Amen! Phil.

"The Capotes"

I was, in part, reacting to Anne's comment that "nobody deserved Best Actor more than PSH for a performance no other living performer could achieve." Contrast this with Todd’s statement: "the fact that one (actor) was great in a particular role doesn't mean someone else can't be great in the same role." Many living performers can achieve acting excellence playing the same part. In my opinion, as I have said, both Hoffman and Morse gave brilliant performances. And there are other actors who perhaps already have and others who probably will give great performances as Capote. This does not diminish Hoffman's performance, but is an attempt to put it in perspective.

While some roles may be actor-proof, there are also roles that almost automatically guarantee actors’ praise and consideration for awards. Any actor who plays Hamlet, unless he is absolutely terrible, will probably be seriously considered for awards. Actresses who play Medea on Broadway almost inevitably get nominated for (and usually win) Tony Awards. Whoever plays Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof” is probably going to get some good reviews and an award or two. (I once even saw a junior high school production of “Fiddler”, where a 13-year-old Tevye, with a fake beard concealing the lack of facial hair, was being lauded as a great actor and God’s next gift to the art of acting.) You can often even predict possible Oscar nominations a year in advance, just by looking at the roles. (There is already Oscar buzz for Benicio Del Toro as next year’s Best Actor for his performance as Che Guevera, even as it is still being filmed!) Certain “real life” characters of extraordinary accomplishment or eccentricity or notoriety can almost automatically lead actors to awards. (Three of this year’s Best Actor nominees play “real life” characters.) Put simply: acting awards often go to the role rather than to the performance.

“Annie Proulx’ Comments about Heath Ledger’s Performance”

Proulx is not just anyone who has an opinion about Ledger;’s performance. She is the author of the original source material -- the initial creator, if you will, of the character. For her to say what she does about Ledger’s work is to give the actor the ultimate compliment. Ledger has created an extension of her creation that surpassed what she envisioned. It is astounding that she acknowledges this, and that Ledger’s work was able to elicit this opinion from her.

Acting like Ledger’s that is recognized by the original creator as far surpassing her original creation is, indeed, the art, the craft of acting at its very best. The criterion for winning an acting award should be the work that is the most creative.

In the Seventh Annual Village Voice Film Critics Poll (which makes no distinction between male or female performances), Ledger’s work in BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN was cited as The Best Performance. Hoffman’s work as Capote came in second. That is how I would rank the Best Actor nominees. The Oscars should do likewise.

“Punctuation”

I guess that using a capitalized THE to call Ledger’s THE performance of the year may be “yelling in typeface” and may “not make the point more precisely.” But is this any more of an emphatic gesture than ending a question with seven “?”’s?

“As an Aside”

I, too, love Audrey Hepburn in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” but just imagine, for a moment, what Marilyn Monroe might have been as Holly -- and what the resulting film might have been if that had happened. The two versions would have been vastly different, and one would probably have been preferable over the other. But wouldn’t it have been intriguing to make the comparison (just as one can compare Hoffman and Morse as Capote)? Would, for another example, Sandra Bullock have won last year’s Best Actress Oscar for “Million Dollar Baby” if the part had not gone to Hillary Swank? To me, the most interesting movie trivia is who was considered for a part that they did not eventually play. The screen tests for the role of Scarlet O’Hara in “Gone with the Wind” are absolutely fascinating. And trying to imagine what the film would have been with someone other than Vivien Leigh in that role is even more intriguing.
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The Annie Proulx enthusiasm about Ledger's acting is of interest, it's important. But the original creators don't always know for certain, and they would admit that most often. Maybe she didn't 'get as far' as Gyllenhall either, in which case as an author she would be even more honoured, because the film was not just a fossilized version of the written story, but rather extending the living aspect of the work

(I'm the earlier 'Patrick,' 'Patrick M' is another.)

Interestingly, given the discussion about 'Capote,' Truman Capote never thought anything of Audrey Hepburn's Holly Golightly, and always said she was 'all wrong for that part,' that Marilyn Monroe should have done it. But to many of us, there are moments in that film that seem perhaps the most unforgettable of any of Hepburn's roles--the opening alone proves Hepburn's uncanny way of inhabiting Holly. It's easy to see why he could see Monroe in it, but maybe he thought that idiotic ending would have been written out as well--which was the real flaw of the film. In any case, Hepburn is often identified with this role perhaps more than any other, and we don't necessarily care that Capote could not see why this would be a logical extension of his novella.

I read 'Beloved' after seeing it, and after that read that Toni Morrison had been disappointed in it. However, I didn't see why, and had thought 'Beloved' a better picture than most had originally thought. Sublime as her presence is, Ms. Morrison's opinion didn't change my feeling about the film.

Saying that Heath Ledger's performance in BBM is "THE" performance of the year, in capital letters, isn't an argument. It's just yelling in typeface. Capital letters do not make the point more persuasively.

Who cares what Annie Proulx thinks? I'm glad she liked Heath's performance. I agree he was great. But the fact the she liked it is utterly irrlevant to my personal assessment.

I repeat what I said earlier -- why does the fact that Robert Morse was good in Tru have any bearing on whether or not Hoffman is good?????

Lots of actors have played Willy Loman, Hamlet, George and Martha in Virginia Woolf, Blanche DuBois, Maggie the Cat etc. on stage. Lots of actors have played Churchill, Roosevelt and Hitler in film. Some were good. Some were great. Some were bad. The fact that one was great in a particular role doesn't mean someone else can't be great in exactly the same role, or in a different rendition of the character in another medium.

My theory on the best actress race is one of two things will happen. One: Reese or Huffman will take the gold hands down. The same thing that happened in the best actor race in 2002 will happen. They split the vote. Remeber when everybody thought it was either going to be Jack Nicholson or Daniel Day-Lewis, but Adrian Brody won. That could happen again, but in all likelyhood it won't. The vote could be split, leaving room for Dench, Theron, or even knightly to squeez in at talk the gold, But that's just what I think. For the record I hope my girl Reese to takes it.

Fill in the blank space with a name:
"(BLANK) delivers a brilliant performance as the author Truman Capote . . . Never dropping into parody or stereotype, (BLANK) presents a three-dimensional potrait who juggles humor with tragedy, and bitterness with bubbling wit."
"(BLANK) never misteps, contributing an utterly superb turn as a figure whose own self-promotion made him a household figure. ... (BLANK) juggles Capote's contradictions with virtuosic aplomb, leaving us with a poignant portrait of a riven man, with a touch of genius to him, unable to cope with the self-destuction he knows he's bound for."
"One of the most memorable and impressive performances I have ever seen is (BLANK's) portrayal . . . I was convinced that Capote had reincarnated and played Capote."
No, the name is NOT Phillip Seymour Hoffman, but Robert Morse, in "Tru". The quotes are from user comments on the IMDb. (Thank you, IMDb!)
I have seen both performances (with Morse's seen on stage as well as on TV), and found both brilliant. Has anyone written a published comparison? If not, this wouild make an interesting article, or, for some aspiring acting or film student, a great term paper and possibly even a Masters' thesis.
BUT...
Ledger's is still THE performance of the year. What other actor or performance can elicit a response like this from the author of his script's source material (in this case, from Annie Proulx). who said:
"Heath Ledger is just almost really beyond description as far as I'm concerned. He got inside the story more deeply than I did. All that thinking about the character of Ennis that was so hard for me to get, Ledger just was there. He did indeed move inside the skin of the character, not just in the shirt but inside the person. It was remarkable."
This is an ultimate compliment for an ultimate piece of acting. Ledger may not win the Oscar, but his should, since his is, ultimately, the best screen acting of the year.

Shame on the closed minded members of the Academy who are not viewing Brokeback Mountian. Someone should find out who these people are and publish their names. How can they vote if they haven't even seen the movies??????? I saw this article in LA Weekly.....

HOW GAY WILL OSCAR GO?

Handicapping who’ll win, who’ll lose, and who’ll just jerk off
BY NIKKI FINKE
Wednesday, February 1, 2006 - 7:25 pm

Given that it's Oscar time, I nominate the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for Best Bunch of Hypocrites. That’s because this year’s dirty little secret is the anecdotal evidence pouring in to me about hetero members being unwilling to screen Brokeback Mountain. For a community that takes pride in progressive values, it’s shameful that Hollywood’s homophobia may be on a par with Pat Robertson’s.

Despite the hype you’re reading in the press and on the Internet about Brokeback, with its eight nominations, being the supposed favorite to take home the Best Picture Oscar on March 5, Crash could end up winning. The issue isn’t which film is better. The issue is more like which movie was seen by the Academy. Frankly, I find horrifying each whispered admission to me from Academy members who usually pose as social liberals that they’re disgusted by even the possibility of glimpsing simulated gay sex. Earth to the easily offended: This movie has been criticized for being too sexually tame. Hey, Academy, what are you worried about: that you’ll turn gay or, worse, get a stiffie by just the hint of hunk-on-hunk action?

That Brokeback isn’t the Oscar favorite may have been foreshadowed at the SAG awards, when Crash topped it for best picture and Philip Seymour Hoffman won over Heath Ledger. Remember: Truman Capote was so unthreatening — as compared to the in-your-face sexiness of Ledger looking longingly at Jake Gyllenhaal’s loins — that Johnny Carson used to invite him into the nation’s living rooms as a frequent guest on The Tonight Show.

It’s not that Crash isn’t Oscar-worthy and Brokeback is. Both are good, if flawed, movies. Crash makes up in aesthetic bleakness what it lacks in subtlety — Los Angeles is a city of minorities divided but colliding, duh! — but it’s also gripping and powerful. Brokeback gives us something we haven’t seen before — closet-case sheepherders tastefully presented so they redefine the notion of love. But it’s also slow and ponderous.

Look, I do understand the degree to which the cowboy has been an iconic figure in motion pictures through the ages. Also, that many geriatric Academy members not only worked on oaters, but also worshipped Audie Murphy, Gene Autry, John Wayne and other saddle-sore celluloid heroes. And that only an equally iconic figure like Clint Eastwood could redefine the genre in Unforgiven in a way that didn’t turn off the old-timers. But, jeez, I’m not just talking about the geezers. I’m talking baby boomers and younger Academy members who are sketched out about seeing Brokeback.

Sure, even without seeing the movie, they could feel guilt-tripped or succumb to a herd mentality to vote for the gay-cowboy movie and strike a blow against Republican wedge politics and religious hatemongering. But, if they don’t, then Brokeback may lose for all the Right’s reasons.

Cantcha just see red-staters licking their lips to give Hollywood a verbal ass whooping after looking at Tuesday’s Oscar nominations? “Boy hidey, those show-biz folk are just a homo-promotin’, liberal-media-embracin’, minority-lovin’, devil-worshippin’, pimp-hustlin’, terrorist-protectin’ bunch of pansies, commies and traitors.” Or hollering “We was robbed!” when Walk the Line was blown off as a Best Picture contender.

On the other hand, you’d think the religious right would be dropping to their knees and thanking the Lord, for instance — about the miracle of Munich and Spielberg squeezing out nominations. It turned out just as I predicted back around Thanksgiving: Because of Steven’s involvement, Academy voters ignored the loudmouth neocons at The Weekly Standard and National Review who denounced the movie’s POV, and instead accepted on faith Spielberg’s much-fictionalized take on the Munich Olympics aftermath.

Overall, Tinseltown’s never been so proud to be savaged by right-wing punditry. That is, everywhere but at ABC, the award show’s broadcaster, where suits are tearing out their hair plugs anticipating in-the-cellar ratings because of the celeb polemics, the lack of blockbusters among the nominees, host Jon Stewart bitch-slapping Dubya, Dick Cheney and parent company Disney’s CEO Bob Iger. (The Daily Show wit reported on the recent $7 billion Pixar deal by asking, “Do you feel your children are beholden to too many multinational corporations?”)

American Idol is for amateurs. Bring on the pro-edition humilitainment we’ll see on Oscar night. Take George Clooney, who always said he’d never attend the Academy Awards unless he’s a nominee. So now he’s ass-kissed by the Geritol generation in not one, not two, but three different categories. Look for him to show up at the Kodak Theater all smiles only to be shitting by evening’s end, when he’ll be blanked bigtime.

Then there’s Mark Gill, kicked to the curb from Miramax by Harvey and Bob Weinstein back in 2002, when the longtime president confided that he’d be leaving when his contract expired. Who has the last laugh now? Harv and Bob lost control of Miramax. But Gill, now head of Warner Independent, slapped a Morgan Freeman narration on the French-made March of the Penguins and will see it win for Documentary Feature unless the Academy resents its $115 mil worldwide gross.

Speaking of Harv and Bob, Oscar campaigning has been less nausea-inducing than usual — that is, if you don’t dwell on the drivel being written by the Los Angeles Times and New York Times in their new awards-show blogs. (Please prescribe a Xanax stat for Tom O’Neil’s hyperventilated prose.) Interesting how this year’s absence of backbiting coincides with the Weinsteins’ MIA status while their new company gears up. Still, the dysfunctional duo did manage to eke out two Best Actress nods (Judi Dench for Mrs. Henderson Presents and Felicity Huffman for Transamerica). But don’t be surprised when gossip columns soon start outing category rival and current front-runner Reese Witherspoon as a Ku Klux Klan member or, worse, a Republican donor.

Meanwhile, it’s never too early to prognosticate about who’ll win these lame awards, who’ll lose, and who’ll just jerk off. (Sorry to work blue, but given that this year’s films include gay cowboys, trannies and a song about a pimp, just deal.)

BEST ACTOR: This category should be renamed Best Impersonation of a Real-Life Dead Guy. Terrence Howard fails to qualify. David Strathairn is known as an actor’s actor, which means he’s never the first guest on Leno or Letterman. Translation: He’s not flashy enough to win. Joaquin Phoenix played it like Johnny Cash Lite, so he’s out. Philip Seymour Hoffman eerily seemed more Capotesque than even the writer’s archival footage, so he’s the front-runner. Which leaves as his only serious competition Heath Ledger. I dunno, couldn’t he have married someone hotter than Michelle Williams? I think that lapse in judgment alone gives the Oscar to Hoffman.

BEST ACTRESS: The geezers love Dame Judi, but Dench won too recently. Same with Charlize Theron. Keira Knightley is too waifish; she needs to pack on 50 pounds for a role to get serious notice. Which leaves Felicity Huffman in the perennial Oscar-favored gender-bender role versus Reese Witherspoon in the less admired I-didn’t-think-I-had-to-sing role. Both are one-half of famous Hollywood couples: Felicity is married to William Macy, who always collects accolades, while Reese is wed to Ryan Phillippe, who mostly collects unemployment. Reese therefore gets the sympathy vote.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Forget loony William Hurt, who once fired an agent for “making me into a movie star.” Jake Gyllenhaal already has the next best thing to an Oscar: on-again-off-again girlfriend Kirsten Dunst. Matt Dillon hasn’t done anything decent since 1983, when he played opposite Ponyboy in The Outsiders. Not even George Clooney spitting up spinal fluid can mitigate those Vanity Fair glamourpuss photos of him at the wheel of the speedboat he keeps at his Lake Como villa. By contrast, Paul Giamatti looks like a troglodyte. The ugly guy wins.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: This is usually the wild-card category. (Two names: Marisa Tomei and Juliette Binoche.) Amy Adams and Michelle Williams are still nobodies. Frances McDormand already has one for Fargo. Catherine Keener always elevates the material, so that alone should make her the shoo-in for her work in Capote. But the Academy desperately wants to assuage its liberal guilt and bestow largess on The Constant Gardener. So Rachel Weisz is the beneficiary.

BEST DIRECTOR: Spielberg limped into this category. It’ll take more years for the Academy to forgive Clooney for making Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. Paul Haggis and Bennett Miller came close, admittedly. But Ang Lee wins for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

BEST PICTURE: Too close to call between Brokeback Mountain and Crash for the reasons I’ve cited above. But if the adulated Don Cheadle campaigns hard, give the edge to Crash.

If I were voting today...could change later.

Best Picture: Brokeback Mountain
Best Director: Ang Lee
Best Actor: Phillip S. Hoffman
Best Actress: Felicity Huffman
Best Supporting Actress: Amy Adams
Best Supporting Actor: George Clooney

I have seen Robert Morse in "Tru". Just because Morse was good in his role doesn't mean Hoffman is not good in his role or that the role is easy to play.

To me, Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash was more in the nature of mimicry. He brooded and looked dark and moody, and did a creditable job, but he never really seemed to inhabit Cash and project his interpretation of Cash as a person. That's the difference between mimicry and Hoffman's deeper inhabitation of a character.

Anyone who says Hoffman was mimicking Truman in the jail scenes where he interviewed Perry, the final scene where he says goodbye to the killers, and the execution scene is really missing something. Anyway, in those scenes, he was very still and said very little, so he was not mimicking Truman's distinctive voice and mannerisms. The scenes where he was truly great were the quietest and most introspective.

IF CRASH WINS FOR BEST PICUTURE WILL BE THE LAST TIME I CARE ABOUT THE OSCARS. (Something more that original screenplay ) Not even Editing, The story is so unvalance and focuses mostly in the confrontation of only two ethnic groups pretending that's the vision of LA. Give me a brake! Editing goes to MUNICH.

With last year's up-setting Million Dollar Baby, I got enough.

I am still confused why song from BBM was not nominated.... one explained because it was only used with ending credits..same is true for the nominated song from TRANSAMERICA; it was only used over the ending credits. I would still appricate an answer to the question as to why only 3 songs nominated. Thank you.

I am by no means saying that Hoffman is merely imitating or impersonating Capote. His is a masterful performance that is certainly among the year's best. (I am a longtime admirer of his work, both on stage and screen.) His performance as Capote, however, is no better than, although certainly as excellent as, Robert Morse's Capote in "Tru." Have you seen it?

Historical characters get played by different actors in various versions of "real life" stories. This allows for many comparisons and evaluations and possible rankings of the actors' "takes" on a "real life" person. (For example, I prefer Philip Baker Hall's "take" on Richard Nixon in Robert Altman's "Secret Honor" to that of the great Anthony Hopkins in Oliver Stone's "Nixon." This does not mean that Hopkins' performances is not good, but only that I, personally, aesthetically and subjectively, prefer Hall's. Hoffman's Capote and Morse's Capote are, in my opinion, equal in their effectiveness.)

What I AM saying is that Ledger's performance is superior because it is more creative, more insightful and more illuminating of the human condition. To witness and vicariously experience Ledger's mesmerizing and truthful performance is a unique, cathartic experience, and it is absolutely transcendent.

I beg to differ, but those who are seeing Hoffman as simply impersonating Capote are missing the point, completely. It's one thing to do a passable job pretending to be someone in a standard biopic - birth, career, to grave - like Jamie Foxx did, or Phoenix, or even Kevin Spacey. That's mimicry.

It's completely another to take a six year segment of someone's entire life and use it as the canvas on which to paint the whole colorful spectrum of a man's ethics, eccentricities, successes and failures. That takes unbelievable talent. It takes even more talent to get the audience to love someone so ethically challenged and mendacious, even as they recoil from his actions.

And that is precisely what Hoffman did with "Capote." His wasn't merely serviceable, or imitation. It was alchemy, a way of showing us not only who Capote was, but what drove his soul, for better or worse.

It's fun to watch people predict these things, but the last 16 of 19 Best Actor winners won both the SAG and the Globe. Also, how many actors had 20 critics awards going in?

Thankfully critics know their stuff, and recognize what a fabulous tour-de-force performance Hoffman gave in Capote.