Emmy Category Analysis: Supporting Actor in a Drama Series

By Abe Friedtanzer

Billy Crudup is the only actor not competing with a costar

This category feels sort of neat in terms of how it’s split: 8 slots, 4 shows. 4 returning nominees from 2 years ago, and 4 actors from new series. The only actor representing his show solo is also the only one who’s won before - Billy Crudup. There's no definitive frontrunner this time which is sort of exciting. (Diversifying the number of series represented by the nominations would surely help make it even moreso) Brief descriptions of the nominees and the analysis after the show...

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Cate is camp and crazy-good in "The Man Who Cried"

by Nathaniel R

I'm pleased to share that I have returned for a second appearance on Murtada's fun podcast "Sundays with Cate" in which he's surveying Cate Blanchett's whole career (not chronologically) with various guests. This week's topic is the strange Sally Potter misfire The Man Who Cried (2001), a pre World War II drama about dancing Russians, singing Jews, and operatic Italians in Paris. I requested this one because I remembered being absolutely bewitched by one closeup in particular when the film was in theaters. But the film had become so entirely forgotten (even by me) that I could barely remember anything of the context. The film stars Johnny Depp and Cristina Ricci (both having just co-starred in Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow) placing it forever in a very specific place in Hollywood time. Give us a listen! 

The Furniture: Barton Fink and the Common Man's Wallpaper

Daniel Walber's series on Production Design. Click on the images to see them in magnified detail.

What is the wallpaper of the Common Man? It’s a strange question, but Barton Fink is a strange movie. The titular writer (John Turturro) is a man consumed by passion for the clichéd unsung hero, though he would never go so far as to actually ask a Common Man what he thinks. His obsession is really with the idea of the Common Man, abstract and waiting to be tossed onstage or slapped onto the blank canvas of a movie screen.

In his defense, the Common Man was not yet a cliche when Fink arrived in Hollywood, sometime in 1941. Henry Wallace’s famous “Century of the Common Man” speech wouldn’t be delivered until May of 1942, inspiring Aaron Copland to write his “Fanfare for the Common Man” soon after. Maybe someday the Coen Brothers will make a sequel, and Barton will take the opportunity to claim credit for both of those cultural landmarks.

But back to wallpaper. Barton Fink opens with a close-up of it, a pleasant sort of floral-Deco pattern in mild colors...

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1991: Judy Davis in "Barton Fink" and "Naked Lunch"

Before each Smackdown, Nick Taylor looks at possibilities for an alternate ballot...

Barton Fink and Naked Lunch are two 1991 films with more in common than you'd expect. Both follow writers - one a lifelong devotee of the trade, one quite new to it - who are suddenly plucked from their old lives and dropped into entirely alien worlds, with few reliable sources to guide them. Both tackle the incredibly mundane ache of loneliness and toil of their work, albeit against obstacles like axe murderers and global drug conspiracies. Both are directed by major auteurs and styled to the fucking nines, making their settings as accessible as they need to be while fulfilling some impenetrably strange narrative conceits. And both serve as vivid showcases for the talents of Judy Davis, 1991’s NYFCC winner for Best Supporting Actress, who unfussily acquits herself to two very different, aesthetically demanding milieus. Her brainy, abrasive persona and preternatural expressiveness are cannily utilized in both films, and Davis emerges as an essential element of their respective successes despite her minimal screen time...

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25th Anniversary: Quiz Show (1994)

Best Picture nominee Quiz Show (1994) was released 25 years ago. Here's Anna with a look back...

The year is 1958 (it should be 1956; Redford condensed the three-year scandal into one). Households across America tune in to watch Twenty-One. Everyone is fascinated by the wisdom from reigning champion Herb Stempel (John Turturro). Well, almost everyone; producers Dan Enright (David Paymer) and Albert Freedman (Hank Azaria) as well as the show’s sponsor think it’s high time for some new talent on the show. Enter Columbia University instructor Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes), who had auditioned for their other show Tic-Tac-Dough. And this is when Enright tells Herb to take the fall, which he reluctantly does. But how long until keeping the truth becomes too much for Charles?

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