Correcting Oscar 2002

[Big Magilla]

It was smallish with no chance of winning, but I can't imagine anyone voting for it in support. If Gere were to be nominated at all, it would have been in lead where the competition was less fierce.

I also think that John C. Reilly would likely lose his spot to Daniel Day-Lewis if her were placed in support.

[Sabin]

Big Magilla wrote
In what universe is Richard Gere's character in Chicago not the male lead? Jerry Orbach must be rolling over in his grave.

He's the male lead but he never struck me as a lead in the film. Maybe that's how it appeared on-stage but I wasn't aware this was a controversial opinion that Richard Gere gave a small-ish performance for a leading role.

[Big Magilla]

In what universe is Richard Gere's character in Chicago not the male lead? Jerry Orbach must be rolling over in his grave.

[Sabin]

Jumping back into this one because I left a bit on the table because I realized there's a bit more fun to have in this world.

Let's say Daniel Day-Lewis was pushed for supporting and Julianne Moore was considered a lead for The Hours (because truly, they're all leads).

It's hard to believe that Daniel Day-Lewis wouldn't win Best Supporting Actor. I don't know who exactly he'd push aside but it wouldn't be Chris Cooper.

Anyway, Best Actor opens up a slot for a contender. I'd imagine it would be between Leonardo DiCaprio for Catch Me If You Can and Richard Gere for Chicago.

Except... is Richard Gere really a lead for Chicago? Certainly not. He's a supporting player. And if he was a supporting player, I think he might have gotten in for Best Supporting Actor as well.

Suddenly, the Best Supporting Actor field of 2002 looks like this:
*Chris Cooper, Adaptation.
*Daniel Day-Lewis, Gangs of New York
*Richard Gere, Chicago
*Ed Harris, The Hours
*Paul Newman, Road to Perdition
*John C. Reilly, Chicago
*Christopher Walken, Catch Me If You Can

That's... a pretty stacked competition. Dennis Quaid becomes a total afterthought in that scenario to say nothing about Alfred Molina for Frida.

If Julianne Moore is appropriately pushed for Best Actress, that opens up a slot for Best Supporting Actress. But who would make the cut? The Golden Globe nominated Cameron Diaz (Gangs of New York) and Susan Sarandon (Igby Goes Down). SAG nominated Michelle Pfeiffer for White Oleander, a candidacy that I think a lot of us thought might go all the way before the film itself was seen. BAFTA nominated Toni Collette for About a Boy, whom I thought was pretty terrific and was surprised that she didn't do better. NYFCC and NFSC both backed Patricia Clarkson for Far From Heaven and LAFCA backed Edie Falco for Sunshine State. Truly, who knows? Also, I never quite understood how Samantha Morton didn't make bigger waves for Minority Report. Coattails would probably suggest Cameron Diaz for Gangs of New York but I don't think her performance is liked enough. I'd probably guess Patricia Clarkson for Far From Heaven but I do think it's telling that given the opportunity to nominate her, the Golden Globes, SAG, and BAFTA all chose other options.

It becomes a lot easier if Nicole Kidman just goes supporting, which would open up a slot for Best Actress that could go to Meryl Streep for The Hours. But in lieu of that, I'd say it goes to Toni Collette for About a Boy.


BEST ACTOR
*Adrien Brody, The Pianist
*Nicolas Cage, Adaptation.
*Michael Caine, The Quiet American
*Leonardo DiCaprio, Catch Me If You Can
*Jack Nicholson, About Schmidt

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
*Chris Cooper, Adaptation.
*Daniel Day-Lewis, Gangs of New York
*Richard Gere, Chicago
*Ed Harris, The Hours
*Christopher Walken, Catch Me If You Can

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
*Kathy Bates, About Schmidt
*Toni Collette, About a Boy
*Queen Latifah, Chicago
*Meryl Streep, Adaptation.
*Catherine Zeta-Jones, Chicago

[Big Magilla]

Big Magilla wrote
Day-Lewis' villain in Gangs of New York is clearly supporting but again I'm not sure if he would have gotten enough votes in that category to sustain a nomination.

If Daniel Day-Lewis was pushed for Best Supporting Actor, you don't think he would've gotten enough votes for a nomination? I don't think there is a world that he loses.

You're twisting my words.

I said I'm not sure. If he were "pushed" as you say, there's no guarantee all his votes would have been in that category, and he could have cancelled himself out of both categories.

I'm clearly in the minority on this one, owing to my disdain for the film. As I said at the time, my great-great Irish grandmother was a family legend who was a vegetable vendor in the area where the film takes place at the time it takes place in the midst of the civil war after her husband disappeared. Legend has it he was taken in the middle of the night and substituted for a draftee as was common practice then. We traced him on Ancestry.com to a boarding house in San Diego after the war but there is no way of proving whether it was him or not. Since he was neither inducted in nor volunteered for service in the Army, my great-great grandmother got no recompense from the government and worked her entire life until she died around 1904. There were no characters remotely resembling her or people like her in the movie which was basically a lot of heavy-handed nonsense. It remains my least favorite film of everyone connected with it including Daniel Day-Lewis.

[Sabin]

Big Magilla wrote
Day-Lewis' villain in Gangs of New York is clearly supporting but again I'm not sure if he would have gotten enough votes in that category to sustain a nomination.

If Daniel Day-Lewis was pushed for Best Supporting Actor, you don't think he would've gotten enough votes for a nomination? I don't think there is a world that he loses.

[Big Magilla]

The Velma role played by Zeta-Jones has always been considered a co-lead in any production of Chicago, and in most cases, the pre-dominant but category manipulation being what is, they dropped her to supporting to ensure a win. I'm not sure there would have been room for both her and Zellweger in lead so I'm guessing that had she been pushed for lead she would have lost out.

Day-Lewis' villain in Gangs of New York is clearly supporting but again I'm not sure if he would have gotten enough votes in that category to sustain a nomination.

Julianne Moore was clearly a co-lead with Kidman and Streep in The Hours. The only reason she was promoted for a supporting nod was because she was more likely to receive a Best Actress nod for Far from Heaven which she did.

Streep's role in Adaptation was clearly support although there was manipulation here as well. It was possible that she would be nominated or lead in The Hours and thus have two nominations this year like Moore.

Notice I'm using the word manipulation instead of fraud which is a less harsh word. Fraud suggests criminal intent. I don't think any of these placements rise to that level. The worst that they do is push out more deserving nominees particularly when a lead or co-lead pushes out a supporting player who may never have another shot at an Oscar nomination.

[Sabin]

Of the candidates who didn't make it in but would likely be in this conversation, Richard Gere's placement for Best Actor for Chicago would almost certainly be up for debate. But he didn't get in. I'm listing Catherine Zeta-Jones because the Hollywood Foreign Press listed her as lead. I won't write too much about this because even though she gives Velma Kelly a superstar oomph, she disappears from her film for huge stretches and plays out more as a scene-stealer than a co-lead. Especially considering she is on-screen for 26.40% vs. Renee Zellweger's 49.43% (almost twice as much). Maybe on-stage she'd be a lead but not in the film. I vote to keep her in the category where she won: Supporting.

I'll write about Julianne Moore and Nicole Kidman together for the Hours. When I think about The Hours, I think of it as the story of three women's stories interlocked thematically. Although I don't have Meryl Streep's screen-time percentage, I know that Moore is on-screen for 24.14% of the time and Kidman is for 20.49%. I would imagine that Streep falls somewhere in that range if not a little more so. Prior to the nominations, I think the suspicion was that Kidman would be listed as supporting to help her chances with winning and although I think all three women are leads that is the only listing that would make the most sense. One could make the argument that she has the most internalized arc and serves to inspire the rest of the women in the story. The only reasons Moore was pushed for lead was she already had Far From Heaven in lead and her character is more demure and passive. But it's a leading performance as there are clear supporting performances in her arc, just as the other three arcs.

I vote that Julianne Moore should be considered a lead but would not register a nomination.

Nicole Kidman is one of those times where I think Oscar politics could be taken into consideration when placing her. While I consider all the three main women in The Hours leads, there's just something that feels more fitting about Nicole Kidman winning an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for The Hours rather than Best Actress. And clearly, Nicole Kidman winning an Oscar was in the air in 2002. I see either argument but I'm going to vote to list her for supporting.

Adaptation. shares a few similarities with The Hours in that it concerns itself with the lives of three people whose lives are somewhat thematically linked (although one of the meta-jokes in Adaptation. is how strained it contorts itself into being a narrative). I almost didn't list this one because Streep is only on-screen for 26.78% of the time. But she clearly has an inner-life apart from the protagonist . Apart from screen-time, I think she should be considered supporting because she largely exists in tandem with Chris Cooper, which serves a plot purpose. She doesn't really have supporting players of her own. I just want to give the opportunity for people to vote for her for lead if they so desire. I also think this performance deserves to be remembered as the official beginning of a now-twenty year renaissance in the career of Meryl Streep where people seemingly for the first time realized how funny she could be and how viable she could be in more commercial projects. Although part of me thinks this is also due to her charming Golden Globe acceptance speech where she refers to not having won anything since the Pleistocene Era.

Finally, what do we think about Daniel Day-Lewis in Gangs of New York. He is on-screen for 28.82% which puts him on the lower end of most Best Actor winners. To contrast, Forest Whitaker is at 34.63%. To me, this seems like a case of reading a script vs. watching a movie. On the page (although depending on what version of the script), there's no question that Amsterdam/Leonardo DiCaprio is the protagonist... if there is one. One of the most frustrating elements of Gangs of New York is how under-dramatized the film paints Amsterdam's struggle between two father figures. You basically spend two hours waiting for Amsterdam to do anything, so it's not hard for Bill the Butcher to take over the film. If Gangs of New York is a depiction of a world, then Day-Lewis' worldview embodies it. It's been ages since I've seen the film and I do know that Day-Lewis vanishes from the film for swaths of the film, but the other argument for me in favor of keeping Day-Lewis in lead is just how many clearly supporting performances populate the film.

Ultimately, I vote to keep Daniel Day-Lewis where he is but I'm open to other opinions.