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| Casey Affleck is nominated for Best Actor for his role in Manchester by the Sea. |
Welcome to Last Cinema Standing’s
Countdown to the Oscars, our daily look at this year’s Academy Awards race. Be
sure to check back every day leading up to the ceremony for analysis of each of
the Academy’s 24 categories and more.
Best Actor
The nominees are:
Casey Affleck for Manchester
by the Sea
Andrew Garfield for Hacksaw
Ridge
Ryan Gosling for La La
Land
Viggo Mortenson for Captain
Fantastic
Denzel Washington for Fences
In the past three years, 12 of the 15 Best Actor nominees
have been for characters based on real people. Each of the last four winners
has played an historical figure. Some assumptions about the Academy’s tastes
are demonstrably false and used only as a satirical baton to swing at the
organization. However, in this realm, the cliché has absolutely been true. This
year, however, expect the Academy to break free from the mold.
In some ways, voters already have by nominating four
performances that portray fictional characters. The frontrunners sprang entirely
from the minds of two of America’s preeminent playwrights. Real or imagined,
though, every one of these characters is brought to vibrant life by the five
nominated actors. They are war heroes and everyday heroes, artists and
philosophers, fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons. For everything else they
are, fictional or not, they are deeply moving portraits of the human
experience.
Denzel Washington for
Fences – I am already well on the
record as calling Fences one of the
best films of the year, the play one of the best things ever written, and
Washington’s performance the single best of 2016. Mick LaSalle, film reviewer
for the San Francisco Chronicle, called it one of the best self-directed
performances of all time, and I would certainly put it up there with Orson
Welles in Citizen Kane, Laurence
Olivier in Hamlet, and Charlie
Chaplin in City Lights.
While I would not quite place Washington on the same level
as those directors, it is time, if we have not already, to start calling him
one of the greatest actors of all time. If this sounds to you like hyperbole,
consider the facts, which are titled: A
Soldier’s Story, Glory, Cry Freedom, Malcolm X, Philadelphia, Crimson Tide, Training Day, American
Gangster, Flight, and Fences. Put those 10 performances up
against 10 performances on any other actor’s résumé in this era or any other. You
will not find many comparable.
Troy Maxson is a perfect character for Washington, and the
actor never missteps in bringing one of August Wilson’s greatest creations to
life. He is a bitter, broken down old drunk who holds a grudge for the failings
of a racist nation, but he is also a hard-working man who deserved a better
hand in life than the one he was dealt. About that much he is correct, but the
way he allows his resentment to curdle is what makes him the man he becomes. In
a career of great roles, Washington has never had one like the retired baseball
player turned garbage man Troy. It is a perfect performance that belongs in the
history books of cinema.
Casey Affleck for Manchester by the Sea – By my
estimation, Affleck should already be an Oscar winner for his nominated work in
The Assassination of Jesse James by the
Coward Robert Ford. That was the first time I really remember seeing him
deliver the kind of insightful, contemplative work that has come to define his
career. Since then, I have followed everything he has done, and he has never
been anything less than stupendous in movies such as The Killer Inside Me, Gone
Baby Gone, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints,
and Out of the Furnace. Manchester by the Sea is not Affleck’s
greatest performance, but it is of a piece with the great work he turns in
consistently.
He portrays Lee Chandler as a tower of grief just waiting to
implode. Lee has done his best to hide himself away from the pain and anguish
of his past only to have it brought into full view by the death of his brother.
As much as he wants to be a stronger person, more resilient, more capable of
confronting the deep sorrow he has experienced, the despair is often too much
for him to take. The beauty of Affleck’s performance is in the way he portrays
grief, not as an expressive burst of roiling emotions but as a chilling
numbness. It is too much to feel, so he feels nothing.
Two days ago, we spoke in depth about the trespasses of Hacksaw Ridge director Mel Gibson, and
it would be disingenuous not now to mention the allegations of sexual harassment
leveled against Affleck by the female crew members of films he has worked on.
If the allegations are true – and I think we owe it to the potential victims of
harassment to believe them first – then Affleck’s actions are despicable and indefensible.
If true, it means Affleck has been an amazing performer in his career, but he
has not been even a passable citizen. I do not believe these allegations will
have any bearing on the Oscars, but hopefully, a conversation can begin in the
industry to address these very important, very real concerns.
Andrew Garfield for Hacksaw Ridge – For my money,
Garfield is nominated here for the wrong performance this year, not because he
is not excellent in Hacksaw Ridge but
because his work in Martin Scorsese’s Silence
is the more nuanced, all-encompassing performance. The role of Desmond Doss has
only one mode through most of Hacksaw
Ridge, quiet heroism, and Garfield plays it for everything it is worth. In Silence, Garfield is able to portray a
much wider range of experiences and emotions, but Scorsese’s film was
underappreciated by the Academy, while Hacksaw
Ridge caught on. Such is the way it goes sometimes.
Garfield is a magnificent young performer who burst onto the
scene in David Fincher’s The Social
Network but quickly thereafter became mired in superhero land, playing
Spider-man in a pair of not highly regarded films. One hates to say it, but the
failure of the Spider-man reboot was probably the best thing that could have
happened to Garfield. Since his last time portraying the web-slinging crime
fighter, Garfield has appeared in three remarkable films (99 Homes, Hacksaw Ridge,
and Silence) and delivered three
remarkable performances of great depth and understanding.
He portrays Desmond as quiet, solemn, and devoted. He wishes
to serve his country’s military during World War II because he believes he has
a moral obligation to do so, but he refuses to kill or even carry a weapon,
also in keeping with his moral obligations. When the film hits the battlefield,
Garfield’s performance turns wondrously physical as we watch Desmond endure the
bodily torment and emotional exhaustion of the war. Regardless of what film
Garfield should have been nominated for, his status as an Oscar nominee is unimpeachable,
and I cannot wait to see what he does next.
Ryan Gosling for La La Land – I think Gosling is
wonderful actor, but I also think sometimes performers get swept up in the
Academy love for their films and land nominations that otherwise would have
seemed unlikely. Gosling’s performance in La
La Land is not among the five best lead actor performances of the year, not
while work by the likes of Colin Farrell (The
Lobster), Michael Fassbender (The
Light Between Oceans), Peter Simonischek (Toni Erdmann), and David Johns (I,
Daniel Blake) is out there. This is not meant as a knock on Gosling but
more on the Academy.
As jazz pianist Sebastian Wilder, who dreams of opening his
own music club someday, Gosling nails the smugness he has in previous efforts
while providing just enough softness to make the audience root for this guy. He
is fantastic musician, but when we meet him, he refuses to budge even an inch
on his artistry, even if to do so would allow him to pay his bills. Many of us
have known people like this, and certainly members of the Academy have – or they
have been people like this.
Gosling, who is a weaker singer than co-star Emma Stone,
excels at playing the film’s romantic elements, deploying his weathered charm
and delightful excitability to great effect. However, because the movie
revolves around Stone’s character, Gosling is used more like a plot device. Of
course, leading women have been playing plot devices in male-driven films for
120 years, but it still leaves Gosling with little to play and little depth to
explore. Gosling, who was previously nominated in 2006 for Half-Nelson, will almost certainly return to the show again soon
with a performance more indicative of his many talents.
Viggo Mortenson for Captain Fantastic – As a person who
tends to see everything, or at least as much of everything as I can, I hesitate
to say I studiously avoided this movie. Even in the trailers, its tone felt off,
its story treading familiar territory in a manner I would find irksome. For
this piece, though, I watched it, and I can say, now having seen it, I found it
worse than irksome. It is condescending, mean-spirited, and self-satisfied. The
plot is inert and the story structure inept. I found it offensive on every
possible level – human, artistic, political, cultural, etc.
Mortenson plays Ben Cash, the leader of a cult – sorry,
father of a family – that lives outside of society in the woods of the Pacific
Northwest. They read books by firelight and kill deer with their bare hands.
They self-righteously declaim American society while doing nothing to change
what they correctly identify as systemic inequality and the corrupting
influence of big business. Instead, they stand apart from it, above it, looking
down on everyone else, identifying problems without offering solutions, which
is the worst kind of moral superiority.
Is Mortenson good in the role? Sure, he is fine. Previously
nominated for his role as a Russian gangster in Eastern Promises, Mortenson brings to the role the right
combination of end-times survivalist crazy and university lit professor sanctimony.
Like the film in which he appears, the character is mostly insufferable, but
that has nothing to do with Mortenson’s performance and everything to do with
writer-director Matt Ross’ script. Ben is also dealing with the death of his
wife and the possibility his children will be taken away from him. In these
rare human moments, when Ben is more than just a sketch of a person, Mortenson
shines.
The final analysis
I want to believe Washington will win this award, and his
triumph with the Screen Actors Guild offers some hope. However, that is not the
way the season has looked like it would go. Affleck was the critical darling.
He beat Washington to the Golden Globe and won the BAFTA, where Washington was
not nominated. Washington is also a two-time winner already, while Affleck’s
consistent brilliance is of the kind the Academy likes to reward when a
performance such as this comes along. I will root for Washington, but Affleck’s
win will not be undeserving.
Will win: Casey
Affleck for Manchester by the Sea
Should win:
Denzel Washington for Fences
Should have been
here: Colin Farrell for The Lobster
Tomorrow: Best Picture
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