A Best Actress 2019 Hot Take

so I was researching for a totally different video when something kind of unexpected happened Olivia cold maybe a lot of people asked me to break down this year's Best Actress race because the result came as kind of a surprise even to Olivia Colman I know I was pretty confident Glenn Close to win I mean look at these tweets but since then I've done my best to map out how I think all of this played out because while I don't think Olivia Coleman's win was necessarily predictable it wasn't without logic or precedence so we're gonna get into it admittedly in a less academic serious way than usual because I want to get my personal thoughts on paper so to speak and that way we can have a conversation about a season we all just witnessed together for me the goal and the reason I'm interested in this isn't to compete or to say who's better than Who it's to understand how Hollywood looks at women and at their careers votes indicate value so what at any given point does Hollywood value how do women navigate an industry that is only now consciously striving to make a space for them making sense of the Oscars is one way to approach these questions so when we ask how or why did someone win we have to pull back and think not only about their films but also about their narratives this year specifically we saw a lot of familiar patterns would it be a legend gone too long on rewarded and underappreciated a breakthrough newcomer who broke hearts on her first try a pop goddess turned actress whose vocal skills stunned audiences a British powerhouse is exploding in America or maybe a comedian showing a more serious side there's an argument and a precedence for all of them but like most years you have to read the room and see where the winds are blowing when you're thinking about who's going to win and as far as I could tell the race realistically came down to three individuals Lady Gaga Glenn Close and Olivia Colman in theory the Oscars should award the best performance of a given year in practice it almost never does one because art is subjective and therefore a hierarchical ranking is practically impossible to determine and to because voters are acutely aware of factors beyond a performance which inevitably affects how they view it as individuals that could be anything hey she seemed like a nice person on Fallon to my cousin said she was mean on set but as a group the voting body can become something of a hive mind particularly attuned to its past errors and oversights the Academy often takes corrective measures to atone for these past mistakes which is why you might see someone win for quote unquote the wrong film or for less significant works in their filmography on this channel for example we've seen how Betty Davis who failed to win an Oscar for a gritty breakout role in of Human Bondage was awarded the following year for a relatively weaker role and film dangerous another corrective measure is the Career Award for actors who have accumulated enough Oscar caliber performances and nominations but for one reason or another just haven't taken one home yet the Academy tends to nod say it's time and finally throw them a bone again usually but not always for less significant works Julianne Moore for example wanted her fifth nomination Kate Winslet on her sixth Shirley MacLaine did too and didn't want anyone to forget it because the show has been as long as this kind of Oscar happens a lot going into the 91st Academy Awards it's stood to reason that it was Glenn Close his turn - here it's time her nomination for the wife was her seventh certainly she's clocked enough oscar caliber performances fatal attraction Dangerous Liaisons I mean 101 Dalmatians plus many of the typical indicators of an Oscar win followed the Critics Choice tie with Lady gaga the Spirit Award and then the Golden Globe where she gave honestly one of the best acceptance speeches I've heard in a long time she seemed poised and ready but you know who else won that night Olivia Colman if you're British or you watch a lot of British TV you've known for a long time about Olivia Colman broadchurch fleabag Peep Show the night manager she's been a fixture at the BAFTAs since 2012 and not for nothing Olivia Colman works in subtleties you aren't even aware exists until she shows them to you and yet she's equally capable of extreme expression that overwhelms her being if you see in season two of broadchurch you know exactly what I'm talking about so yes Olivia has been around and a thing for a long time but it's not like American audiences have ever had a full scale Olivia Colman moment until the favorite and if you saw the favorite you probably understand why that conversation is happening full disclosure I am obsessed with Olivia Coleman's performance in the favorite like it slapped me across the face and I said thank you and I offered it a ride home I don't think I'm alone in this given that she literally just won an Oscar for it and at least anecdotally I hardly read a negative word about her performance this entire award season this speaks to one of Olivia's very real and probably most significant advantages her role was juicy as hell and checked virtually every Oscar bait category imaginable a period piece about a queer monarch who was essentially in a love triangle in the middle of a war and is on the verge of a mental breakdown caused in part by the trauma of losing multiple children oh and she has gout the role gives her a lot to do and Olivia Colman being Olivia Colman she can make the most out of a subtle realization and a not-so-subtle realization the script well the film as a whole became another of Olivia's advantages the favorite tied with Roma for the most nominations this year at 10 and while it's true that it didn't win anything other than Best Actress it technically had a stronger showing than both the wife and a star is born Glen represented the wife's only nomination the film's only point of conversation during award season it's not impossible to win for a film's only nomination most recently Julianne Moore did it but it's not exactly likely either the wife sold itself as a story for the me2 era a story about a woman emerging from the sidelines to reclaim her power I would argue that the favorite in its own absurd way also captured this moment because it's about women wielding and enacting power and especially at a time when there's a sort of loosening grip on reality and a deterioration of traditional power structures like wow totally relatable a star is born began this season as a likely winner for Best Picture but as time progressed its favorability seemed to falter to the point that some pretty serious snubs occurred come nomination time my sense is that audiences began to feel that a star is born didn't add anything particularly modern to its previous iterations not like the films that gathered steam and instead said anything particularly new or significant either but that is a conversation for another day now speaking of a star is born I think this brings us to another of Olivia's advantages she couldn't be awarded by other means so if you love Lady Gaga's performance and a star is born you could feasibly choose to reward her work via the best song category thereby freeing yourself to vote another way for Best Actress you could also conceivably award her twice for her work in one night but Hollywood doesn't exactly do that unless you're a man Edith Head or Kathryn Bigelow as the season went on and Lady gaga began to consistently take home Best Song and more frequently began to lose Best Actress the cards seemed to signal that they'd fall that way at the Oscars the cards also signaled that they were in Glenns aver Olivia missed some red carpets and press while filming the crown nobody was really sure she was in the right category although if we're being honest a majority of Best Actress nominations have been for supporting roles Glen had the narrative that we discussed earlier and she was winning awards and then the thing is as often as the Academy likes to take corrective measures they also don't there are plenty of frustrating examples of overlooked women who never had a shining moment or if they did they only got one in the form of an honorary Oscar a non-competitive award affectionately referred to by Marlena Dietrich as the death-bed award because you usually get one at the last minute when the Academy wants to apologize for its neglect and quote that's how you know you're dying it blows my mind how many incredible actors just never made it to the stage maybe they didn't have studio backing maybe the rules weren't flashy enough maybe there wasn't really a good explanation at all or what if there was a breakout performance what if there was a record at stake what if you're up against one of the most famous women in the world or what if you're up against a groundbreaking gender-bending role the point is sometimes a performance isn't enough sometimes a narrative isn't enough it can be pure bad luck the confetti is still falling from the 2019 Oscars I don't think there's enough distance to know precisely what occurred I believe probably some variation of this tweet happened that people assumed other people would take care of Glenn for them and voted for a performance they really liked and a song they really liked on a personal level I feel torn on the one hand no one I ever want to win actually wins so it was pretty cool to see that happen especially to a woman whose character work to find her campaign on the other hand nobody likes to see very talented legends lose over and over and over again right now Glenn Close has the most Oscar nominations of any actor alive without wins word came out recently that the Sunset Boulevard movie musical is happening so do yourself a favor go watch Glenn Close sing as if we never said goodbye on YouTube and get ready because we're going to have a long conversation about her Oscar season and universe as my witness it won't be about a loss [Music]

Channel: Be Kind Rewind

Views: 338,496

Rating: 4.9280696 out of 5

Keywords: olivia colman, best actress, oscars, academy awards, glenn close, the favourite, the wife, melissa mccarthy, can you ever forgive me, lady gaga, a star is born, yalitza aparicio, roma, 2019

Id: OI5QwWphDM8

Length: 10min 10sec (610 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 03 2019