You know, double nominees are always kinda nice but also kinda rough. Nice because one film knocks out two reviews for one category, but rough because I can struggle to find a lot to write about for both reviews sometimes. Usually one dominates the other, just something I've noticed. Not sure if that will be the case in this category, but I guess I'll find out. Have seen none of these, as is becoming the new normal and that's okay with me.
1975 Best Supporting Actress
Lee Grant - Shampoo
I was all ready to go into this little spiel about how Grant, after getting a nomination for her very first film role back in 1951, was blacklisted after refusing to testify against her husband at the time at the HUAC proceedings. She was blacklisted for about 10 years or so and after that only slowly got back into acting in films. She got another nomination in 1970 for another Hal Ashby film, The Landlord, before winning for this Ashby film. I was thinking that this win was one of those Academy moments where they reward someone for some outside force, in this case being blacklisted. That possibly factored into her win here but I honestly don't know how much. Grant plays the wife of the other Shampoo nominee, Jack Warden. She's also sleeping with Warren Beatty on the side and with him, seems to have a voracious sexual appetite and is really flirty. With her husband, she's a shrill, feckless woman whose daughter hates her. Again I run into this thing I notice with Grant seemingly trying out ways to make her character work. Maybe I'm the only one who sees it and the fault lies with me, but it just seems like she's working within the character in the scenes instead of already establishing who the character is to her. I know that sounds like hogwash but it makes sense to me. I didn't much care for it in 1976, but I think it kinda works a little in this film. The character is different with each man and also with the other women that both men are sleeping with so it's like Grant is playing around with her inner voice. What I think helped win the Oscar is later on in the film when everyone is together at an election party, she sort of antagonizes Warden and just gives these death glares with intermittent eye rolls and other great faces. They are hilarious but also telling of how she feels about everything going on in her life. But is this really a winning performance? It's kinda fun and Grant does a good job but I don't know. In a strong year, I'd say no, but I don't know what type of year this is just yet.
Ronee Blakley - Nashville
Blakley was actually cast after another actress bowed out and director Robert Altman turned to her as she was helping to write songs for the film and was a backup singer in Nashville. You could say this is a role of a lifetime for her and she rode it all the way to an Oscar nomination. Her character in this film is really as the main female country star. She's this fragile little bird who is coming back to Nashville after being burned and exerts herself and suffers mental breakdowns while her husband/manager and all her handlers fuss over her and others try to get her to sing at various places for their own goals. She's pushed and pulled in various directions and seems like the more true to life character of most of the cast. It's a meaty role that I think lots of women would have wanted to play and a relative unknown gets the part and does a great job with it, which is impressive to me. Her singing is whatever, as is most of the singing in the film because the songs just aren't memorable at all and seem more like country music parodies than anything else. But her actual acting is one that's pretty good. She has to portray these breakdowns in a convincing manner and never goes over the top which you'd think a less experienced actress would. I really enjoyed the scene where she's at some rally or something and sings a song and then goes into these little anecdotes that end up having no point and she's supposed to start singing another song but stops and keeps telling these inane anecdotes that get more frenetic and it's really great acting because you slowly see her breakdown happening in real time. Her performance also feels more like it should be in the Best Actress category as she is the main actress of the film, but I guess it's here just because of the amount of total screen time and the fact that this is a big ensemble piece. But that's the power of Blakley's performance that you watch it and think it deserves to be bumped up because of her impact on the film and how she delivers a very compelling piece of acting. The film as a whole was great for female acting and more of those women should probably be in this category.
Sylvia Miles - Farewell, My Lovely
Before I get into Miles' performance, let me take a minute to talk about this film. It's awesome. I highly recommend watching it. It's a throwback, old school noir film that stars Robert Mitchum as Private Eye Philip Marlowe. If you know your noir films, you know Marlowe has been played by the likes of Dick Powell, Humphrey Bogart, and James Garner. Mitchum fits Marlowe to a T and is really great in the role. I like that the film was very serious in it's version of the Raymond Chandler novel and didn't just yuck it up. Miles plays a boozy old dancer that Mitchum comes to a couple times for information. She's the kinda lady who doesn't talk until you give her a bottle of bourbon. Miles plays the character as she should but lends the character more humanity than others might. She lives alone in a run down house, always in a robe or nighty with her bosom showing as if to remember the good old days. I like that Miles infused her character with a sense of quiet desperation, lighting up when Mitchum comes the second time and trying to look sexy for him. I think that Miles does more with a stock role and the film is better off for it. She's just a boozy, flirty information dump but Miles makes her into an honest to God person in two short scenes. She's a drunk, but Miles doesn't play up the obvious and instead let's the little things like missing a glass when pouring a drink show the kind of alcoholic she is. Miles is enjoyable in her brief performance and I wanted to see a bit more of her in the story. I'm just glad she went more with nuance and subtlety than outright fall down, slapstick drunk. A nice little gem in the Supporting category.
Lily Tomlin - Nashville
The story of how Tomlin got this part is probably more interesting than the actual performance. It was written for Louise Fletcher, who won Best Actress this year, and she helped develop the character because the part has two sons who are both deaf. Fletcher's parents in real life were both deaf and she famously signed to them in her acceptance speech, so it was something that would have great meaning to her. But then director Robert Altman suddenly felt that Tomlin would be better in the role and jettisoned Fletcher who ended up taking a role that was offered to Tomlin first, Nurse Ratched. Both came out of it well with Oscar nominations and a win. So as described above, Tomlin plays a mother who is also a gospel singer, though we barely see her sing in the beginning of the film and that's it. She has one scene with her boys whoa re talking to her about their day and it's a nice scene for the kids but Tomlin doesn't even sign or anything. There is also a plot thread where she is cheating on her husband by hooking up with a famous singer played by Keith Carradine, who is bedding many different women in the film. I guess her scenes of showing up to a bar he's singing at and then subsequently is in bed with him and bantering is supposed to play a little more emotional but it falls mostly flat for me. It's telling when Tomlin gets up to leave and goes to the bathroom that Carradine gets on the phone with another lover in New York and talks to her while Tomlin is saying goodbye. Not entirely sure what we are supposed to grab from that moment other than she genuinely likes/loves him and he is just a womanizing guy who says what he needs to to get them in bed. Others say that she is perfect for this role because she doesn't do much in the character which they feel is necessary, even if Tomlin isn't much of a dramatic actress (at least at this point in her career). That she is a blank slate lends more gravitas to her emotional and sad scenes that highlight her truly private nature letting herself open up to an affair even though it won't end well. I get what they are saying but I think they are letting their own love of Lily Tomlin the actress seep into their reviews. I know she's an expert comedienne but just because she isn't acting wildly and making faces, shouldn't make her performance more important than it really is. I think she's fine in the role but heavily underutilized and not completely convincing. I feel like I should care more about her character and her performance but I'm not giving a clear reason to do so.
Brenda Vaccaro - Jacqueline Susann's Once Is Not Enough
Ever since I saw the name of this film when filling out my excel spreadsheet of all the nominees years and years ago, I wanted to see this film. That was doubly so when it was said to be a campy, dramatic romance film. Not enough of those getting nominated! All joking aside, whew, is this a bad film. The acting is all over the place, the story doesn't quite make sense, and it's as goofy and bad as you think it will be based off the title. The film is about a father-daughter duo, she's just healing from a motorcycle accident and he is an Oscar winning writer (or producer, I dunno). They have a weird incestuous relationship and he (who is Kirk Douglas, by the way) marries some super rich woman for a reason I don't understand. But they don't love each other and she is secretly a lesbian and they try to set up the daughter with a playboy douchebag cousin of the rich lady. But then the daughter falls in love with a drunk Pulitzer winning writer who hates her dad because she has daddy issues and, yeah, you get that this is a bad romance novel come to life. Vaccaro is equally bad. She plays a friend of the daughter's who happens to be editor at some women's magazine and speaks in a husky voice about vulgar things. She has a lot of energy in her performance, I'll giver her that, but it's like she's acting in a different film from everyone else. It's also like she doesn't care about an actual performance since it feels like she's just kinda winging it as she goes along, trying different line readings. If you ever watch this, and please don't, you will be scratching your head at how she got nominated besides being the extra loud and crazy thing in a crazy bad movie. So she talks frankly about sex and all that, big deal. An Oscar nominee should be more than just loud and obnoxious and frank. Steer clear of this one.
Kind of a weird group. Having seen Nashville now, I'd say you could fill this whole category with women from that film. You definitely could have three or four women, though, absolutely. And it would only make the category better! Vaccaro is a bad performance in a bad film. She's just kinda all over the place. Miles is good in a film I really enjoyed. Love me some noir. But Miles isn't amazing or anything so she's good in fourth and with having a nomination. Some bloggers feel that Tomlin gives one of the best performances ever, certainly of her career, and just gush over it. I didn't see whatever they saw. It never grabbed me and it felt almost incomplete. I think Louise Fletcher would have knocked it out of the park. Grant would be next. Fun role in a fun film. It still feels like she plays around with the character during the performance but that just might be how she works. Blakley gets my win because she is actually quite good and sort of paces the film. She should possibly be in Lead but she isn't and she's who I think is best in this category. There were a couple other ladies from Nashville who I liked and thought would be good in this category, too, as that film is stacked with possible nominees. What we ultimately got isn't as good as it should have been. But at least I got to see some different films, so that's always nice.
Oscar Winner: Lee Grant - Shampoo
My Winner: Ronee Blakley - Nashville
Lee Grant
Lily Tomlin
Sylvia Miles
Brenda Vaccaro
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