Mimicry not Originality winning Oscars

Tipsy McSwagger

I'm sick to death of actors winning oscars for doing nothing more than mimicing somebody famous. Meryl Streep is guaranteed at least a nomination for best actress for her role as Margaret Thatcher and will probably win it. But she has a huge advantage over the other nominees in being able to study the former PM while the other 4 nominees have to bring a character to life from scratch no matter how developed they are in the screenplay or book that it's based on. This is why Daniel Day Lewis's performance is so impressive in There Will Be Blood, a stunning performance that he developed and brought to life. In the last seven years the best Oscar went to Colin Firth, Sean Penn, Forest Whitaker, Philip Seymour Hoffman & Jamie Foxx who played real life famous people. It's ridiculous and it's cheating the other nominees IMO.

Penn

Tipsy McSwagger wrote: »

I'm sick to death of actors winning oscars for doing nothing more than mimicing somebody famous. Meryl Streep is guaranteed at least a nomination for best actress for her role as Margaret Thatcher and will probably win it. But she has a huge advantage over the other nominees in being able to study the former PM while the other 4 nominees have to bring a character to life from scratch no matter how developed they are in the screenplay or book that it's based on. This is why Daniel Day Lewis's performance is so impressive in There Will Be Blood, a stunning performance that he developed and brought to life. In the last seven years the best Oscar went to Colin Firth, Sean Penn, Forest Whitaker, Philip Seymour Hoffman & Jamie Foxx who played real life famous people. It's ridiculous and it's cheating the other nominees IMO.

In a way, it's just as hard to mimick someone else as it is to develop a new character. In developing a new character, you have more freedom to do what you want with it. If you want to move that characters hands in a certain way, you can. But people playing the role of a real person means they are much more limited in what they can do with that character, and they have to try and make the character their own rather than just do an impression of them.

The real character has certain mannerisms or ways of speaking which the actor has to adhere to, yet they still have to make you believe that they are that character. Whereas being a new character means the actor can do whatever they feel is necessary to make you believe they are that character.

Acting is acting. Whether it's a new or existing character, the result you see on the screen has to work for that movie.

mikhail

There's unquestionably some skill to it, but not so much that I disagree with Tipsy.

I would point out though that Meryl Streep could walk through the set of a movie and pick up an Oscar nomination. She's unquestionably very good, but she's also a bit of a default choice for a nomination.

foxyboxer

It's portraying someone.

Liken it to an artist painting aristocracy back in the day.
Only the most skilled artists were sought out and could name a fee.

Day-Lewis also won for 'portraying' Christy Brown too.
The character wouldn't have been known to the general public abroad,
in the say way that I hadn't heard of Harvey Milk before either.

DeepBlue

I think your mistake here is thinking that an Oscar actually means anything other than that the film had the best marketing campaign.

Galvasean

I suppose a comparison to music could possibly be made. Cover bands generally don't win best band awards. Such awards are usually reserved for original pieces.

p to the e

This is always a hard one to call because I've always thought something along the lines of this. What annoyed me was Philip Seymour Hoffman winning for Truman Capote then Toby Jones doing another fantastic portrayal the year after doesn't even get recognised.

I think if an actor can bring something novel out of the character or can show that they put an extreme amount of work into their role (á la Daniel Day Lewis and Natalie Portman) and not just doing a decent impression of them (á la Jamie Foxx, a confident, piano playing black guy portraying a confident, piano playing, blind black guy).

There are many roles that have won awards that many people probably don't even realise are based on real people or there is very little material available to study, so it's harsh to not nominate anybody that is playing a real life character. As i said I think it depends on what the actor/actress can bring to the role.

nyarlothothep

As with all award ceremonies I don't regard the Oscars as anything particularly meaningful. I literally don't care if a film wins it or not. So a group of self appointed critics proclaim this or that film to be worthy of an award they hand out, big deal, I'd like to make up my own mind without being told through a human social circus exercise what constitutes good or bad art.

Nolanger

They only give Oscars to films that do well at the box office so that rules out most of the better movies.

Jimdagym

Nolanger wrote: »

They only give Oscars to films that do well at the box office so that rules out most of the better movies.

Like the Hurt Locker?

MisterAnarchy

The early favourites for best actor and actress this year are all actors portraying real people.

Meryl Streep: Margaret Thatcher
Michelle Williams: Marilyn Monroe
Leonardo Di Caprio:J Edgar Hoover
Brad Pitt:Billy Beane