Best Actress 1992: Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs

and the Oscar goes to Jodie Foster the 64th Academy Awards in 1992 honored the best movies of 1991 it was the year Jodie Foster took home the Best Actress Oscar for the Silence of the Lambs her second win in the short span of three years tired of playing victims she was determined to bring the now iconic feminist character Clarice Starling to life her work helped Silence of the Lambs dominate the 1992 Awards but her win wasn't necessarily inevitable her competition just two outlaws by the name of Thelma & Louise will discuss how Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon is now legendary performances fell just short of the top prize suffering from a game of numbers and perhaps from the sheer audacity of their story first let's take a look at the nominees it's certainly a strong group but as usual only a few were ever serious contenders for the top prize Bette Midler and for the boys as a singer who tours with the USO during World War two for the boys received a zero nominations besides Midler's making her win in this category highly unlikely at that point only two other women had won under those circumstances Sophie Lee ran in 1961 for two women and Jodie Foster in 1989 for the accused Laura Dern and ramblin rose as a woman who escapes her life of prostitution to become a maid for an iPhone in southern family ramblin rose had only one other combination Diane Ladd Laura Dern's real-life mother for Best Supporting Actress this was the first and only time a mother-daughter pair had ever been nominated for the same film while the novelty of this was interesting neither the movie nor Laura who Entertainment Weekly had recently described as a bright young talent on the verge of stardom to drum up enough interest to meaningfully compete Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon and Thelma & Louise as best friends turned outlaws after Susan Sarandon Louise kills a man attempting to rape Thelma played by Geena Davis unlike Midler in turn both actresses here had a shot Davis had already proven herself an academy favorite just three years prior when she won Best Supporting Actress for her role in the accidental tourist Sarandon had yet to win but her celebrity had ballooned since her days as a cult favorite in the Rocky Horror Picture Show with nearly as many nominations as The Silence of the Lambs Thelma Louise clearly struck a chord with critics and artistic peers I had last but not least our winner Jodie Foster as FBI agent Clarice Starling who enlists the infamous Hannibal Lecter to contribute a psychological profile to her investigation of the serial killer Buffalo Bill Jodie Foster had been a working actress in page three so by the time her role as a teen prostitute in 1976 s taxi driver launched her into true movie stardom at age fourteen she already had more credits to her name than both her co-star Robert DeNiro and her director Martin Scorsese for the next 15 years Jodie built a solid reputation with the minor exceptions of her time at Yale and that one time a guy tried to kill President Reagan to impress her she worked steadily to increase both her star value and her chops as a dramatic actress in 1989 this journey culminated in her first Academy Award win for her role in the accused as a newly minted Best Actress winner she began to look for her next project when she read the novel The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris she immediately knew that she had to be in the movie version she was tired of playing victims and Clarice was anything but that a whole life had been playing a lot of victims so I didn't playing a lot of women that had been acted upon and things had been done to them for me the reason that it was so important to make this movie was that there was a sort of healing process and almost like a growing up process to finally playing the woman who saves the women and that woman who is saving the woman sees a reflection of herself any woman is she's trying to save she tried to buy the rights to the book but discovered that Orion Pictures had already done so and not only was director Jonathan Demi already attached but he was also already eyeing Michelle Pfeiffer to play Clarisse determined to get the part she asked for a meeting hopped on a plane and asked him in person to be his second choice lucky for Jodi Michelle thought the project was too dark so the role was Hertz The Silence of the Lambs became a box-office juggernaut outperforming every other Best Picture nominee that year except Beauty and the Beast somehow this horror film managed to tap into the chaotic post-reagan zeitgeist a nation whose new cycle included both the trial of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer and the testimony of Anita Hill Jodi's talent is perfectly utilized here she abused Clarisse with her own fierce intellect which brings an extraordinary quality of intense curiosity relentlessness and maturity her interplay with Anthony Hopkins is so full and fraught that you get the sense no one could have played these roles as well as they did undoubtedly Clarice also became a symbol for women Demi takes care to emphasize her experience with the male gaze not just when the imposing eye of inmates but from her peers and co-workers as well still she remains a tenacious clever and steadfast professional she's a complete and competent woman allowed at once to reveal her vulnerabilities and become the 19 shining armor who saves the day and thank the Academy for embracing such an incredibly strong and beautiful feminist hero that I am so proud of thank you very much Mike and Carol you won the bed but Clarice wasn't the only female cinematic icon of 1992 this was the year of Thelma & Louise and given their cultural state power I mean how many articles were written about their recent reunion at the SAG Awards it's worth thinking more deeply about why neither Geena Davis nor Susan Sarandon watch there is of course an obvious disadvantage to their nominations it clearly split some votes let's say as a voter you loved with all that Louise it's difficult to determine which actress should ultimately walk away with the Oscar because their performances are so beautifully linked in fact unable to make the distinction themselves some critics simply lumped them together and awarded the Best Actress prize to them as a unit but apart from this simpler explanation there's something more specifically transgressive about Thelma and Louise as characters than there is about clarice starling and that may have also affected voters perceptions Clarice is not a rebel she understands and navigates the boundaries of her space willingly and pushes herself to succeed in a role that was not designed to cater to her this is heroic in its own right but a contrast with the disobedient insurrection that makes Thelma and Louise heroic in a new and different way they're outlaws from law enforcement yes but they're also outlaws from lifestyles that place them in boxes where Clarisse was eager to find and maintain order Thelma and Louise set out to destroy it that kind of feminism is more challenging to absorb and it doesn't come without a backlash the film triggered victory aaalac responses from some critics it was called fascist they were labeled horrible role models who set back feminism by participating in violence Ralph Novak of people wrote any movie that went as far out of its way to trash women as this female chauvinist sau of a film does to trash men would be universally and justifiably condemned these scathing reviews caused the New York Times's Janet Maslin to push back in her op-ed titled lay off Thelma and Louise she wrote Thelma and Louise feels unfamiliar in the best possible way it's something as simple as it is powerful the fact that the men in this story don't really matter they're treated as figures in the landscape through which these characters pass as such they're essentially powerless for male characters perhaps this is a novelty but women and Road movies have always been treated and precisely in the same way Roger Ebert recalled a personal anecdote to emphasize bellman Louise genre-bending transcendence as a guess on Oprah he called Thelma Louise a quote female buddy movie when a woman in the audience shouted it isn't Piper it's about sisterhood she received thunderous applause thinking about this moment later Ebert wrote I wanted to ask her what the difference was between buddy hood and sisterhood and then I realized something that was the whole point when you remember that a Los Angeles Times investigation concluded that 77% of Academy members in 2012 for male and that a San Diego State study found that 73 percent of top critics in 2016 were male and then when you think about what those numbers must have been like in 1992 you begin to suspect that the transgression of Thelma and Louise might have gone underappreciated for a reason 1992 was a wonderful year we aren't always so lucky to see this category filled with such complicated and complete female characters Jodie Foster's determination to bring women with agency to the screen paid off leaving her with an Oscar and us with a heroic professional character the only performances that could have challenged her though equally heroic in different ways may have paid for their boldness but remain important figures in a cinematic history today thanks for watching I hope you enjoyed this video don't forget to Like and if you're into it subscribe thanks again bye

Channel: Be Kind Rewind

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Keywords: Best Actress, Oscars, Academy Awards, Jodie Foster, the silence of the lambs, geena davis, thelma and louise, susan sarandon, 1992, oscars 1992, hollywood, awards season, classic movies, hannibal, jonathan demme, bette midler, laura dern, actress, movies, film studies, feminism, janet maslin, roger ebert, film criticism

Id: Ym0nZnHU_m0

Length: 10min 12sec (612 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 31 2018