So now that we've briefly gone over the 75 films screened from 1991, we can get into the Academy Awards. Just going by the non-specialty feature-length narrative categories, 25 films were nominated across 18 categories. We're only going to discuss a few of them this week, the nominees for Acting, Directing, and Best Picture, and, just like the 64th Academy Awards ceremony, we're starting with Best Supporting Actor:
Tommy Lee Jones, JFK
Harvey Keitel, Bugsy
Ben Kingsley, Bugsy
Michael Lerner, Barton Fink
Jack Palance, City Slickers
Three first-time nominees (Jones, Keitel, Lerner), three from (two) Best Picture nominees (Jones, Keitel, Kingsley), and one previous winner (Kingsley). Lot of overlap there, except for Hollywood veteran Jack Palance, up for his scene-stealing turn as cattle driver Curly in the smash hit City Slickers, his third nomination in a career that dated back to 1950’s Panic in the Streets. Veteran actor in a popular film giving the performance everyone's talking about - it's a familiar formula, you might even call it a winning one:
He wasn't the only winner of the lot, though. Keitel, up for playing the Los Angeles mobster Mickey Cohen, who teams up with Bugsy Siegel in Bugsy, was named Best Supporting Actor by the National Society of Film Critics for three roles: Bugsy, Thelma & Louise, and Mortal Thoughts (didn't see it). Lerner, as an Old Hollywood studio magnate in Barton Fink - a bit of Selznick, a bit of Mayer - hired a publicist and financed his own Oscar campaign after the Los Angeles Film Critics anointed him Best Supporting Actor at their annual awards; the absence of his co-star John Goodman, Golden Globe nominee and second runner-up at the New York Critics Circle Awards, was considered a surprise. As for the others, Kingsley, as New York mobster/Siegel's oldest friend Meyer Lansky, had been nominated at the Golden Globes, while Jones, as politician Clay Shaw, the only person ever put on trial for conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy, had only been honored by the Dallas-Fort Worth Critics Association, and Lord knows they're a prime target for Dealey Plaza stories.
He was also nominated at the BAFTAs, but due to British release dates, that wouldn’t happen until the following year. In fact, none of the nominees here were up for the 1991 BAFTAs, whose four-wide category consisted of Alan Bates for the 1990 Hamlet, Derek Jacobi for Dead Again, singer Andrew Strong for The Commitments, and Alan Rickman, who won for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. I think our category’s stronger, frankly!
My own rankings, from fifth to first:
5. Ben Kingsley as Meyer Lansky
Bugsy
past winner, second of four nominations; Golden Globe nominee for Best Supporting Actor
Kingsley is all business, shows where youthful camaraderie has given way to adult exasperation: he can only cover for Bugsy so long, and in the end, his first loyalty is to himself and the Combination. I wouldn’t say he popped, there’s no specific showcase scene that comes to mind, yet the performance manages to get under your bones. Like the real Lansky, Kingsley’s is a presence you feel even in the background.
4. Harvey Keitel as Mickey Cohen
Bugsy
only nomination; Golden Globe nominee for Best Supporting Actor, NSFC Awards winner for Best Supporting Actor
Under Keitel, Cohen’s sociopathy feels almost comic: he’s direct, no subtleties even considered, no finessing required, just a guy who lacks Siegel’s refinement but is just as nuts, making for a fun complement/contrast.
3. Jack Palance as Curly
City Slickers
third and final nomination; Golden Globe winner for Best Supporting Actor
Not to abuse the word "aura", but that's what Palance was hired for, and that's what he delivers. He doesn't need to do much more than just be, and somehow in his stillness, he communicates an intimidating stoicism, unflappable dependability, and a surprising fount of warmth. They promise the last badass of the West, and here he is.
2. Michael Lerner as Jack Lipnick
Barton Fink
only nomination; LAFCA Awards winner for Best Supporting Actor
When screenwriter Barton Fink first meets Jack Lipnick, the studio boss is surprisingly obsequious, praising Fink as an artist and a genius, laying it on so thick, it terrifies the writer even more. Once Barton realizes he's stuck and comes to Lipnick to try to massage expectations, Lerner's deportment pauses just enough to show us Lipnick is calculating the next move - and it's not just a grotesque parody of pandering to artistes, nor merely a calculated adaptation of the Jewish Mother's laying on of guilt - he makes it clear, amid all his blubbering, that the punishment inflicted upon Fink will be psychological, spiritual. He stands out, the nomination's no fluke.
1. Tommy Lee Jones as Clay Shaw (alias Clay Bertrand?)
JFK
first of four nominations; BAFTA Awards nominee for Best Supporting Actor [1992]
Debonair. Diabolical. Da gayest. In Oliver Stone’s hysterical conspiracy theory, the Gay Mafia plotted with Cuban refugees to assassinate President Kennedy, organized and led by Clay Shaw, played by Jones with the daintiest wrist flips and most dangerous stare downs you’ve ever seen. Jones plays him cocky enough that you want to see that smirk wiped from his face forever, but there are moments when that look hardens into possible menace - oh, yeah, you can easily imagine this guy pulling off an assassination without being bothered.
Tomorrow, the nominees for Best Supporting Actress: Diane Ladd (Rambling Rose), Juliette Lewis (Cape Fear), Kate Nelligan (The Prince of Tides), Mercedes Ruehl (The Fisher King), and Jessica Tandy (Fried Green Tomatoes).
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