 
|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
|
|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
4.254.136.9
Melvyn Douglas and Patricia Neal get best acting Oscars and NOT Newman?
I thought Brandon De Wilde was very strong, as well.
Sure, Newman smirked, preened, posed, (I thought no human's hips could be cocked that violently, so repeatedly, and still function) and came perilously close to mugging...but he made the character breathe. Also, in the quieter moments, Newman had the seriousness and strength to make them work.
(I don't know but I'd bet this was based on a play; it had a bit too much dramatic flab for a purely film script?)
The direction was non-obtrusive and the cinematography was excellent (good Bernstein score, as usual).
Follow Ups:
Let's all get together and applaud ourselves and bestow awards on ourselves. Talk about a political, back biting group. What we need is an unbiased group of judges. The New York Film Critics awards are more respectable. Some rich benefactor needs to set up a film award with the nation's college and university professors in drama and film as the judges. Then we might elevate the American film closer to ART. As long as it stays in tensil town it's about as respectable as pro wrestling. It's certainly entertainment and not ART.
that this was too near Brando's zenith. The common (mistaken) perception was that they were both "method" actors. Hollywood is reluctant to embrace wholesale change and the searing memories of Streetcar and Waterfront were too close for them to give Newman an oscar for this. In fact, Newman was nominated for Hud , The Hustler , Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Cool Hand Luke in the era when Brando was annointed "the method movie actor". The only oscar he won was after Brando's star had faded when he played Eddie Feltson again in The Color of Money , which seemed most like the Academy trying to fix an oversight.I am not sure I agree with the thesis, but it certainly bears some thought.
Particia, whose performance was indeed breathtaking, competed against other actresses, not actors. She deserved her Oscar.Douglas won his in yet another category - Supporting Actor, not Lead actor.
Your question is like why the Olympic 100 meter male runner finished with only silver, when his time was better than that of any woman?
Paul was good, but a bit too much of the usual Paul.
Sidney Poitier, who beat Paul, is no slouch, even though I did not see his "Lilies of the Field" for which he received the award
ensemble acting, with Newman's character the sun around which the others revolved. Their characters would have lost quite a bit of their power without Newman's menacing, flashing anger.
"Too much?" I disagree. He had not yet turned some of those habits into mannerisms.
Newman's performance stands the test of time, Poitier's doesn't (the "Magic African-American" alluded to in an earlier post).
Patricia didn't compete with Paul. She won in a different group. If the competition was for an all around actor with no gender, then your sentiments would perhaps have merit, but not in the gender-specific world.As I said, I did not see that Poitier work, so I can't comment on the merits of that win, but I can imagine him winning.
You are correct that Newman's performance stood the test of time.
Victor, he KNOWS that actors don't compete against actresses in the same categories.He meant that as good as Howard's and Neal's performances were in their *respective* categories, Newman's lead portrayal, arguably the greatest performance in the film, and certainly the engine of the whole shebang, went unrewarded.
Poitier is a very good actor, and was an icon for a generation of African American actors who rarely (if ever) got the chance to show what they could do on the screen. Hollywood was feeling pressure to recognize the leading black actor of the day. And they did. As it happened, Poitier didn't win for a pivotal role, but for a merely professional turn in a mediocre part in a forgettable movie. (He was much more memorable in In The Heat Of The Night). But it was time for Oscar to acknowledge to contributions of black acotrs, and Poitier was the most visible, accomplished (almost the ONLY) African AAmerican actor of the era. He became the stand in for many. It was an historic win. But it probably wasn't the right call artistically.
I don't expect much out of the Academy. Not then, not now.
...and I was fortunate enough to see it in 1963 with an older friend who had McMurtry for an English teacher.Agreed - one of Newman's best performances.
Unfortunately, he's taking a haitus from running these stores at the end of this year, probably a permanent haitus, so anyone planning a visit to this unique monument to the written word (i.e., 5 bookstores in a small North Texas town in the middle of nowhere that, except for visiting book browsers & buyers, almost looks like a ghost-town frozen in the 1950s) should make their travel plans soon!
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
Top of Page ]
[ Contact Us ]
[ Support/Wish List ]
[ Copyright © 2025, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
