A Performer's Product

It's now been a few months now since the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that the "Best Picture" category of the Oscars will be expanded to 10 nominees in hopes to honor a more diverse collection of pictures. This comes just in time as this year has showcased some great Sci-Fi epics (Star Trek) and animated wonders (Up, Ponyo) that will hopefully receive the respect they deserve.

But there is still one issue that I take with the Academy Awards. The Academy seems to be favoring performances depicting real people in biopics. In the past five years, two of the Best Actress in a Leading Role winners (June Carter, Queen Elizabeth II) and four from Best Actor in a Leading Role (Ray Charles, Truman Capote, Idi Amin, Harvey Milk) have been playing real people. Not that there is no merit in those performances. Indeed actors can show off their range by playing different people very well, but I think we are forgetting the art of creating a character. Actors are artists and can most powerfully show their skill by turning what was only ink on paper into a living person that we care about.

I will begin by saying that I have not seen the film Milk so I cannot argue that Sean Penn did not deserve the Oscar for his performance. But I can push for performances like the one Richard Jenkins delivered in The Visitor. I was very glad that the Academy nominated him for a performance that could have easily been overlooked. But the reason that it could have been overlooked was because of its simplicity. It was not flashy. It did not call much attention to itself. But it may have been the most human performance I have ever seen. It is strange to think that Walter Vale is only a character and does not really exist in this world. Jenkins so completely created a person and for that he deserves an ovation.

It is so hard to label a performance "best" when they are all so different. Sometimes there is a clear-cut winner, but more often the level of excellence among the nominees prompts a vote of preference and not superiority. I simply hope that as we see (hopefully) more diversity in the Best Picture category we will see more diversity in the nominations and winners of the performance categories as well.