The nominees for 1991’s Best Actor:
Warren Beatty, Bugsy
Robert De Niro, Cape Fear
Anthony Hopkins, The Silence of the Lambs
Nick Nolte, The Prince of Tides
Robin Williams, The Fisher King
How does one define Best Actor, supposedly meant for leading players? Usually it’s pretty easy, you know who the lead is. Warren Beatty plays Bugsy Siegel in Bugsy; it’s right there in the title! Nick Nolte is in every scene of The Prince of Tides, the movie follows his arc, easy. Robin Williams is more of a co-lead in The Fisher King: the first 20 minutes are all Jeff Bridges and we don’t witness Williams outside of Bridges’ POV until past the halfway point, but he and Bridges are unquestionably the two arcs we follow, of equal importance. Ditto Robert De Niro in Cape Fear, which appears to be Nick Nolte’s movie (what a year he had!), but it doesn’t take long for De Niro’s psychopathic Max Cady to take center stage - unquestionably the co-lead.
The one that people still debate, however, is Anthony Hopkins in his first go as Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs. The film follows Clarice Starling’s pursuit of serial killer Buffalo Bill, she comes to Lecter for consultation purposes. There was no doubt he was going to get nominated - when the movie premiered and Hopkins and Jodie Foster hit the red carpet for the 1990 Oscars, reporters even asked him if he felt like this was his dress rehearsal for the following Oscars - but until campaigning began in earnest in late Autumn, he was the favorite to win Best Supporting Actor - even the National Board of Review named him so!
But apparently Hopkins disagreed, convincing the studio publicists to push him for Lead. He went from odds-on favorite to presumed second banana: how could he possibly hope to win against the raw emotional nakedness of Nolte, who’d taken the Golden Globe and various critics’ prizes? Of course, we know now, Hopkins was unstoppable:
But was it category fraud? I say no. Starling is how we get to Lecter, and once we do, he has an arc of his own to follow, separate from hers: the slow manipulation of resources that will allow for his escape. And interactions with Lecter have their impact on Starling, too, both in her approach to the case and in how she sees herself. Hopkins is a Lead.
But should he have won? My rankings, from fifth to first:
5. Robin Williams as Parry
The Fisher King
third of four nominations; Golden Globe winner for Best Actor - Musical/Comedy
Someone has to be #5, this is no knock on Williams’ performance. He has to play crazy, but not off-putting; charming, but believably traumatized; living in fantasy, but recognizable to our reality. It’s more mechanism than man, but he does all right, even if he never really finds more depth in his performance than there is on the page.
4. Robert De Niro as Max Cady
Cape Fear
past two-time winner; sixth of eight acting nominations; Golden Globe nominee for Best Actor - Drama
De Niro is basically a cartoon, and I mean that as a compliment. His accent recalls Bette Davis in Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte - you could easily hear him with that high Southern whine going, “You are a vile, sorry little bitch!” But he’s no less menacing for how over-the-top he is; if anything, he’s more so because he seems so impossible. Such people don’t exist in real life, yet the more time we spend watching him, the more frighteningly real De Niro makes him.
3. Nick Nolte as Tom Wingo
The Prince of Tides
first of three nominations; Golden Globe winner for Best Actor - Drama, LAFCA Awards winner for Best Actor; NSFC Awards second runner-up for Best Actor, NYFCC Awards second runner-up for Best Actor
There’s a great stretch of about 40 minutes where Nolte is slowly, somewhat reluctantly but perhaps more openly than he expects, tearing down the walls to reveal the past, horrifying trauma that has marked him and his sister since adolescence. Nolte’s performance in that final bearing of the soul is incredible, the movie must be watched for that scene alone. He’s great in the rest, too, or else that scene wouldn’t work at all.
2. Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter
The Silence of the Lambs
first of two wins, first of six nominations; BAFTA Awards winner for Best Actor, National Board of Review's Best Supporting Actor of 1991, NYFCC Awards winner for Best Actor; Golden Globes nominee for Best Actor - Drama
A controlled, hypnotic performance, you can feel his words burrowing into the brain of whoever is opposite him, his strange cadence numbing their defenses - of course, it helps that we often are the very people opposite him, as he stares directly, unblinkingly, yet chummily, into the camera. His smile is mocking, Hopkins knows just how to crinkle the eyes without feeling. And he makes a meal (heh) of some of Lecter’s line readings, like when he notices Clarice’s “cheap shoes.” An undeniable, malevolent presence.
1. Warren Beatty as Benjamin Siegel
Bugsy
fourth and final acting nomination; National Board of Review's Best Actor of 1991; Golden Globe nominee for Best Actor - Drama, LAFCA Awards runner-up for Best Actor, NSFC Awards runner-up for Best Actor
Maybe Beatty’s just better in “cops ‘n’ robbers” mode. His Benjamin Siegel feels more eccentric than outright "bugsy"...until the violence starts. Sometimes it's chillingly casual, sometimes it's feral: you get a sense for Siegel's street punk roots and this attempt at reinvention, a man who thinks he has it all under control, including himself, but remains ungovernable. That's not just his temper, either, but in matters of business and romance: he's all passion.
Next up, the nominees for Best Actress: Geena Davis (Thelma & Louise), Laura Dern (Rambling Rose), Jodie Foster (The Silence of the Lambs), Bette Midler (For the Boys), and Susan Sarandon (Thelma & Louise).
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