History making. High jinks inspiring. These are two things that come to mind when considering Oscar’s supporting actor categories.
Denver native Hattie McDaniel became the first African-American to win an Academy Award when she accepted the plaque for “Gone With the Wind” during a ceremony at the Biltmore Bowl in 1939. (“I sincerely hope I shall always be a credit to my race and to the motion- picture industry. My heart is too full to tell you just how I feel.”)
In 1957, Miyoshi Umeki became the first Asian-American to win a statuette for her turn in “Sayonara.” Rita Moreno was the first Latina to win in 1962 for “West Side Story.”
In the “great performances by a supporting actor accepting the award” category, who can forget “City Slickers” star Jack Palance’s one-armed push-ups? Or when Cuba Gooding Jr., “accepting for Jerry Maguire,” ignored the tug of Bill Conti’s orchestra and leapt and wept and thanked the world (“Everybody, I love you!”).
Of course, this category often poses the question, what exactly constitutes “supporting” and “leading?” For instance, there’s typical (and minor) hubbub about why Kate Winslet’s turn in “The Reader” landed her on the best-actress list for Oscar but won her a best supporting Golden Globe (more on that next week).
In 2008, Heath Ledger and Penelope Cruz gave performances that were more like supporting beams than underwire bras in “The Dark Knight” and “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.” Neither film could have stood without them. And contrary to notions about Academy members’ sentimentality, Ledger’s is only the second posthumous nomination in Oscar history.
“The Wrestler” would have tilted without Marisa Tomei.
In “Doubt,” Viola Davis rattled a movie to its core, nailing what was at stake in a few wrenching minutes. Michael Shannon had more time on-screen as the madman with a bead on truth in “Revolutionary Road,” but his character and his turn, too, reminded audiences of basic human truths in a film too fond of dramatics.
The voting began in earnest two weeks ago when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences sent out final Oscar ballots to 5,810 voting members. (That’s 5,717 more than who vote for the Golden Globes.)
All members can vote in 19 categories. Ballots are due Feb. 17. Then it’s all up to the folks at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Diligent members who can prove they saw the movies are able to vote for documentary feature, documentary short subject, foreign language film, animated short film and live action short film on a separate ballot.
From now until the day of the Academy Awards, Sunday, Feb. 22 (ABC, 6 p.m.), we’ll look at some of the biggest categories up for your — well, their — consideration.
This week: the supporting contenders. We’ve ranked them in order of who should win.
The Gals
Penelope Cruz: “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.” Whatever Maria Elena did to poor, handsome Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), her ex-husband, Cruz did to this film. She put a hex on Woody Allen’s tale about two Americans in Spain. She cast a spell that changed the film’s tone utterly, plunging us into the heady, romanticized space that travelers stumble upon. If they’re in luck. Cruz even did the impossible: She made us feel tender toward Scarlett Johansson.
Viola Davis: Standing in the Bronx chill, the mother of the only black boy at a parochial school listens to a bitter nun hint (barely) at the unthinkable. The stream of mucus that Davis wipes away couldn’t possibly be seen from the rafters were this a staging of John Patrick Shanley’s play “Doubt,” but her physical distress reminds audiences of the vital distance between camera and actor like none of the other movie’s more famous nominees. It’s an indelible moment. The question: Is a moment enough?
Marisa Tomei: She’s won this category before, for “My Cousin Vinny.” And “before” will count against her. But Tomei’s hard, grinding, agile work as a stripper nearing a change of career helps makes “The Wrestler” one of the best films of last year.
Taraji P. Henson: “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” She was cast as Brad Pitt’s adoptive mother after director David Fincher saw her in “Hustle & Flow” as the pregnant prostitute. She never has a moment in “Button” as incandescent as the one in “Hustle,” when her wounded soul discovers her (singing) voice. But she brings a similar world-aware clarity to a character who might have been merely a mammy.
Amy Adams: Colorado’s own quasar is going to be around a while. (I’m already looking forward to “Sunshine Cleaning” and “Julie & Julia.”) So it’s OK to hazard that this nomination has more to do with the overpraising of “Doubt” than with Adams’ turn as a naive nun torn between Meryl Streep’s hawk and Philip Seymour Hoffman’s priestly prey.
The Guys
Heath Ledger: Remember the tormented son who kills himself in “Monster’s Ball”? Or the tortured cowpoke “wrasslin’ ” with desire in “Brokeback Mountain”? Well, the guy who gave us those exquisitely sensitive performances was nowhere in sight in “The Dark Knight.” And it wasn’t just because of the frightening clown makeup. When the critical kudos started pouring in, a reader asked if the nomination wasn’t because of the actor’s untimely death. The answer then and now remains: No. He was just that disturbing.
Josh Brolin: It was hard for San Francisco council member Dan White to hold his own against his vibrant colleague Harvey Milk. In “Milk,” Brolin has no such problem playing the man who killed the nation’s first out, gay, elected official and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone. Standing toe-to-toe with Sean Penn, he creates some of the film’s finest and most tense scenes.
Robert Downey Jr.: One is tempted to say that Downey’s genius turn as a method actor who undergoes a medical procedure to darken his skin so he can play “black” in a war flick is so weirdly good that he is Oscar’s third African- American supporting nominee. But that would be wrong, wrong, wrong — nearly as wrong as Ben Stiller’s uneven comedy-satire, “Tropic Thunder.”
Michael Shannon: Some performances don’t win awards but serve notice. This craggy-faced, intense actor’s turn as a manic-depressive who sees right through that nice couple, the Wheelers of “Revolutionary Road,” does just that.
Philip Seymour Hoffman: Father Flynn is not even close to the best performance given by this man in a movie this year. For that, watch Charlie Kaufman’s wrenchingly melancholy “Synecdoche, New York” (on DVD March 10).
