Colin Firth better in "A Single Man" than "kings speech"

Outkast_IRE

Anyone else feel this way ? i felt he has put in better performances than the Kings speech already , he was good in the kings speech but i just felt like he has put in better performances already.
Is this one of those cases where we feel he just deserves the oscar at this stage so lets give it to him ?

ShagNastii

I can't comment on the King's speech as I yet to see it, I can on A Single Man. It was a great movie and near perfect performance. It must be stated he did get nominated for the part. The point you are debate is a tough one. I hate that aurgument that "they deserve one at this stage".

I find with the Oscars and the like the people nominated for their film and their performances are generally worthy winners. This is where past work surely has to be accounted for. If we look at last year for example.

Jeff Bridges – Crazy Heart as Otis "Bad" Blake
George Clooney – Up in the Air as Ryan Bingham
Colin Firth – A Single Man as George Falconer
Morgan Freeman – Invictus as Nelson Mandela
Jeremy Renner – The Hurt Locker as SFC. William James

I have seen all these movies and given a choice I'm left scratching my head. All great but which was the greatest? It is so tough to call. Film and TV awards when standards are high are impossible to judge at times.

RoRoCullen

No way, King's Speech by far

tim_holsters

Yes way, his performance in A Single Man was sublime.

Up-n-atom!

The Oscars love an obvious performance, they don't do subtle really. That's why actors who go through great physical changes or challenges during the performances, or who have to nail a specific accent or tick get rewarded. I haven't seen A Single Man but I'd imagine the performance is a bit more nuanced than in The King's Speech where Firth has a lisp and a stammer in every scene.

mike65

To win an Oscar you need to portray a cripple/idiot savant/noble savage. Bloke with severe speech impediment is close enough!

irishh_bob

mike65 wrote: »

To win an Oscar you need to portray a cripple/idiot savant/noble savage. Bloke with severe speech impediment is close enough!

hollywood also loves the british upper class thing

AnonoBoy

There's also the thing of awarding an actor for past movies that were overlooked.

If Al Pacino hadn't been in the Godfather I and II he wouldn't have won for hamming it up in Scent of a Woman.

edolan

Can't stand Colin Firth the fact that he has gotten an oscar before Gary Oldman is a joke.

Sad Professor

AnonoBoy wrote: »

There's also the thing of awarding an actor for past movies that were overlooked.

If Al Pacino hadn't been in the Godfather I and II he wouldn't have won for hamming it up in Scent of a Woman.

Yeah, this annoys me as well. But sometimes when somebody has been ignored for so long (as was the case with Pacino) they really have no choice but to give it to them for something.

Sad Professor

Sad Professor wrote: »

Yeah, this annoys me as well. But sometimes when somebody has been ignored for so long (as was the case with Pacino) they really have no choice but to give it to them for something.

Same thing happened to Peter O'Toole who seemed kinda insulted that he was given an honorary Oscar. He accepted the award graciously but he did speak in interviews about how he'd rafter win it for a performance he gave than a best of thing especially considering that he is the most nominated actor to never win an Oscar. John Wayne was the same, say what you will about him but the man was a damn good actor who gave a number of great performances, The Searchers is perhaps one of the top ten films ever made and Wayne gives a performance which is up there with the best of them. I'm sure that had he ever played a brave school teacher who relocated to a rough inner-city school and brought the joy of math to inner city kids while at the same time looking after his brother suffering from downs syndrome the Oscars would have been all over him but instead like many great actors he made the films he enjoyed making which were mainly westerns, something the Oscars have long overlooked.

mike65

Anyone fancy compiling a list of best actor/actress winners portraying characters with physical or mental "issues"? It must be quite long.

LittleBook

mike65 wrote: »

Anyone fancy compiling a list of best actor/actress winners portraying characters with physical or mental "issues"? It must be quite long.

Only going back to the 60s but not as long as I would have thought if we're just looking at winners.

You've got:

Colin Firth - Stammer (an "issue"?)
Jamie Foxx - Blind
Geoffrey Rush - Mental breakdown
Tom Hanks - er ... mentally challenged
Tom Hanks - AIDS victim
Al Pacino - Blind
Daniel Day-Lewis - Cerebral Palsy
Dustin Hoffman - Autism
Jon Voight - Paraplegic
Richard Dreyfuss - Paraplegic
Cliff Robertson - Mentally challenged

Doesn't work so well for the ladies:

Kate Winslet - Illiterate
Marion Cotillard - Addiction
Holly Hunter - Mute
Marlee Matlin - Deaf

But if you include alcoholism or depression as a mental issue, the list expands.

Add "based on a true story" and "triumph over adversity" and you've pretty much got them all.

mike65

If looking at supporting actors you can throw in quite a few more no doubt - John Mills in Ryan Daughter springs to mind.

The Recliner

LittleBook wrote: »

Doesn't work so well for the ladies:

Kate Winslet - Illiterate
Marion Cotillard - Addiction
Holly Hunter - Mute
Marlee Matlin - Deaf

But if you include alcoholism or depression as a mental issue, the list expands.

Add "based on a true story" and "triumph over adversity" and you've pretty much got them all.

Isn't Marlee Matlin actually deaf, so she got her award despite not even having to act. Pah!

If you included being a prostitute into the female category then it woulxd bump the numbers up a bit

I remember one year where 3 or 4 women in one category were playing prostitutes, the joke was "How many votes does Charlie Sheen get?"

ztoical

The general rule with women is that they have to make themselves ugly in order to win - Kidman in the Hours and Theron in Monster.

Plenty of folks have been given an award later then many thought they should have got it - Martin Scorsese should have got it many times over and many saw he's Oscar for the departed as being for his body of work. Judi Dench should have got it for Mrs. Brown and the following year gets it for her 6 mins of screen time in Shakespeare in Love.

LittleBook

The Recliner wrote: »

Isn't Marlee Matlin actually deaf, so she got her award despite not even having to act. Pah!

:pac:

LittleBook

ztoical wrote: »

The general rule with women is that they have to make themselves ugly in order to win - Kidman in the Hours and Theron in Monster.

Yes and the guys have to "go retard" (but never "full retard").

Sorry OP, we got a bit off topic there.

RoRoCullen

tim_holsters wrote: »

Yes way, his performance in A Single Man was sublime.

I prefer The King's Speech because he has more to work with. He was excellent in both, but in a Single Man he just looks bored.

Da Shins Kelly

I think with men, they have to have some physical or mental deficiency - unable to walk, blind, autistic, terminally ill, psychotic, etc. - in order to win. I thnk it also helps if they play some influential historical figure. This worked for Colin Firth in The King's Speech with the whole stammar thing, as well as the fact that the Academy seem to be obsessed with anything involving the British monarchy and he was playing a famous British king.

With women, it seems to be that they have to portray women who triumph over adversity, or play women who are somehow beat down, physically or mentally. Depressed, alcoholic, drug addicted, suffering from domestic violence, single mothers, women who hold the household together while the man goes off philandering, etc. all seem to be the roles that win for women.

tim_holsters

RoRoCullen wrote: »

I prefer The King's Speech because he has more to work with. He was excellent in both, but in a Single Man he just looks bored.

He hardly looked bored when given the news of the death of his partner.

TheEscapist

RoRoCullen wrote: »

in a Single Man he just looks bored.

Bit unfair to say he looked bored imo. I thought he was supposed to appear numb to the world around him and in a deep state of depression as a opposed to bored. It's a great performance. And in answer to the OP yes i think he's better in a Single Man than the. Kings Speech

xalot

A serious man was the first film that I found him interesting in. I wasn't mad about the film but I loved his performance, I thought he was much more subtle and absorbing than in the kings speech.

For me Geoffrey Rush stole the show in 'the kings speech'.

phasers

Jeff Bridges was Better in True Grit than in Crazy Heart. Kind of balances out.