be ‘comforted’ by the priest (in truth potentially sexually abused) than be physically abused at home. How she did that is testament to Shanley’s economic screenplay, and the chemistry of Streep and Davis together and the contrasting agendas that the two women independently bring.
How is that at all similar to her much larger and centrally placed character as a woman with steely determination to find her ‘voice’, find her ‘words’ and find a vehicle for her grief, her anger and her suffering?
On the surface they are both trapped, but one of them, thanks to the film’s expansive narrative, finds a way to have her say. They are both black women in the 60′s – that is the only likeness they share. Oh and they are played wonderfully by one Viola Davis.
At the end of the day, Sasha, your assessment of the Best Actress race has nothing to do with who you think gave the better performance. You admit as much when you praise Meryl’s technical abilities and then praise Davis for being black. The fact of the matter is that Maggie Thatcher is a political hero who reversed decades of decline and made England relevant again in the world scene. You are a bleeding heart liberal and thus will ignore the facts, so I’m literally speaking to a wall, but, as a conservative, your tone towards Thatcher, as if she were some sort of devil, is almost as offensive as your condescension towards minorities.
Yes, it’s a fact that the United States is 88% NOT black, so there are fewer roles for African-American actors. Some Hispanic or Middle Eastern actors can assume the roles of Caucasian characters in a film because they ARE Caucasian, unlike blacks or Asians.
But by the same token, there are proportionately more Caucasians competing for those same roles that would go to whites, simply because the characters are Caucasian.
It doesn’t make sense to me to play “a sympathy card” for African-American actors based on the assumption that it is any easier for a white actor to get a role than a black actor. There are fewer roles but then there are fewer African-American actors competing for those same roles. There are more roles for whites–still the clear majority in this country–, but there are proportionately probably more white actors competing for those roles.
So I’m not at all convinced by Sasha Stone’s article.
Also, 20% of the acting awards in the past ten years have gone to African-Americans (12% of the population), so it’s not a case of disproportionate under-representation.
By the way, I don’t think ANY Asian or Asian-American actor has been nominated for a leading Oscar, so Asians are definitely the very bottom of the heap in terms of Hollywood.
I’m glad that an Hispanic was nominated in a lead role, but I think it will probably be decades before an Asian-American is nominated.
I am watching a blu-ray of “Dr. Zhivago” and note that the Egyptian Omar Sharif was chosen by Carlo Ponti to play the lead. I don’t the producers could have cast an African-American or Asian-American.
There was a time when white actors played Asians (Luise Rainier in “The Good Earth” or Katherine Hepburn in ” — “, for example), that time has long since gone by the wayside.
Jean Dujardin will have a hard time, it has been noted, finding roles in Hollywood films because of his accent. He doesn’t speak English fluently.
An accent (language), voice, racial features, girth (build), height, training, etc. all determine suitability and likelihood of casting a certain actor. This is not racist, in my opinion.
@MadProfessah: This is the first I’ve heard about Meryl Streep “laying” Margaret Thatcher. Now THAT’S what I call dedicated research for a role!
Meryl Streep hands down the best performance. If Streep doesn’t win oscar she will be robbed!!!!
Glenn Close is a close (no pun intended) second.
p.s. Marion Cotillard didnt win sag but won bafta and the Oscar!!!!
there are three of us from the philippines who think this is a pretty weird best actress race. yes, viola is good but we think octavia spencer is better and were it not for the cinematic framing of the film, she could have been a lead actress too. as it were, viola opens and closes the movie and so she is the lead putatively. honestly though , we think the most impressive performance is jessica chastain’s. just when we think she is just this white trash character, she is actually someone else, a more layered character, and chastain does it without an obvious dramatic scene. she isn’t aided by “you are a godless woman” or “eat my shit!”. but to award her with an oscar will be politically incorrect as this is a movie about black suffering and nobility. and then there is streep. the first scene alone where she is an old woman buying milk and the scene after that, having breakfast with her husband and someone barging in to let the viewers know that the breakfast conversation is illusory as the husband is already dead…those two are more goosebumps-inducing than all the acting highlights of the help combined. we think that in a better world, there really is no contest, the oscar is streep’s, even with lloyd’s so-so direction. come to think of it, because of lloyd’s so-so direction and streep not just surviving but salvaging the entire movie, the oscar should walk its way to her seat and not her walking up to the stage and claim it!
Sorry people, but you all are wrong. This is not about “best in” or any kind of human justice: it’s about BUSINESS. It’s only an award from industry, no more no less. That’s the real reason of Bullock’s win (et al). You can argue everything you want (about race, money, ‘fuckability’, Best Picture contender, paying dues, fame, previous nominations), but it’s their show, not yours. They (AMPAS) decide who deserves to be awarded by the rules of business, and that includes image, power, likeability, hard work, lobby movement, money, and of course, performance, but not always in first place. If you think Mo’Nique did not really campaign, you’re candid: so many in industry did it for her, i. e. Oprah. That’s all. And that speech about “it’s the performance and not the politics” sounds great but we all know it’s not true in a private institution.
I honestly think Williams this year deserves it more than Davis, and also probably Close for her restrained character and performance (but in a so mediocre film). Davis is superb in The Help, but not at her best (see Doubt when she steals the show against best-living-actress-Streep). Streep will do better performances than this, I’m pretty sure, and I think they will reward her for a non-mimicry performance IMO. For me it will be difficult to understand if she wins for a performance she can do with her eyes closed. Maybe we are (and grow) accostumed to Meryl’s regular excellence and we all are waiting for a new Sophie’s Choice masterclass. Mara is still young and she had a “Rapace reference” about her character. But I definitely will not claim to heaven if they decide to give the statue to Davis. She is a magnificent actress and I do not care about race or that opprobious arguments. Once again, it will not change anything, don´t be candid souls. And don’t invoke justice in AMPAS territory… It’s an useless word.
This is not about “best in” or any kind of human justice: it’s about BUSINESS. It’s only an award from industry, no more no less.
True — but, unlike most private clubs, the Academy eagerly seeks public attention, invites us (begs us) to attend their annual party, proudly boasts at the top of every press release that they are “the world’s preeminent movie-related organization”
So if they don’t want to open themselves up to scrutiny, they should stop flaunting how important they believe they are.
More importantly: They’re a private industry club who need the public’s support to finance their organization.
Whoever Dave Karger’s prediction for Best Actress will be the one to win the OSCAR. Does Dave Karger have his prediction up yet?
He’ll predict this way:
Best Actress Viola Davis
Best Actor Jean Dujardin
Best Supporting Actor Christopher Plummer
Best Supporting Actress Octavia Spencer
Best Picture The Artist
Best Director Michel Hazanavicius
@Ryan: That’s the key. They pretend to be open to public scrutiny, they need money and public’s support as you say, but in the end THEY DECIDE, not us, not the public. We all play the game, but we have only a bonus: the money we pay at theaters or stores. You’re right: they believe they are so important to us, but only because we also believe in the end they choose “right decisions”. Business is business and they do it well.
What, no post on Meryl receiving a Lifetime Achievement at Berlin? Shame!
@douglas you’re from the Philippines too?
Mathira ,yes! and we, fellow Oscar watchers, are still scratching our heads over Davis’ frontrunner status. You are from the Philippines and you must have watched Nora Aunor in Atsay.That’s way better than the The Help! Way, way better!
To this day, I still cannot believe that Sandra Bullock has an Oscar for Best Actress… that you consider such an action a biggest insult by Academy members to Meryl Streep is fully supported by me. How the hell did that even happen?
My three biggest injustices at the Oscars: When 1)Saving Private Ryan lost to Shakespeare in Love in 1998. 2) Russel Crowe lost to Denzel Washington in 2001. And of course, 3) Sandra Bullock winning best actress over other worthy performances most notably Meryl’s in 2010.
The Academy has nearly 6000 voting members, actors make up roughly 20% of that… Consider the remaining 80%, it’s a block that lead Marion Cotillard and Tilda Swinton to go home with their awards in 2008. They both did not win at the SAG awards that year. So Viola Davis has no guarantee she’ll win even if all in the actors block vote for her (assuming all eligible voting members turn in their ballots)
And that’s what usually comforts me about the Oscars, they mostly get it right. Unlike at the Golden Globes in 2010 for example, they didn’t get enchanted by Avatar to go on to award it best picture while it clearly was not let alone best director.
@douglas
sadly, I haven’t.
But I’m sure Eugene Domingo can do Viola’s role in her sleep.
And I’m happy ABS-CBN annointed Meryl as fronttunner. LOL
I hope we can contact soon!
Sorry, Sasha and Ryan for turning this into a chatbox. XD
fellow pinoys streep is indeed the frontrunner, her performance is the talk of everywhere here in the US despite davis won the sag
Lucy,
Really? Wow.
Mathira, Nora Aunor in Bona and Atsay can beat Viola anytime! She’s all about eyes, shoulders and her back, right? Not to mention the “you’re a godless woman” scene?” But Nora, those EYES, those SHOULDERS, those BACK! For all people rooting for Viola…all these films are downloadable and if you watch them and say Viola is this year’s best actress, then i believe you. It’s all contextual then but context can be damn limited. And we go for viola because she touched you. oh well, i go for skill this time and skill can touch you and me, when delivered in spades. Meryl! Meryl! Meryl!
Watched Oscars and Viola Davis lost to Meryl Streep. Streep is great actress and will continue to get good roles. I hope that Viola gets good roles. That doesn’t always happen for Actors and Actresses after winning or losing Oscars. However, I hate when it is so obvious that an Actor/Actress gets an Oscar to make up for not getting it in a previous year. It’s ridiculous that Whoopi Goldberg won an Oscar for her role in Ghost instead of her role in the Color Purple. Sandra Bullock should not have won an Oscar. Halle Berry was great in Monster’s Ball. Actors/actresses want to make a living, and sometime’s they aren’t offered Academy Award winning roles. I like Meryl Streep, but does she really need 30 Oscars on display in her house. Employee of the year, teacher of the year, etc doesn’t always go to the best person. Hollywood is made up of humans. So it will never be perfect.