ITALIANO wrote:Still, I really can't vote for Jack Nicholson again, and obviously not for Terms of Endearment (I wonder, by the way, how can anyone NOT vote for him in Reds and then vote for him here).
You answered it yourself: the level of competition.
This slate has always baffled me. It's not only sub-par -- clearing the way for Nicholson the way the GOP primaries were cleared for Romney -- but sub-par in an un-Academy-like way, with obscurities and flops (To Be or Not to Be and Cross Creek) yielding nominations even while contenders from more race-centric films were ignored.
My biggest gripe was the omission of Dennis Quaid, for a breakthrough performance in The Right Stuff that I thought was easily the most impressive in the film (and central: the bloody thing ended focused on him), and the year's best. I see here everybody's all over the map on who's their favorite actor from the film, which probably helps explain why it was Sam Shepard, already a Name (thanks to his day job), who got the Academy's nod. But, at the time, everyone I talked to thought Quaid was the clear standout. (Regarding Ed Harris, I actually like his smaller but dynamic work in Under Fire that year better)
But there were other folk from multi-nominated films who also should have taken slots: Kurt Russell (who I generally can't stand, either as actor or ostentatiously right-wing personality, but who easily holds his own with Streep and Cher in Silkwood), Jeff Goldblum (the funniest element in The Big Chill) or Mandy Patinkin, who gives his best screen performance in Yentl.
Instead, we got Charles Durning for the utterly unnecessary To Be or Not To Be remake, and Rip Torn, presumably a career nod for a movie that came and went in a flash in Fall '83.
John Lithgow was in something of a golden period post-Garp, and he did very touching work in Terms of Endearment that had been singled out by critics. But the role was ludicrously small compared to the omittees I've mentioned or his co-nominee, something Lithgow himself essentially owned up to: asked on Entertainment Tonight if he thought he could win, he replied "Only if everyone decides to pull a big practical joke on Jack Nicholson".
Sam Shepard had received a good deal of the advance publicity for The Right Stuff -- not only because he was a famous (already Pulitzer-winning) playwright, but because readers of the book looked on Chuck Yeager as the iconic element of the story. Shepard did well enough playing this icon, but I can't say I'd describe what he did as acting. It was more like Kaufman posed him against the sky -- used his craggy American looks to embody Wolfe's themes -- and Shepard filled the bill without effort. The Right Stuff, on the whole, is, like much of Kaufman's work, a movie with greatness in it that hobbles itself with lame elements (such as the worst LBJ caricature imaginable). I've heard it described as the last major movie of the 70s boom, and, flaws and all, I think that's apt.
We've discussed Jack Nicholson so often in these threads you'd think there'd be nothing more to say about him. But perhaps there is something to be noted about his Terms of Endearment performance in context. Following Cuckoo's Nest, Jack had gone into a bit of an ebb. The Missouri Breaks was a what-were-they-doing? flop, Goin' South of no consequence except for the discovery of Mary Steenburgen. With The Shining and The Postman Always Rings Twice, he seemed to be slipping into a period of what a friend of mine called plate-in-his-head performances: he was crazed and recessive at the same time, with not a hint of the joyous actor we'd glimpsed in The Last Detail and Cuckoo's Nest. Even his better work, in The Border and Reds, was of a low-key variety. At this point, of course, we treasure that low-key stuff, because we know the extroverted actor re-emerged and, in fact, devoured Nicholon's career. But at the time Term of Endearment opened, it was fresher, and an umitigiated pleasure to simply see Jack operate at full throttle like this. It wasn't a deep performance, of course...and I've have voted for Quaid over him, no question. But it was a hugely enjoyable thing to watch, with touching moments (like his airport farewell to Shirley MacLaine), and, in this motley crew, he's my clear choice.