posted by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
connielane at 03:36pm on 09/01/2009
connielane at 03:36pm on 09/01/2009![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
peachespig posed a question in the comments of my Critics Choice Awards post, and I thought the answer merited a full post, because it's one of several things about the Oscars that I find kind of interesting. The question was related to why Heath Ledger was considered a "supporting actor" (as opposed to "lead") for The Dark Knight and whether there was an official rule that makes one performance a leading performance and another a supporting performance, for the purpose of awards.The short answer is "no."
Back in 1991, Anthony Hopkins was nominated for, and ultimately won, the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance in The Silence of the Lambs. He was on screen for something like 16 minutes - 13% of the movie's running time. Compare that to Jennifer Hudson, who was nominated for, and ultimately won, the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in Dreamgirls (her character, Effie, was definitely a leading role in the stage musical). Hudson was in almost 60 minutes of that film (46% of the movie's running time), yet the Academy (and the Hollywood Foreign Press and Broadcast Film Critics and other award-giving organizations) considered hers a supporting performance.
There are a few things at work here, as I understand it, which I'll get to below, but the entity that (ETA: usually - see Kate Winslet's varying categories for The Reader) decides whether it's a lead or supporting performance is the movie studio. It has nothing to do with screen time; it's generally a matter of which category they think is likeliest to bring their actor an award.
Jennifer Hudson, as a newcomer and someone who had zero acting experience before Dreamgirls (her first film ever), gave an incredible performance (in my, and most everyone's opinion) in that film, and while the studio was fairly confident in the film's chances for awards in other areas (including Supporting Actor for Eddie Murphy and Best Picture), Hudson was the film's best chance (and best "Cinderella" story) for award hopes. But would she have won if she'd had to compete in the Best Actress category with Helen Mirren, Judi Dench, and Meryl Streep? I submit not, and I think the studio felt the same way. It wouldn't have been unprecedented for an actress giving a knock-out performance in her first film role to get a Best Actress Oscar - Barbra Streisand did it in 1968 with Funny Girl (and TIED with Katherine effing Hepburn!) - but Streisand had also earned her stripes on the stage and had been an actress for quite some time before that.
Other examples of actors playing lead characters but being nominated (and winning) in support - Jessica Lange in Tootsie, Haing S Ngor in The Killing Fields, Michael Caine in The Cider House Rules, Benicio Del Toro in Traffic, Kevin Spacey (for crying out loud, seriously) in The Usual Suspects, Marcia Gay Harden in Pollock, and most recently Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men. I also submit that another of last year's nominees - Casey Affleck in The Assassination of Jesse James - was also the lead in the film for which he was nominated (though he didn't win). And most of these actors - with the exception of Ngor - were already fairly established in the industry at the time they won their Oscars.
On the other hand, Anthony Hopkins, while not really a household name in 1991, was not a newbie either. He'd held his own against Katherine Hepburn in The Lion in Winter - his second film ever - back in 1968 and had been doing remarkable work ever since. In The Silence of the Lambs, he played a character that caught the imagination of the culture and became something of an icon. Wherever you went people would quote HIS lines (not the main character Clarice's) and do impressions of him. If you asked the average moviegoer what the movie was about, they'd tell you not about an FBI trainee but about "Hannibal the Cannibal." He absolutely permeated that film, despite not even being in it as much as other supporting actors in it, like Scott Glenn and Ted Levine. And I challenge you to look at his scenes in that movie and tell me who exactly Hopkins is supporting with his performance. He is the co-STAR of that movie. Period. And the studio was 100% right to push him as a lead in their "for your consideration" campaign.
This, I believe, is a somewhat different phenomenon. Where lead characters nominated in support are examples of a studio being cautious and wanting the best chance at actually winning an award, the Lecter Effect, as I think I'll call it, occurs when a role is written in support, but is raised to the level of lead by the actor playing it, who so completely owns the movie that you forget who the real main character is. Examples of this include Denzel Washington in Training Day (he was the bigger star, but the movie was about Ethan Hawke's character - Hawke was nominated as a supporting actor that year) and Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland.
Where does Heath Ledger fall in this? Warner Brother has actually said that they're pushing for a supporting nod, rather than a lead, so no guesswork is needed on that score. But why? It seems to me that the Lecter Effect is clearly at work here, as The Joker appears to have been written as a supporting character, but the actor cranked it up to eleven and made it a lead performance. However, the studio is evidently wary of pushing him as a lead. There are three reasons I can think of that this is the case:
1) His relative newness - I emphasize the word "relative" because obviously he's been working (and doing very good work) for several years. He's even been Oscar-nominated for a lead role. But he's still young, dying younger than Adrien Brody was when he became the youngest Best Actor winner in Oscar history. And what Brody had on his side was a very serious, dramatic role. Which brings me to...
2) The kind of role The Joker is - I'm not saying it's right, but the Academy just doesn't take certain kinds of roles seriously. The "comic book" label is going to stick to this role, for some people, and - right or no - some older Academy members are still going to associate The Joker with the campy versions played by Jack Nicholson and Cesar Romero and - fair or not - lump Ledger's performance into that mix.
3) Tiptoeing around the posthumous factor - It wouldn't be the first posthumous Oscar, but the last time that happened was Peter Finch (another Aussie) for Network in 1976. Over 30 years ago, before there was such a thing as 24-hour news (much less 24-hour celebrity gossip). There are all kinds of feelings and questions that will go along with nominating (and awarding) Ledger, specifically. The most significant, I think, in voters' minds, being "Is it really that great a performance, or are we looking at it through the veil of sadness (or whatever emotion you happen to feel) about his death?" I haven't seen The Dark Knight since my one viewing this summer, but I'm convinced for my part that it was truly a great performance, and would be considered such regardless of whether the actor was still alive. And I think most actors feel the same way, which means - unless something truly bizarre happens - that a nomination is probably a sure thing (Academy actors being the ones who vote on which actors get nominated). But I think because it's such a strong performance, because the fans feel so strongly about it, and because this is probably the last chance (unless Dr. Parnassus knocks everyone's socks off, which is possible) a performance of his has at an Oscar, the studio wants to be careful to give it the best chance. Because if his performance were stacked in the Best Actor category against the very likely nominees Sean Penn and Mickey Rourke ... I've got to say, as much as I'd love to see his brilliant performance rewarded, it wouldn't be my pick above either one of those.
*****
I may do some more of these. There are several aspects of "Oscar politics" that I find fascinating (like the Academy's fondness for Brits or people playing handicapped characters or how Best Actress winners tend to be younger actresses), and I love the speculating and digging into Oscar history.
So I guess you've been warned. :P
mellow
(mystery)
But I suppose that putting her forward in the supporting actress category for this movie means she doesn't split the vote with herself in the lead actress category for her performance in Revolutionary Road.
(mystery)
I suppose part of it, though, is what you said about splitting the vote with herself.
(mystery)
However, I can see where Hannah can be viewed as a "supporting" character because it really isn't *her* story; it's Michael's. So in that respect, a supporting character nomination isn't totally wacky.
But I think it has more to do with not wanting to split the vote. ;)
(mystery)
Excellent post.
Is it also at all possible, do you think, that Aaron Eckhart's fine showing also contributes to the idea that, in many ways, there was an ensemble of players. If The Joker in this movie were the only real foil for the protagonist, would it be clearer that it was a definite lead? I think this is minor compared to the points you make but could be a contributing factor as well.
Another thought I had, and definitely in line with the politics and business of movie-making, is this: is there any sort of "don't piss off the star of the franchise" possible, since I assume they didn't submit Christian Bale for consideration? I really have no idea and don't know if he has reputation for that much ego but...
(mystery)
I don't think, though, that there is any attempt to protect Bale's ego. He has very openly acknowledged that Ledger stole every scene he was in, and that he himself was glad to let him do so.
(mystery)
I have another hypothesis, a potential point 4 maybe, but it might be totally wrong. Not to go instead of all your excellent points, but maybe another factor. It has to do with the other split the awards have: male vs. female performance.
Now it seems to me that having "best actor" and "best actress" may be some kind of hold over from an era where the expectations were that each film had a leading man and a leading lady, and they were very different roles, and they played off each other. In principle, I don't really see that there's any fundamental reason to divide things this way — what if there are two great performances by women better than anything by a man? Isn't an actor an actor? But I am content to leave things as is, because it allows us to have multiple "best" categories, and it's another way of rewarding more than one performance.
But so my suggestion is, did Anthony Hopkins merit as a Best Actor because the star of the movie, Jodie Foster, was a woman, and therefore he could stake sole claim to the "male" side of things? Jodie was never going to be nominated for Best Actor, so he had a clear path to be the number one dude. While meanwhile, Batman is always going to be the "star" of a Batman movie, so Heath Ledger is blocked from the "Best Actor" award by the fact that some other actor is officially the "number one male" in the film. I guess I'm wondering, if The Dark Knight had been about Batgirl, maybe Heath could have been considered Best Actor as the number one male.
Just wondering; the actor vs actress thing has also long struck me. Thanks again for such a great post!
(mystery)
If Clarice Starling had been Clarence and the Dark Knight had been about Batgirl? ... I think we'd be talking about a very different couple of movies, first and foremost. I mean, Lecter's character and Hopkins' performance would have been very different - and was different in Red Dragon - if he'd been playing off of a man rather than a woman. Part of the brilliance of his SOTL performance was that little layer of vulnerability and being drawn to Clarice, which wouldn't have been there with a man. I mean, the whole point of her character being sent to question him was that Crawford probably thought that Lecter would be a little off his guard or more forthcoming (or at least un-forthcoming in an interesting way) with a pretty young woman. And that aspect wouldn't have been there - and therefore a little of what made his character so interesting would have been missing - if the FBI trainee had been a male.
Likewise, a gender change for the hero would definitely have changed the dynamic in The Dark Knight, and for more characters than just The Joker. If a female hero was pitted against The Joker, I don't think there's any amount of storycrafting that could erase the sexual undertones inherent in a male and a female being on screen together and squaring off against one another. And it would have added yet another layer to The Joker's character - even if it made no difference in how he treated the hero, the fact that there's no difference would be a noteworthy layer in and of itself. Would he have been pushed as a lead in that case? There's no way of knowing for sure, but I still don't think so, for the same reasons I think the studio is courting a supporting nod now. He's young. He's playing a "comic book" character. There's a sense that his untimely death colors some people's view of this performance - either with too much praise or overcompensation in the other direction.
And he'd still be less likely to win against Penn and Rourke. A lot of times - and I think certainly this time, it's less about screen time and importance to the story than about what's going to get the actor - and by extension, the studio - an actual award. And I think the fact that the movie is about Batman and the title refers to Batman was a perfect excuse for them to say "well, I guess The Joker is more of a supporting character than a lead."
And that's all for today's edition of More Than You Ever Wanted to Know, LOL.