Supporting Actress Smackdown - 1983

Due to a major editing error on my part, the Smackdown has been revised, reorganized and re-tallied to more accurately reflect the contributions of all the Smackdowners who submitted. My apologies for any/all confusion. 12:08pm. 6/28/08

The Year is...

1983
And the Smackdowners for the 56th Annual Academy Awards are...
AARON of Tea To Pour
BROOKE of The Performance Review
ENCORE of Encore Entertainment
JOE R. of Low Resolution
MATT LANDIG
DOUGLAS RACSO of RacsO Ledger
REGGIE of The Supporting Actress
WALTER of The Silver Screening Room
with
yours truly, STINKYLULU.

And for your viewing pleasure, consider this capture of the actual ceremony...

click image to be routed to video

1983's Supporting Actresses are...
(Each Smackdowner's comments are arranged according to ascending levels of love. Click on the nominee's name/film to see StinkyLulu's Supporting Actress Sunday review.)

Cher in Silkwood

ENCOREAt first glance you're impressed because she plays subdued well, but you look again and it doesn't really add up. A noble effort, but she playing it ends up being a character and not a person.
MATTThe part's sketchy, and the film doesn't always know what to do with her, but Cher gives her role some appealingly playful rowdiness in her early scenes and shows a relaxed interplay with Streep and Russell. Pretty good work.
STINKYLULUCher’s deglammed portrayal of the grubby Dolly dismantles the performer’s glittering celebrity persona and proclaims the arrival of a serious acting talent. A simple, sensitive and significant performance.
AARONThe only thing we really know about Dolly Pelliker is that she is in love with Karen Silkwood, but Cher manages to still make Dolly enigmatic and intriguing. Whose side is she on? That Cher doesn’t make this clear complicates this picture considerably.
BROOKE CLOUDBUSTERWithout ever being the centre of attention, Cher crafts a character through many minor notes and beats and navigates a late-game and slow burning twist with remarkable nuance.
REGGIECher proved herself as a talented actress in this raw and heartbreaking performance. Dolly is depressed and lonely for love, and Cher fully delievers the goods.
WALTER“I don’t mean I love you, too.” Subtle and wonderful. Holy crap do I love Cher.
JOENot to be a cliché, but she's wonderful. Enigmatic enough that even the camera holds her at a distance, but Cher makes Dolly familiar and her struggles -- while firmly on the margins of the story -- feel real.
DOUGLAS RACSOUnderplayed but striking. It’s as if she was not acting at all because her performance came out so naturally. She does not have those obvious Oscar-grabbing moments, but her whole performance gives the full experience.

TOTAL: 34s

Glenn Close in The Big Chill

JOETo her credit, she's absolutely the brightest thing about a movie I (somewhat unexpectedly) viscerally disliked. She makes sure her character has more going on internally than the clichés the script handed out. Still, there's only so far she can go.
DOUGLAS RACSOI think she got nominated because she got the emotional parts, crying during dinner and all that mush. But other than playing her part well I just do not get this nomination. She was good and all but I think that she did not shine, nor stood out, much more, give an Oscar calibre performance.
MATTGlenn Close contributes a needed calm, centered persona, providing a fairly effective contrast to the rest of The Big Chill's rambunctious bunch. She's watchable, but her mature, serene presence is also the least interesting of the movie's marvelous ensemble.
REGGIEGlenn as Sarah is pretty good...she really adds a lot to the movie. Her big scene with Mary Kay Place was excellent, I thought. So, good performance.
BROOKE CLOUDBUSTERClose plays her role in this adeptly, but without any of her now-characteristic edge or intensity. The nature of the role doesn’t help her, sketchily written and within narrow boundaries, but this is like getting Rembrandt to colour-by-numbers.
WALTERThe talk on the porch. So full of wisdom gained, dreams deferred, lingering regret, that overall air of “where did it go”. Beautifully done, and the sobbing in the shower scene serves as just icing on the cake.
ENCOREShe doesn't overplay the role and go for loudness. It's almost as if we can feel what she's thinking. From the first shot I was hooked and haven't looked back since.
STINKYLULUStill waters run very, very deep in Glenn Close’s Sarah. With meticulous generosity, Close crafts a haunting portrait of unarticulated grief. And that Close makes the idiotic “here, make a baby with my husband!” bit feel almost real? Now there’s some exceptional actressing.
AARONThis role could have been boring and suffering, but instead it is nuanced and beautiful. Close allows us to understand Sarah, emerging slowly from her immediate grief into a more powerful sadness and calm. A great performance.

TOTAL: 30s

Linda Hunt in The Year of Living Dangerously

STINKYLULUHunt's accomplishment in the role of Billy Kwan – both in terms of craftsmanship and emotional intensity – is utterly unique and, often, simply marvelous. I adore the fact of Linda Hunt, yet Weir’s cynical construction of the role sours me on the performance.
AARONI assume the gender switch is supposed to add to Billy’s mysteriousness. Instead it reads as gimmicky and works to distance us from his journey. Hunt’s physical work is often excellent, but the whole is rather disconnected.
ENCOREThis performance left me feeling a little cold. She's not a bad man, but that doesn't mean it's a great performance. It's not a bad performance, but I was just I didn't care for it.
JOEThe reasons she won are certainly cynical (not just the novelty of the performance but also the nature of the role), but Hunt really does deliver a spirited performance. In a weak field, she probably deserves to place.
WALTERAbsolutely incredible. Though Gibson and Weaver are fine, the film only truly comes alive when Hunt is on screen. That last sequence leading up to the hotel – breathtaking.
DOUGLAS RACSOShe was the heart and conscience of this movie and she stole every scene she was in. She totally deserves the nomination, and the win, is something you would have to wait for if I think she deserves it.
BROOKE CLOUDBUSTERHunt plays all the sides and facets of Billy Kwan with equal amounts of depth and clarity, but her key success is never mistaking a moral compass for beatification. Brilliance distilled.
REGGIENo matter what sex, whoever played this character, man or woman, would have won the Oscar. Billy Kwan is happy, mysterious, and longing for some companionship....not to mention the fact, Hunt totally slips into her character and had me convinced to this day.
MATTA gender-bending feat that never feels false or gimmicky; Hunt convinces us with her magically engrossing voice and authority. Our ambassador to Weir's shadow-puppet world, her Billy Kwan is both puppet and master – one who manipulates events, yet is tragically controlled by his idealism.

TOTAL: 34s

Amy Irving in Yentl

JOEUmm ... oy? I'm not sure how else to sum up this performance. Even if the stilted awkwardness is intentional (I'm sure it is), it's so one-dimensional that it's hard to give her credit. Might have deserved that Razzie nod, though.
WALTERSmall wonder that this is the only Academy Award nominee to also be nominated for a Razzie. What is this role? Lifeless, dead-eyed, dull – not that there’s much to work with. Disappointing.
DOUGLAS RACSOIrving’s performance was nearly wallpaper for the movie, or an accessory, or a part of the set. Yes, she was there but I hardly felt her presence, and it baffles me that she got an Oscar nomination for this (though she deserved that Razzie nomination).
ENCOREThe highest compliment I could find was that she's good looking. Positively steamrolled by Babs in any which way and she doesn't even look like she's trying!
BROOKE CLOUDBUSTERAmy Irving has an incredible ability to play the different angles of fragility and serenity, but this role relies on further stretching than this and the actress often mistakes silence for subtlety.
REGGIEWhat can I possibly say? Irving does what she's supposed to do with this performance, but her, and the movie, are just simply not good. Irving's best scenes are with Streisand, but it simply isn't good enough.
AARONIn a mostly silent performance, Irving demonstrates her emotional shifts through her physicality. Still, Hadass is never that interesting of a character, and early on when Avigdor asked “what could she be thinking?” I felt sure the answer was “nothing.”
STINKYLULUIn a solid (and unfairly maligned) performance, Irving embodies the idealized, deferential Hadass with ethereal warmth and formidable feeling; the actress aptly conveys the character’s shifting (and largely concealed) conflicts as she is transformed by her encounter with Streisand’s Anshel.
MATTBeautiful, sensuous, and languorous, Amy Irving embodies Singer's storybook maiden to perfection. At turns touchingly innocent and amusingly, lustily sly, she displays pitch-perfect rapport with her fellow actors and inhabits Streisand's burnished-golden universe with delicacy.

TOTAL: 18s

Alfre Woodard in Cross Creek

MATTTries to inject energy into this survival-amid-the-marshlands tale. Unfortunately, nobody voted her scene partner (an abysmal Mary Steenburgen) off the swamp. And without a better-developed script and less narcoleptic direction, Woodard can't redeem this boggy biopic.
JOEThe clichéd nature of the role was kind of exhausting, but Woodard brought to it her characteristic warmth and a youthful exuberance that didn't always read "simple." Kind of sucks this remains her only nomination.
WALTEREven if the screenplay doesn’t, Woodard manages to subtly, simply convey the friendship and affection between Geechee and Marjorie. I wish the movie did more than keeping her in the background, though even there she is interesting to watch.
DOUGLAS RACSOWoodard made the most out of the material given to her and it really paid off. She was the hidden gem of this movie – touching and memorable – to but I kinda wish that she was given more.
BROOKE CLOUDBUSTERThis actress imbues a stereotype with her own characteristic intelligence and uncommon brand of charm. She stops short of running away with the movie outright, but this is certainly a worthwhile performance, and nomination.
AARONWoodard is energetic and lovable in the role, but, though the actress fleshes her out considerably, director Ritt isn’t really interested in Geechee (not even enough for a real name).
REGGIEWoodard's Geechee is possibly her best performance. She knows why the character does what she does, like a real actress should. Geechee is comic relief, but we still feel her pain and struggle. Great performance.
STINKYLULUWoodard invests nuance, texture and humanity in what was scripted to be a one-note role. Yet through the combined force of her charisma, empathy and intelligence, Woodard's performance permits us to feel that single note with uncommon depth and resonance.
ENCOREShe takes a clichéd role and makes it great. She's beautiful to watch and steals the show in what could have become such a stock character.

TOTAL: 27s

Oscar chose...
Linda Hunt
in The Year of Living Dangerously

But, in something of a nailbiter,
the SMACKDOWN sees things
somewhat differently,
choosing BOTH
CHER & LINDA HUNT as our

Best Supporting Actress of 1983!

A true tie. A first.
SO, lovely reader, what do YOU think?
Please share your thoughts in comments.