quote:

Originally posted by seanflynn:
I raise this point every once in a while, but haven't for a long time, and throw it out there as a thought provoker:

Obviously awards from time immemorial divide up male and female performances, so it perpetuates this division.

But really, except for there being fewer female roles (thus less chance of winning awards), why distinguish between the two?

We don't distinguish between younger and older performances, or by race, or by gender orientation.

Why by gender alone? Why not compare Heath Ledger in BM to Helen Mirren in The Queen?

If there are going to be comparisons, that's the better way, unless one is going to include other differentiations as well. Male acting is no different from female acting. It's acting.

I personally think that women are inherently better at acting than men - or at least that's how it appears. That's my opinion - maybe it just has something to do with cultural standards of "masculinity" that we rarely see men open up on screen, bare their souls, invoke something that is both creative and truly different, in the way that the greatest performances by actresses do. And of course there's the "scientific consensus" that women are better able to use their brains for creative and intuitive thinking, whereas men are on the whole more technically-minded. People will be offended by this opinion, but that's how I feel.

Regardless of my feelings, I really don't think it matters. Men and women are different, and the way men and women seem to approach acting is certainly different as well.

For the record, a few years ago I tried to make a "100 Best Performances of All Time" list on GD and got few to no replies. You should try making one if that floats your boat.

Simply, I find female acting infinitely more interesting than male acting, on the whole. Notice it took me a long time to make my own list of the 25 Best Performances by Actresses that I'd seen this decade, and I left a lot of fantastic performances out - I also tried to make a male counterpart list and I came up with only about 15 performances I even considered worthy of giving the label "best of the decade".

This message has been edited. Last edited by: puxzkkx,

Thanks for the explanation, and interesting that "performances" rather than gender division raised little interest. That's telling.

For the record, I do totally disagree with your assessment of comparative valuation of male and female acting. However, if one grants your point, wouldn't then male actors - less naturally able to "act" because of how they are wired - actually be more, not less, impressive than women, since it is less natural and takes more craft, skill and a higher degree of difficulty?

Maybe, but in my opinion their performances, on the whole, still come out rather unimpressive compared. It'd be like giving an "A for effort".

However, there are some performances by men this decade that I do consider absolutely breathtaking and able to duke it out with my top five female perfs... ivan dobronravov in "the return", luis tosar in "take my eyes", emmanuel schotte in "humanite", ralph fiennes in "the constant gardener", jim carrey in "eternal sunshine" among others.

I also disagree that men get better parts. They might get larger parts, for sure, and they might get more parts, but I don't think they get better parts, not at all. It seems like truly complex and interesting heterosexual male characters are REALLY hard to come by, and most of the truly "great" roles for men usually pop up in foreign pictures, esp. European films (where, of course, men seem to be more in touch with their "feminine side").

You and I, likely, have vastly different definitions of what acting is, more so film acting.

For me, great acting in film is not so much as the individual role per se more often than not, but the accumulation of bits and pieces of character that are used over a period of time to great a persona, and then subtlely vary them between movies.

That for me is what make Cary Grant, Bette Davis, John Wayne, Katharine Hepburn, Clint Eastwood, Humphrey Bogart, James Stewart, James Cagney, Henry Fonda all great actors. Not how they'd do Shakespeare or O'Neill on the stage. And within film acting, American as well as international, men have been at least as good as women in doing this.

It's also one of the reasons I can rationalize a lot of Oscar acting winners - the role is far less important than the accumulated career for me, and for most great actors, that career is a huge element in the individual performance after one has gotten established.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: seanflynn,

Your definition of great acting is my definition of lazy acting within a specific character "box". I really don't understand how, essentially, being the same in every film equates to "acting", at all. Acting for me is about wearing many different masks and wearing them well, instead of wearing the same one for every performance. If that's your definition of great acting, it certainly is mens' territory - I see male 'actors' doing that so much more often than actresses. Personally, I hardly consider someone like Clint Eastwood an 'actor' at all.

I judge an actor on each separate performance, personally. Some of my favorite actors and actresses are those that come out of nowhere, give several incredible, mesmerizing performances and then fall back into obscurity - Severine Caneele, for example.

I guess this means I can't count on you making a ballot, hm?

The greats never gave the same performance.

To use one of your words, it's lazy viewing, not lazy acting.

It's the difference between Jose Ferrer (Cyrano de Bergerac) - a stage bound "acting" job vs. the great acting of Spencer Tracy (Father of the Bride) and William Holden (Sunset Blvd.) in 1950. The latter two were great in their films, and greater still because of our (and the director's) familiarity with them.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: seanflynn,

Acting is all about becoming someone else, and good actors know how to adopt many very different personas as convincingly as if they were another person. Acting is not sticking to one shtick and modulating it in small ways over the course of a career. Or, at least, good and/or innovative acting isn't. Those kind of performances can make for fascinating viewing (witness Joan Crawford's star image implode in a film like "Torch Song" or "Harriet Craig") but I don't think a performance that directly ties in with a star's public image is necessarily good by virtue of itself...

I hope that Felicity Huffman will be game for the fifty best ones and attains a better place there possibly. Transubstantiation like this Linda Hunt I did not see.

I've received ballots from these posters:
a610guy
bildo10
bocaboy7
Brilliance inmorbid (incomplete - check your PMs)
EmmyNominee
iskolar
Jake221
jbboy
jdb1131978
kelemenmarc
Mary Queen of Scots
moviebuff144
movieman6 (incomplete - check your PMs)
pacinofan
puxzkkx
Troy
Try Again
URgirlfriendhatesme

I've fixed mine.

Thanks

Brilliance, you have one thing you need to fix on your ballot.

Also, I will only place FILM performances in the master list. Sorry to fans of Thompson, Davis, Dern etc - but I'm not counting performances from films, television movies or TV shows.

quote:

Originally posted by puxzkkx:
Brilliance, you have one thing you need to fix on your ballot.

Also, I will only place FILM performances in the master list. Sorry to fans of Thompson, Davis, Dern etc - but I'm not counting performances from films, television movies or TV shows.

Fooey (is that how that word is spelled?) Thompson gave a film performance. It just so happened to air on television. But it was one of the great performances of the decade. Still, I'll abide.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Brilliance inmorbid,

I thought she was fantastic too, but I just want to keep this film performances. If her film premiered in theaters, she'd be on my list.

The people at the Berlin Film Festival must feel like fools if they read Goldderby, learning that Wit - which world premiered in competition for the Golden Bear there - isn't actually a film. (It also showed at the Edinburgh film festival. Many films that later show initially on cable premiere at festivals, including Toronto, Sundance, even Cannes on occasion.)

(It's your thread and your rules, but I dropped the arbitrary distinction between theatrical and TV films about 35 years ago myself. Wit is a film, Emma Thompson's is a film performance, and one of the best of this decade. I'm not a fan of Mike Nichols' work, but I think this is his best film.)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: seanflynn,

idc

Random info:

I've done a tally and so far all Best Actress nominees this decade except for THREE have been named. One year has one Best Actress nominee yet-unnamed, and one year has two Best Actress nominees yet-unnamed.

So far all Best Supporting Actress nominees except for FOURTEEN have been named. Only one year has all Best Supporting Actress nominees named.

The actress with the most different performances named is Cate Blanchett, who has been voted for with six different performances - however, one of her Oscar-nominated performances has NOT been named yet.

quote:

Originally posted by puxzkkx:
Random info:

I've done a tally and so far all Best Actress nominees this decade except for THREE have been named. One year has one Best Actress nominee yet-unnamed, and one year has two Best Actress nominees yet-unnamed.

So far all Best Supporting Actress nominees except for FOURTEEN have been named. Only one year has all Best Supporting Actress nominees named.

The actress with the most different performances named is Cate Blanchett, who has been voted for with six different performances - however, one of her Oscar-nominated performances has NOT been named yet.

Just by guessing...

1. Cate Blanchett - Elizabeth: the Golden Age, Samantha Morton - In America, Diane Keaton - Something's Gotta Give

2. The year where all Best Supporting Actress nominees have been named is either 2002 [unsure about Bates], 2006 [unsure about Breslin], or 2007 [unsure about Dee]

3. Elizabeth: the Golden Age

quote:

2. The year where all Best Supporting Actress nominees have been named is either 2002 [unsure about Bates], 2006 [unsure about Breslin], or 2007 [unsure about Dee]

I am thinking it is 2008. I think all the performances from that year have enough fans on hard to get mentioned. Plus, they are fresh in everyone's minds.