Best Lead Performer
There are a many strange things about trying to decide who is the ‘best actor’ because whatever performance they give is through the lens of a director and rewritten by the editor.
Why we should join the Oscar for Best Actor and Best Actress into one award.
There are a many strange things about trying to decide who is the ‘best actor’ because whatever performance they give is through the lens of a director and rewritten by the editor. We also don’t know what they set out to do. For example, in Dr. Strangelove, George C. Scott, wanted to play the role of General Buck Turgidson straight, but was tricked into performing over the top “practice takes” for comedic effect by Kubrick. The main point is that “Best Actor” sounds objective, when really it is a completely subjective affair, alongside the fact that the academy who votes on these matters may well have vested interests in improving revenue of their own films.
There is however another anomaly in way these awards are designed and that is that there are gender boxes for the acting awards, but for none of the others. We don’t see best female editor, or best female VFX, or best female Director.
I have talked previously about the problems that arise from the lack of female directors in the industry and I think giving female talent more airtime can only be a good thing. HOWEVER I cannot think of anything more patronising than saying to female directors they are going to be in a new “little league” for the girls. This isn’t sport, there are no justifiable arguments like “men are on average bigger or stronger”. This is a creative intelligence thing in which men and women are entirely comparable and it you disagree I suggest you go away read ‘The Mismeasure of Man’ and rethink your approach.
One argument against combining Best Actor and Best Actress is that men and women on screen can’t get the same jobs unlike anything behind the camera. I have to say I thoroughly disagree for two reasons.
- Because there are a lot of things that make people unsuitable for a role- race, size, age are just a few examples. It would be ridiculous to suggest categories like the Best Tall Female Hispanic Leading actor in a 20-30 age bracket.
- Prosthetics and makeup are currently good enough that this is no longer a consideration. Take for example Todd Haynes surrealist Bob Dylan Biopic I’m Not There. It’s shows Bob Dylan at different stages in his life from young boy to old man and how they would interact if they met. It has a stellar cast; Christian Bale, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Ben Wishaw and in my opinion the most convincing and engaging Bob Dylan (based appearance and mannerisms) is Cate Blanchett.
There are also many other movies out there in which a woman play men, and more difficultly people on both sides of a transsexual operation (Transamerica).
The only problem I see with this now is that there are many more men in movies, and most leading characters are male (Only 1/3 are women). This may push women to the back of the pack in the awards. However I think that we have to make a decision as to whether we should patronise artists at the cost of giving them more airtime. Maybe this is an idea that works better in a perfect world where woman are equally represented in film, but I think we need to standardise our approach and not have a system in place that would have given Kathryn Bigelow a Best Female Director award instead of a Best Director Award.
