OVP: Best Actor (2005)
The Nominees Were...
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote
Terrence Howard, Hustle & Flow
Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain
Joaquin Phoenix, Walk the Line
David Strathairn, Good Night, and Good Luck
Terrence Howard, Hustle & Flow
Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain
Joaquin Phoenix, Walk the Line
David Strathairn, Good Night, and Good Luck
My Thoughts: It's pretty rare to have a Best Actor field with no former winners, and even rarer to have one with only one previous nominee, but that's what we get in 2005. The average age of these actors was only 37.6 at the time, making this possibly the youngest average field of this millennium (I've never done the full math, though that does sound like something I'll probably do at some point, but an average under 40 is spritely for lead actor). The tragedy, of course, is that two of these men are already gone, including the youngest of the bunch, Heath Ledger, who is where we'll start this writeup.
Ledger always had a charm in his films, especially in earlier work like 10 Things I Hate About You or A Knight's Tale, but while I think some might have suspected Jake Gyllenhaal would turn a triumph at some point, assuming Heath Ledger would was at one point a question mark. Ledger's work in Brokeback, though, is seismic and one of the great film performances, for my money. He brings a danger & passion to Ennis that feels worn, rough, and tender. The way he handles that last scene of the movie, where all of the bitterness that he's shown turns into tenderness, knowing what he once had...it's gut-wrenching. Brokeback would fall on its ass if the Ennis character didn't stick in your gut, but with Ledger, even 15 years later, his work still feels raw and challenging.
Ledger lost the Oscar to Philip Seymour Hoffman (three years later, Hoffman would lose the Oscar to Ledger, but we've already discussed that), and at the time this made total sense since Hoffman, while he'd never been nominated, felt like the sort of guy who'd been born to win an Oscar considering the plethora of high-prestige movies he'd been in to that point. His Truman is a feat, though it's one I wasn't impressed by. I don't love transformation performances (into famous people), unless they feel like authentic creations onscreen, and this always veers into mimicry for me. Hoffman is a good actor (I've seen him give a great performance in The Master and a legendary one onstage in Death of a Salesman), but he falls into overacting so easily, especially early in his career, and this is a part rife with overacting. Capote is cold & scant in its best moments, but it juxtaposes poorly against Hoffman's Capote, unfeeling & hammy in what he brings to the screen.
Joaquin Phoenix also has a bit of the mimicry going on in Walk the Line, but it doesn't feel at odds with his film. For starters, Walk the Line isn't as stylistic as Capote, so there's less room to not match with the movie itself, and secondly, Phoenix brings a life to his Cash that never feels like it's simply an imitation. Phoenix's performance occasionally goes so deep that you don't get the sense of enjoyment from the character that you do Witherspoon's June (Witherspoon seems more intent on giving a great show than imitating her famous counterpart, something that you can't claim for Phoenix), but after the histrionics of Gladiator, this was a nod to the peak duo of The Master/Her that was soon to come from this actor.
David Strathairn rounds out our trio of real-life figures, but while he has countless hours of television to study Edward R. Murrow from, he's the least known to modern audiences so while his vocal pacing is immaculate, it's also unnecessary. Strathairn's got one of the more challenging roles-how do you create an arch for a man who is famous for sticking to his principles? He does so with subtle movements, his slow indication that he won't stand injustice, and the ways in which he underlines the risks he's taking with the network by becoming more reserved as the film goes on; it's not the sort of performance you expect Oscar to love, but it's thrilling to see when he does.
The final nominee has had arguably the strangest post-Oscar career of these actors (if obviously not the most heartbreaking). Howard went from superhero sidekick to getting out-shined in his broadcast TV show relatively quickly after this was released (and is also famous for bizarre offscreen behavior, though that's true of every one of these guys save for Strathairn), but in 2005 was the big new star of the year. He likely won this nomination for both Crash and Hustle & Flow, but that's not how the OVP works (I only judge the nominated perf, not what else led to a nomination), and Howard is only okay in Hustle & Flow. This is the least of the actual movies up in this category, so the arch isn't atypical (musician wanting to strike it big is not breaking ground), and while Howard is raw & felt, especially his scenes with his future Empire costar Taraji P. Henson, it feels routine against some of these turns.
Ledger always had a charm in his films, especially in earlier work like 10 Things I Hate About You or A Knight's Tale, but while I think some might have suspected Jake Gyllenhaal would turn a triumph at some point, assuming Heath Ledger would was at one point a question mark. Ledger's work in Brokeback, though, is seismic and one of the great film performances, for my money. He brings a danger & passion to Ennis that feels worn, rough, and tender. The way he handles that last scene of the movie, where all of the bitterness that he's shown turns into tenderness, knowing what he once had...it's gut-wrenching. Brokeback would fall on its ass if the Ennis character didn't stick in your gut, but with Ledger, even 15 years later, his work still feels raw and challenging.
Ledger lost the Oscar to Philip Seymour Hoffman (three years later, Hoffman would lose the Oscar to Ledger, but we've already discussed that), and at the time this made total sense since Hoffman, while he'd never been nominated, felt like the sort of guy who'd been born to win an Oscar considering the plethora of high-prestige movies he'd been in to that point. His Truman is a feat, though it's one I wasn't impressed by. I don't love transformation performances (into famous people), unless they feel like authentic creations onscreen, and this always veers into mimicry for me. Hoffman is a good actor (I've seen him give a great performance in The Master and a legendary one onstage in Death of a Salesman), but he falls into overacting so easily, especially early in his career, and this is a part rife with overacting. Capote is cold & scant in its best moments, but it juxtaposes poorly against Hoffman's Capote, unfeeling & hammy in what he brings to the screen.
Joaquin Phoenix also has a bit of the mimicry going on in Walk the Line, but it doesn't feel at odds with his film. For starters, Walk the Line isn't as stylistic as Capote, so there's less room to not match with the movie itself, and secondly, Phoenix brings a life to his Cash that never feels like it's simply an imitation. Phoenix's performance occasionally goes so deep that you don't get the sense of enjoyment from the character that you do Witherspoon's June (Witherspoon seems more intent on giving a great show than imitating her famous counterpart, something that you can't claim for Phoenix), but after the histrionics of Gladiator, this was a nod to the peak duo of The Master/Her that was soon to come from this actor.
David Strathairn rounds out our trio of real-life figures, but while he has countless hours of television to study Edward R. Murrow from, he's the least known to modern audiences so while his vocal pacing is immaculate, it's also unnecessary. Strathairn's got one of the more challenging roles-how do you create an arch for a man who is famous for sticking to his principles? He does so with subtle movements, his slow indication that he won't stand injustice, and the ways in which he underlines the risks he's taking with the network by becoming more reserved as the film goes on; it's not the sort of performance you expect Oscar to love, but it's thrilling to see when he does.
The final nominee has had arguably the strangest post-Oscar career of these actors (if obviously not the most heartbreaking). Howard went from superhero sidekick to getting out-shined in his broadcast TV show relatively quickly after this was released (and is also famous for bizarre offscreen behavior, though that's true of every one of these guys save for Strathairn), but in 2005 was the big new star of the year. He likely won this nomination for both Crash and Hustle & Flow, but that's not how the OVP works (I only judge the nominated perf, not what else led to a nomination), and Howard is only okay in Hustle & Flow. This is the least of the actual movies up in this category, so the arch isn't atypical (musician wanting to strike it big is not breaking ground), and while Howard is raw & felt, especially his scenes with his future Empire costar Taraji P. Henson, it feels routine against some of these turns.
Other Precursor Contenders: We start with the Globes, which distinguish between Drama and "Comedy/Musical," and as a result have ten men on our ballot. For Drama we have Hoffman besting Russell Crowe (Cinderella Man), Howard, Ledger, and Strathairn, while in Musical/Comedy it's Phoenix on top over Jeff Daniels (The Squid and the Whale), Johnny Depp (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), Nathan Lane (The Producers), and Cillian Murphy (Breakfast on Pluto). SAG skipped Howard in favor of Crowe, but kept the rest of the Oscar lineup (including the winner), while Hoffman also won the BAFTA, this time over Strathairn, Ledger, Phoenix, and Ralph Fiennes (The Constant Gardener). Weirdly considering my comment about some of these men's offscreen behavior, the only reason Howard was able to get in was because Crowe spent most of 2005 earning headlines for throwing a phone at a hotel clerk-he was surely in sixth place, and probably a close sixth.
Actors I Would Have Nominated: I'd get rid of three of these guys, but this isn't a bad lineup (2005 in general Oscar didn't get dealt a great hand by the film industry from what I'm finding, and thus made the most of a lousy deck). That said, I'd keep Fiennes, who is awesome opposite Rachel Weisz's Oscar-winning turn in one of many great performances AMPAS has skipped since The English Patient. I'd also keep Daniel Auteil's intricate work as a TV host in Cache, and in a little-remembered turn, Bill Murray as a man looking through the women of his past in Broken Flowers.
Oscar’s Choice: History might remember this as closer than it was at the time considering the longitude achieved by Brokeback Mountain, but this was Hoffman in a walk.
My Choice: Heath Ledger gives what might be the best performance of this century on film-it's just that good. There's no way I wouldn't give him the trophy, or even say that he's close even if David Strathairn would've been a worthy winner in different circumstances. Behind the two of them is Phoenix, Howard, and Hoffman.
Those are my thoughts-what are yours? Are you with me over in Team Ennis, or does Capote still have its share of fans? Do you think Terence Howard ever gets back in with an Oscar nomination or has that portion of his career ended? And if Crowe doesn't pick up that telephone, would he have gotten his fourth nomination (a nod that I bet never materializes now that he's past his movie star years)? Share your thoughts below in the comments!
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