Mister Tee wrote:Question for Oscar scholars: Can you explain Rafelson's exclusion from the directors' list while being cited for best picture? Wouldn't one think it'd be, if anything, the other way around?
Good question. But weren't the two directors (Fellini and Ken Russell) who DID get "other way around" director-not-picture nods that year, much more established and/or respected as auteurs? Fellini's nomination this year, in particular, must be for the most unpalatable-to-mainstream film ever nominated in this category. Seems that in this year anyway, the likes of Rafelson was not iconoclastic enough for a nomination.
Ah, a chance for me to stand apart from the majority.
In addition to some good alternates already mentioned (I'd almost forgotten Stella Stevens), I'd throw in Bea Arthur in Lovers and Other Strangers. She and Castellano were very much a team, and it puzzled me why he was cited but not her. The film doesn't seem as funny now as it did to me then, but their segments hold up best.
I was just old enough (18) to recognize Airport as complete swill, but not quite mature enough that I didn't see the appeal of Helen Hayes in it. What she did was shameless crowd-pleasing, but it seemed to me at the time that, on its cheap level, it worked. I have no desire to put myself through another viewing to see just how far downward I'd push my rating today.
Stapleton's nomination even at the time seemed strange to me, but I guess it got her started on the trajectory that led to her easy win in 81.
There's no other way for me to say this: Five Easy Pieces is an all-time "I don't get it" movie for me. I went in with the most vernal expectations, but, except for the infamous/shown-to-death Hold the chicken scene, it left me utterly cold -- I cared not one whit about the characters, and found the story largely unengaging. I thought maybe this was a case of wrong place/wrong time for me -- simply not in line with my undeveloped taste in 1970 -- but then I watched it again about a year ago, and, sad to say, liked it even less. It felt rambly, and, still, I couldn't work up an interest in Nicholson's central character. Don't bother trying to convince me I'm wrong; friends have been trying for decades without success.
Question for Oscar scholars: Can you explain Rafelson's exclusion from the directors' list while being cited for best picture? Wouldn't one think it'd be, if anything, the other way around?
As for the entrant here -- Black is OK but doesn't move me the way she obviously does many of you. (I was actually so unimpressed at the time that Hayes' win didn't bother me) And that recent re-viewing persuaded me the National Society at least had the right approach: I liked Lois Smith's work far more.
Sally Kellerman would have been an acceptable choice, though Damien is correct that her character is treated shabbily by the film. One doctor (Gould, I think) says in passing early on "Hot Lips, you're a pain in the ass, but you're a damn good nurse" -- yet by the finale she's reduced to a seemingly brainless cheerleader and the film seems pleased about it. Feminism was late coming to the left.
Of the five, I have to go with Lee Grant. I think she's far more memorable in The Landlord than in her winning film five years on. Her scene with Pearl Bailey is laugh-out-loud funny, easily the most memorable aspect of any of these five performances.
Strong runners-up for me beyond Lois Smith, who should have been nominated over Maureen Stapleton, were Beatrice Arthur in Lovers and Other Strangers; Estelle Parsons and Dorothy Stickney in I Never Sang for My Father; Pearl Bailey and Diana Sands in The Landlord; Jane Carr in Something for Everyone and Margaret Hamilton in Brewster McCloud.
Another vote for Karen Black here. Kellerman and Grant would've been fine choices too, but Black is on another level.
I'd've replaced the Airport ladies with Black's Five Easy Pieces co-star Lois Smith and The Ballad of Cable Hogue's Stella Stevens, with Grant's Landlord castmate Pearl Bailey a close #6.
I haven't seen The Landlord but I still feel comfortable voting this year because I've never much liked Lee Grant as an actress, and I think the deserving winner is so good that it's inconceivable that Grant could be better.
The best thing you can say about Airport is that it’s not nearly as stupid as The High and The Mighty, although it's still awful and absurd. And the worst thing about it is its Oscar-winning actress. Hayes is spectacularly abysmal – she can’t conjure up the slightest bit of charm for a character who was obviously intended to be a Sweet Old Lady – she’s simply unpleasant. And completely unbelievable. (Ruth Gordon was the original choice, and Jean Arthur did a screen test -- either would have been an immeasurable improvement over the mannered biddy.) One of the most egregious awards in Oscar history.
Maureen Stapleton doesn't have much to do in Airport, but only she and Barbara Hale bring even a modicum of truth and recognizability to this pathetic mess.
I like Sally Kellerman, but I cringe for her in M*A*S*H* for the treatment of her character is perhaps the quintessence of Robert Altman's frequent, unfortunately and unseemly forays into misogyny.
Although her subsequent career was uneven, Karen Black is extraordinary in Five Easy Pieces, creating a character who is heartbreaking without playing for pathos -- and she's also funny as hell. A great performance, which makes the victory for Madame Hayes all the more galling.
My Own Top 5:
1. Karen Black in Five Easy Pieces
2. Ruth Gordon in Where's Poppa?
3. Estelle Parsons in I Never Sang For My Father
4. Lois Smith in Five Easy Pieces
5. Jo Ann Pflug in M*A*S*H*
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"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
Karen Black is the run away choice for 1970. She's far superior to not only her fellow nominees but any other supporting actress performances that I have seen from this year.
My choices:
1. Karen Black for Five Easy Pieces
2. Hazel Phillips for The Set
3. Stella Stevens for The Ballad of Cable Hogue
4. Andrea Feldman for Trash
5. Mink Stole for Multiable Maniacs
"I want cement covering every blade of grass in this nation! Don't we taxpayers have a voice anymore?" Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) in John Waters' Desperate Living (1977)
I love Helen Hayes. I loved her in her early 30s films. I loved her in Anastasia. I loved her in The Snoop Sisters. I didn't exactly love her little old lady stowaway in Airport, but I have to admit that her outrageous overacting was the best thing in that tired old genre film. For that she deserved a nomination, but not an award.
Her co-star Maureen Stapleton didn't even deserve that. Stapleton would become one of my favorite actresses later in the decade with her great acting in the TV movies, Queen of the Stardust Ballroom and The Gathering, but here she was playing another one of her boring dowdy housewives.
The film that deserved two acting nominations in this category was Five Easy Pieces, the one it got for Karen Black's portrayal of Jack Nicholson's dumb, clingy girlfriend and the one it didn't get for Lois Smith as Nicholson's concert and recording star sister.
Lee Grant had perhaps her best screen role as Beau Bridges' racist mother in The Landlord and Sally Kellerman was a revelation as "Hot Lip" Hoolihan in M*A*S*H.
This should have been a race between the two breakout performers, Black and Kellerman, with Black winning for her very brave performance, but as we all know what should have been isn't always what is with Oscar. Nevertheless, she gets my vote.
