Best Supporting Actress 1991

[The Original BJ]

I don't think Ladd was ever an actress of great depth, but certainly this performance back-to-back with whatever was happening in Wild at Heart display some kind of range, and I rate her a perfectly solid nominee this year.

BJ, did you ever catch the show "Enlightened" on HBO?

I haven't seen it, but I've heard consistently good things from a number of people.

[flipp525]

I don't think Ladd was ever an actress of great depth, but certainly this performance back-to-back with whatever was happening in Wild at Heart display some kind of range, and I rate her a perfectly solid nominee this year.

BJ, did you ever catch the show "Enlightened" on HBO? Diane Ladd (again) plays Dern's mother in the series. There's one episode in the first season called "Consider Helen" that is one of the most beautifully realized acting showcases I've seen. The episode also features Academy Award nominee Barbara Barrie. The narrative of the series is typically shown from Dern's character's point of view, but in this episode (as well as another one that season which is told from Luke Wilson's character's POV) the audience is allowed to view her mother's side of things - her concerns and her desires. It's dynamite television and demonstrates a depth I'd rarely seen in Ladd's work. Almost like a really finely tuned short story. I think it nicely fills out Ladd's oeuvre.

[The Original BJ]

Finally completed this category, which wasn't much of a banner field in either the actual nominees or omitted candidates. I, too, would have cited Amanda Plummer alongside her costar, and think Mary McDonnell in Grand Canyon is at least worth having in the conversation. (I like Life is Sweet, but I find Jane Horracks, here and elsewhere, almost unbelievably grating.)

I haven't seen Frankie & Johnny, so I have no opinion about whether Kate Nelligan should have been cited there instead, but I can definitely say her Prince of Tides work is the most negligible of these nominees. I think that's just a slurp of a movie that brings everyone down with it, and Nelligan doesn't even have much of a part in it. I guess the fact that she played multiple ages, and is a key element of the movie's (over-the-top) climactic flashback were enough to get her the nod, though not enough for me.

Jessica Tandy is Jessica Tandy, and she brings genuine warmth and an obvious level of craft to the table. But even though she doesn't have the worst role in Fried Green Tomatoes -- that would definitely be Kathy Bates -- she's still stuck in the weakest part of the movie, and though Tandy puts up a valiant effort, she's struggling against scenes that barely even justify their own purpose. But, I guess it's nice she got one more career nomination -- had we been playing Who'll Be Back in early 1990, I can't imagine too many people would have been tremendously optimistic about her chances to ever make it back to the Oscars after her late-in-life victory.

Of the three nominated performances from films featuring flashbacks to the mid-century American South (that was quite a thing this year, wasn't it?), I rate Diane Ladd highest. The role isn't any kind of tour de force showcase, but it's a pretty sizable part, and the actress brings a wise sense of humor to it that's consistently appealing. I don't think Ladd was ever an actress of great depth, but certainly this performance back-to-back with whatever was happening in Wild at Heart display some kind of range, and I rate her a perfectly solid nominee this year.

Juliette Lewis is definitely an under-utilized actress who I always enjoy -- her range might be limited to a fairly specific type, but she has a charisma that pops on screen, and I don't think it's ever been used as effectively as it is here. The seduction scene is a marvelous piece of suspense -- I really felt like I had no idea what either character was going to do as the scene went on -- and a lot of that has to do with the creepy chemistry between De Niro and Lewis, and the way both actors make such consistently surprising choices throughout the scene. There's obviously not another moment in Cape Fear in which she shines as brightly, but this scene is enough to make her my runner-up.

But I go pretty easily for Mercedes Ruehl, for her earthy, funny, heartfelt work in The Fisher King. I hadn't seen any of Ruehl's other work before seeing this film, so she was a completely fresh presence for me. The Fisher King is a messy movie, but one with a lot of pleasing ambition, and one of the things I like about it is the way it crams a bunch of very different actors with fairly disparate performance styles into one piece. And Ruehl's brassy, bull-in-the-china-shop persona is an unexpected but quite perfect complement to all of the actors she shares scenes with, most especially Bridges. She has a habit of drawing a lot out of her dialogue ("I do not need THIIIIIS!") but in a manner that, for me at least, was consistently fun and energetic, rather than over-the-top. And even though her performance contained broad strokes, it was grounded in many moments with very honest human emotion. A fully deserved choice in my book.

[Uri]

I'm a big fan of The Fisher King – it's a perfect emblem of its certain Zeitgeist – the shifting from the Reagan era into what was believed at the time to be the more human, down to earth '90s. And I loved everything about it – even Williams was well used – and while Plummer was definitely robbed of a nomination, still Ruehl was totally deserving of all the accolades she got – smart, gutsy, no-bullshity and when needed nakedly emotional. I loved her then to such a degree I'm still able to ignore everything she's done ever since. And hers and (my favorite male performance of the decade) Bridges' interplay was priceless.

I didn't particularly care for any of the other films on this list but all of these actresses were at least well used in them – in the case of Lewis I guess this is what her performance really was. Ladd should get points for cooling down from her freak show the previous year, but it wasn't an earth shuttering turn. Tandy could do no wrong, even in this Ketchup of a film, so it was nice for her to have another nomination to backup her win. And I was very happy for Nelligan – I got to know her on TV back in the '70s when she was in the enormously popular, yet very British, Onedin Line TV series which I followed religiously as a kid, so it was nice, if strange, to see her in these very American settings.

The only other actress I can think of who should have been nominated was Emma Thompson who was hilarious as the clueless duchess in Impromptu.

[HarryGoldfarb]

Juliette Lewis was an interesting actress back in those years... Unlike many others here I actually enjoyed here in someother films, specially in Husbands and Wives and Natural Born Killers. Besides, I had this not so minor crush on her, she was my obvious choice back in those days and I have considered her the truncated winner that year.

Kate Nelligan´s part was quite moving for me. The general adult notion on The Prince of Tides is that it is a mostly mediocre film; however, considering my teenage experience with the film it has a soft spot in my memory. Nelligan´s part, though kinda small, made a strong impression on me: I liked her better as the southern vivacious mother compared to her rigid traumatized older version. She came in second in my judgment.

I liked Diane Ladd a lot in Rambling Rose. I have always thought she was the obvious Academy choice in terms of the played character. However, the whole film had this strange theatricality, this sense of melodrama dealing with "basic important issues" and as a whole the film didn't work for me. Ladd was, though, a touchin´presence.

Tandy was just Tandy... in this film she didn't need to be "a character actress"... she managed the role with such apparently effortless work that it was marvelous to see. At first, in my early teens, I didn't like the film (maybe just didn't get it) but repeated viewings have made me appreciate it more and more. She would have been a deserving winner...

So... now, through this topic, I've learned that Ruehl was the somehow expected winner... Really? I liked her, I really did; but I have always find troublesome to aknowledge her as an "Academy Award Winner".

So, I like the notion that all the nominees are almost in the same league and that league ain't nothing close to extraordinary. Even though as the years go by I´ve learned to appreciate more the whole group, my vote remains faithfull to Lewis.

By the way... I remember that back then Anette Bening was considered a major snub in the Best Actress category. I haven't seen Bugsy in ages but wasn't her role more a supporting one?



Edited By HarryGoldfarb on 1288115056

[Big Magilla]

The problem isn't really with the spelling - it's my hand to eye (or is eye to hand?) coordination which gets worse as time goes on!

[dws1982]

There's a lot of that going around. I, for example, can't seem to remember how to spell facetious. :;):

Just remember that it's one of the only commonly used words in the English language where all vowels are used in order.

[Big Magilla]

There's a lot of that going around. I, for example, can't seem to remember how to spell facetious. :;):

[Damien]

Juliette Lewis was 17 at the time of filming of Cape Fear so I don't know whether Damien was misinformed or being factious when he said she was 10 years too old for the part.

I thought I had recalled that everyone was knocked out by the carnality of an actress who had just reached her teens, and then it came out that she was actually in her 20s, but I guess I had misremembered.

[ITALIANO]

Difficult to choose one from these five - they are more or less of the same level quality-wise - none bad actually, just maybe not really Oscar-worthy.

Kate Nelligan was certainly a gifted actress with a very expressive face - a few years before she had been heavily (though unsuccessfully) promoted as a Best Supporting Actress nominee for a very American anti-communist drama set in Greece titled Eleni; the movie was bad but she was bearable in it, which in that context was a kind of personal triumph. And she's bearable in this other bad movie, Prince of Tides - actually she's the best aspect of it - but at least in the movies she never had the great role she probably deserved.

That year, Mercedes Ruehl was the Supporting Actress du jour. Her Oscar was easily predictable and, when she won it, very popular. Nobody could have imagined that Ruehl would later be remembered - WHEN she would be remembered - as one of the most obscure Oscar winning actors ever. She was actually rather well-used in The Fisher King - an admittedly flawed but very interesting movie. Her grotesque style made her difficult to cast - as I've said often, there isn't an American Almodovar - and there's a bit too much of her even in this movie, but Terry Gilliam was obviously the right director for her.

Martin Scorsese had once famously got a controversial, much-praised performance from a teen-age actress opposite Robert De Niro as a psycho; unforunately, as we all know, Cape Fear - while not exactly a bad movie - isn't Taxi Driver, and Juliette Lewis, as it turned out, wasn't and isn't Jodie Foster. Her performance here is effective, extremely well directed more than really good probably, and you feel that with a man like Scorsese behind the camera any young American actress would have been impressive in that famous seduction scene. She's never been better than in Cape Fear, of course, or even remotely close - and that's why I'm still not sure about the depth of her talent.

Rambling Rose is a little movie, with some very good performances - Diane Ladd's especially, and her solid, quiet but strong acting turn here is also the best and most dserving of her three nominated roles.

Still, months ago when I didn't vote for Jessica Tandy in Driving Miss Daisy, I knew that I'd have another chance to honor this great American actress, and for a performance that is, I think, even better than the one she gave in that more celebrated multiple-Oscar winner. She's more relaxed here, more spontaneous, less actress-y, less conditioned by lines and a character too obviously written for the stage - but of course as technically expert as an actress of her status and experience should be. So this is the right time for my homage to this American legend.



Edited By ITALIANO on 1287785522

[Big Magilla]

Juliette Lewis was 17 at the time of filming of Cape Fear so I don't know whether Damien was misinformed or being factious when he said she was 10 years too old for the part.

She was the daughter of character actor Geoffrey Lewis so she wasn't without talent, but I thought those talents were better served elsewhere.

As for Kate Nelligan, her two great screen performances for me were as the real life mother whose son is taken in 1983's Without a Trace and as Helena Bonham Carter's exasperated mother in the 1995 Canadian film, Margaret's Museum.

[Mister Tee]

I didn't care for Kate Nelligan in a rather thankless role in The Prince of Tides. I don't recall her in Frankie and Johnny but would have nominated her in 1981 for Eye of the Needle.

Completely with you on Eye of the Needle. I recall a firelit scene between her and Sutherland that really made me think she was going to be a breakout actress.

[Hustler]

Oh! Hard lineup! I found Lewis´performance challenging and solid, no matter if she was 10 years older than her character at that time.
My vote goes to her.

[mlrg]

Mercedes Ruehl - The Fisher King

[Damien]

Mike Leigh was half a decade away from becoming one of the more oddly-embraced auteurs in Oscar history, but he now has six Oscar nominations to his name for writing and directing!

Does he really? Pardon me while I puke. He's even worse than Sidney Lumet.