Best Actress 1995

[mayukh]

It's sad that so many seem to have a low opinion of Shue here – what some saw as amateur I saw as (I try my best not to use this word) raw. Regardless of what she did before or after LLV, she deserves to be remembered for this truly great, sad performance.



Edited By mayukh on 1305497462

[Hustler]

Forever Susan!

[Big Magilla]

When are we going to get to 1996?

[flipp525]

The ability to inhabit the essence of another nationality is an art few actors can fully master the way your beloved Sophia Loren did in Judith.

Few actors can, indeed, but Mickey Rooney was superbly Japanese in Breakfast At Tiffany's.

And let's not forget Katherine Hepburn in Dragon Seed

[ITALIANO]

The ability to inhabit the essence of another nationality is an art few actors can fully master the way your beloved Sophia Loren did in Judith.

Beloved?!

We are talking about Meryl Streep here, Uri, not Sophia Loren (who as far as I know wasnt Oscar nominated for Judith).

[Damien]

The ability to inhabit the essence of another nationality is an art few actors can fully master the way your beloved Sophia Loren did in Judith.

Few actors can, indeed, but Mickey Rooney was superbly Japanese in Breakfast At Tiffany's.

[Uri]

The ability to inhabit the essence of another nationality is an art few actors can fully master the way your beloved Sophia Loren did in Judith.

[ITALIANO]

Bari is not your typical pictoresque Italian city; rather a big, rough industrial town in the South, known more for his delicious food (maybe the best in Italy) and for the beauty of its men than for its architecture. It is a place I often go to for work (and other reasons), and most importantly it happens to be the city Meryl Streep's character comes from in Bridges. Sometimes, while I am there or on my way back to Milan, I talk on the phone with Uri and he always jokingly asks me if I'm finally convinced that Streep is a believable Barese in the movie. He knows my answer of course, and he knows that that's my problem with her otherwise affecting performance.
Don't get me wrong, Streep is too intelligent to play an Italian a la Mercedes Ruehl in Rosanna's Grave. The gestures are perfect, never too exaggerated but still "wide", like an Italian from the South would realistically do. Yet gestures alone aren't enough: there's a soul, there are feelings behind those physical expressions which Meryl Streep, great as she is, can't get. An Italian she obviously isn't.

So, like the Academy, I finally voted for Sarandon here. The movie is really good: she may have been better, but not much better, and it's certainly an award-worthy performance.

[Big Magilla]

Yep, La Ceremonie is out. Gong Li would be a good choice.

[Okri]

Isn't La Ceremonie a 1996 film as far as oscar goes as well? That's where I have it (and would've voted for Huppert).

And if we're gonna talk non-English cinema, Gong Li needs to be at the top of that list for Shanghai Triad.

[Big Magilla]

Yes, The Flower of My Secret is a lovely film and Marisa Parades is great in it, but it is a 1996 film as far as Oscar is concerned.

This was Sarandon's year. Her film was the year's best and should have swept the Oscars for Best Picture, Actor and Screenplay as well. For all this talk about nuns, Sarandon was the first since Jennifer Jones, to actually win for playing one, quite an accomplishment in its own right considering that the superior performances of Ingrid Bergman to Joan Crawford, Deborah Kerr to both Loretta Young and Joanne Woodward and Audrey Hepburn to Simone Signoret went unrewarded despite having won those legendary actresses New York Film Critics Awards, an award that is often more an indicator of the year's best work than the Oscar.

As others have said, Shue and Stone were at their best this year even if their best wasn't so great and Thompson, though lovely as always, had been better before. Streep, though she does the lonely isolated Iowa farm wife aspects of her character brilliantly does not, as only Damien has pointed out, convey a sense of being Italian which loses her a few points in my book.

The only non-nominee who should have been in the race was Kathy Bates delivering a full-bodied character in a Stephen King adaptation we had not seen since Sissy Spacek took on Carrie. Her Dolores Claiborne was far more deserving of awards recognition than that nut job in Misery.

But Sarandon was the year's best. Even if she hadn't been nominated for extraordinary work before, she would have stood out in a very generous performance that allows other actors to shine opposite her - not just Penn, but the supporting cast as well. She absolutely glows here.



Edited By Big Magilla on 1264087735

[Precious Doll]

As Almodovar films had been in decline for a couple of years (since the then near high of Women on the Verge) my expectations for The Flower of My Secret were rather low at the time of it's release. However I was unexpectedly bowled over by it.

Though I had enjoyed a number of his earlier films I was not prepared for the maturity displayed in this film and even though most of subsequent films have been very good (some nearly great AAMM & Volver) he has never been able to quite match this one. It remains his best film to date.

[Uri]

And why don't you give your own personal picks of each year? That way you can include foreign performances you may have preferred to the Academy choices. It will also give us a chance to try and catch those films and performances. At least that should be the intention of all the personal lists we dole out......as an indication to others what to watch and sample.

I know now that I will be on the lookout for The Flower of My Secret because of your mention.

Point taken, although I don't feel I'm as well informed about global Cinema as I'm with English speaking (mainstream) movies, which I see as integral aspect of my pop culture consuming persona – and my involvement with the Oscar subculture is very much associated with this more playful approach to ART. Hitchcock is fun, Ozu is beyond these frivolities.

TFoMS is my favorite Almodovar – seen them all, liked most of them a lot, but this one is his most personal and the one in which I believe he is most unguarded as an artist in the way he let us into his own personal zone. I see it as a very straight forward (no pun intended?) self portrait.



Edited By Uri on 1264067807

[Reza]

My picks:

Isabelle Huppert, La Ceremonie

The 6th Spot: Sandrine Bonnaire (La Ceremonie)

Good catch. The way I see it, every time Huppert's phone rings and Chabrol is on the line with a job offer, the race for best actress is over. Saying that, Bonnaire was the protagonist in La Ceremonie while Huppert was supporting – she should have given Joan Allen a run for her money in that race. Anyway, had I been inclined to include foreigner, God forbids, in the Oscar race, this year best actress would easily have been Marisa Paredes for The Flower of My Secret. Yes, better even than La Streep.

Bonnaire may have had more screen time than Huppert but of the three ladies in La Ceremonie I consider both Huppert and Bonnaire leads and Jacqueline Bisset the supporting star. The Cesar awards nominated both Bonnaire and Huppert in the lead category.

And why don't you give your own personal picks of each year? That way you can include foreign performances you may have preferred to the Academy choices. It will also give us a chance to try and catch those films and performances. At least that should be the intention of all the personal lists we dole out......as an indication to others what to watch and sample.

I know now that I will be on the lookout for The Flower of My Secret because of your mention.



Edited By Reza on 1264066010

[Damien]

and I'm delighted to once again vote for the nun.

Ah, if only you saw Tova Feldshuh in her triumphant career capping turn in The Rebezen that year…

I look forward to it with great anticipation