Burning Questions: Can You Really Separate A Performance From The Film?
Tuesday, April 23, 2013 at 4:15PM Hey everybody. Michael C. here. Growing up in the dark days before Twitter, back before I could get my Oscar gripe on 24/7, I had to focus all that emotion on Siskel and Ebert’s annual "Memo to the Academy" special. Watching year after year, one of the refrains the duo drilled into my head was that the Academy should expand their idea of what constitutes an Oscar-worthy performance. Don’t lazily jot down the names of those appearing in best picture contenders. Evaluate each performance on its own merits, apart from the film that contains it. They were adamant on the subject.
Or at least they were, until the 1998/99 episode when Gene found the limits of Roger’s open-mindedness by suggesting James Woods receive a Best Actor nod for John Carpenter’s Vampires. After Gene went on for a bit about Woods’ talent for commanding the screen, Roger demurred, “Yeah, but if you’re gonna nominate someone for Best Actor you kinda want them to be in a little better movie, don’t you think?”
Gene wasn’t having it: “No. I want the performance. I don’t care about the movie.”
This altercation zeroed in on a question that has always nagged at me. If even a harsh critic of stodgy thinking like Ebert has to draw the line somewhere, is the issue that cut and dry? Is it really possible to separate the performance from the film? [more]
I can always feel my brain rebel against the idea. Critics never tire of declaring it - I’m as guilty as anyone - but whenever I hear it I always imagine a silent “within reason” tacked on to the end of the sentiment. “Be more adventurous in your voting. Don’t hold a performance responsible for the faults of the film... but, you know, within reason.”
Performances don’t exist in a bubble. I don’t think it’s outrageous to say that many roles arrive with a built-in limit on their potential. To name just one recent example, I thought Jessica Chastain elevated the hell out of Mama, finding all sorts of nuance that wasn’t on the page, but one would be hard pressed to call it a major achievement. There was a ceiling to how great one could be in that role and, to her credit, Chastain bumped up against it.
When it comes to work in lesser films a good rule of thumb is that the films have to at least aspire to real quality for the performance to have room to reach greatness. Matthew McConaughey delivers an exceptional performance in Jeff Nichols’ upcoming Mud even as the film itself ultimately fails to deliver on the same level. Yet if Mud wasn’t swinging for the fences with its ambitious screenplay, McConaughey would not have had the opportunity to succeed to the degree he does.
Admittedly, this is a non-issue to a large extent, because there is so much space for awards voters to expand their thinking without coming close to running out of worthy performances. But even as we are justly critical of the lazy thinking of voting bodies, we should acknowledge that the issue isn’t nearly as cut and dry we would like to think. If we are being honest, doesn’t a list of our favorite performances look awfully similar to a list of our favorite movies?
Previous Burning Questions
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Reader Comments (38)
I think your reasoning is perfect, the built-in limit. How, for example, you can say Viola Davis deserved an Oscar for The Help when all she did as to try to defend an inpossibly simplistic role? The fact the she gives the role some nuance doesn't make the performance spectacular. I think actor and movie must me in sync. That's when we get something truly special, like Juliette Binoche in Copie Conforme, for example. A very rich and complicated role played perfectly.
I highly disagree with that Viola Davis example. I don't understand how that role could be described as "impossibly simplistic". She gave a good performance in a good role. Oh well, agree to disagree.
I don't really have problems separating a good performance from a bad film. However, it's just easier to remember good performances from films that you also happen to like.
I sometimes ponder this with respect to genre films particularly, considering how I often see some keen character work take place in them. For instance, I am reminded of Angela Bassett in “Supernova" and Mary Alice in “The Matrix Revolutions." Their ability to cut through the inherent hokiness of their respective movies and bring worth and gravety to their scenes makes me wish that the proceedings surrounding them are deserving of the actresses' efforts.
What makes the situation bad is that each year there is typically a handful of actors who coast their ways to coat-tail nods because of their films' perceived prestige. The best picture category is for the overall quality of the film, while all the others serve to honor individual achievements. It's pretty clear cut.
Well, there's a difference between an actor giving a performance better than the role actually is and the quality of the performance being better than the quality of the role. I mean, Charlize Theron was awesome in Monster, but the role was awesome as well. However, the movie was not very good.
I think Monster is a perfect example of where the academy separated role from film, My Week with Marilyn is another, but there are often cases where actors coast to noms because of the overall quality of the project at the expense of better perfs in less lauded films or the perceived excellence of the actor involved being nomed---Jacki Weaver (whom I love) in SLP for example. I felt there were several much better supporting perfs last year than her's even if she did do stellar work with what little she was given.
Well, they nominated Naomi Watts for that terrible torture porn film she was in last year, so I guess they can do it sometimes.
I can. Two examples just plopped into my head.
Nicole Kidman as Mrs. Coulter in The Golden Compass. Not only was that flawless casting, (even the author of the original book had Kidman in mind and regretted not writing her as a blonde in his novel after seeing Kidman in the role) but it was such a waste of a great, villainous, glamorous performance in a movie which bowdlerized the source material. It was a non-starter for what could've been a pretty great movie franchise. I would've loved to see how they could've handled the final book.
Marion Cotillard as Luisa Contini in Nine. (Another Kidman movie!). She was the heart and real emotional center of the film. She aced both of her numbers bringing melancholy and righteous anger when the number called for it. Especially in "Take It All." While the cuts for dialogue during the song hurt Kidman's "Unusual Way", it only heightened the overall frustration and power of "Take It All" for Cotillard. A pity that the whole movie wasn't as inspired even if it does have wonderful musical numbers....except anything involving Daniel Day-Lewis. I would've much rather Cotillard with the Oscr nom than Penelope Cruz but Oscar politics got in the way of that one.
I can. Two examples just plopped into my head.
Nicole Kidman as Mrs. Coulter in The Golden Compass. Not only was that flawless casting, (even the author of the original book had Kidman in mind and regretted not writing her as a blonde in his novel after seeing Kidman in the role) but it was such a waste of a great, villainous, glamorous performance in a movie which bowdlerized the source material. It was a non-starter for what could've been a pretty great movie franchise. I would've loved to see how they could've handled the final book.
Marion Cotillard as Luisa Contini in Nine. (Another Kidman movie!). She was the heart and real emotional center of the film. She aced both of her numbers bringing melancholy and righteous anger when the number called for it. Especially in "Take It All." While the cuts for dialogue during the song hurt Kidman's "Unusual Way", it only heightened the overall frustration and power of "Take It All" for Cotillard. A pity that the whole movie wasn't as inspired even if it does have wonderful musical numbers....except anything involving Daniel Day-Lewis. I would've much rather Cotillard with the Oscr nom than Penelope Cruz but Oscar politics got in the way of that one.
I can separate them, but it's a lot easier in movies where the performance in adore is a supporting one. For example, I genuinely thought Michael Shannon in 'The Runaways' was amazing, but knew he had no chance. Yet, I was a bit perturbed when the year came to a close and he was being overlooked.
It seems the only times good performances in bad movies get noticed is in biopics.
well, Nicole Kidman in The Paperboy is another good example, the movie is a convulted mess, but she elevates a character that easily could have become a cheap southern stereotype and creates a strong and highly sexual but quite vulnerable woman
Even this year I'd make an argument for Jurnee Smollett-Bell, stranded in the wreckage of Temptation. So frustrating to see young black actors and actresses stuck in Tyler Perry passion plays, just because no one else is offering meaty roles for black performers.
Oh, yes, I've seen plenty of dreadful films that feature extraordinary performances. Take, for example, Anna Faris in "Just Friends" -- the movie is truly and unquestionably awful, but Faris -- playing a Britney Spears-like pop princess - tears into the role with joyous commitment, providing the film with not only its funniest bits but also its single element of quality and originality.
There's a zero-budget, direct-to-DVD flick called "Bear," wherein a quartet of twenty-somethings get terrorized by a grizzly bear in the middle of nowhere, but it features a fantastic performance by Brendan Coughlin as a loser-stoner musician all into dippy new age ideas -- it totally should not work, especially in such a dreadful film -- but he sells it brilliantly.
@Henry...Bite your tongue! Monster is, for my money, one of the best films (certainly one of the best biopics) of the aughts. But, I get that I'm in the minority for thinking so...perhaps "bite your tongue" is a bit extreme.
I can think of a few examples of good performances in movies that I found otherwise wanting. Angelina Jolie comes to mind for her turn in Girl Interrupted. That's a unique example because the film's fixation with Jolie's character and really nothing else is what makes that film ultimately suffer, even if Jolie happens to be very good in it.
I think Jude Law is very good in Cold Mountain, a movie that I think is just a mess. And, more recently there's Ann Dowd who was phenomenal in Compliance, which is the only movie of these three that violently offended me. I think it's very possible to separate a good performance out of a bad film. Hell, if I'm going to sit through a bad film, give me something to look at.
OK, this isn't recent or fashionable, but Anne Heche, a terrific, underrated actress, was winning in 'Six Days, Seven Nights' with Harrison Ford. That the movie itself -- that screenplay! -- was a mess can't diminish that in my mind.
That's totally a good call, Mareko. In fact, I'll see your Six Days, Seven Nights and raise you an I Know What You DId Last Summer. I thought Anne Heche was great in her little role in that, while the movie was...well...I Know What You Did Last Summer.
I am sometimes embarrassed to praise myself but in this regard I think The Film Experience has always been kind of awesome. ;) Because I can do this and I do it regularly. However, I hear all the points being made in this article and in the end, it is easiest of course to hold a performance dear if the movie also makes your heart soar. If it's a toss up for example between two performances that are equally great in a bad movie and a good movie, chances are i'm going to end up rewarding the good movie.
The Prententious - great examples. agreed enormously in the cases of both Dowd & Law. I haven't seen Girl Interrupted since it came out (!) so i wont chime in there.
Yes! I Know What You Did Last Summer. Heche had quite a strong run of excellent performance in '97/'98. Can we have her back onscreen, please?
Anne Heche is amazing in practically everything, good bad or indifferent.
Omg, i totally agree with Joseph with Anna Faris in Just Friends. That is one of my favorite movies purely because of her psycho popstar character. She * elevates* that movie.
When I first read the question I actually saw it the other way around. My example from last year is Aaron Johnson is so mind-numbingly awful, boring, and miscast in the otherwise phenomenal Anna Karenina that it made me like the film less. I can't separate his bad performance from the movie's good quality.
Anyway, I think I lean a little more toward the conservative side on this issue. I would certainly consider a great performance in a competent movie that I didn't like (Tom Hiddleston in The Avengers or Meryl Streep in Out of Africa), but I think that if the film is not cohesive, then the performances, no matter how good, great, or indifferent, probably havw something to do with it and I probably wouldn't consider them (I'm thinking... Robert Pattinson or Paul Giamatti in Cosmopolis? God it took me forever to come up with a movie that I thought was incompetently bad, but had a really good performance.)
AND I LOVE SIX DAYS SEVEN NIGHTS! PIRATES!!!!
I don't see what was nuanced or special about Chastain in Mama. She hardly elevated the material IMO, her work was one note and she didn't seem at all immersed in the role
I'm a big fan of Cold Mountain, since I tend to think its flaws come as a result of an interesting adaptation of difficult source material. It also had a tonne of great smaller performances besides Law's - anyone remember Natalie Portman's grieving widow? I don't tend to enjoy her, but though she was just excellent in a tiny role.
Both Mark Ruffalo and Julianne Moore give fantastic performances in Blindness, which was a hugely problematic film, but I really felt their relationship helped bind the film together in a way that Danny Glover's narrator just didn't.
Ben, I think Portman's performance is the only thing I truly enjoyed in "Cold Mountain."
I think the real ceiling on nominations is simply that there are so many more great performances per year than can be nominated.
Sometimes, I think a great actor in a bad film shows more chops. It's easy to be electrifying when the script, cinematography, and directing are magnificent. How much harder when you're the only one pulling your weight!. I often think of Antonio Banderas in Never Talk to Strangers. He was compelling in an absolute shitfest. Now that's acting.
Deborah -
Great point.
I guess what I'm asking is, isn't there a distinction to be drawn between elevating a junk film and creating a fully realized character? And shouldn't honors be reserved for the latter?
It's a tangled issue since there are numerous examples of terrible films producing award worthy performances. Irma P. Hall in The Ladykillers leaps to mind. But that case underlines the difference I was getting at. Even if that film is a mess she still had Coen brothers writing to work with, so she had a higher ceiling even as the film around her collapsed. Something like Banderes in Strangers is just hopeless from the start, even as Antonio puts forth an heroic effort.
michael & deborah -- once upon a time i used to devote a section called "pearls before swine" to great performances in terrible movies in my "worst of hte year" roundup. pErhaps i should revive?
Answer: yes. First example that comes to mind: Eva Green in Dark Shadows. Her star turn is literally the only reason why that movie is worth watching, and definitely one of my favorite supporting performances of last year. And I actually give her bonus points for managing to believably lust after Johnny Depp.
Yes, Nathaniel. You should definitely do that. How else can we honor Sharon Stone in "Catwoman"?
I know I'm alone on this but I was only last week discussing with Amir how I think "Sophie's Choice" is a rather poor film, and I was always mark it with the end of smart dramas by Pakula who was on fire in the seventies. I'm not as enthusiastic about Streep's performance being the "BEST THING EVER" but her and to a lesser extent Kline do good work in a poor film.
So, no, I've never really found it especially difficult to separate a performance from a film. A performance is a craft, a film is the whole and I've always been annoyed when during Oscar time fans will scoff at "awful" films getting cited for sound work or technical work and so on. It's why so many so called "bait-y" films get sweep-along nominations because it's not just the Academy but regular film audiences who are sort of unwilling to accept that there might be something good in a poor film.
Hilary Swank in Amelia,the movie is lousy but she is committed to trying and i know she can be very trying.
A few performances that I really loved but were in some so-so films:
Peter Sarsgaard in "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh"
Kirsten Dunst in "All Good Things"
Summer Bishil in "Crossing Over"
Lee Pace "Ceremony"
Carmen Ejogo in "Sparkle"
Christina Ricci "Bel Ami"
Ellen Page "Super"
A great example of this is Jessica Lange in A Thousand Acres, a horrid movie that wears its incompetence on its flannel sleeve. But Jessica rises above the dung-strewn crater and finds an emotional frequency the movie simply cannot tune into. She deserved an Oscar nom; the film was robbed at the Razzies.
mark - HEE! good one.
I kinda love finding some of those great hidden gem performances in awful films, actually. Although a part of me hates it because if a film's bad reputation spreads like wildfire then it becomes that much harder to get people to actually watch the one good random supporting turn in it.
One of my favorite examples is Clive Owen in Closer. I kinda hate that movie in all its stagey shouting and I think half of it is straight-up miscast and I get chills thinking how dreadful it would be to watch it again but he's genuinely, absolutely sensational in it and savors every moment and line.
I read all of these comments and no-one mentioned the first performance I thought of upon seeing the headline: Anne Hathaway in 'Love & Other Drugs'. I think she nailed it (no pun intended) and completely elevated a film that so easily could have been written off as a rom-com.
Come to think of it, she does it quite a lot. I also loved her (ignoring the accent) in One Day. But don't tell anyone.
A good chunk of Meryl Streep's filmography reads like this. I personally think the last good movie she was in was The Manchurian Candidate remake. The Devil Wears Prada, while also being good showcases for Blunt and Hathaway, seemed like a turning point. She was not only bankable but getting parts where she could break through the ceiling set on the page with a good performance.
Of my issues with The Help it was that the performances with life are maligned by a cipher leading protagonist and a cartoonish villain along with making Allison Janney unlikable while wasting Sissy Spacek entirely. I just want Octavia Spencer and Jessica Chastain paired and Viola having their own movies because separately with those performances could be interesting stories. Having them all together and surrounded by not so good, not nuanced, varying between cartoon and just blank performances make the overall movie a mess.
I have to say everybody, even Macy Gray, was good in The Paperboy. Daniels may know how to have actors go to next level but his idea of pace was thrown at the window. Come to think of it, Precious was a real sit-through too but I just wanted that to end as opposed to The Paperboy where I wanted to follow characters.
Nic- Oh, boy. That performance was great. Just her alone and not Zwick destroying a good book/story by thinking he made a sex-positive movie by making the male protagonist a horny predator. And then there was Josh Gad..... And I cannot speak of One Day. Another toxic movie with a male protagonist where I am supposed to believe a smartly played Hathaway character falls for.
Also, cal roth- I love Certified Copy for that. Not Kiarostami's best but his ethos to a T and two leading performances that completely work in carrying that.
It just hit me that I've done this quite successfully I think with one person twice: Haley Joel Osment. In "The Sixth Sense" and "A.I." that is, of course. Both these movies make me wanna vomit, but it's not the tiniest bit his fault. Talk about M. Night Shyamalan: most people would say Sixth Sense was brilliant, all his later movies bad, their "twist" too unbelieveable. The first movie of his I ever saw was "Unbreakable", in the movie theater. The "Twist" totally ruined it for me. I've managed to see "Sixth Sense" for the first time, years after that, on Television, without knowing what the "twist" was - and it was the same experience all over again. But I loved Haley in it and totally Support his Oscar nomination. "A.I." was the same story all over again for me: stupid, unbelieveable story/twist, getting stupider and more unbearable towards the end while starting quite decently and interesting, but loved Haley and his performance. And you know, just like Oscar, I tend to appreciate the little girls more than the little boys, and Haley really is an exception. Too bad he couldn't go on to be more of a star, get roles, get good roles in good movies... Too bad that lately, his sister is more famous than him... that fame coming from playing the best friend of Hannah Montana.... *ewww* ... actually, I liked her in Spy Kids 2 & 3, but apart from that, I couldn't care less about her...
PS: Love the mentions of Nicole Kidman in "The Golden Compass" and Michael Shannon in "The Runaways". Great Performances! Though I didn't find either movie exceptionally bad... well, not great either, but quite good really. Also in the Runaways, I also think both Dakota Fanning and especially K-Stew were really good, though Shannon was absolutely best in Show!