Best Supporting Actress, or How Desire is the Word

A Blog Next Door's Oscar coverage 2009: for the lit theory junkine in me and the Oscar watcher in you.

Best Supporting Actress 2009: 'Lacanian Desire' 

Okay so we dealt with the crazy supporting boys, the 'manly' leading men and the motherly leading ladies... so what is left? Well, we have a lovely bunch of supporting ladies (don't they make a gorgeous lineup?) who exemplify to one extent or another the different models of desire that (just like 'motherhood' in the leading ladies) these characters exemplify. 

And so here we have a mother, a nun, a stripper mother, a foster mother and a power of nature:

Viola Davis is "Mrs Miller" in Doubt

'I just want what's best for my son.'

&

Amy Adams is "Sister James" in Doubt

'You just want your simplicity, back.'

If I'm lumping the two Doubt girls it is not because of any attempt at diminishing the individual impact but because they both showcase (I think) a similar drive: to keep things as they are (or were, as it may). Both Sister James and Mrs Miller function in the film as character who don't wish to face (or can't fathom to face) the revelation which Sister Aloysius wants to bear on those involved. While one appears more troubled than the other, they both show us women whose desire is for the 'status quo.'  Interesting because this desire for not-change as a model of a world outlook comes at once from a place of faith (Sister James) and a place of social inequality (Mrs Miller), yet it hinges on their role as women pit against men. Our desire contains.

Marisa Tomei is "Cassidy" in The Wrestler

I elicit desire.

Here is a woman who makes money off of men's desire. Cassidy sells the image of her body and is able to make dance that fine line between harnessing desire and letting it out of control. Indeed, her relationship with 'The Ram' suggests that she can only apprehend relationships within a policed desiring structure (client-stripper) and has a hard time figuring out how that desire can either transcend or be turned into something else. My desire titillates.

Taraji P. Henson is "Queenie" in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

I desire to be a mother.

Here is a woman whose desires seem to be unconvincingly selfless. I say that because Queenie seems to not have any desire that is not directed/aimed at someone else (she wants to care for Benjamin, she devotes her life to helping older folks - all, it would seem at her own expense). The film (indeed the premise) cannot empower Queenie with any desire other than to be Benjamin's mother. My desire is muted.

Penelope Cruz is "Maria Elena" in Vicky Cristina Barcelona

I am desire.

Here is a whirlwind of desire - unstoppable, misdirected and at times violent (but then, aren't all warm-blooded European female artists like this?) If there's one thing that Maria Elena epitomizes is the temptation (and curiously dangerous allure) of unbridled desire - be it sexual (with Juan Antonio), artistic (with Cristina) or both (with both!) Whether Woody presents us with a prescription or a warning is up to the audience, but compared to the pale (and might we even go as far as say 'frigid' and 'clinical'?) Vicky and Cristina, we can't fault the camera and the characters from being so seduced by Maria Elena's "ge-nee-uss" which stems from and is projected within her desiring/able body. My desire disturbs.

Best Lead Actress, or How Mum's the Word

A Blog Next Door's Oscar coverage 2009: for the lit theory junkie in me and the Oscar watcher in you.

Best Lead Actress 2009: 'The Freudian Mum'

AMPAS loves them some actresses. Or maybe I love me some actresses which is why I find the Actress categories much more interesting than the Actor ones (I mean, Kate and Meryl and Anne in one category easily trumps any lineup with Sean, Brad and Mickey, no?). Sadly when you think about it, the roles that AMPAS singles out in the actress categories are usually obscenely narrow (nuns! mums! whores! - did I miss any? I kid, I kid!) That said, to take the list of women that make up this list is to be immersed in a world of familial ties, exploring the tenuous relationship between women and children. Freud 101 if you will.

Kym, Christine, Sister Aloysius, Ray & Hannah are a motley crew of women that represent different ways in which society models motherhood and the care for children.

Anne Hathaway - "Kym" in Rachel Getting Married

Why didn't you take care of the child? Kym decries.

Of course at the heart of Demme's film there's an absent mother and a lost child. There's always an absent mother and/or a lost child when families are so fractured and seemingly happy but actually imbalanced as we have here. Kym is a wounded girl because she carries with her both the burden of her [SPOILERS - but not if you saw The SAGs clips for Best Actress] brother's death and of her mother's absence. The former is what gets the dramatic push, but the latter is what stays with you (bless you Debra Winger). Kym is a motherless young woman and it is that loss which resonates throughout her behaviour and which gets oddly displaced in the form of alcoholism and a drug addiction, showcasing a broken familial unit because of the inability of one woman to maintain her 'Mother' role. A 'mother' is all Kym wants, is all Kym needs/ed.

Angelina Jolie - "Christine MY!SON!BACK! Collins" in Changeling

I just want to take care of MY son! screams Christine.

If there is a prototypical 'woman' in this lineup, it is Ms Collins who lives and breathes (and works, and skates, and yells, and breaks plates) for her son. This is the 'Mother' par excellence - no wonder the characters around her can't seem to understand why she wouldn't just nurture a kid who's the closest thing to her son (aren't they exchangeable?). Make what you will of potential arguments about patience, willpower or even conviction in Christine but beneath it all here we have a tale of a woman who's incomplete without motherhood, without her child even when the possibility of reconstructing the familial structure she had before is beyond her reach. A 'mother' is all Christine knows what to be, is all we expect her to be.

Meryl Streep - "Sister Aloysius" in Doubt

I WILL take care of children - whatever it takes, Sister Aloysius says to herself.

While Father Flynn construes her as a 'hungry dragon,' Sister Aloysius is the nurturing figure of the schoolyard. Whether it'd be with her fellow (at times blind) nuns, or with a particular black boy in class and church, Sister Aloysius takes it upon herself to be the earthly Mother Mary to those around her. Fixated on a rigid structure of what mothers should and should not do (roughly matching her static and somewhat 'traditional' mores and values), Sister Aloysius cannot understand the pragmatism and (alleged) indifference when encountering Donald Miller's mother. A 'mother' is all Sister Aloysius expects from women with children,

Melissa Leo - "Ray" in Frozen River

I make the decisions that need to be made to take care of my kids, Ray needs to tell herself.

Working in the same vein as Christine, Ray is a woman whose socio-economic circumstances thrust her into a world where what she is and how she needs to survive is underscored by her duty to her children and her family. The man leaves, but it is the woman who cannot escape the familial ties to her children and who takes the reigns of her life and job (yeah, let's call it a 'job') in order to be able to provide for her children. Out of all the women in this lineup it is she who most mirrors the type of woman we should admire. Courtney Hunt does my work for me stating that in making this film she wanted to 'break down audiences' cultural assumptions through the universal language of a mother's love' [src]. A 'loving mother' is what Ray exemplifies.

Kate Winslet - "Hannah" in The Reader

Come in, I'll take care of you, kid, Hannah says.

And then we come to the ex-Nazi prison guard. (I tell ya, had they nominated Winslet for her turn as April Wheeler in Revolutionary Road, this mini-essay would write itself: for what is April but the prime example of a woman actively refusing the 'motherhood' label society springs on women?) But Hannah - she becomes a sexually active nurturing figure in Michael's life - not so much a mother as a sexual mentress (yes, I'm making up words today). But hidden within the ambiguities of the film and the moral minefields of the narrative is the hidden assumption of shame in the relationship between a mature woman and a younger boy. This of course derives from both 'traditional' relational models between young men and older women (usually recasting a mother-son relationship - hey, even among males and females of the same age!) and yet Hannah never succumbs to treating Michael as anything other than a 'reader' and a lover. A 'mother' is what we might expect from Hannah but she escapes such 'paint by the numbers' relation with Michael.

Next Up: Leading Men and American Masculinity

Best Supporting Actor 2009 or How 'Madness' is the Word

A Blog Next Door's Oscar coverage 2009: For the lit theory junkie in me and the Oscar watcher in you.

Best Supporting Actor 2009: 'Madness and Civilization'

We all know that Oscars are about many things, least of 'em being anointing what is 'actually' the Best of the Year. They celebrate 'careers' (LMS's Alan Arkin), achievements (NCFOM's Javier Bardem), a wonderful year (S's George Clooney). But mostly they also celebrate great characters and in any given year we could ask: what is it about these characters that gets AMPAS all riled up? To take the list of men vying for Heath's er... I mean the Supporting Actor Oscar is to be immersed in a Foucaultian World. (I told ya I'd be tapping into my inner Academic; y'know, what I actually do for a living!)

The Joker, John Givings, Dan White, Father Flynn and the 'dude playing the dude disguised as another dude' are all men at the fringes who explore and enact what it means to inhabit a body that is over and over branded as Other.

Heath Ledger - "The Joker" in The Dark Knight

You are what we are not, Gotham declares.

Gotham's scariest villain is as much a product as he is a symptom of the ailing world that Batman is trying to salvage. Where Batman is order, The Joker is chaos. Heis himself the fringe, the limit and with his scars, his cackle and his relentless cruelty he showcases everything we seemingly purge from society but by his very being Heath's Joker reminds us that we have never escaped our own bruised society. He may seem like a force of nature, but he's ultimately the suppressed culture coming back to claim the center of society from which he has been banished. 

Michael Shannon - "John Givings" in Revolutionary Road

You are not what we want to be, Suburbia pronounces.

Suburbia's most threatening force finds it's home in the mental patient John Givings who spouts truth wherever he goes but because society (pristine, pure and orderly as April's dresses, Mrs Givings yard and Milly's snacks) has decided it is unseemly to say sun things, John's words are lost in the deluded void that is his father's hearing aid and his mother's natural deafness to truth. His mental health is as much a lie and a construction as April and Frank's ideal home, but while a 'normal' society sees the Wheelers as a necessary aspect of life, John and his kin are labelled and discarded into the 'Mental Institution' where they're words can be sanitized with the language of Science. 

Philip Seymour Hoffman - "Father Flynn" in Doubt

You are not what we are about, sentences Sister Aloysius.

Father Flynn is a curious case becuae of the relentless ambiguity of Shanley's script (though sadly not his direction). Here is a man conflicted by the accusations headed his way and potentially by a sexuality that his own Church deems deviant an therefore imperfect. It is thus why we get the sermons on Doubt and Gossip and why sideway glances at young boys are so suspect even for us as an audience. But in a religious world that requires moral certainty, Father Flynn has no place. But more importantly thy Sister Aloysius cracks Father Flynn's facade with hollow accusations and a made up phone call only bring to the forefront the double world of Father Flynn. This is a world that does not take him for who he is, nor for who he fashions himself to be. 

Josh Brolin - "Dan White" in Milk

You are what I am not, says Dan to Harvey with a couple of shots to the chest.

Dan White is also a curious character because just as Father Flynn he has internalized a set of rules and 'Thou Shall Not's that disable him from full-fledge happiness. In Harvey he sees everything he wishes banished from his own body (remember that sad moment of him naked and desolate). As Harvey's self-apointed foil he cannot function without seeing what he could (have) be(en). And so begins a cruel derailment into violence - the only way he sees as an escape from that cultural iron cage which society has built and nourished for him. 

Robert Downey Jr - "Kirk Lazarus" in Tropic Thunder

You are not what we are, but we'll gladly watch it and award you for it, says Kirk's audience.

And then we have the performer of the crowd: Kirk Lazarus playing Sgt Lincoln Osiris. But compared to the deranged and damaged souls of Gotham, Suburbia, the Church and (hetero)Society, what to make of this ironic blackface performance? In a way it returns us to a more racially tinged version of the other characters. Physically transforming himself into Osiris, Lazarus is at once enacting and commenting on the hierarchical race relations of America. All the actors in Tropic Thunder to an extent shine a light on the way the 'fringes' of society are easily sanitized and commodified (I'm looking at you Simple Jack), churning out Hollywood Oscar-bait flick after Hollywood Oscar-bait film. It isno wonder that the 'performer' in the crowd offers the meta commentary on the Foucauldian project that I see (quite glibly) taking shape in the Best Supporting Actor Category. 

Next: Freud and the Leading Ladies

Doubt, or How Meryl will rip your heart out

Doubt

Written and Directed by John Patrick Shanley

Starring: Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams and Viola Davis.

While the film adaptation of John Patrick Shanley's stage play is still an enjoyable 'did-he? did he not?' moral ride, it lacks something which the premise hints at: ambiguity. As a director, Shanley spends less time trying to hit moral ambiguities than in creating horribly didactic film gimmicks (I'm looking at you animal imagery!) that dissolve any punch the moral minefield he concocted for the stage had in the first place. That said, leave it to Meryl, Amy, Viola and Hoffman to make the film the performance showcase it should be and raise it above its directorial crutches - especially when Shanley let's them do their work (with his words nonetheless!) and creates wonderfully (tragi)comic scenes that are at once a battle of the wills and a cross-section of the changing world of the Christian faith in the mid-twentieth century. A-

Doubts over Doubt, or How dubious indeed reviews are.

I'm still looking forward to it as before, but I'm puzzled as to why so many people are having distinctly opposing views on the same things.

Doubt's doubtful reviews:

"Oscar-wise, despite McCarthy's concerns about Streep--who definitely adds more nuance and character details to the role as written---the Academy actors should reward Streep for this" - Anne Thompson Variety

"By ostensibly underplaying the role’s villainy, however, Streep overdoes the melodrama, thereby turning Sister Aloysius into more of a stock figure than she ultimately seemed onstage. Every little tic, gesture and facial mannerism seems maximized by the effort expended to minimalize them, to diminished returns in the cause of creating a three-dimensional character." - Todd McCarthy Variety

"The irony for me is that the visual delivery in this film (and I don't just mean the beautifully muted fall-winter colors in Roger Deakins' cinematography) is just right. Shanley's direction serves the holy grail of the text and lets the performers -- Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Viola Davis, Amy Adams -- do their stuff. 

The fact that she [Streep's Sister] is a kind of mythical beast and that Streep is expert at letting you know precisely what's going on in her hard and damning head is, for me, a trip. She's almost Mommie Dearest, and I mean that as a genuine compliment." - Jeff Wells Hollywood Elsewhere

"The problem with “Doubt” isn’t Meryl Streep’s over-the-top performance as a helfire-and-brimstone-breathing nun on a personal witch hunt.  It isn’t in Philip Serymour Hoffman’s controlled but confused portrayal, the actor seemingly lost in the ambiguities of the story and, indeed, the character.  It isn’t even in the rather cut-and-paste approach to bringing the story from the stage to the screen, thereby sapping it of intimate dramatic impact.

Mainly, the trouble with “Doubt” is how drastically uncinematic it is.  Despite having a great lenser like Roger Deakins behind the camera, and a design team to die for otherwise, John Patrick Shanley seems to have neutered his story’s potential for screen resonance. " - Kris Tapley In Contention

[That said, they ALL agree on Viola Davis' performance] But in regards to everything else: which one is it: Is Streep over the top or pulling it back? Is the lensing subdued to good or bad end results? It just makes the reception just as much about doubt as the film itself... so meta I love it.

Doubt, or How The Devil Wears Nun

The Fall is coming! Not only did we get the Changeling trailer with Angelina Jolie getting a child switcheroo and a first look from ET at Revolutionary Road, but yesterday we got the trailer for the Streep-Seymour Hoffman-Adams film Doubt based on the play by the same name.



Seriously - how scary does Meryl look? No flying handbags - but I'm already terrified (and excited about watching this).

And if we're talking Oscar bait:

"I have my certainty!" > "I want my son back!" ::plate smashes!::