Later tonight on TCM, the 1978 Oscar winner The Deer Hunter runs, starring Robert de Niro, John Cazale, Meryl Streep, John Savage, and Christopher Walken. That last guy took home a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance even though I think John Savage, who wasn’t even nominated, was better. And John Cazale, too. Oh, it’s not that I don’t think Christopher Walken’s a great actor, I just think he got honored for the wrong performance. It wasn’t just the wrong selection for that year but, as I just said, for the movie as well. It happens. A lot of times we can look over an actor’s entire career, then look at the Oscar they won, or maybe just the one movie they got nominated for, and think, “That’s what they won for?! Why?” I’ve written here before about actors and what their signature performances are, so much so that I’ve simply subtitled this one “Part Next” because it’s a subject I’ll just keep rolling with from now until the breath leaves my body. This time, let’s focus on the performances that should have been honored with either nomination, award, or both but weren’t.
Christopher Walken has acted in well over a hundred movies and tv shows so picking one performance that represents Walken isn’t my goal here, rather, picking the performance I think he most deserved official recognition for, even if just by getting nominated. That performance for Walken, and it’s a choice I think many would make, is The Dead Zone. It’s simply a career performance, coming as he entered middle age at 40. I have no gripes at all about who won the Oscar that year (Robert Duvall for Tender Mercies, a great, great performance) but I just wish Walken had been nominated for a performance that I think hits ever single note perfectly. As much as I love Michael Caine, Tom Conti, Tom Courtenay, and Albert Finney, I would have gladly substituted Walken for any one of them that year.
Samuel L. Jackson has given many great performances but only one, his role in Pulp Fiction, has earned him a nomination. See this list?
- Matt Damon Good Will Hunting
- Robert Duvall The Apostle
- Peter Fonda Ulee’s Gold
- Dustin Hoffman Wag the Dog
- Jack Nicholson As Good as It Gets
Well I’d not only substitute Jackson for anyone on it but give him the award too, for Best Actor for Jackie Brown. It’s a great performance that contains one of the greatest played moments of nostalgic sorrow for a lost friend I’ve seen in a movie. The moment when Jackson shoots his longtime partner in crime and friend because he’d screwed up a deal, only to lament, “What the f*** happened to you, man? S***, your ass used to be beautiful!” You read that line in a script and don’t think twice about it. You watch Jackson do it and it’s like a punch in the gut. In that one line he expressed confusion, loss, and the real fear that his world is coming to an end. But, yeah, why nominate him for doing that, right?
Moving right along, I have a question: Does anyone think of The Miracle Worker when they hear the name Anne Bancroft? Okay, I mean besides us. The Graduate is always the first movie of hers to come to mind and she was nominated for it, as Best Actress even though she’s clearly a supporting character to Ben’s story. In fact, that’s what I would have nominated her and given her the Oscar for, Best Supporting Actress for The Graduate. Sorry Estelle.
Ingrid Bergman won for Gaslight and it’s hard to argue with that one. It’s a fantastic performance fully deserving of an Oscar. But the year before she wasn’t even nominated for Casablanca, for either Best Actress or Best Supporting Actress. She was nominated though, just not for the right performance. She was nominated for For Whom the Bell Tolls, a fine performance but her work in Casablanca can only be described as beautiful. It’s not a career performance, it’s a once in a lifetime performance and here we are, talking about the fact that she wasn’t even nominated for it. Good job, Oscar.
Cary Grant. He was nominated for Best Actor for Penny Serenade and None but the Lonely Heart. He was not nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Gunga Din. He was not nominated for Best Actor for The Awful Truth. He was not nominated for Best Actor for Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. He was not nominated for Best Actor for Notorious. However, he was nominated for and won the Oscar for Best Actor for North by Northwest. [TCM assistant whispers correction in Greg's ear] What?! He didn’t win for North by Northwest?!!! He didn’t even get nominated ?!!! I give up.
A few more to take us out:
Denzel Washington won for Training Day. You’re kidding, right? He should have won for Malcolm X.
Judy Davis has never won but was nominated for both A Passage to India and for Supporting for Husbands and Wives. She’s known for Passage to India, she should have won for Husbands and Wives.
Clark Gable is great in It Happened One Night. I wouldn’t argue that for a second. But if I could only give him one Oscar in his whole career, it would be for Gone with the Wind where he is perfect.
Faye Dunaway won Best Actress for Network. It’s a good, solid performance. She should have won for Chinatown, a great performance.
Paul Newman won for playing Fast Eddie Felson in The Color of Money, a reprise of his character from The Hustler. He’s quite good in both and better in The Color of Money than most people remember. Still, there really is one performance of his that always comes to mind first when I think of Newman: The Verdict. I have watched that movie a good ten times all the way through, and with each new viewing I am convinced it is not only Newman’s crowning achievement as an actor but one of the best performances to ever grace the silver screen. Sorry, Ben Kingsley, I love you as an actor, too, but Newman should have won for this performance.
Of course, doing a list like this isn’t perfect. For instance, when I say that Faye Dunaway should have won for Chinatown, I have a hard time not thinking Ellen Burstyn deserved the award more that year for Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. She did deserve it more but in a perfect world where each year featured 20 to 25 nominees and multiple ties, I’d have given it to Dunaway as well. In other years, like 1992, I feel a little disgruntled that 1) Al Pacino, after so many other much, much better performances was finally honored for Scent of a Woman and that 2) that denied Denzel Washington from winning for what he should have won for, Malcolm X. I mean, even giving Pacino leeway that his late career broad style worked for that movie, it still isn’t a very good Pacino performance. Certainly not worthy of an Oscar. I know it’s going back very early in his career, but I still think The Godfather is his best performance. Oh well. I suppose this kind of discussion is endless because of the very fact that the process allows for only one winner a year, except in exact ties. We want the career performance to be the one with the Oscar but we don’t always get it. Sometimes, we don’t even get a single Oscar (or nomination) but that’s a discussion for another time. For now, as long as they keep honoring the wrong performance, this discussion will keep going.