The prize, as expected, went to Philip Seymour Hoffman for his brilliant portrayal of Capote, but in the months preceding the awards thing, there has been little discussion of acting styles and various approaches to character development by this year's nominees. Hollywood loves mimicry, the conversion of a film actor into the spittin' image of a once-living celeb. But which takes more skill, acting a person who strolled the boulevard a few decades ago and who left behind tapes, film, photographs, voice recordings and friends with strong memories, or the construction of characters from imagination and a few cold words on the page? I don't know. The subject never comes up. Cheers to David Strathairn, Joaquin Phoenix and Hoffman, but what about actors who start in the dark?
Annie Proulx, The Guardian, March 11, 2006.
http://books.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1727309,00.htmlExactly!! But!! This sentiment is not only Proulx, it is an industry wide sentiment which was publicly articulated in the weeks and months before the Oscars were even unwrapped, and it continues to inspire heated conversation. Thus this issue, 'acting' awards, the purpose for which we gather, was and is being talked about openly in artistic circles everywhere. It is the primary and principled purpose of the Oscars and it is the responsibility of the Academy to preserve its own integrity by insuring that "campaigning" is done with that integrity in mind. If the Academy can't rely on the integrity of its own members, now 6,000 strong, to vote for nominated films in the manner outlined for them by its own rules and regualtions, then its time to regroup. Perhaps it is time to reduce the size of the voting body and to discontinue the practice of "campaigning" altogether.
Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhal, as actors, portrayed their characters with unequivocal elegance - they nailed their characters. I know this because I have lived the lives of these characters, as many on this board have. I can see and hear and feel with my own eyes, my own ears, and feel it with my own heart and soul. Both of these actors brought to life characters that to our knowledge were gleaned only from the depths of their imagination using the skills of an actor. Certainly, no other dramatic role I have ever seen portrayed anywhere of homosexuals (i.e Maurice, Another Country, Boys Don't Cry, etc.) can even come close to being of any assistance as a model in the development of the characters Ennis and Jack as played by Ledger and Gyllenhal - these were seminal roles never played before, but will be forever used by those that come after them as the model of what it is to be "homosexual" and in love in America.
Go to any LA party, any office, any barroom anywhere and you will have no problem finding people who can mimick Johnny Cash and Truman Capote' they've been doing it for decades. But the question remains, who modeled for Ledger and Gyllenhal the very real and true emotions and actions of two men in love to create a relationship like Ennis and Jack's? The actors here received nothing for their efforts, yet they had to do more real "acting" than all of the other nominees combined !!
Who modeled these characters for them? To our personal knowledge, none! ever! anywhere!
I'm sorry, I don't care if such criticism falls harshly on the sensitive ears of democrats with a small "d," Americans are far to often victims of their own democratic peer pressures, concerned, obsessed, as they are, more with political correctness than "fair" and "honest" assessment of credible artistic work, and this is exactly what Proulx complaint is.
Some here are more concerned with being "nice," than they are with being "fair" and "honest," but I for one have lived too long the life that Ennis and Jack both lived to sit here and worry whether or not it is "nice" to be critical of a system like AMPAS and the Oscars which has clearly lost its way and rewards time and again, foirm over substance, plagiarism over originality.
It takes a very keen emotional and psychological discernment on the part of actors unfamiliar with the emotions and feelings of being homosexual in a suffocatingly oppressive social, psychological and political environmental context, to be able to portray these characters in these roles as these two have. In the alternative, Capote and Cash are characters that most actiors and not just a few pedestrians could play, informed as they are by information and biographies with many, far too many, prior examples of how to play them available. Even fictional characters, the actions of which are modeled from prior efforts of others actors, often operate as a frame of reference for character development for subsequent roles by subsequent actors The Oscars, hopefully, are for
Bests in "acting," not plagiarism.
Ledger and Gyllenhal were able to transmit the essence of what it means for a man to be in love with another man, to experience that first real love of one's life, as a 19-year old, and yet be stricken with fear, unable to share that experience with another human being, save the one you that love, and often times, not even then - until its too late ... I swear. Such emotional intensity is on a scale not contemplated by pedestrian straight people, let alone even accomplished actors. Many are incapable of, or too cowardly to, make the attempt. Recall that it did take several years to find two actors to play these roles, but when they did, boy did they!! Most actors are virtually incapable of bearing the excruciatingly oppressive feeling of such an emotional and psychological muzzlement, let alone effectively portraying those feeling, in such significantly meaningful and powerful ways, as to express the devastating and exruciatingly clinically depressing feelings of those who were, or feared being, homosexual, then, and even now; thus, most, that simple majority, have no appreciation for what one must go through in order to survive emotionally, psychologically, socially, and even, physically. And therein lies the challenge for the very pedestrian simple majority of the members of the Academy. The collective voting membership of AMPAS just did not have what it takes, as a body, to "go there."
As human beings we are often left confused and bewildered by that with which we do not identify; taking the easy way out allows us to reward and reaffirm to ourselves our true beliefs, values, and attitudes about that which we already know too well, believing, often falsely, that "we" understand and care. Thus the Academy saw Hoffman getting an "efite intellectual homosexual" such as Capote just right, whereas Ledger is reduced by democratic peer pressure (i.e. campaigning) as just another vanilla Gay Romeo, the character of Ennis hardly registering as a man in the collective consciousness, if at all. The problem here isn't homphobia, it's utter, albeit popular, ignorance; the inability to identify with the characters portrayed in a meaningful way is what ultimately led most in the Academy to dismiss the efforts of Ledger and Gyllenhall, and send the votes of the Academy to something with which they could identify ..... I guess its just a classic case of casting .... pearls .....
