Hello and thank you for being a DL contributor. We are changing the login scheme for contributors for simpler login and to better support using multiple devices. Please click here to update your account with a username and password.

Hello. Some features on this site require registration. Please click here to register for free.

Hello and thank you for registering. Please complete the process by verifying your email address. If you can't find the email you can resend it here.

Hello. Some features on this site require a subscription. Please click here to get full access and no ads for $1.99 or less per month.

Oscar Nominations and Win You Love

Mine need no introduction and I’m sure one of you will happily oblige on my behalf, so I’ll start with one of my favorite actresses nominations and wins.

[bold]Tootsie[/bold]: Lange is effervescent in here, displaying an aching subtlety and bittersweet melancholy that grounds the film, giving a rare poignancy to what is essentially a slapstick, though extremely witty, comedy. Her performance elicits autonomous sensory meridian responses to the max. I love that she won the Oscar for her brilliantly understated work here, which compliments and highlights her win for her explosive work in Blue Sky quite nicely.

[bold]Frances[/bold]: In one of the best performances in cinema history, Lange reaches Olympian heights as a troubled star would-be serious thespian, her mercurial visage flickering from quiet melancholy and sardonic contempt to white-hot fury and, finally, pained, darkened hope trapped in a void. A shattering performance.

[bold]Country[/bold]: Lange's work here, in what is the best and grittiest of the "80s farm films," carries all of the weight of an Andrew Wyeth painting: she is both graceful and severe; luminous and haunting; tender and brittle; fragile and steadfast. She exhibits a simplicity and naturalness that is effortless, beguiling and, ultimately, galvanizing.

[bold]Sweet Dreams[/bold]: From spitfire beginning to explosive - literally - end, Lange's performance is infused with an infectious exuberance and joie de vivre that is measured and composed by Patsy Cline's own voice rather than by a valiant attempt at imitation or interpretation; this is perhaps the greatest honor one could pay Cline because no one could sing like her. Lange, with the help of the equally brilliant Ed Harris and Ann Wedgeworth (who, dare I say, make her work possible), channels Cline's ephemeral electric essence like a live wire. As Pauline Kael, the jealous rube, wrote, “When Lange's Patsy slings her strong young body around she gives off a charge. Lange has real authority here, and the performance holds you emotionally. This is one of the few times I've seen people cry at a movie that wasn't sentimental--it's an honest tearjerker. People can cry without feeling they've been had.”

[bold]Music Box[/bold]: One of my favorite performances of Lange's. It sort of leaves me dumbstruck and speechless. Kael said it best when she wrote of Lange's work here: "What counts is the Old World, New World texture that Jessica Lange brings to toughness. Her beautiful throatiness counts. She has the will and the technique to take a role that's really no more than a function of melodrama and turn this movie into a cello concerto." Her descent into the embodiment of Dieric Bouts's Weeping Madonna is both profound and cathartic.

[bold]Blue Sky[/bold]: I will never understand why her performance in this film continues to be so underrated. What Lange does with what is perhaps my favorite of her performances is utterly riveting, transcendent, and nearly peerless. You would have to go back to the stars and thespians of a bygone era - a few of which she purposefully emulates in the film - like Monroe, Taylor, Bardot, and Leigh, to get a performance as simultaneously vital, sexy, potent, volatile, and succulent as Lange’s is in this film. It still astonishes me that she managed to go from the drab, dowdy, albeit genius, work of something like Men Don't Leave to this: something so shiny, intoxicating, and brilliant. It thrills me that she won not only the Oscar but LAFCA for this. It's a performance that is equal parts depressing, heartbreaking, infuriating, and uplifting.

I would have also nominated her for Best Actress in Men Don't Leave, Everybody's All-American, and Losing Isaiah, and Best Supporting Actress for Crimes of the Heart, Cape Fear, Rob Roy, given her the win in this category for Titus, and nominated her again for Don't Come Knocking.

by Anonymousreply 4April 20, 2021 5:26 PM

Is the Lange loon out on bail?

by Anonymousreply 1April 15, 2021 3:43 PM

R1 You must be since you’re able to post on DL again, Matt.

by Anonymousreply 2April 15, 2021 3:46 PM

Meryl Streep in [italic]The Bridges of Madison County[/italic]: This is my favorite performance of Streep’s and one of her most subtle and natural. She imbues Francesca - “an unfaithful woman” - with a tragic yet strangely honorable sense of ennui while never comprising her fiery passion and sensuality. Juggling one of her best accent interpretations and adorning her character with authentic Old World sensibilities, Streep both makes you fall in love with her and breaks your heart. She should have won her third Oscar for this.

by Anonymousreply 3April 15, 2021 11:10 PM

Bump

by Anonymousreply 4April 20, 2021 5:26 PM
Loading
Need more help? Click Here.

Yes indeed, we too use "cookies." Take a look at our privacy/terms or if you just want to see the damn site without all this bureaucratic nonsense, click ACCEPT. Otherwise, you'll just have to find some other site for your pointless bitchery needs.

×

Become a contributor - post when you want with no ads!