Questions about the Oscars after seeing Training Day

Cafe Society
1

So I just rented and watched Training Day last night. Not an outstanding film IMO, but watchable. I probably would have passed on it (or at least waited for it to be moved from the “New Releases” section to the “Drama” or “Action” section in order to save a couple bucks) except that Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke are both nominated for Acadamy Awards for their performances in this film. Washington for Best Actor, Hawke for Best Supporting Actor.

So my question is… What are the rules/ guidelines for deciding what role fits what catagory? Washington’s and Hawke’s roles were both lead roles. I didn’t see Ethan Hawke supporting anyone Washington wasn’t supporting. I’m not complaining or saying someone didn’t deserve their nomination, I just don’t get how they can call one role leading and the other supporting.

I thought the same thing when I saw Pulp Fiction and wondered how they differentiated between John Travolta and Samuel L Jackson (Travolta was nominated for Actor, while Jackson was nominated for Supporting Actor) but rationalized that away because Travolta’s character had the whole Mia storyline that didn’t involve Jackson.

Training Day however isn’t like that. Almost every scene has both actors working off one another. For every scene Washington has without Hawke, Hawke has a scene without Washington. And we’re talking just 2 or 3 scenes here.

This sort of thing has confused me in the past. Anthony Hopkins won as Best Actor for Silence of the Lambs, during which he only had 20 minutes of screen time. It was an incredibly well-acted 20 minutes, but at the time, I thought it was more of a supporting sized role. And I’ve heard people rationalize it as saying “Well Hannibal was the leading male role of that film.” To that I point to Pulp Fiction again, where Uma Thurman had the leading female role of that film, but recieved only supporting actress recognition from the Academy.

Other examples that have confused me about the guidelines for what performance ranks in what catagory:

Jeremy Irons won the Oscar for Best Actor for Reversal of Fortune, where it seemed to me that the bulk of the story revloved around the lawyer.

Tommy Lee Jones won Best Supporting Actor for The Fugitive, although his role was as important to the film and the same size as Harrison Ford’s role.

Marlon Brando, IIRC, was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for A Dry White Season. Again, IIRC, that role was little more a cameo. He had one scene as a lawyer, or am I misremembering this?

And Dame Judi Dench as the queen in Shakespeare in Love, another glorified cameo elevated by an Oscar nomination for supporting actress.

So are there rules or guidelines for what constitutes a supporting role from leading roles? How does the nomination process work, cuz frankly, I don’t get how some people get nominated in some of these catagories.

2

Basically, the studio lobbies the Academy, supporting the performer in the category he/she is most likely to win.

You’re correct about Ethan Hawke and Denzel Washington in Training Day. In fact, if you were to view the movie again with a stopwatch, you’d find that Hawke is actually onscreen more than Washington. However, the studio knew that Hawke wouldn’t have a prayer in the lead-actor category, so in all of the trade ads, they pushed him in the supporting category.

Don’t know much about trade ads? They’re one of the weirdest phenomena in Hollywood. Around award nomination season, the studios begin taking out one- and two-page ads in Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and other industry-specific publications to lobby for nominations. They’re headed “For Your Consideration” or some similar phrasing, as if they’re meant as a gentle suggestion. Unfortunately, the campaigns are insistent and inescapable, so the gentle suggestion turns into a migraine-inducing drumbeat.

And what’s more, the studios don’t just lobby for the obvious choices, like Kevin Spacey in American Beauty. In order to keep their stars happy, they make all manner of ludicrous suggestions, including, say, “For Your Consideration: John Travolta as Best Actor in Domestic Disturbance.” They do this for two reasons: First, they’re stroking their Big Star’s ego (and Travolta needs stroking more than most), and second, they’re diluting the pool to make the standouts really stand out.

So, at any rate, the studios push their prospective nominees in the category where they’re most likely to make an impact. Besides trade ads, they also send direct mailings to Academy members at home, sometimes including a videotape or DVD (or both; look at eBay to see Academy members unloading the extras). These will always include a card, saying, in effect, please watch this complimentary tape of Amelie and please consider nominating Audrey Tatou for Best Actress, Bruno Delbonnel for Best Cinematographer, Yann Tiersen for Best Musical Score, etc.

Sometimes wires get crossed; note that Jennifer Connelly was nominated for her performance in A Beautiful Mind in the Best Actress category at the SAG awards, where she didn’t have a prayer, but Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars, where she’s the front-runner for the statue. Also, a couple of years ago, Matthew Perry of “Friends” was accidentally nominated for the Best Actor Emmy, even though the castmembers had agreed that they would all pursue supporting nominations only. It happened because of a miscommunication between Perry’s new and overzealous agent and the production company, which unknowingly pushed Perry in the lead category during the nomination process.

There is no rhyme or reason to it, no hard-and-fast rule you can point to that says this performance is lead and this is supporting. It’s all gamesmanship.

3

Since Cervaise so ably explained that there are essentially no rules regarding what makes a performance lead or supporting, I’ll just add some examples of particularly poor nominations/wins and a couple of random comments.

Random comments:

Part of the problem is that defining whether a perfomance is a lead or supporting one is like defining pornography. I may not be able to define it, but I know it when I see it. For example, I have no problem with Anthony Hopkins as lead actor in Silence of the Lambs, despite the more limited screen time. That movie exists for the scenes between Clarice and Hannibal; everything else exists to give those scenes power.

It seems strange to me that the Friends actors would pursue supporting nominations when they clearly are all six co-leads.

The single most egregious nominations in the wrong category has to go to Timothy Hutton as Supporting Actor and Mary Tyler Moore as Actress in Ordinary People.

A few IMHO misnominated (in the wrong category) actors since, say, 1985.

River Phoenix, the lead in Running on Empty nominated in the supporting category.

Meryl Streep, nominated as lead actress for One True Thing for a role that (to me) clearly is supporting Renee Zelwegger’s lead.

Robin Williams as lead for Dead Poet’s Society.

Robert Deniro as lead in Awakenings.

Robert Deniro as lead in Cape Fear.

Michael Douglas as lead in Wall Street.

Dustin Hoffman as the lead in Rain Man.

It seems that what makes a perfomance lead or supporting depends more upon the age/stature of the actors than the actual mechanics of the story. Pair a younger, less established actor with an older, more established one, and for Academy purposes, the former is the lead and the latter is supporting.

4

I agree wholeheartedly. Actors are given a choice and advised as to which category they have a better chance of winning. And with The Silence of the Lambs Anthony Hopkins definately carried that movie. Not so sure about the debacle that was Pulp Fiction though. I believe that Samuel L Jackson’s role was much more fundamental and, well, more memorable than the guy with the stupid dance and boring dinner-table patter. But you put on some weight and build up the courage to show your paid-for, hard-earned gut in a movie every man and his dog will want to see… but this leads me to a follow-up question. If we consider that putting on weight for a role is rather like imposing upon oneself a physical deformity - a strong word but I can’t quite find the right one - then is this not another example of nominations favouring disabled or mentally-challenged performances? Tom Hanks won Best Actor that year for Forrest Gump . Then there`s As Good As It Gets , Shine , Scent of a Woman , My Left Foot , Rainman … and I’m sure others. These are just recent examples. Comments?

5

What’s really odd, though, is when one performer in a film is nominated for Best Actor/Actress and another is nominated as Best SUpporting Actor/Actress, even though the “Supporting” performer had a much bigger role than the one up for Best ACtor.

Best example: in 1972, Marlon Brando won Best Actor for his role in “The Godfather,” but Al PAcino (who had a much BIGGER role than Brando) was nominated as Best SUPPORTING Actor.

There’s another example this year. In “Training Day,” I’d bet Ethan Hawke had slightly MORE screen time than Denzel Washington… but Hawke is treated as a Supporting Actor, while Washington is up for Best Actor.

In many cases, a performer in a lead role is pushed into the Supporting category to give him/her a better chance of winning. In 1975, George Burns was the STAR of “The Sunshine Boys.” Not a bit player, the STAR. But he had no chance at all of winning Best Actor for such a lightweight role. Hollywood wanted to give that elderly, beloved comic an Oscar, though, so they moved him to Best Supporting Actor, where he didn’t ahve prestigious competitors.

6

It’s all about billing!
Look at the ads and see who’s name comes first that person becomes lead actor if the name comes second then they are supporting.

7

Not necessarily; Robin Williams was top-billed in ‘Good Will Hunting’ (not surprising, since before that movie Matt Damon was essentially unknown) and won as ‘Best Supporting Actor.’

And just to join in the list of Best Actor/Best Supporting Actor oddities: perhaps the most egregious example of a lead actor being slotted into the supporting category was “The Killing Fields” in 1984. Dr. Haing S Ngor was nominated as a supporting actor while Sam Waterson was nominated as a lead, even though Waterson’s character practically disappears after the Khmer Rouge take over Cambodia mid-way in the film. Of course, the studio figured that a non-professional actor like Ngor didn’t have a chance of winning in the Best Actor category, so they crammed him into the Best Supporting Actor category.

Other Best Supporting Actor/Actress winners who were really leads (or one of two co-leads):
Walter Matthau in “The Fortune Cookie” (1965)
Tatum O’Neal in “Paper Moon” (1973)
Kevin Spacey in “The Usual Suspects” (1995)

8

D’oh! I misused “former” and “latter” in my final paragraph. Reverse them, and you have my true meaning.

9

I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned Ian McKellan, nominated for Supporting Actor as Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, despite receiving top billing and being the central character of the movie.

10

Maybe it’s just me, but I thought the central character was Frodo. And the top billing thing, well, he is Ian McKellan, some actors have that sort of thing in their contracts (although I don’t know if McKellan has that type of ego) and sometimes it’s just the bigger, more respected name goes first, as in the Good Will Hunting example mentioned earlier.

All that said, I would still have to agree that the comment has merit, since while I thought of Frodo as the main character, Gandalf certainly seemed to have as much screen time and play just as important a role in the film as Frodo. On the other hand, the film was a bit of an ensemble piece, with Frodo, Sam, Boromir, Aragorn, Gandalf, etc… in ensemble pictures it’s quite often the case to see acting performances rewarded as supporting roles.

11

wait, robin williams is respected . and since when has ian mckellan been that big or well known?

12

Big or well known to the general public, a coupla years at most, the first vaporous hints probably coming with Richard III, then solidified by X-Men.

Big or well known to people who closely follow the craft of acting and pay attention to its most-respected practitioners regardless of whether they’re toplining hundred-million-dollar movies, which theoretically the Academy is supposed to do, decades.

13

Three Oscar nominations (Good Morning Vietnam, Dead Poets Society, and The Fisher King) before winning for Good Will Hunting, a film in which he was the biggest name at the time.

He may have been doing some major crapola since, but at the time, he was the big name, with the 3 Oscar nominations and performances in critically acclaimed films such as The World According to Garp, Moscow on the Hudson, and Awakenings.

Cervaise got my back on this one, it seems.