Ok then…what do Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor and Angelina Jolie have in common?
If you said that their favourite Starbucks hot beverage is a large half-caff frappuccino with whipped cream and marshmallow dunkers, you’d not only be wrong but you’d also be intruding upon the fringes of acute dimness. Hepburn only ever drank espressos and Jolie naturally prefers Pret.
The actual answer is that come March next year, all three will have the shared denominator of having won both performing Oscars and the honourary Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.
Impressed? Of course you are. Don’t fight it.
And the best thing about the news of Jolie’s prize is that it’s now an apposite time for me to write a dose of words about the win in 2000 for her supporting role in James Mangold’s Girl, Interrupted (1999, 1 win, 1 nom). Your good fortune truly knows no bounds. Not a one.
Angelina Jolie in ‘Girl, Interrupted’
The performance
Angelina’s manic supporting turn as the cocksure yet irreversibly troubled Lisa is undoubtedly a show stealer (Charlotte O’Sullivan of Time Out astutely noted that the film “wilts” every time she is offscreen) in a movie that is as flawed as some of its institutionalised characters. A swaggering queen-bee in a ward full of ailing stereotypes, she is part cipher, part mentor, and absolute manipulator of Winona Ryder’s vulnerable Susanna.
Jolie’s performance seems to drip with testosterone; she demonstrates a kind of blokey bravura where you are almost waiting for her to let one rip and challenge the nurses to “Get a whiff of that one”. Comparisons to Jacky N in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest were well versed at the time and, although the characters are markedly different (she a knowing been-there-done-that type in full control of her situation if not her mind, he a willing participant yet rapidly sinking out of his depth), such parallels are difficult to disagree with – even for a stalwart contrarian like me.
“The real standout,” commented Nathan Rabin of A.V. Club, “is a riveting Angelina Jolie as the hospital’s charismatic alpha-patient. Her magnetic breakthrough performance has a raw, dangerous, profoundly sad energy. ” While Roger Ebert recognised her inevitable Hollywood shuddering impact on the industry in the 21st century: “Jolie is emerging as one of the great wild spirits of current movies, a loose cannon who somehow has deadly aim.”
It is a sensational performance. Despite the machismo, Jolie also oozes female sexuality. Whether harmlessly seducing an ice-cream vendor for extra rainbow sprinkles or maliciously leading Susanna and the other patients astray, she exploits her animal charm and charisma to get exactly what she wants. She thrives on the toxic power of puppet-mastery – anything to fill the void created by bad mental health and incarceration – and when she’s onscreen it is impossible to take one’s beautiful doe-eyes from her.
After such a torrent of high, sycophantic praise, you’re probably wanting to bear your own witness on this fantabulous, one-of-a-kind (Jack excepted) performance. But alas you don’t have the DVD and are too much of a cheapskate to subscribe to Netflix. If only somebody had uploaded a bowdlerised version of the film featuring only Lisa’s best bits…
Well somebody…somebody did…
Decent, eh?
The competition
And although the likes of Tom Coates of the BBC gushingly opined that the role was “played with a passion and insight that deservedly won Jolie an Oscar”, I disagree (see, I told you I was a contrarian).
It is probably desperately mean-spirited to say it, but the problem is that Jolie self-admittedly enjoyed playing Lisa. This transparently comes across to the viewer, who Jolie is as desperate to seduce us as Lisa is her own sorority. For every wisecrack, wink and witty retort there betrays a young actress who is having a whale of a time. While there should undoubtedly be a fascination and even charm about Lisa, she should also scare the bejesus out of us. There should be an underlying volatility and almost sinister presence. Instead, Jolie gives us somebody who would be ace to enjoy a rowdy Friday night out with. A bloody good laugh when she should be a bloody nightmare.
Now I would in no way endorse Chuck Rudolph’s ludicrous verdict in Matinee Magazine that her “rantings and ravings are so studied and predictable that her work here is truly one of the worst performances of all time”, it is a fact that Jolie took home the little golden fella in a remarkably strong year for female supporting performances.
Despite having already been crowned with the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Globe honours, it would be remiss to regard Jolie as a shoe-in for the Oscar. The clutch of fellow nominees – who were all, like Jolie, first time nominees – included Chloë Sevigny and Catherine Keener. In distinct ways, both were denied the chance to wow Oscars voters because of the sheer quality of their co-stars. The former was rightly upstaged by Hilary Swank’s career defining, gender defying lead in Boys Don’t Cry; the latter was one brilliant cog in the surreal and wonderful machine that was Being John Malkovich. That isn’t to say that Keener isn’t individually superb as the sardonic and manipulative Maxine, but there is so much to enjoy from Spike Jonze’s masterpiece that independent glory would somewhat betray the product as a whole. Cameron Diaz was also a victim; having flown away from the comfort of her sexy pigeonhole, she chirped out a career-best performance that impressed Bafta, SAG and the Hollywood Foreign Press, but to which the Academy flicked the bird.
Somehow, The Sixth Sense remains Toni Collette’s one and only Oscar nomination to date. A consistently exceptional performer, I suppose it is difficult to recognise particular performances as distinctly more award-worthy than others. Playing Mrs My-Son-Sees-Dead-People-No-Seriously-Oh-Come-On-You-Must-Have-Seen-That-Clip-Of-Him-Saying-I-See-Dead-People-You-Haven’t?-Well-I’m-Shocked-I-Thought-Everybody-Had-Seen-That-And-It’s-Been-Parodied-So-Often-Too-Oh-Well-I-Guess-You-Live-And-You-Learn, her work is…well, it’s kinda…I mean, she is absolutely…erm…just watch this.
In the unfortunately no longer observed tradition of Bafta showing brazen and blatant bias towards the Brits, Dame Maggie won their award for her supporting role in Tea With Mussolini. With two statues under her petticoat already, the Academy ignored her this time, along with the two youngsters from Best Picture winner American Beauty, Thora Hird and Mena Suvari. Cate Blanchett (The Talented Mr. Ripley), Natalie Portman (Anywhere But Here) and Julianne Moore (Magnolia, and who was nominated for Best Actress for The End of the Affair) were also nominated elsewhere, but not invited to the Kodak Theatre to compete for the prize with Jolie.
Samantha Morton in ‘Sweet and Lowdown’
The deserving winner
But it is the fifth Oscar nominee that, in my unwaveringly correct view, deserved to fly back across the Atlantic with the gold.
The verbal dexterity that litters Woody Allen pictures have long given scope for his casts to shine, reaping 6 Oscar wins from 16 nominations, including one nom himself for Annie Hall. Yet conversely, it was Samantha Morton’s silence in Sweet and Lowdown, that should have made it 7 (which is exactly what Blanchett will do next March). In Allen’s re-imagining of Fellini’s La Strada, Morton plays a “goddamn mute orphan half-wit” who becomes besotted with Sean Penn’s Django Reinhardt wannabe.
In the constraints of mimehood, Morton’s remarkable talent shines. Her face is the script; everything, every emotion, idea, opinion and attachment is shown as clearly through blinks, half-smiles and nods as they would have done in reams of Allen script.
It is a truly staggering performance, a genuine one-off (except, obviously, that by Giulietta Masina), and for all the fun and swagger of Jolie’s Lisa, Morton should have had the chance to finally break her silence to give the acceptance speech at the 2000 Oscars.
Bloscars 