Correcting Oscar 1991

[dws1982]

Agree with everyone that Hopkins should've been in Support. He has very little point-of-view and doesn't exist independently of Clarice Starling. He's basically a sidekick, and I think it's telling that Harris' subsequent books and the DeLaurentiis-produced films centered him as the main character are weaker by orders of magnitude than Silence. (Even Red Dragon, which is DeLaurentiis-produced, tries to center him way more than the novel, which was published before Silence, didn't, and is awful.)

Have not seen The Fisher King in quite awhile. I doubt she would've been nominated in Lead though.

Thelma and Louise are both Leads. I think today, Davis probably would get bumped down to Support, and I guess that she is maybe less dominant, or maybe her character is just less in-your-face, than Sarandon, but I don't think there is any real argument for separating the two actresses, other than awards greed.

[Sabin]

I think Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs is the most agreed change in category that we've seen since I started doing this.

[Big Magilla]

Reposting my response to Sabin's comment in his original post, no doubt the inspiration for his re-do :

I thought about signifying the Susan Sarandon/Geena Davis dynamic but I'm just endlessly grateful that we can look back to this year as an instance of how running this kind of campaign is possible.

The 20/20 awards, a group that votes on awards of films from 20 years earlier, in 2012 gave Davis their Best Supporting Actress award. Their other acting awards went in retrospect to Hopkins, Foster, and John Goodman for Barton Fink.

Hopkins was clearly support in my mind as was Ruehl. My awards went to River Phoenix in My Own Private Idaho, Foster, Hopkins, and the perennially ignored Maureen O'Hara in Only the Lonely.

[Sabin]

Big Magilla wrote
The 20/20 awards, a group that votes on awards of films from 20 years earlier, in 2012 gave Davis their Best Supporting Actress award. Their other acting awards went in retrospect to Hopkins, Foster, and John Goodman for Barton Fink.

Hopkins was clearly support in my mind as was Ruehl. My awards went to River Phoenix in My Own Private Idaho, Foster, Hopkins, and the perennially ignored Maureen O'Hara in Only the Lonely.

[Sabin]

I honestly just didn't see many cases of category fraud in 1992 or 1993. I guess a conversation could be had about Jaye Davidson or Gene Hackman? But it felt a bit moot considering what lies ahead where a question of supporting vs. lead dominated the discourse of the 1991 awards race.

Obviously, I'm talking about Mercedes Ruehl for The Fisher King, who won the LAFCA Award for Best Actress.

(Kidding)

Although, I am going to include Mercedes Ruehl on this list because at least one group felt this way. I don't claim to know this group's motivation but I'd be interested if it had something to do with their voting schedule, where Jane Horracks might have won Best Supporting Actress early on and a few voters threw Rhuel some points for lead and given a split between Foster, Davis, and Sarandon, she reaped the benefits almost by accident. We obviously have no way of knowing. LAFCA was a bit warmer to The Fisher King than most other critics groups, with the film coming in runner-up for Picture, Director, Screenplay, and Supporting Actress (Amanda Plummer). Having recently rewatched the film, it's certainly a bit of a mess but I have affection for it. That said, it's hard to make the case that Rhuel is a lead in the film. Jeff Bridges is the film's clear lead with Robin Williams as the deuteragonist who changes him. Ruehl is very much a supporting figure in Bridges' life, one devoted to making him change and largely incapable of doing so until Williams shows up. Ruehl is in the film for 26.48% of the runtime compared to Williams' 42.11%. I don't have Bridges' runtime but it must be longer.

I vote to keep her in support.

Finally, we have Anthony Hopkins for The Silence of the Lambs and his 21.00% of screen-time (contrasted to Jodie Foster's 47.32%). The precursors weren't exactly lock-step. The HFPA, BAFTA, NYFCC, and Chicago considered him a lead, but Boston and the National Board of Review among others. Moving backwards a bit, I was a bit surprised that Jodie Foster didn't crack 50%+ of the screen-time but I guess it makes some amount of sense considering how Demme shoots the film. She's often on-screen but the camera is looming elsewhere, to say nothing of the Buffalo Bill scenes and Hopkins' escape. Anyway, Hopkins is a remarkable case of an actor and a director transforming the words on the page into something more. On the page, there's no question that Hannibal Lecter is subordinate to Foster's journey every step of the way. The quid pro quo exists simply to give us more backstory on Clarice. One could make the argument that Hopkins' escape exists so that by the film's end Clarice isn't able to feel a sense of completion in her mission, that there will always be haunting evil out there. But on the screen, the sideshow becomes the main attraction almost to the detriment of the film as a whole. Who cares about Buffalo Bill after we meet Hannibal Lector? (A bit of hyperbole. The film obviously rules.)

I wasn't cognizant at the time but I've read enough about the 1991 race largely based on my young affection for Beauty and the Beast. It would seem that the narrative around Hopkins was "He deserves the Oscar in whichever category he is in" and a Best Actor trophy was a high form of flattery. But I can't help but feel as though the reason they're able to achieve this feat of alchemy is they're working with the tools in a supporting characters' toolbox. And so, I vote to "lower" Anthony Hopkins to supporting where he would win in a walk, robbing us (and Billy Crystal) of one of the show's more indelible moments of Jack Palance's push-ups. But I don't see Palance losing the Oscar as any real travesty. That said, I don't view Beatty, Nolte, or Williams winning for these performances as anything that desperately needs to happen either. But that's how the world would be made right IMO.

How would this change the race?

First, it's hard to say who Hopkins might bump off the Best Supporting Actor lineup. All would seem to be equally affected, including Palance who wouldn't have his Golden Globe victory (certainly) to bolster his bona fides as de facto frontrunner. I'm not sure even he is safe. I've mentioned elsewhere but on aggregate, this is the bunch with the shortest screen-time. It would seem as though Tommy Lee Jones (JFK) and Michael Lerner would be the most vulnerable contenders. I would imagine that Tommy Lee Jones would have been the biggest surprise on Oscar morning because he showed up absolutely nowhere beforehand but I think Michael Lerner would probably get the bump (despite his campaigning) if only because Barton Fink was the least seen overall.

And so a spot opens up in Best Actor. Who claims it? There would seem to be two contenders out front: Kevin Costner (JFK) with his Golden Globe nomination and River Phoenix (My Own Private Idaho) with his critics awards. Maybe Jeff Bridges for The Fisher King? But most likely it's those two. I'd like to think that being a recent Oscar nominee might boost Phoenix's chances but it's hard to see My Own Private Idaho breaking through to the mainstream voter if Drugstore Cowboy couldn't at all. So, it's probably Costner and the roughly hour-long monologue he soldiers through that carries the day.

EDIT: why not? I'll include Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon for Thelma and Louise. Anyone who wants to vote on moving them to another (wrong) category may now do so.

Apologies to Magilla. I'm re-posting your post in quotes.