OVP: Best Actor (1999)
The Nominees Were...
Russell Crowe, The Insider
Richard Farnsworth, The Straight Story
Sean Penn, Sweet & Lowdown
Kevin Spacey, American Beauty
Denzel Washington, The Hurricane
My Thoughts: The Oscars are an unusual beast. There are years where a lineup is considered "indisputably great," and others where it's definitely one that AMPAS phoned in...and then there are years like 1999 Best Actor where I honestly feel like your mileage may vary. The big thing about this lineup is that it features a lot of really good actors. Four of these men would eventually win Best Actor, only one never getting the trophy (though he had gotten a now-forgotten Supporting Actor nod in 1978), so they're generally considered to be "good" actors, but with maybe 1-2 exceptions, I'd argue none of these actors are giving all-time great performances.
Case in point, we have Denzel Washington, who was nearing the end of his "Denzel Washington should really have an Oscar" years with The Hurricane. The movie is not good, in my opinion. This is a paint-by-numbers biopic, a type that has gone out of fashion (now it's more the subject, not the movie star at the center, that is the big focus). Washington is good (when is he not?), but it's not easy to elevate a movie this hokey, and I don't know that I can give him much credit beyond being good, as the movie isn't capable of a great performance, and is really just trying to acclimate to the cheesy plot and score.
Richard Farnsworth's nomination is so lovable it's hard to begrudge him his first nomination in 20 years, but I'll be real-like The Hurricane, The Straight Story is not a good movie. It has some Lynchian touches (there's a cameo near the end of the picture by a Lynch staple), but it's generally just a nice Iowa senior citizen driving around in a tractor. There's not enough beyond Farnsworth's expressive eyes here for me to grade. Farnsworth is capable of solid acting (look at him in the Anne of Green Gables miniseries a few years before this), but this is just kind of blasé.
Sean Penn is hardly blasé (and a weird anomaly...Allen's films almost always got supporting nominations-other than Woody himself in Annie Hall, this is the only Lead Actor nomination he ever directed), but he might be a bit too committed to the bit in Sweet & Lowdown. He's acting with ticks, at this point both trying desperately not to care about winning an Oscar, as well as clearly needing it to cement his legacy. He'd thankfully win for a much better performance four years later...this is honestly one of those performances that end up nominated for a famous actor in the heat of their fame that no one remembers getting into the field after that moment has passed.
The same cannot be said for Russell Crowe's first nomination for The Insider. Crowe was, like Penn a few years earlier, such an electric new screen presence that every performance felt like an event at this time. He crafts maybe my favorite piece-of-work from him as an actor here. He's transformational (this is not the sexy movie star Crowe would be in Gladiator), but his depth doesn't disappear behind the makeup. There's a haunted quality to this man who keeps getting gutted as he tries to share the truth, and I think Crowe adds that well-the blend of honor, fear, and exhaustion you need to be this type of a whistleblower.
Which brings us to Kevin Spacey. Spacey's performance in American Beauty is not the best of his career (that would be The Usual Suspects), but it's mesmerizing, and because of his offscreen troubles, undoubtedly the role he'll be most-remembered for at the movies. I think what he brings to Lester that's really smart is an adolescent attitude. Look at the fights he picks with his wife, the ones that feel so petty-he wants her to be his girlfriend again, or his mother...he doesn't care that she's become her own woman. I think Mendes' film would've aged a little bit better if it was clear that Bening wasn't supposed to be the villain, but Spacey's performance is channeling that. We understand that he is perpetually going to fail, that even in his final moments he's clinging to things that aren't real. It's one of his better pieces-of-work, and one that makes American Beauty a great picture.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes split between Comedy/Musical and Drama for their nominations, so we had 10 nominees to mention from the HFPA. Drama went to Washington, besting Crowe, Farnsworth, Spacey, and Matt Damon (The Talented Mr. Ripley), while Comedy/Musical went to Jim Carrey (Man on the Moon) beating Oscar nominee Sean Penn, as well as Robert de Niro (Analyze This), Rupert Everett (An Ideal Husband), & Hugh Grant (Notting Hill). SAG kind of got creative, giving the statue to Spacey against Crowe, Carrey, Washington, & Philip Seymour Hoffman (Flawless), while BAFTA also went with Spacey, besting Crowe, Jim Broadbent (Topsy-Turvy), Om Puri (East is East...which I've never seen-is it good?), and Ralph Fiennes (The End of the Affair). In sixth place, I think you've got three options. First is Damon, and my theory for sixth because it's that sweet spot of "out of character" and "prestige drama" (plus Oscar loves a killer). I would also entertain Carrey, but if he wasn't going to get in for The Truman Show, do we really think this was happening? And third is the precursor-less Tom Hanks for The Green Mile, who was largely counted out at the time because he'd been so well-rewarded, but the Best Picture nomination makes me think it was closer than you'd guess. Hanks does have a weird history of being in films nominated for Best Supporting Actor where he missed; it's happened eight times (Apollo 13, The Green Mile, Catch Me If You Can, Road to Perdition, Charlie Wilson's War, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Captain Phillips, & Bridge of Spies) while only one of his Best Actor nominations (Forrest Gump) got a supporting player in-it's one or the other with Hanks. The trend has continued in reverse in his supporting actor years (Hanks lands but Matthew Rhys doesn't for A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Hanks misses but Austin Butler scores for Elvis). A bit of Oscar trivia for you there.
Actors I Would Have Nominated: Damon for sure-this is the best performance of his career, it's silly that he didn't get a nomination for his hypnotic Tom Ripley.
Oscar’s Choice: The Academy went with Spacey, probably more so over Crowe than over Washington despite what some will protest given Oscar doesn't like giving films Best Actor on their sole nomination.
My Choice: This is a good reminder that we always pick OVP winners in a vacuum. Usually when I say that, I am referring to we're just picking based on the five performances in front of us (not the actor's larger body of work or considering they might already have a statue), but in this case we don't consider their off-screen behavior. Given what we now know about Kevin Spacey, I morally couldn't have voted for him in a real world example, and would've instead picked my second place choice Crowe, but for the record I think Spacey is the best performance of the five, and we're giving him the OVP title. Washington, Farnsworth, and then Penn follow them (in order).
Those are my thoughts-what are yours? Does everyone think (based solely on performance) that the finest of these five is Kevin Spacey, and if not-who is? Is Denzel Washington the last time we'll see a real push for "they have to have a win in lead" working as an Oscar momentum situation? And was it Hanks, Carrey, or Damon in sixth place? Share your thoughts below in the comments!
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