Thursday 30 June 2011

Best Actor 1973: Results

5. Robert Redford in The Sting- Redford provides the right anchor in a way that provides the right stakes to the story and facilitates his showier co-stars.
 4. Al Pacino in Serpico- Al Pacino's performance here always failed to impress me with his rather repetitive routine of quietly discouraged, than suddenly really loud and angry over his problems. He never is bad, but I always wanted more from this performance than I got.
3. Marlon Brando in Last Tango in Paris- Brando supposedly admitted to not understanding this film, and I do think that comes through in his performance a bit, since I never fully was able to understand what the deal was with his character, but despite this Brando still is interesting to watch with all of his various scenes of soul bearing acting.
2. Jack Nicholson in The Last Detail- Nicholson is terrific in this film, in a very interesting way. He fully develops a fascinating character who is very much reactive to another character in the film. Through his reactions though he creates fascinating original character, and just to add tot hat he is has some great classic 70's Nicholson moments.
1. Jack Lemmon in Save the Tiger- This one was rather difficult for me to choose between the two but in the end I must choose one so I am going with Lemmon. Lemmon although in a complete Oscar baiting role never turns it into a Oscar baiting performance. He amazingly always stays realistic, and completely embedded in his character. It is strong powerful work that frankly overcame the material.

10 comments:

RatedRStar said...

Nice one =) a clue for the next year xxx

dinasztie said...

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY FOR LEMMON! easy pick 4 me. So glad you gave a win to him after all.

Louis Morgan said...

RatedRStar: I don't know I wouldn't want to spoil it, like the movie ending that is spoiled constantly that contains the winner of the next year.

Dinasztie: Well I am glad I could give him a win, since he was very deserving of it here, and am I correct if I say that Jack Lemmon is to you, as Laurence Olivier is to me?

Anonymous said...

Lemmon would be second for me, Nicholson is just too perfect here

dshultz said...

Could you do 1990 or 2002 soon?

Louis Morgan said...

1990 will be next from the 90's, 2002 obviously will be the next 00 which will have to wait a little bit.

Anonymous said...

So 1953 is next?

Louis Morgan said...

No, I never actually had Stalag 17 spoiled for me. It is another more prominent film I refer to.

Anonymous said...

The way I see it:
1. Jack Lemmon, Save the Tiger. 91 out of 100.
2. Jack Nicholson, The Last Detail. 90 out of 100.
3. Al Pacino, Serpico. 88 out of 100.
4. Marlon Brando, Last Tango in Paris. 83 out of 100.
5. Robert Redford, The Sting. 80 out of 100.

This is probably the strongest Best Actor category in Oscar history. Not one of these guys ranks below an 80 out of 100 (4 out of 5) in my book.

DistinguishedFlyer said...

I'd probably go with Nicholson (for my money this is his best work ever), but Lemmon was terrific as well - like Art Carney the following year, this is one of those wins that people like to criticize simply because of who lost.

I also agree that Redford's nomination was a real puzzler (and I speak as a lover of that film) - if they had to nominate someone from that movie, why not Paul Newman? He deserved a slot based on the card game scene alone.