OVP: Best Lead Actor (2010)
The Nominees Were...
Javier Bardem, Biutiful
Jeff Bridges, True Grit
Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
Colin Firth, The King's Speech
James Franco, 127 Hours
My Thoughts: You sometimes have to wonder, in categories where the winner is completely, totally obvious, what the other actors are thinking on Oscar night. I mean, there's always someone that would be considered the "frontrunner," but on rare occasions there are nominees that seem like there is no fathomable way that they will lose: Helen Mirren in The Queen, Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice, Christopher Plummer in Beginners, and in 2010, Colin Firth in The King's Speech.
This isn't meant as a slight-the best part of The King's Speech, by a wide margin, is Firth. An actor long on the sidelines of films, taking on small parts in Bridget Jones and being most well-known for a BBC miniseries that had monstrous legs both in Britain and abroad, Firth came out as an actor to be reckoned with in Tom Ford's A Single Man the year before, and suddenly with this year, it was time to honor and reward his career. The movie is tailor-made to his sensibilities: a man of much self-doubt, but still stately and with a strong upper lip, he'd been practicing for this role for the past fifteen years.
The physical demands of the stutter had to be extraordinary, and while I'm not one typically to acknowledge weight gains and losses (anyone can do that...well anyone can gain weight), a stutter is something that you have to hone as an actor and that requires some measure of skill, and Firth made it seem as realistic as he could. He also does a great job weighing the internal war inside of him-this is a man who was never meant to be king, was put in that place by one of the most extraordinary turn-of-events of the twentieth century, and had to balance that doubt that he shouldn't be there with the fact that the King rules, historically, by the grace of god. He has a thousand years of relatives who have lived up to the task he is so reluctant and scared to take, and without Firth's sturdy, physical performance, we wouldn't have the payoff in the title sequence that we do.
Of the other four nominees, probably the only one who didn't start to become slightly annoyed with Firth's stampede was Javier Bardem. This isn't just because Bardem had won three years earlier, but it's also because Bardem was a big surprise on Oscar nomination morning. Robert Duvall was a far more likely contender for his work in Get Low, but a strong campaign brought Bardem into the mix, getting his first lead actor nomination in ten years.
The film, as we documented in the Foreign Film race (see the link below) was not my favorite, and that extends to the performance. Like The King's Speech, I get the physical demands that playing a dying man must entail, but I wasn't drawn into the world of Bardem's pain like I was Firth's. Bardem doesn't expand his character-his performance, like the film, spends more time pointing out the sorrow and pain of dying of cancer and not enough time developing the man we see onscreen into someone that we could encounter in every day life. Making someone sad doesn't make a great movie, it just proves that you can make them recall their own lives-Bardem may succeed on that front, but he doesn't make us feel for the man on the screen, and that is his issue in a nutshell.
Jesse Eisenberg is one of the youngest men to ever be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor, and to break that barrier, he had to do something extraordinary onscreen. It's worth noting that, at 27, he was playing Mark Zuckerberg at the same age as Orson Welles when he made Citizen Kane. I don't know if this is widely discussed on the internet, but I've always noticed a nagging similarity between the two films (one man's rise to power and ultimate downfall, in the end wishing for the life he had at the beginning of the movie), and that extends to these performances. Eisenberg may be the most limited in the characters he's tackled of these five actors, but that doesn't mean that he can't easily handle a role tailor-made for him. He has to walk the fine line of making us dislike Mark but still making us interested enough in his outcome to carry us through the movie. I love some of his slighter character choices. Most actors would have made some sort of sign when Eduardo accuses Mark of wanting to destroy him out of jealousy over being kicked out of the Porcelain. Eisenberg knows that this is part of his character's motivation, and is aware that the simple act of saying nothing for a man like Mark is enough to implicate his guilt. The way that Eisenberg makes him always awkward, yet always completely confident-it's a tightwire act, and he does it beautifully.
James Franco, the other youngster in this crowd, has perhaps the most difficult task of these five men. On the Broadway stage, it's fairly common for actors to have to take on one-person shows and carry a play, but we're not used to it onscreen, and while he is joined by a couple of actors (including Kate Mara, sister of Rooney, who had a significant part in The Social Network), for most of the film he's on his own. This works when Franco is playing to his strengths-the cocky, manic interviews with himself are so solid, and overall Franco succeeds in this role. However, I will say that what Franco does best-insecure, lustful, pretentious-it's not what Aron is about, and so there are times when I feel that a different actor would have brought a stronger character arc to Aron's struggle to survive. Again, a solid performance by Franco, but in hindsight, I think he may be better in Howl, which also came out that year, or especially Milk.
Jeff Bridges, like Javier Bardem, had recently picked up a trophy, and in Bridges case, it had been just the previous year. Here he has the unenviable task of being compared to John Wayne (one of the most iconic movie stars of all time), as well as living up to a lifetime of solid character work. As I mentioned before, there are times when I feel like he's playing Rooster Cogburn as the Dude in the Old West-this is fun for the novelty of it, but it doesn't get to Rooster's essence. We don't see him hit the drunken, broken places he hit in Crazy Heart, and instead we get a performance that shifts too frequently from comedic to dramatic. In the end, we know that he wants to protect Mattie Ross, but we don't know why it took him so long to break his exterior, and why this was the first time someone had done it.
This isn't meant as a slight-the best part of The King's Speech, by a wide margin, is Firth. An actor long on the sidelines of films, taking on small parts in Bridget Jones and being most well-known for a BBC miniseries that had monstrous legs both in Britain and abroad, Firth came out as an actor to be reckoned with in Tom Ford's A Single Man the year before, and suddenly with this year, it was time to honor and reward his career. The movie is tailor-made to his sensibilities: a man of much self-doubt, but still stately and with a strong upper lip, he'd been practicing for this role for the past fifteen years.
The physical demands of the stutter had to be extraordinary, and while I'm not one typically to acknowledge weight gains and losses (anyone can do that...well anyone can gain weight), a stutter is something that you have to hone as an actor and that requires some measure of skill, and Firth made it seem as realistic as he could. He also does a great job weighing the internal war inside of him-this is a man who was never meant to be king, was put in that place by one of the most extraordinary turn-of-events of the twentieth century, and had to balance that doubt that he shouldn't be there with the fact that the King rules, historically, by the grace of god. He has a thousand years of relatives who have lived up to the task he is so reluctant and scared to take, and without Firth's sturdy, physical performance, we wouldn't have the payoff in the title sequence that we do.
Of the other four nominees, probably the only one who didn't start to become slightly annoyed with Firth's stampede was Javier Bardem. This isn't just because Bardem had won three years earlier, but it's also because Bardem was a big surprise on Oscar nomination morning. Robert Duvall was a far more likely contender for his work in Get Low, but a strong campaign brought Bardem into the mix, getting his first lead actor nomination in ten years.
The film, as we documented in the Foreign Film race (see the link below) was not my favorite, and that extends to the performance. Like The King's Speech, I get the physical demands that playing a dying man must entail, but I wasn't drawn into the world of Bardem's pain like I was Firth's. Bardem doesn't expand his character-his performance, like the film, spends more time pointing out the sorrow and pain of dying of cancer and not enough time developing the man we see onscreen into someone that we could encounter in every day life. Making someone sad doesn't make a great movie, it just proves that you can make them recall their own lives-Bardem may succeed on that front, but he doesn't make us feel for the man on the screen, and that is his issue in a nutshell.
Jesse Eisenberg is one of the youngest men to ever be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor, and to break that barrier, he had to do something extraordinary onscreen. It's worth noting that, at 27, he was playing Mark Zuckerberg at the same age as Orson Welles when he made Citizen Kane. I don't know if this is widely discussed on the internet, but I've always noticed a nagging similarity between the two films (one man's rise to power and ultimate downfall, in the end wishing for the life he had at the beginning of the movie), and that extends to these performances. Eisenberg may be the most limited in the characters he's tackled of these five actors, but that doesn't mean that he can't easily handle a role tailor-made for him. He has to walk the fine line of making us dislike Mark but still making us interested enough in his outcome to carry us through the movie. I love some of his slighter character choices. Most actors would have made some sort of sign when Eduardo accuses Mark of wanting to destroy him out of jealousy over being kicked out of the Porcelain. Eisenberg knows that this is part of his character's motivation, and is aware that the simple act of saying nothing for a man like Mark is enough to implicate his guilt. The way that Eisenberg makes him always awkward, yet always completely confident-it's a tightwire act, and he does it beautifully.
James Franco, the other youngster in this crowd, has perhaps the most difficult task of these five men. On the Broadway stage, it's fairly common for actors to have to take on one-person shows and carry a play, but we're not used to it onscreen, and while he is joined by a couple of actors (including Kate Mara, sister of Rooney, who had a significant part in The Social Network), for most of the film he's on his own. This works when Franco is playing to his strengths-the cocky, manic interviews with himself are so solid, and overall Franco succeeds in this role. However, I will say that what Franco does best-insecure, lustful, pretentious-it's not what Aron is about, and so there are times when I feel that a different actor would have brought a stronger character arc to Aron's struggle to survive. Again, a solid performance by Franco, but in hindsight, I think he may be better in Howl, which also came out that year, or especially Milk.
Jeff Bridges, like Javier Bardem, had recently picked up a trophy, and in Bridges case, it had been just the previous year. Here he has the unenviable task of being compared to John Wayne (one of the most iconic movie stars of all time), as well as living up to a lifetime of solid character work. As I mentioned before, there are times when I feel like he's playing Rooster Cogburn as the Dude in the Old West-this is fun for the novelty of it, but it doesn't get to Rooster's essence. We don't see him hit the drunken, broken places he hit in Crazy Heart, and instead we get a performance that shifts too frequently from comedic to dramatic. In the end, we know that he wants to protect Mattie Ross, but we don't know why it took him so long to break his exterior, and why this was the first time someone had done it.
Other Precursor Contenders: As you're likely aware, the Globes split their categories into comedic and dramatic for lead performances, which typically means most of the actors get their nominations. In this year, however, both Bridges and Bardem were dumped in the drama category; instead the HFPA favored Ryan Gosling in Blue Valentine and Mark Wahlberg in The Fighter (Firth of course won). For the comedic races, I should just leave the category unsaid, but in the completist in me wants to point out that the nominees were Johnny Depp in The Tourist, Johnny Depp in Alice in Wonderland, Kevin Spacey in Casino Jack, Jake Gyllenhaal in Love and Other Drugs, and Paul Giamatti in Barney's Version. Seriously, that's the best the Globes could come up with? Giamatti won, by the way, though you probably already figured that since it's the only nomination that doesn't completely shout "what the f#@^?" The Globes also cut Bardem (as I said, it was a surprise), putting in Robert Duvall in Get Low (and honored Colin Firth with the win). And finally the BAFTA Awards (probably unanimously giving the award to Firth) went with a carbon copy of the Oscar lineup.
Performances I Would Have Nominated: I want to point out my fifth place nominee before I get to my favorite performance of the year, because I'm still scratching my head over the Globe lineup and it's the only one that fits: Michael Cera is not a great actor, but he knew exactly what he was doing with Scott Pilgrim. Just because a role is tailor-made for you doesn't mean that when you succeed (splendidly) that you shouldn't be celebrated for it. Especially when you're miles ahead of the actual nominees. For first place, though, it's an easy bone to throw to Ryan Gosling (aren't they all, though...sorry, it was just lying there)-his performance as a man trapped in a doomed relationship, showing both the romantic, heroic beginnings that he started with and then slowly turning into the man he dreaded he would become, it's a triumph. Oscar likely didn't want to go with another youngster with Eisenberg and Franco already in the mix, but they should have found the room, as the lineup looks empty without him there.
Oscar's Choice: Well it obviously went to Firth, though for the fun of it, let's guess who was in second place-my bet would be that it was Bardem. With 90% of the Academy probably voting for Firth, Bardem's support base was passionate enough to get him a nomination, and I suspect probably kept voting for him in the general.
My Choice: Part of me wants to go with Firth just for the symmetry of it, and indeed, he's in the running, but I cannot shake what Eisenberg does in The Social Network. He's not the chameleon that Bridges is, nor the acting poet that Bardem is, nor is he has immersed in his character as Firth is. He is, however, giving a performance that is at once current and timeless, and while he may never be that great again, he's still wonderful and the best of the lineup. Firth follows, with Franco, Bridges, and Bardem behind.
Do you agree that Firth should be dethroned, or do you think he was appropriately crowned? Are you like me in being aghast at the Globes lineup (who else should have made it)? And should I see Get Low with Robert Duvall-it's one of the few major nominated films that I haven't seen (it missed out entirely at the Oscars, but scored that key SAG nomination), or is it fine taking a pass?
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