Best Supporting Actor 1989

[The Original BJ]

NOTE: Edited in 2016 to reject category fraud.

I'll second the acclaim for Hugh O'Conor's sterling preamble to Daniel Day-Lewis's work in My Left Foot, as well as the hilariously clueless Alan Alda in Crimes and Misdemeanors.

I find A Dry White Season to be an almost entirely dreary 80's effort, with very little complexity in its treatment of this narrative. The good guys are obviously right, the bad guys are obviously evil, and the whole thing is a very well-meaning but shallow effort. Brando is Brando, and gives the part his all, but he really isn't in very much of the movie. Plus, I look at this nomination in the same way I do Paul Newman's final bid -- after picking the guy numerous times in Best Actor, I see no reason why he needs a Supporting trophy at this point in his career.

Yes, Dan Aykroyd was mostly carried along by the popularity of his film, as well as another classic awards hook: the comedian in a more serious effort. Like many turns of this type, the performance we end up getting is amiable but not any kind of heavyweight, and the role limits the actor's ability to showcase the comic gift that put him on the map in the first place. Not a baffling nomination, but not one worth considering.

I guess I land between the opposing poles on Denzel Washington's performance. I see no reason to rate this as one of Oscar's low points -- Washington is far too charismatic a performer, in a role that gives him more than enough commanding moments, for it to be that. But, for me, Washington's work is solid, not special. Glory is, perhaps, a bit better than most of Ed Zwick's directorial canon, but not by all that much; it's a good-looking but simplistic war epic, and Washington's character is exactly the kind of non-threatening militant that would fill it. I honestly expected more bite from Washington in this role.

Danny Aiello is very good in Do the Right Thing, as the kind of man who sincerely wonders why everyone can't just all get along, while at the same time not understanding how his own behavior contributes to the racial tensions in his neighborhood. I think there's a lot of complexity to this role -- one can only imagine how reductive this character's arc could have been had he popped up in something like Crash -- and Aiello embodies him with stubbornness, sensitivity, and good-humor. His reconciliation with Spike Lee's character at the end of the movie delicately wraps the film up with an ellipsis, not a period.

When I was a kid, my favorite television show was Mission: Impossible -- FX used to air re-runs every afternoon during the week. And my favorite character was Rollin Hand. So it was to my absolute delight when I came to learn that Martin Landau went on to have a very admirable film career as a character actor. And he's just perfect in Crimes and Misdemeanors -- charismatic, self-loathing, and frightening all at the same time. He makes for a despicable, tragic anti-hero, and I think Crimes and Misdemeanors gains so much of its disturbing power because of the way in which Landau charts his slow transformation from frustrated lover to cold-blooded killer. But the nomination is category fraud -- I think he's as much a lead in the film as Woody Allen is, and his placement here probably cost the very deserving Alan Alda a mention.

Best performance easily is Landau, but Danny Aiello is my favorite of the actual supporting folk.

[Mister Tee]

It does come as an odd note that Aykroyd, whose post-SNL career was 99% undistinguished, should be the only one of the original Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time players to achieve a nomination.

Wasn't Bill Murray an original Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time player?

Nope. He moved in when Chevy Chase left for a movie career in Fall of 1976. (There was at least one show in early '77 where he referred to himself as "The New Guy") He was quickly accepted, and very soon started doing some of the most memorable stuff on the show. Plus it was early enough in the show's run that most people think he was an original.

For the record, the NRFPT Players when the show debuted in Fall 1975 were Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Larraine Newman, and Gilda Radner.

[Greg]

It does come as an odd note that Aykroyd, whose post-SNL career was 99% undistinguished, should be the only one of the original Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time players to achieve a nomination.

Wasn't Bill Murray an original Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time player?

[Reza]

I feel it's unfair to dismiss Washington's performance and Oscar win for Glory on the basis of 2012 standards where we can now see that he has played far too many angry, sanctimonious blacks along the way. But in 1989 he was just starting out having made a huge impression two years before in Cry Freedom for which he won his first Oscar nomination. Before that his career graph was pretty pathetic starting with his first uncredited appearance as a mugger in Death Wish followed by a silly role as George Segal's illegitimate son in Carbon Copy. He came to notice in A Soldier's Story, followed by Attenborough choosing him to play Steve Biko in Cry Freedom. He hasn't looked back since then.

I agree with everything you say here, except that it was the long-running TV series St. Elsewhere about a Boston hospital, which ran from 1982 to 1988, that put Denzel Washington on the map. He appeared in all 137 episodes, along with William Daniels, David Morse, Howie Mandel, Ed Begley, Jr. and Chrstina Pickles. Ed Flanders and Norman Lloyd also starred, although they did not appear in every episode.

Oh yes I forgot about St Elsewhere.

[nightwingnova]

I agree about Landau's performance - outshone by the electrifying Alan Alda. Landau is fine, but (1) he's one of the two leads, and (2) he's just fine, not remarkable (at least to me).

Ackroyd solidly stands out, but his role is not much at all; yet he makes the most of it and does very well at it.

Glory I found undone by its sentimental and saccharine staging at the end. Gag. Denzel, on the other hand, was a full-blooded man.

Well, I'm going to be a bit of a dissenter from various consensuses (consensi?) articulated here.

First, though, I'll agree it's ridiculous that Hugh O'Conor's young Christy Brown wasn't put here in tandem with Day-Lewis' towering lead work. He was outstanding, and in a way you'd have thought Oscar voters would have appreciated.

As for the nominees:

Agreed that Dan Aykroyd was carried along by the centrifugal force that was Driving Miss Daisy. But I think it's a perfectly solid, relaxed supporting performance, and it's not as if his placement is some all-time mystery. It does come as an odd note that Aykroyd, whose post-SNL career was 99% undistinguished, should be the only one of the original Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time players to achieve a nomination.

Okay, my big dissent: I really don't much care for Martin Landau's performance here. I think Crimes and Misdemeanors is a mostly very impressive if not quite organic film, but I find Landau's scenes in it the least believable. I wouldn't so much blame the actor as writer Woody Allen: much like the Michael Caine character in Hannah, Landau's Judah is constantly speaking his subtext aloud. He doesn't convey his self-loathing (and his later, Well, I'm over that): he announces it. This leaves the actor less to do, and makes the performance seem far too studied. I'd have been with the group far more enthusiastic about Alan Alda's oblivious jackass in the same film.

I never bothered with A Dry White Season till it hit home video, and presumed the Brando nomination was some late-career sentimental gesture. But -- surprise: I thought he gave a truly full-bodied, fascinating performance...the last memorable one of his career (barring the trivial though fun Freshman appearance). It's too small a role for a win -- and, anyway, three Oscars in our game is enough for even a legend -- but it's very commendable work.

I like an awful lot about Do the Right Thing -- for most of its running time, it has the verve and spontaneity of, of all things, a modern-day musical. But I think the ending is disastrously miscalculated. The action of the police that precipitates the riot -- the cop continuing the choke hold beyond and beyond all human endurance -- seems to me to flow from absolutely nothing I saw in the preceding hour and a half. I sat staring dumbly at the screen during all that ensued, because it all just seemed tacked on to an otherwise impressive piece of work.

As for Aiello...I've never been a huge fan, but I guess he's fine in the Northern redneck role. It always struck me enthusiasm for his performance was tied directly to people's level of love for the film in general.

Glory might have seemed great had it been a silent movie. It had a major subject, and was shot absolutely beautifully (Freddie Francis' win, after he'd been ignored by ASC, was an evening highlight for me). But the script is woefully weak, a real throwback to John Wayne militarism. As Italiano suggests, had the film not been centered on black soldiers, it would have been dismissed as Reagan era propaganda.

In the midst of that, Denzel Washington's character was a breath of fresh air -- in among all the platitudes, he was there to puncture it with wise-ass skepticism. It's true that the flm violates his character, making him go soft in that penultimate "I loves the 54th" speech (it was equivalent to one of those sitcom scenes where Horshack has a deep moment 25 minutes into the show). And it is possible this scene made it easier for certain more retro Academy members to endorse the performance. But, for me, all that came before made him my easy choice in this group. It's certainly the case that Washington has become less interesting as time has gone on, as he's deployed some of the same tropes in more trivial causes. But at the time his rebelliousness was a tonic, and it gets my vote today.

[Mister Tee]

Well, I'm going to be a bit of a dissenter from various consensuses (consensi?) articulated here.

First, though, I'll agree it's ridiculous that Hugh O'Conor's young Christy Brown wasn't put here in tandem with Day-Lewis' towering lead work. He was outstanding, and in a way you'd have thought Oscar voters would have appreciated.

As for the nominees:

Agreed that Dan Aykroyd was carried along by the centrifugal force that was Driving Miss Daisy. But I think it's a perfectly solid, relaxed supporting performance, and it's not as if his placement is some all-time mystery. It does come as an odd note that Aykroyd, whose post-SNL career was 99% undistinguished, should be the only one of the original Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time players to achieve a nomination.

Okay, my big dissent: I really don't much care for Martin Landau's performance here. I think Crimes and Misdemeanors is a mostly very impressive if not quite organic film, but I find Landau's scenes in it the least believable. I wouldn't so much blame the actor as writer Woody Allen: much like the Michael Caine character in Hannah, Landau's Judah is constantly speaking his subtext aloud. He doesn't convey his self-loathing (and his later, Well, I'm over that): he announces it. This leaves the actor less to do, and makes the performance seem far too studied. I'd have been with the group far more enthusiastic about Alan Alda's oblivious jackass in the same film.

I never bothered with A Dry White Season till it hit home video, and presumed the Brando nomination was some late-career sentimental gesture. But -- surprise: I thought he gave a truly full-bodied, fascinating performance...the last memorable one of his career (barring the trivial though fun Freshman appearance). It's too small a role for a win -- and, anyway, three Oscars in our game is enough for even a legend -- but it's very commendable work.

I like an awful lot about Do the Right Thing -- for most of its running time, it has the verve and spontaneity of, of all things, a modern-day musical. But I think the ending is disastrously miscalculated. The action of the police that precipitates the riot -- the cop continuing the choke hold beyond and beyond all human endurance -- seems to me to flow from absolutely nothing I saw in the preceding hour and a half. I sat staring dumbly at the screen during all that ensued, because it all just seemed tacked on to an otherwise impressive piece of work.

As for Aiello...I've never been a huge fan, but I guess he's fine in the Northern redneck role. It always struck me enthusiasm for his performance was tied directly to people's level of love for the film in general.

Glory might have seemed great had it been a silent movie. It had a major subject, and was shot absolutely beautifully (Freddie Francis' win, after he'd been ignored by ASC, was an evening highlight for me). But the script is woefully weak, a real throwback to John Wayne militarism. As Italiano suggests, had the film not been centered on black soldiers, it would have been dismissed as Reagan era propaganda.

In the midst of that, Denzel Washington's character was a breath of fresh air -- in among all the platitudes, he was there to puncture it with wise-ass skepticism. It's true that the flm violates his character, making him go soft in that penultimate "I loves the 54th" speech (it was equivalent to one of those sitcom scenes where Horshack has a deep moment 25 minutes into the show). And it is possible this scene made it easier for certain more retro Academy members to endorse the performance. But, for me, all that came before made him my easy choice in this group. It's certainly the case that Washington has become less interesting as time has gone on, as he's deployed some of the same tropes in more trivial causes. But at the time his rebelliousness was a tonic, and it gets my vote today.

[Big Magilla]

I feel it's unfair to dismiss Washington's performance and Oscar win for Glory on the basis of 2012 standards where we can now see that he has played far too many angry, sanctimonious blacks along the way. But in 1989 he was just starting out having made a huge impression two years before in Cry Freedom for which he won his first Oscar nomination. Before that his career graph was pretty pathetic starting with his first uncredited appearance as a mugger in Death Wish followed by a silly role as George Segal's illegitimate son in Carbon Copy. He came to notice in A Soldier's Story, followed by Attenborough choosing him to play Steve Biko in Cry Freedom. He hasn't looked back since then.

I agree with everything you say here, except that it was the long-running TV series St. Elsewhere about a Boston hospital, which ran from 1982 to 1988, that put Denzel Washington on the map. He appeared in all 137 episodes, along with William Daniels, David Morse, Howie Mandel, Ed Begley, Jr. and Chrstina Pickles. Ed Flanders and Norman Lloyd also starred, although they did not appear in every episode.

[Reza]

I feel it's unfair to dismiss Washington's performance and Oscar win for Glory on the basis of 2012 standards where we can now see that he has played far too many angry, sanctimonious blacks along the way. But in 1989 he was just starting out having made a huge impression two years before in Cry Freedom for which he won his first Oscar nomination. Before that his career graph was pretty pathetic starting with his first uncredited appearance as a mugger in Death Wish followed by a silly role as George Segal's illegitimate son in Carbon Copy. He came to notice in A Soldier's Story, followed by Attenborough choosing him to play Steve Biko in Cry Freedom. He hasn't looked back since then.

I haven't watched Crimes and Misdemeanors since it first came out and want to watch it again. I recall both Landau and Alda being memorable. Aykroyd was merely swept along with all the nods his film got while I've never understood the acclaim for the Spike Lee film although Danny Aiello was not bad. I really liked Brando who was the best thing about A Dry White Thing. His performance took me completely by surprise after being continuously disappointed by all his appearances in films post Last Tango in Paris.

Voted for Denzel.

My picks for 1989:

1. Hugh O' Connor, My Left Foot
2. Denzel Washington, Glory
3. Martin Landau, Crimes and Misdemeanors
4. Marlon Brando, A Dry White Season
5. Alan Alda, Crimes and Misdemeanors

The 6th Spot: Beau Bridges, The Fabulous Baker Boys

[Bog]

As for Denzel Washington, one of the worst winners in this category.

No truer statement could be spoken, or I suppose I should say none I could agree with more wholeheartedly. This is Landau's all the way, Aiello a solid runner-up, and of course the usual lazy ass selection from our beloved Academy...gotta love it!

[mlrg]

Martin Landau - Crimes and Misdemeanors

[OscarGoesTwo]

Marlon Brando

[rudeboy]

For the second consecutive year I vote for the lead actor unfairly shovelled into supporting. Landau's performance is perhaps the richest, most complex and most fascinating character Woody Allen has ever written. Brilliant work and one of my favourite performances of the 80s. I recall Damien once commented that Landau's placement in support probably cost Alan Alda a nomination for his superb, against-type performance in the same thing. Alda or no, Landau would be an easy choice for me.

The others are all solid (OK, Aiello is probably a lot better than merely solid, although - close to two decades since I saw it - Ossie Davis' is the performance I remember) apart from Aykroyd. I guess his expanding gut is well used by the movie in showing the passing of the years but (and I say this as one who tends to hate the theory of the coattails nominee - they had to do SOMETHING to impress voters, right?) I don't recall him doing anything at all of note in Driving Miss Daisy, and this has to be be seen as a lazy pick on the back of a popular film.

How could Daniel Day-Lewis pick up so many awards for My Left Foot while poor Hugh O'Conor was completely ignored? The one performance simply does not work without the other. Remarkable child acting.

[Big Magilla]

Denzel Washington won numerous awards for Glory, not just the Oscar. This was a case of the supposed front-winner winning and I have no argument with that. If subsequently his performances, with the exception of Malcolm X, have been variations of the same thing, so what? The film itself is the best thing Ed Zwick ever directed and far and away the best thing the late Kevin Jarre ever wrote. Not great, but good in a year in which all the films were flawed to some degree.

Crimes and Misdemeanors is one of Woody Allen's best films, and Martin Landau is terrific in it and would have made a worthy winner as well. Interestingly enough, Alana Alda started out as the major precursor winner in this category althogh Landau is easily the better of the two. Maynbe it had something to do with category confusion.

The other three, though, I have problems with.

Dan Aykroyd is dull as dishwater as the nephew in Driving Miss Daisy. Marlon Brando huffs and puffs his way through A Dry White Season but I likd him much better spoofing his Godfather role in the following year's The Freshman, the only one of his lte career performances really worthy of an Oscar nomination.

Then there's Danny Aiello, who is certainly good in Do the Right Thing, but singling out the white guy in the mostly black ensemble cast alwasys struck me as a bit odd considering that the film's most ardent supporters prasied it an the anti-Driving Miss Daisy, which most of them had a great deal of conempt for.

My picks for those three slots: National Society of Film Critics award winner Beau Bridges in The Fabulous Baker Boys and Golden Globe nominees Sean Connery in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Bruce Willis in In Country with a shout-out to young Hugh O'Conor in My Left Foot.

[Sabin]

1989 is a weird lineup of Best Picture nominees. One could easily see Crimes and Misdemeanors and Do the Right Thing competing for the top prize in a just world just as easily as one could see Glory and When Harry Met Sally... doing the same in a more reasonable lineup. But this is the year where Field of Dreams and Dead Poets Society made the cut. Glory is not a great film or an especially good film, but one can easily see why Denzel Washington won. His anger contrasts the middle-aged white men that filled out the rest of the lineup. I'd prefer he win for Malcom X, but like his victory for Training Day I can only complain because of the strength of the other nominees.

It would seem that the actor he robbed was Martin Landau for Crimes and Misdemeanors, though the critic's groups mostly seemed to line up behind Alan Alda for a win from the same film. Landau couldn't even wrestle a Golden Globe nomination from Sean Connery for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Ed Harris for Jacknife, and Bruce Willis for In Country. Was it going to be Dan Aykroyd? Marlon Brando? Danny Aeillo? No, this was Washington's in the bag. If only because Martin Landau's performance (like Bryan Cranton's in Breaking Bad) must have been so uncomfortable for viewers to see the path of morality rendered merely comfortable. The journey that Landau's Judah goes on leaves him more or less the same, and that Martin Landau never seems to lose his sense of decency is all the more haunting. It's great material pulled off masterfully by a very good actor who in no way shape or form is supporting.

[ITALIANO]

Strange as it may seem, Glory was considered almost a masterpiece by American critics at the time (a bit less so by the Academy, which didn't give it a Best Picture nod) - it's actually a quite uninvolving war movie, not badly shot but full of cliched characters, and with the highest concentration of American heroes since The Green Berets. But of course these heroes were black - pure, generous, unselfish blacks, sorts of male equivalent of the pure, generous, unselfish maids in The Help - which made it seem even more noble and uplifting. Denzel Washington's angry young black was certainly young and black but only marginally "angrier" than Glenda the Good Witch. His character, aggressive at first but ultimately unthreatening and pro-American, is the kind of convenient, unreal fantasy that Oscar voters want to believe in for reasons that don't have anything to do with the art of acting. I find Denzel Washington's win one of the most hypocritical ever.

The other four are better. Well, Marlon Brando only slightly better - but then his movie wasn't much more profound than Glory. And it's true than Dan Aykroyd was much helped by being in a hit - and, it turned out, the Best Picture winner. He doesn't have much to do in Miss Daisy but I'd say that he doesn't do it badly.

The two who deserved their nomination were Danny Aiello and Martin Landau. Is Do the Right Thing overrated? It's possible - I haven't seen it in more than twenty years and should check again. Back then I certainly found it at least original - and Aiello very good in it. I'm quite sure, though, that Crimes and Misdemeanors is one of Woody Allen's best and most challenging efforts of those years - and Martin Landau's character a brilliant, complex creation, not unworthy of Theodore Dreiser and unworthy of Dostojevski only because ANYTHING would be unworthy of Dostojevski. If I had to choose between Washington's America and Landau's America I wouldn't have any doubts. But even just for purely artistic reasons, Landau's performance is the one which should have won, back then and today.