Leading Actor 1976

I was thinking about this while doing this year, but there are times in each year where it feels like I have to get over a hill to finally move on and feel like I'm almost to the next year. This year it was finishing Network and it's six reviews. I sat on that for awhile until I was ready to watch and write about it. Once done, I only had one more film but I felt relieved and ready to move on to 1975. Some years it's getting past a big film like that. Others it's finding a film that I know or think is going to give me trouble in finding and watching. And it can also be when I get to a year where I've seen a bunch of the films already knowing I have to watch them again and powering through that blah feeling and moving on. Just some insight into my crazy mind and how I sometimes sit on years for awhile. I've seen Stallone but not the rest and I'm very excited to dive in.

1976 Best Actor

Peter Finch - Network

Peter Finch was the first posthumous acting winner in Oscar history (the other being Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, both were also Australian actors). I feel like most people know Howard Beale, or at least of the character, and have probably seen the Mad As Hell speech in some form or another. I know they used to play it at sporting events (only parts of it, anyway) I went to where the team was down late and wanted everyone to rise up out of their seats to cheer the team on. That's the lasting legacy of that speech. I know a lot of people who know the speech and have never seen the film and know Finch won an Oscar and feel it was deserved just because of the one speech they've seen. It's a great speech, obviously, but there is a lot more to the performance. Beale is a News Anchor who is tired of his life, an alcoholic who hates that the news is all about ratings now. At the end of one show, he states that he's going to blow his brains out on air in one week which will help boost the ratings. This is a man who is fed up with where society is heading and this is his response to that in a way. The network is furious over it and fire him but he asks for one last proper send off. So they let him on air to do that and he again goes off about how it's all bullshit and the News Department head lets him continue on with his rant. That becomes a thing when ratings do actually go up and the head of TV programming want him to keep ranting at the end of the show. It's a minor ratings boost until Finch goes off into the awesome Mad As Hell speech and all hell breaks loose. Before that, Finch was more of a man disappointed and fed up with how everything was based on ratings. You could feel his despair and disappointment, like a man who had given up and didn't care what he did or said or how others would react to it. Then there was a scene where Finch hears a voice at night before the epic speech and the character changes into more of a person in the throes of an actual breakdown and not just a disappointment. From there, Beale continues on with his ranting and yelling and the character more or less stagnates. Finch is very, very good at the ranting and raving thing and you become enthralled watching him rip into whatever he rips into for that day. That's the strength of his performance but a lot of it is just him yelling a lot. He turns into an evangelical type doomsday preacher getting everyone riled up but I wish the film would have dove into what caused the change in behavior and what sustained it other than just pissing off the network and speaking truth to power. Some have said he's more supporting but I feel like he's a definite lead in this film. The whole thing is based around his character and every other person reacts because of what he does at first. But there are times where his performance is in the background on TV while other characters talk and yell themselves. I guess I am trying to flesh out how I feel about the performance while writing this right now. I like it and understand the win. I'm sure his death helped in getting some sympathy votes but I feel like he probably would have won even if he was still alive at the time. I just wish the character would have been more fleshed out even if his ranting is fun to watch and something you can't look away from. The character, though, still seems believable even when the breakdown happens and you can see this character happening on TV in today's world. I think this is a heavy performance that needs more time to digest but is certainly very good and worth watching.

Robert De Niro - Taxi Driver

I have always had a hard time starting my De Niro reviews. I think it's because it's so daunting to try and put into words just what he excels at and what makes his performances so great without sounding like a fanboy. I'm not a De Niro super fan, but I think he was consistently doing strong work back in the 70s and 80s. De Niro does iconic work as Travis Bickle. We all know his "Are you talking to me?" line and scene and we've all seen him put a bloody finger gun to his head. He created a character that lives on in our collective conscious as a real lonely loser who inspired a man to actually try and kill the President. If that doesn't speak to his performance then I don't know what does. What I like about this role is that De Niro is so good at portraying the sad sack, awkward, lonely loser type. This was the first time he did so, but compare it to his other Scorsese collaboration in The King of Comedy and see just how similar the two performances are. That's not a bad thing mind you. It's that De Niro knows how to play characters that are obsessed about someone and make you cringe from embarrassment and from knowing just how deranged he really is and how dangerous he is. I think the two films would make for a great Scorsese-De Niro double feature. You might end up hating De Niro after the fact because the two roles are so pathetic and screwed up and just really unlikable characters. But that is what makes De Niro so good in this film, he is dedicated to showing the mental illness of Bickle but also the loneliness and isolation he self imposes. De Niro was one of those super method actors and for this role, he drove Taxis in NYC for a month at night to prepare. What I like is that De Niro makes his character seem somewhat stable most of the time though we know that's not true because his real self comes out like when he confronts Cybill Shepard after she stops talking to him. There are these little moments where his anger and resentment and utter lack of self control peek through the facade. That's what De Niro does well is control his inner rage and attitude and hide it under the guise of the nice, quiet guy. If he wasn't an actor, De Niro would probably be a psychopath he's so good at hiding who he really is. It's amazing that he followed up his win for The Godfather Part II with this completely different role and nailed it the same as his Oscar win. Just a great performance.

Giancarlo Giannini - Seven Beauties

I was losing track of my Italian actors and thought maybe he had been nominated before or since, but no, this was Giannini's only Oscar nomination. It comes in a Lina Wertmuller film and that's significant because she was the first female nominee for Best Director ever and it was for this film. So this film got lots of eyeballs on it within the Academy and we got a nomination for this performance. Any other year, this would most likely never have been nominated. This spot would have gone to Robert Redford or more likely to Dustin Hoffman. Yet here we are with another Italian Best Actor nomination. This film is about a man who deserts the Army during WWII but is captured by the Nazis and sent to a concentration camp where he rapes a fellow female prisoner and is also made to sexually satisfy a fat, gross female guard for some food and then is told to pick six people to die. Oh, and before that in flashbacks we see him kinda living it up as a playboy and then he murders his sister's pimp and chops him up into pieces and sends the body parts to different places in suitcases but is caught and instead of going to jail is allowed to enlist in the Italian Army where he deserts. It's a trippy, weird story, for sure. It's really off putting most of the time because I wasn't sure if this is supposed to be comedic and I was supposed to laugh or if this was just a dark satire of life at that time. It's truly bizarre and I don't think it would have had a chance at a nomination without also getting the Best Director nomination. Now, Giannini himself is very good in what is assuredly a tough role for anyone to pull off. He is your typical charming Italian actor who can make you unsure if him raping a girl is actually funny or not actually the awful act it is. He has charm in spades and that helps keep this film from going completely off the deep end for me. He also has super expressive eyes. He could act with just those alone and still give a good performance. They are sad and hopeful and melancholy and flirty and tired and mischievous. They are probably the one big takeaway you'll have of Giannini besides this being such an odd story and performance. I guess you could say his strength as an actor in this film is getting us to sympathize with his character who is hardly someone that deserves it. This just must have been a year where the Academy wanted some international flavor for whatever reason and we ended up with this is a nomination.

William Holden - Network

Holden was the other lead from this film and is more of the straight man (insert something witty about Beatrice Straight here) of the film. He is the News President or Director or some such and a good friend of Howard Beale's. When Beale goes off the deep end, Holden tries to talk him back in and keep the peace with the network. But at a board meeting he learns the news department of the network is going to lose their autonomy and have to answer to someone and then stops caring that Beale goes off for a second time and doesn't stop it. This in turn leads to the rest of the film and things spinning rapidly out of control. Holden's character is more of the traditionalist. He wants to be a good newsman and do good work and doesn't really like the idea of gimmicks to boost ratings. His character, though, is one that is kind of all over the place. He seems to be used by the writer to put the viewer into the middle of everything and it works sometimes and doesn't work well at other times. The relationship with Beale makes since as they are both old newsmen having to navigate the quickly changing entertainment and news landscape that is becoming one. The network and programming head want to change things and want more of the ranting Beale as well as absurd shows like actual domestic terrorists committing crimes and then doing stories about them. So Holden is the guy asking why are we doing this and are you serious about letting Beale do that and well, fuck it lets see how it goes. The one thing I didn't really like about Holden's role is the relationship with Faye Dunaway. It seemed forced and more like a way to have a romance in the film as well as give Holden a reason to remain tied to some of the characters even after being fired. With him being more of a realist, it just didn't seem like his character would actually cheat on a wife of 25 years, especially knowing that it probably wouldn't last and that she was using him. Holden's performance is also the most understated and conventional. By that I mean, he's the only one not to have a dramatic yelling moment. But also his acting reminds me of old Hollywood. I think it's because Holden is sort of the conduit for the viewer so he stays mostly even keeled as the story progresses. I would have liked for Holden to be given more to do after leaving the Network, but the story ran hard with the satire/farce it had going on. Holden is good in the role and I liked his acting style but this wasn't going to win anything without going too over the top.

Sylvester Stallone - Rocky

Ah, Rocky Balboa. Stallone has played Rocky in like seven films in the last 40 years. He has actually been nominated twice for the same role (and lost both times) which I think has only been done a couple times in Oscar history (Bing Crosby and Al Pacino, not sure of any others). But Stallone is Rocky, period. Can you even imagine anyone else playing that character? I think a lot of people know the story of Stallone being basically broke and needing money so he wrote the script in a couple days and then when trying to sell it, would only do so if he was attached to star as well. It's a gamble that paid off well as Stallone works perfectly as Rocky. He is that big lug that wants to help people and is friendly with everyone because he's a genuinely good dude. Rocky is a slow man, maybe from repeated blows to the head, I dunno, but it works to make his character seem gentle. That works well in his relationship with Talia Shire, as it kind of resembles a boxing match. Rocky has a ton of patience and he waits out Adrian for a while before making his move. He finally knocks it out when they become an item. Boxing metaphors are fun. One thing I did notice on the re-watch is that Stallone talks a ton in his role as Rocky. I mean, Rocky seems to not ever shut up. He dominates the scenes with his dialogue and doesn't stop talking. That suits Stallone because he seems to be that way in real life but it works because it covers for the rest of the film. Rocky can just dominate while we ignore the rest of the faults of the story and that's Stallone's charm. He obfuscates the negatives of the story while keeping the story equally compelling. No one would ever mistake Stallone as a gifted actor but he has a presence that is undeniable as evidenced by his nomination 40 years later for the same role. I think the Academy was hoping he would become a great actor to come but he didn't and that's okay. He is Rocky for the rest of his life and he gave us an amazing underdog hero to enjoy for the rest of our lives.



I like this group, though I feel like it could have been even better with the inclusion of Dustin Hoffman or Robert Redford. I would probably excise Giannini in his very odd role/film. I think he does a good job with a difficult role but I wasn't much of a fan. And I don't completely hate the foreign nominees! It just seems like the ones who get nominated aren't really the best choices by the Academy. Holden would be next and I liked what he brought to his film as this even keeled force but also wasn't into the relationship subplot he had. It just felt forced and not needed. But Holden was good and I look forward to his other nominations soon. Stallone is kind of a tour de force in his film. I mean, the dude doesn't shut up for five seconds and has so much dialogue but it was his baby and I get it. Without Stallone, that film probably fails. He's fun to watch and root for and isn't as bad as he would later go on to be, acting wise. But he is still a mumbly scene hog. If he won, would we be upset? Probably not, but I don't think he needed a win for playing Balboa. Next up is Finch. I get why he won and I'm fine with his win, but he does become part of the background at times and essentially just yells for most of his performance. I like what he does and think it's a lot more than just yelling but I'll place him second. De Niro gets my win for an iconic performance, of which he's had many. But Travis Bickle lives on even in today's world and of course he inspired a guy to try and kill Reagan, that's the mark of a great performance. What else can I say? His lonely, awkward loser role is straight up impressive. So if you take off that fifth spot and add another one like Hoffman, this would be an amazing group. I'd possibly have given the win to Hoffman, honestly. But this is what we got and that's not too bad, either.

Oscar Winner: Peter Finch - Network
My Winner:  Robert De Niro - Taxi Driver
Peter Finch
Sylvester Stallone
William Holden
Giancarlo Giannini