Best Actor

1998 through 2007
Sabin
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Post by Sabin »

I will say that 'The Ballad of Jack and Rose' is my favorite Daniel Day-Lewis performance. It's beautiful.
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Post by Damien »

avril94 wrote:and again I don't know what that Damien guy is smoking who is your favorite actor Tom Cruise.
:D
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Post by avril94 »

Day-Lewis is the best actor of his generation evidently none of you saw the Ballad of jack rose his acting there was incredible, and again I don't know what that Damien guy is smoking who is your favorite actor Tom Cruise.
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Post by Big Magilla »

HarryGoldfarb wrote:It's so easy to defend Kerr, Brokeback, Spacek in In the Bedroom, etc... that it seems right that Christie lose. Now she's in good company of the shouldabeens instead of "the undeserving winners"!
Good point!
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Post by Hustler »

Talking of actors and methods, first of all I need to apologise for going off topic but I want to share with you the work of two of the best Argentinian actors. One of them is Julio Chavez, who performed in "The Other" (Silver Berlin Bear-Best Actor)directed by Ariel Rotter, and "The Minder", (Bogotá Film Festival-Best actor) directed by Rodrigo Moreno. The second one is Ricardo Darín, maybe most known for the Oscar Nominated Son of the Bride. He might be seen in "XXY" directed by Lucía Puenzo (this year Argentina´s entry) and "The Aura" directed by the late Fabián Bielinsky.



Edited By Hustler on 1204052271
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Post by Zahveed »

It's lose, not loose.

Unless someone was being a tight-ass...
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Post by HarryGoldfarb »

Thank God for the loosers! It's amazing how a minute Day-Lewis was the absolute favorite and now that he won he receives so many critics... his methods, he's looks, etc... Don care how he managed to do that... I thank him for the minutes I was able to watch him as that horrible but mesmerizing man!

It's so easy to defend Kerr, Brokeback, Spacek in In the Bedroom, etc... that it seems right that Christie loose. Now she's in good company of the shouldabeens instead of "the undeserving winners"!
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Post by Zahveed »

Big Magilla wrote:But enough griping, here's to hoping Day-Lewis' next film is a comedy so those around him will have a better time of it and that Cotillard's Oscar inspires writers to dream up so many projects for her that the spill over will employ and empower many other young actresses in a new golden age for women in the movies.
Here's to hopeful thinking.
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Post by Big Magilla »

The issue isn't that Day-Lewis becomes his character for a few hours. The issue is that he allegedly lives the character off screen during the entire filming. If that's what it takes for him to give a great performance, then as Sonic says it's no one's problem except those around him. I personally think it's silly. If you're playing a chacter who doesn;t bathe and sleeps in the same clothes for months on end, you don't need to emulate that behavior in order to "be" the character when the camera rolls, yet I've read stories about certain actors (not Day-Lewis) who do just that.

Awards should be given on the basis of what appears on the screen, and by most accounts what Day-Lewis does in There Will Be blood is exemplary no matter waht he had to do to get there.

Cotillard, on the other hand, is a different matter. Her supporters seem to fall into two camps, those who were mesmerized by her performance (of which I wasn't one) and thsoe who are bowled over by her charm when they meet her. The first reason is a legitimate one for voting for her, the second is not, and yet I've read accounts of people voting for her for just that reason.

Her performance, though, is no less Oscar worthy than those of Julia Roberts, Halle Berry, Nicole Kidman, Charlize Theron and others of recent years, it's jsut that for me, and many others, this year there was Julie Christie and then there were the others of whom Cotillard ranks with say, Angelina Jolie in A Mighty Heart and Ellen Page in Juno, good performances but not anywhere near what Julie did.

Old ladies. with rare exceptions, don't win lead actress Oscars. Shame on Julie for getting old!

But enough griping, here's to hoping Day-Lewis' next film is a comedy so those around him will have a better time of it and that Cotillard's Oscar inspires writers to dream up so many projects for her that the spill over will employ and empower many other young actresses in a new golden age for women in the movies.
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Post by OscarGuy »

All of these complaints about Day-Lewis sound eerily reminiscent of those against Marion Cotillard. Many were complaining about people saying she "was" Edith Piaf. IMO, the two share a similar style of acting, getting fully enmeshed with their character, becoming an obviously different person for a few hours. Some people prefer to see actors act naturally. Some prefer them to act artificially while others prefer both.

As I said in my decision to make both Julie Christie and Marion Cotillard a tie for Best Actress on my site (if you didn't read it, FOR SHAME!), they employ such different styles of performance that its impossible to truly compare the two. Each one did a magnificent job and because of the difference in styles, I don't see how its really fair to compare the two.
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Post by ITALIANO »

Sonic Youth wrote: If that's what he does to give the best performance he can give, well if it works, then it works. I'm sure a great performance using his method and another using the more conventional method is practically indistinguishible. If it's weird and off-putting, that's his co-worker's problem. Not the audiences.
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Post by Leeder »

flipp525 wrote:
Sonic Youth wrote:Wow, I was gonna relay that very story when I had a few minutes and you beat me to it. Although the way I heard it, Hoffman was forcing himself to run several miles around the park in order to look like a genuine marathoner coming off of a run, and that's what disconcerted Olivier.

Oh, god. No offense, but that's like the oldest story in the book. I'd like to hear a new one about method acting. And it happened the way Damien said. Sonic, your version is probably some other one that's developed over time because the story is passed around so much that it's morphed into something else entirely, as if we were all playing some huge game of Telephone.
I always thought that the context of the story was that Olivier and Hoffman got along and worked well together in spite of their differences in method. Like Rudyard Kipling once said,

"There are nine and sixty ways,
Of constructing tribal lays,
And every single one of them is right!"
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Post by flipp525 »

Sonic Youth wrote:Wow, I was gonna relay that very story when I had a few minutes and you beat me to it. Although the way I heard it, Hoffman was forcing himself to run several miles around the park in order to look like a genuine marathoner coming off of a run, and that's what disconcerted Olivier.

Oh, god. No offense, but that's like the oldest story in the book. I'd like to hear a new one about method acting. And it happened the way Damien said. Sonic, your version is probably some other one that's developed over time because the story is passed around so much that it's morphed into something else entirely, as if we were all playing some huge game of Telephone.




Edited By flipp525 on 1204000821
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Post by Big Magilla »

Well said, Sonic.

My favorite story about an actor "becoming" the character he was playing is the one about Raymond Massey who was so wrapped up in his role during the Broadway run of Abe Lincoln in Illinois that he started signing his name "Abraham Lincoln". That might have been OK for autographs, but I wouldn't have wanted to be on the receiving end of one his checks.
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Post by Sonic Youth »

Damien wrote:As for Day-Lewis's keeping in character, there's the famous (and possibly apocryphal) exchange between Laurence Olivier and Dustin Hoffman while they were making Marathon Man.

Hoffman was supposed to be exhausted in a scene, so he stayed up for two straight nights without going to bed. When Olivier saw him on the set, he asked why Hoffman looked so bad and disheveled. When Hoffman explained, Olivier replied "Dustin, dear boy, why not try acting?"

Wow, I was gonna relay that very story when I had a few minutes and you beat me to it. Although the way I heard it, Hoffman was forcing himself to run several miles around the park in order to look like a genuine marathoner coming off of a run, and that's what disconcerted Olivier.

'Creepy' is the word I'd use for it. When I studied acting, I had several teachers tell us "If you start becoming the character offstage in order to 'improve' your performance, get yourself to a therapist." That's not to say every actor who does this is mentally imabalanced, or that Day-Lewis needs therapy. But there is apparently no shortage of actors so dedicated to their craft that they've gradually blurred the line between their identity and that of the character they've played if they feel they need to resort to such extreme measures.

Actors already spend lots of time with the character they're going to portray as it is. They have lots of lines to memorize, they must think about the character's biography and psychology, practice in front of a mirror, wear the costumes, etc. Probably they should learn to do certain activities this character might do, for example if you're playing a farmer, spend a day working on a farm. It's not all that difficult to get into the mindset of a character so long as you understand who he is. But being the character every waking hour? No. It sounds romantic and noble and dedicated, but it's strange. In my limited experience in the theater, I haven't met an actor who didn't think otherwise.

THAT SAID... who cares? If we didn't know that's what Day-Lewis does to prepare, would we have figured it out just by watching his performance on screen? Of course not. If that's what he does to give the best performance he can give, well if it works, then it works. I'm sure a great performance using his method and another using the more conventional method is practically indistinguishible. If it's weird and off-putting, that's his co-worker's problem. Not the audiences.




Edited By Sonic Youth on 1203996921
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