Correcting Oscar 1994

[Big Magilla]

This was one of the toughest years to handicap for me.

My take on all three is that they are borderline lead but fall more comfortably into the supporting category.

I see Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood as unbeatable, so no matter who was put up against him he would still win, which means that neither Freeman nor Travolta would have won no matter which category they were placed in.

My choice for Best Actor was NY Film Critics award winner Paul Newman in Nobody's Fool with Hanks, Hugh Grant in Four Weddings and a Funeral, Tim Robbins in The Shawshank Redemption, and Ralph Fiennes in Quiz Show filling out the remaining slots. Nigel Hawthorne never entered into my consideration.

Besides Landau, I have to keep Paul Scofield in Quiz Show and Gary Sinise in Forrest Gump in their slots so moving Freeman and Travolta to that category means displacing Chazz Palminteri and Samuel L. Jackson although I could make a case for keeping Jackson and displacing Scofield. It's tough one in either case.

[Sabin]

Okay, here we have likely one of the two most disputed category fraud instances of the decade (the other being Hopkins).

Before we get to it, I'm including Morgan Freeman's performance as a possible supporting entry for The Shawshank Redemption. The film is entirely about Tim Robbins' character as told through Freeman's point of view. On the page, I think Red might be the clearer supporting role but Freeman makes him a pervasive presence. Although he's on-screen for 43.53% of the time, that doesn't account for his voice. It's just one of those transformative acts of casting.

I vote to keep him in lead. Had he been moved to supporting, I think he might have actually ended up winning.

And then we get to John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson for Pulp Fiction. The former is on-screen for 33.36% of the time and the latter is on-screen for 25.53% of the time. I have to believe the closeness of these two has to have something to do with just how much the camera lingers on Jackson during his climactic first act monologue. But anyway, first let's look at what the critics groups said. John Travolta was seen as a leading performance across the board. With Jackson, it was a little more split. Obviously, he was nominated as supporting at the Oscars, the BAFTA, the Golden Globes, and SAG. He was nominated as lead at the Chicago Film Critics, New York Film Critics, Film Independent, and a few more. To muddy the waters further, The National Society of Film Critics cited him for both [EDIT: and the New York Film Critics Circle), which only means that during voting he missed winning Supporting Actor and they tried to vote for him again for Lead Actor. Anyway, I wouldn't say consensus was split but there were enough rumblings that he wasn't just a supporting performance, which I certainly understand both for the nature of the performance (insanely forceful) and the nature of the film.

Let's talk about the film. The first question is, are there any leads in Pulp Fiction? We obviously know that Travolta has the most screen-time by virtue of appearing in the second story without Jackson. He also gets the unexpected exit before reappearing. But the story certainly isn't driven by Vincent Vega. It's driven by an assortment of stories that amount to... well, either something or nothing depending on how you feel about the movie. I could see Pulp Fiction being the kind of film that has no lead and only has supporting performances with none greater than the other. But one could also make the argument that if there were a protagonist in the film it would be both Vincent and Jules. Whenever I describe the film, I almost always make first mention of "Two Hitmen who..." The most meaningful arcs of the film involve Vincent and Jules' stories together. Y'know, the A Story, which clearly pivots between the two of them. There's something that has always rang slightly false about Travolta being not just lead to Jackson's support but about Travolta being the film's only lead.

Interested in what everyone else says but right now I'm inclined to elevate Jackson to lead status where I have no doubt he would get in, likely taking Nigel Hawthorne's spot.

This would open up a spot in Best Supporting Actor which would most likely go to John Turturro for Quiz Show. The Academy was reticent to nominate two performances from the same film in the same category back in those days but they did it for Bullets over Broadway over in Best Supporting Actress so maybe they would do it for Turturro. He had a Golden Globe and a SAG nomination so he would be the likeliest contender. The Globes nominated Kevin Bacon for The River Wild which (as a sole nominee) I don't see making the cut. It's also possible that they go with Simon Callow or John Hannah for Four Weddings and a Funeral. Callow had the spirited presence throughout but Hannah had the emotional eulogy. Turturro is the safe bet but I might say Callow.