Let's talk about jilted actresses, boys.
The Oscars are next Sunday, and we still have plenty of Academy history to reinspect like amateur Clouseaus. Today's cold case: the 10 greatest Best Actress-nominated performances that didn't win an Oscar. Apologies to my other sentimental favorites like Michelle Pfeiffer in The Fabulous Baker Boys, Julie Christie in McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Nicole Kidman in Rabbit Hole, Anne Bancroft in The Graduate, and my darling Elizabeth Hartman in A Patch of Blue because I could only pick 10. Here they are.
10. Natalie Wood in Splendor in the Grass
Look, I hear you. Natalie Wood: not so inspiring in Rebel Without a Cause; barely survivable in West Side Story. But what she achieves in Splendor in the Grass, is to me, the absolute best kind of melodrama. As heartsick teen Deanie Loomis in this epic adaptation of William Inge's play, Natalie Wood jumps from lustfulness (since she's dating a young, wicked Warren Beatty after all) to flabbergasted despair sometimes within the space of a single scene, a single glance. It's not a pretty role, especially when Deanie's suicidal streak and asthmatic freakouts cloud up the screen, but Wood sells us on the legitimacy of teenage passion, and she (and the script) never seems condescending or dismissive towards her tortured character's plight. It's the one high-schooler performance that might actually remind you of your darkest high school moments. It is harsh and alive. And you've never, ever seen a crazier bathtub scene.
9. Jessica Lange in Frances
Don't cry for Jessica Lange; though she lost her Best Actress Oscar to Meryl Streep in '82 (Sophie's Choice was an inescapable Oscar coup), she was rewarded with a Best Supporting Actress win for her fine, tender work in Tootsie. Yes, that took gold away from my beloved Lesley Ann Warren in Victor/Victoria, but it was the Academy's way of honoring Lange's spectacular performance as '30s-'40s movie star Frances Farmer, whose life devolved into bleak madness worthy of adaptation from one of her first key associates, playwright Clifford Odets. Frances Farmer was a complicated version of the doomed star, and Lange hits each of her dimensions with stunning clarity. By the time she's firing back at her insane mother (played by the delicious craaaaazy Kim Stanley), we're both flummoxed by her circumstance and astounded at her endless contradictions.
8. Jane Fonda in They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
Well, it's a day ending in "y," so here I am talking about They Shoot Horses, Don't They and Jane Fonda's magnificence therein again. Jane Fonda was a new type of actor in film: an often deadpan, plainly intelligent, unyieldingly cerebral actress whose greatest gift is always appearing as if she's thinking -- a lot. I routinely call her the Annie Lennox of acting, because her performance style combines gritty conviction and a mature, but surprising vulnerability. Her rigid self-ownership first wowed us in They Shoot Horses, Don't They, a dreary but thrilling drama about a Depression era dance marathon and its lifeless contestants. As the fabulously coiffed Gloria Beatty, Fonda pops with cynical asides and no-nonsense straightforwardness. It's a one-of-a-kind character in a one-of-a-kind movie, and as she saunters her way toward an inevitable conclusion, we're rocked as much by Jane's stoic command as we are the dance marathon's cold grip on its contestants' fates.
7. Whoopi Goldberg in The Color Purple
It's sort of a shame that Geraldine Page doesn't rank on this list (I'd probably go with Interiors, if I picked a losing performance of hers), because now it sounds like I'm just slamming her: In 1985, Whoopi Goldberg was the undisputed Best Actress frontrunner, the sheer powerhouse of The Color Purple and the surest bet among its 11 nominations. As Miss Celie, she melts us when she finally smiles after shirking her initial petrification and weariness of abusive men. She's heartbreaking and, eventually, believably defiant. In fact, the movie is only a success if you grade it based on the arc of Miss Celie -- the plight of the horrid male characters is too broadly drawn to be believed. Of course, The Color Purple scored zero wins among its 11 nominations, and it would take a fun, but sort of conventionally comic role in Ghost for Whoopi to secure a prize.
6. Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard
I love any legendary performance that still manages to be polarizing after 60 years. Gloria Swanson plays faded actress/Kabuki sorceress Norma Desmond whose frightening pangs of madness are effective mostly because she really seems like a onetime-talented human being underneath her freaky shell. She's as understandable, yet grotesque as a movie character gets. 1950 is definitely the most fabled year in the Best Actress category, and the very notion that Gloria Swanson's zealous, enthralling performance could rank third beneath two other contenders is unthinkable, yet essentially true. Here's her edge on those ladies: Norma Desmond is the most quotable character in motion picture history, and that's all thanks to Swanson. Frankly, pictures have been getting smaller ever since.
5. Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada
This is what the Academy Awards should be all about: a breakout, shockingly realized performance that elevates the material it comes from. The Devil Wears Prada is an entertaining, Disney-esque joyride into fashion hell, and as Runway editrix Miranda Priestley, Meryl Streep takes a role that could be comically monstrous and owns it with casually dismissive, yet insidiously terrifying flair. Sure, Helen Mirren was great in that year's The Queen, much the way fellow Oscar-winners Marion Cotillard and Nicole Kidman performed in their respective biopics, but the fact is without those dead-on performances, movies like La Vie En Rose, The Queen, or The Hours wouldn't even have a reason to exist. The Devil Wears Prada is a simple story made Shakespearean thanks to one glorious performance that didn't have to be pointedly fabulous, yet Meryl gives us that performance without ever working outside the confines of a determinedly light script. Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt should also be lauded, but as far as I'm concerned, Miranda Priestley is one bold creation and a work of true genius layered seamlessly into a paperback story. That's all.
4. Ingrid Bergman in Autumn Sonata
Bergman's last major role (and last Oscar nomination, which she definitely deserved to win against my girl Jane's so-so work in Coming Home) contains scene after scene of searing familial confrontation, as neglectful mother Charlotte Andergast (Bergman) is served tough bits of raw honesty from her daughter Eva (the arguably even more amazing Liv Ullmann). The evolving tension between those characters is riveting, which is honestly an accomplishment considering how many one-on-one confessional films just can't sustain an interesting plot. (Have you seen'Night, Mother lately? Spacek is great, but Bancroft is all over the place.) Bergman perfectly illustrates her character's aloofness and discomfort with both her daughters while revealing to the audience that she's essentially a phony, tactfully disinterested person.
3. Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons
2. Emily Watson in Breaking the Waves
The name "Lars Von Trier" fills me with the panic of a thousand electrical fires, but Emily Watson's breakthrough performance in the bleak director's Breaking the Waves is one of the few portrayals I can't really compare to anything else. It is just so... everything, but mostly tragic. As in: Is there anyone who looks back comfortably on this movie? Watson's plight as the naive, God-fearing Bess, whose version of right and wrong is dictated by the fanatical religion that has dominated her life, reaches such depths of painful isolation and humiliation that you almost can't bear to realize that the actress playing her is giving one of the simplest, but most deeply realized portrayals ever. I wouldn't dream of giving away the movie's seriously painstaking plot, but I'll say that Watson gives you all the fabled things you want in an astonishing debut: an utterly convincing lack of artificiality, one-of-a-kind characterization, and sheer devastation.
1. Bette Davis in All About Eve
I'll start with an incendiary point: I love Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday and am perfectly fine with her Oscar win. Hooray and sorry! That said, Bette Davis's unforgettable turn as Margo Channing in All About Eve is a bubbling cistern of resentment, swagger, weariness, and perfect dialogue. It's the quintessential performance from the most watchable actress of all time, and it'd be cruel to pick a greatest scene or moment from such a dynamic character. Among the highlights: Her car chat with Celeste Holm about getting older; her climactic scene at Eve's award ceremony; her famous "Fasten your seatbelts; it's going to be a bumpy night" snap; but my favorite line of Margo dialogue is right when she's in Eve's face, comparing the party's percolating power struggle to a beehive. "We are all busy little bees, full of stings, making honey day and night -- aren't we, honey?" Yes, Davis won two Oscars in her lifetime, but I think we can all agree that Dangerous is a movie that simply doesn't matter. All About Eve is an all-time treat with a cluster of fabulous performances led by Davis; perhaps an Oscar would've been suitable, but I'm somewhat content that she'll forever lead lists like these as a sort-of bleary-eyed Joan of Arc of Oscar rejections.
