Alternate Best Actor 1997: Stellan Skarsgård in Insomnia

Stellan Skarsgård did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Jonas Engström in Insomnia.

 

The original Insomnia offers an intriguing comparison to Christopher Nolan's bigger-budget Hollywood remake. Both tell the morally grey if not nearly black tale of a murder investigation in a land of the midnight sun. The differences between the two are pretty fascinating to look at in terms of film-making. The remake is more impressive on a technical level, the expansions to the story do actually feel natural, and the character of the murderer is more compelling, though that is in large part due to Robin Williams's against-type performance. There is something though in the original streamlined storytelling and its more uncompromising narrative that makes it perhaps more captivating in some ways, though there are moments that feel slightly rushed, particularly the scenes of dealing with the killer.

A major difference from the outset is of course in the casting alone is having an actor like Stellan Skarsgård in the leading role. Skarsgård is perhaps one of the most innately intense actors working and his natural presence is very different from the US lead in Al Pacino, particularly the Al Pacino of the 2000s. Where Pacino certainly can and has played morally questionable if not bankrupt characters, his innate presence is still in some way typically reaffirms some kind of humanity, which isn't exactly the case with Skarsgård. That however is immediately something so striking in this film, because Skarsgård is the type of detective that is far less ordinary than our typical leading character for a murder mystery. Where a character may be driven to torture suspects after some time in other films, Skarsgård's detective almost immediately does so the moment he enters to solve the case. Skarsgård's performance is strikingly incoming from this darker place from the outset. When the film opens, Skarsgård's expression isn't of a man who has been through some things, he's clearly seen some kind of hell, and his eye pierces with the emotional trauma that defines his detective. A trauma he doesn't deal with by crying, rather instead his eyes speak to a kind of this particularly unnerving combination of hate but also at times this seeming detachment. 

Where it seems like Pacino's version of the character can still function as a person, despite clearly dealing with much, Skarsgård presents a man eternally marked by what he has through the line of duty. Skarsgård's voice here, which actually is even more innately terrifying in his native tongue, speaks with a seeming contradiction. There is a lurid calm in his voice yet at the same time Skarsgårdevokes such a vicious potential for violence even in this calm. He articulates a man who has become defined by his violence and a killer in a killer's world in a way. When Skarsgård speaks to the murdered girl's boyfriend, saying Skarsgård comes in strong is putting it lightly, there is the energy more of a medieval torturer than a cop as he prods the questions to the man. Skarsgård's eyes burned with that hatred and a lack of even the remotest concern for the young man's protestations. Skarsgård is an angel of vengeance-seeking his retribution and there is nothing about him that can ease away from that intensity. Watching Skarsgård here is so powerful in itself, as this unrelenting personality is so tangible, and this is before we get to the idea of the central guilt of the piece. 

We do see that as much as he's a terrifying force there is an efficiency in Engstrom. Skarsgård's work is powerful in just that intensity of his eyes that suggest a man highly skilled in tracking killers, even while burdened potentially by the task in his own way. When he prepares an ambush for the killer or interrogates the dead girl's so-called best friend, Skarsgård's performance is rather terrifying by presenting the nature of Engstrom in his task. Skarsgård portrays a man who has no hesitation in his acts, to the point of his interrogation with his best friend, a high schooler, isn't to drive into oncoming traffic like Pacino to throw her off, it is to sexually stimulate her. Skarsgård in that particular moment is particularly disturbing because he doesn't even show that Engstrom is getting off on this method, rather he presents that same kind of vicious intention of the man's method even in this moment. It is just another tool that Skarsgård presents before he begins to more actively terrorize her and search for further knowledge from her. Skarsgård is brilliant here in a way because far before we ever meet the actual murderer, Skarsgård has presented a far more horrifying figure in man with such a vile kind of conviction. 

The construction of both films puts the detective into a precarious state wherein the ambush to catch the killer, he instead shoots his partner in what appears to be accidental friendly fire. This idea of guilt is VERY different from the remake which relies more heavily upon conveying this sense through Nolan's frequent editing to explore the thoughts of that detective, the direction of Erik Skjoldbjærg relies far more heavily on Stellan Skarsgård to convey the internal conflict within the detective. A wise choice honestly, and one that I wish Nolan had kept given he was working with an actor of Pacino's caliber, Skarsgård though is put at the center of this. This version being different, and in some ways simplified as there's no sense of him doing it to silence his partner, which is interesting because overall Engstrom is the darker figure overall. We see this as Engstrom nearly rapes the hotel manager and kills a dog to help hide his shooting of his partner. Skarsgård's remarkable in what he actually does in a way is convey the hints of morality in the man rather than the immorality. The immorality is what defines Skarsgård's performance. We see in his penetrating stare that this is some sense of guilt, that becomes stronger as in a way he becomes more spent from his experience of never sleeping. The gradual physical degradation of Skarsgård's work is remarkable here as we see the man becoming more and more tired so articulately in his portrayal, but there is more to it. The sense of the man becoming tired with his state is here, even if this is largely just within Skarsgård's performance. There is an amazing moment where he hides as he's set up someone for the crime, and Skarsgård's portrayal of dealing with all the emotions of this just silently is fantastic acting. You see all that the man is going through in a moment of silence and it is incredible work. The final moments of the film are Skarsgård embodying this state of a man becoming this harbor of all of Engstrom's anxieties and sense of moral failure. Skarsgård is notable though in that his performance is in a unrelenting, there is never true regret, rather there are feelings of regret. His performance in a way showing the man dealing with what is this break from typical detachment from the deaths he examines or commits. It is a fascinating atypical portrait of such as Skarsgård shows a man in a way not escaping it, rather coming to terms with it through this kind of mental rot, until the man is still as himself but now writing in that state of insomnia.