Alternate Best Actor 1977: Bruno Ganz in The American Friend

Bruno Ganz did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Jonathan Zimmermann in The American Friend. 

Bruno Ganz plays the "average man" who by chance runs into cinematic famous psychopath Tom Ripley (Dennis Hopper), who we meet as your average picture framer and art restorer, who unfortunately has some blood borne illness that appears to be terminal. In one of the original Breaking Bad performances, Ganz's average man is someone we meet in his way, which is already a bit more because Ganz is just a naturally interesting actor. There's just something about him that is never boring which is useful for playing a potentially "boring" part initially, because his Jonathan just seems kind of interesting even if he is definitely just average at the same time. Ganz approaches his early scenes well without any fuss, there is a quiet subtle sense of his condition in the certain underlying darkness as the man goes about his life, even if he often smiles and seems to be warm to his kid, his wife, there is the underlying sense of the man sensing his eventual death. His first action in the film is to instruct on the action of valuable artwork, and to specifically snub Hopper's Ripley, who is pawning off the work of a dead painter who is in fact alive in order to earn a greater profit. Jonathan refuses to shake Ripley's hand, which Ganz plays as very matter of fact of the man who scoffs as a man he has viewed as profit minded within this world where he clearly respects the art. Unfortunately for Jonathan this compels Ripley to finger him as a man ideal to perform assassinations, since he is dying, which he begins by spreading rumors that his illness may be worse than it is. 

Re-watching the film again shows the brilliant choice of Ganz to move from subtly to overtly shake the notion that Jonathan is a good man turned astray due to circumstances. Ganz performs this quietly in the scenes leading up to the first kill where he is asking both his personal physician, and a specialist, set up by the men who want him to perform the hit, about his condition. The scenes of the doctor have Jonathan prodding the doctor about the truth which you could take as a man needing to know the truth, or wanting to find a way out of the proposition, the specific kind of urgency Ganz portrays isn't as anxiety related to potential guilt, it's a need to support the notion of taking on the hit. Ganz presents a want for honesty, which he supports further even in the moments of being asked, where Ganz portrays surprise and disbelief however with a hint of interest that goes way beyond any kind of desperation. And while you may believe this is the innocent man turned astray, Ganz doesn't make it so simple in the story of Jonathan. Ganz is absolutely stellar in the first hit, because he doesn't portray it at all like a professional rather a man trying to be one. He labors moments of his movement, his choices are always telegraphed in the right way, because Jonathan is telegraphing themselves to himself. Ganz brings the right sense of the tension of the moment, again not so much the man facing the life or death decision but rather the fear of being caught and really even the tension of a kind of excitement as he goes about killing this man. With the key moment being after he makes his escape, Ganz's shows after the release of adrenaline a genuine exuberance of a man living as he kills. 

After the initial killings one can take it as though the man is having second thoughts as we see him wallowing in frustration, though again I don't think Ganz plays it as simply as just a basic guilt for his actions. Rather Ganz depicts more so this frustration as he attempts to sink back into his normal life, a frustration though that less reflects a sadness for losing any kind of calm, but rather being stuck away from this experience that seemingly made him live again after being stuck within that certain confined state created by the idea of his impending death. When asked for another killing, Ganz's performance again delivers the sort of semi-no's as with only enough believability of a man convincing himself that he's not a killer, but far too weak to actually not continue on as he's tasked with a more difficult killing involving several gangsters on a train. But before that, it is essential to talk about Ganz and Hopper as we see Ripley's relationship with Jonathan develop, past that opening hostility. The subsequent meetings find Ripley quietly charmed by Jonathan's devotion to his craft, even his ability to spot that something was off with the painter's new work, and beyond that initial dismissiveness, Ganz beautifully plays a quiet relent on his earlier behavior even if he explains himself. And Ganz brings such a natural sense of the quiet joy in Jonathan as Ripley speaks so highly of him, Ganz portraying not as standard ego, but rather the needed boost for a damaged ego of a man looking for someone, anyone recognizing him as more than just some dying schlub. 

Their relationship goes beyond admiration of craft as in the middle of the attempted killing on the train, Ripley joins Jonathan in his quest...and what we have is just a truly outstanding scene. The scene is just outstanding as it is thrilling, but also darkly comic at the same time. The essential ingredient to all of it however is the chemistry between Ganz and Hopper, because after the initial surprise Jonathan and Ripley become true partners. The two are wonderful in every interaction, despite being the unnatural habit of maneuvering murders in a very populated train, are so naturalistic in the way they create the tension but also share such a sense of joy in every maneuver. Both actors show that not only are the men loving it, they're specifically loving doing it together. Every moment is so much more because Ganz and Hopper accentuate every glance, every line, with such a deep sense of this very peculiar yet all too tangible camaraderie. With the finale of the scene being absolutely perfect as Ganz again brilliantly shows the true nature of this endeavor, not of desperation for money for his family as he dies, but rather a man who believes he is dying finding this outlet for living. As we see Ganz stick his head out the train car, and there is such sublime joy and exuberance of a man embracing life...even if it involves killing. Ganz and Hopper's chemistry is so fascinating because as truly bizarre as this friendship becomes, it is genuine in their way with Ganz showing the way he looks at Ripley giving him life, and Ripley in turn, oddly enough, seeing a genuine friend. 

Ganz's performance throughout the final sequence of the film conveys the strange state of the man as he goes down this dark path willingly, even when his wife finds out, Ganz's performance brilliantly underlies the truth of the situation, as Ganz doesn't present the shame of a once innocent man who has to admit to his wrongdoing, rather he reacts more so like a drug addict whose fixation has been discovered. Ganz's performance reveals the man as recognizing this as a choice to do what he has done not just for the sake of it. The whole final sequence is amazing work by Ganz as he manages to do two things, one is run with his chemistry with Hopper, where the two seem complete partners now as they play off each other, but also show the man in his dying state of mind, to the point he's quite directly losing his mind in this kind of mania. In each successive scene Ganz's reactions become that much more extreme, and even distant, the moment he starts singing the Beatles even though Ganz makes entirely natural, by funneling into granting a sense in the unnatural state of Jonathan's mind as he's dying but kind of just living out his dying breath to what he sees as the most. The role of the man Ripley manipulates to crime I think could easily be completely overshadowed, and would be in the inferior re-adaptation of Ripley's game. While Hopper's amazing and often dominates, Ganz is never lost or forgotten in their scenes together by making this choice to not turn Jonathan into some random innocent, but a man who releases his darker self on his own accord in order to embrace what he has left of his life. 

Alternate Best Actor 1977: William Devane in Rolling Thunder

William Devane did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Major Charles Rane in Rolling Thunder. 

Rolling Thunder, though only co-written by him, is another entry into the Paul Schrader "Man on a razor's edge" subgenre, this time about a returning POW from Vietnam who finds a less than warm welcome home. 

William Devane, a character actor with a very precise and particular voice, plays the returning war vet Major Charles Rane who comes home after years of imprisonment and torture over from Vietnam to a hero's welcome. Devane enters the film with a calm demeanor, a proper soldier with a stiff manner as he accepts his plaudits, without a hint of either the trauma or pride one could connect to his situation. Not a mistake or an error by Devane rather a most effective choice of presenting a man going through the motions of the return, that suffers below the surface of the pageantry as he almost immediately finds out that his wife has been cheating him, his son has been raised by this other man, and she intends to stay with this other man. All of this leaves Rane with barely a reaction, again not an error but rather a fantastic choice where Devane alludes to the entire existence of a man who has dealt with his horrible imprisonment by nearly breaking from reality. Devane's performance has an exceptionally subtle manner that alludes to just the hint of all that Rane is keeping in even as he so calmly seems to accept this horrible plight. The only minor respite is with his son where Devane plays this hint of warmth, a genuine warmth, but the only warmth that he can get out of loving his son. Even then though Devane presents this effort Rane to connect still, a connection he wants to make but still struggles to make. 

Unfortunately because Rane lives in the Schraderverse, not everyone wants to let Rane just live with his accomplishment and his gifted silver dollars as his home is raided by a group of sleazy thugs. An event that leaves both his wife and his son dead, and Rane with his hand being put in a garbage disposal. Devane's performance is again effective in the way he plays the character's trauma below the surface of the character in this pent up intensity, as he maintains his composure even as this horror is going on around him and to him. Devane presenting the man who managed to live through his torture as a prisoner, though in no way a well man, just held together by the barest vicious conviction. The horror does seem to give Rane final purpose in his life as he goes about looking for the men who committed the heinous act, with the help of a local woman Linda (Linda Haynes) who is obsessed with him. Devane suddenly plays the soldier in a way as he enters these scenes as a man of action and combat. Devane brings this precision in his violence of a man with intention and purpose suddenly. Like the warmth he released for his son that he had to find, Devane presents this alternatively, though quite effectively as a man's set gear as he goes about using his trauma for this violence that he commits with this exact intensity of a man who has a reason to live oddly enough. 

Where this seems like the film's chance to really get going, it doesn't. Partially in the romance with Linda, which is too idealized for essentially stemming from an obsessed fan, though I think both actors are fine and Devane is more than fine as he doesn't compromise the character in these scenes, they just aren't quite there on a writing level. The film also gets frequently derailed by a subplot of his deceased wife's lover also trying to help out Rane, where the character is just boring and the scenes truly feel like filler to get the film to feature length. What keeps the film afloat is Devane with his excessively official manner of speaking that works in line with crafting this character of the soldier who can't escape any element of that in the war or in civilian life. Eventually the film even gets to the point when he recruits his old squad-mate Tommy Lee Jones to, in the character's words "Kill a lot of people". Something they eventually do, and leading to the film's climax is a bizarre piece that one would perhaps attempt to ask the director what he was going for, and I would guess maybe he wouldn't even entirely know. You certainly don't feel bad about Rane and his buddy murdering these guys, since these guys are made to be the absolute lowest of the low, but at the same time, perhaps just the strength of Devane's performance, is that it doesn't feel heroic revenge either. As Jones and Devane both bring this glee to the scene and accentuate the moments of torturous shooting particularly as such with each man showing they're having the time of their life. Although this too is then subverted with the immediacy of the ending, where we get a corny 70's song to close out their rampage that is completely tonally dissonant and I can't be sure that was intentional. Regardless, what Devane does in the finale entirely works, much like his entire film in creating a captivating portrait of a man broken as a soldier and only able to find any life being a soldier even after his theoretical war has ended. 

Alternate Best Actor 1977: Bruno S. in Stroszek

Bruno S. did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Bruno Stroszek in Stroszek. 

Stroszek follows an idiosyncratic German musician who moves to America. 

Stroszek is the second of two films directed by Werner Herzog to feature Bruno S., after playing the peculiar man who had a natural musical ability who had gone through many years of a strange imprisonment in The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, this film too follows a man we see released from prison, who is a musician, although now during the modern era. In both instances of Herzog's use of Bruno S., there is a clear specificity of the choice as an alternative to Klaus Kinski, as there's a certain innocence to Bruno S. as opposed to the spawn of Satan's innate presence of Kinski. But I think in both instances this goes beyond that choice, as the fact that he plays a character nearly with his own name I would say is no coincidence. If one were to read about Bruno S.'s life, which is rather heartbreaking, where he was abused as a child, apparently tortured by Nazis, and spent time also imprisoned in mental institutions, the casting of Bruno S. in both instances has a certain autobiographical quality. Although I wouldn't say he is being cast as "himself" in both instances, as there is a progression within his character in Hauser that certainly is performed, the certain particular way Bruno S. interacts with the world, supported also by an interview I watched of him, is very much his personal thing. I won't make any diagnosis of S., but I think it is safe to say he takes in and reacts to stimuli differently from the average person. What Herzog seems to be doing, especially in this film, is merely presenting this unique man to us through the theoretical character of Stroszek. And I should note, I don't think this is a case of someone "not acting", as obviously what Stroszek is going through is not what Bruno S. is going through, these are fictional scenarios, but nonetheless what we do get is the reaction of this man that is very much his own if filtered through performance. 

And we see this man going about his life of leaving prison, to find himself in a world accosted by local thugs, while being friendly towards a local prostitute. S. doesn't react to any of this as a man with hardship, even when they are torturing him, but rather just a man kind of taking it in, in his own particular way, that is very much his way. This is one of those instances where it is hard to say what Bruno S. has, but he has *it* in that there is just something innately captivating about Bruno S., even if to say exactly why, isn't the easiest. He moves to America even and even then, Bruno S. looks at every sight his own way, every interaction his own way, later when things start not going his way for his small group, including the prostitute, there is frustration in the words he speaks, however even that is Bruno S.'s own way about himself. He never exactly states anything to anyone, it is this internalized sort of spoken way. Even as things go wrong, such as that prostitute running off with a trucker, his other companion getting arrested, his house getting taken away, being lost in America, Bruno S. presents Stroszek as just going through these landscapes, these moments as his man does, as he does, which is as he is, in this way that only he can be. I mean there truly should be nothing to a man riding an amusement park ride by himself while seeming to be lost, but just the particular expression that Bruno S. is making as he goes around and around is oddly fascinating, in just being so much himself that it is hard not to look at what he is doing. The sequences that are contrasting the rest of his work are when he plays music, and if one thing I wholeheartedly wish was there had been more scenes of Stroszek playing music and singing. One segment in particular where he takes the street to perform, simply seeming to do so, Bruno S. is absolutely captivating and suddenly he communicates in such a universal way it is kind of beautiful. This is not your traditional performance, or film, yet just like the film, Bruno S. delivers performance here that does captivate, even if the *how* may remain a bit enigmatic. 

Alternate Best Actor 1977: Fernando Rey in Elisa, Vida Mía

Fernando Rey did not receive an Oscar nomination, despite winning Cannes, for portraying Luis in Elisa, Vida Mía.

Elisa, Vida Mía explores a woman Elisa (Geraldine Chaplin), examining her life while staying with her father on a secluded farmhouse.

Fernando Rey also received some critical mentions for his work in Buñuel's That Obscure Object of Desire, in a dubbed performance as a rich older man lusting after an enigmatic if not impish younger woman. Where, though dubbed, Rey's physical work certainly was effective there in terms of portraying the growing frustrations in the man, mixed in with the immediate sexual fascinations that keep him going back. Rey, in his own voice, also is featured here in a film that is in part about the relationship between an older man and younger woman, though this time father and daughter, though in both instances his co-stars get the showier roles. Rey's role here is very subdued here, and only sometimes the focus as we find him just being the genial father figure who his extended family has come to visit. He brings a quiet warmth about him in just his modest interactions but doesn't put much on it other than just a man happy to see his family. So much that he's more than eager to invite his daughter to stay with him so they can connect more. And if that seems the setup for a two hander where the two reconnect after so many years, you'd be incorrect because the focal point is much more Chaplin as Elisa than it is Rey as Luis. 

Rey comes in and out of the film, much as the film itself comes and in and out of its perspectives that at times seems straightforward enough about Elisa just thinking about her life, however there are common swerves both into flashbacks and into fantasies involving the people she knows. Rey is interspersed into various moments, such as telling Elisa about a man he thinks might be a murderer visiting a grave, that he does little about, or telling her about his writing that he doesn't like to be pretensions about. Which Rey's own performance is pretty gentle, and his delivery is just of this sharing calm of a man just wanting to share a bit with his daughter without much more than that. At times she shares with him, her thoughts, her struggles, and with any Rey brings an earnest empathy in any given scene. One that creates the right sense of the father, but also the father who has not always been there recently so he's catching up as a well as being there now. We get a few other bits, such as Luis bringing Elisa to his school, which we get the same general consistent demeanor as he "shows off" his daughter with a natural affability. Rey is wholly consistent, however I wouldn't say he's not exactly overshadowed by Chaplin, because he is. And mostly he's a welcome enough presence but not much more than that. We occasional get an alternative moment, such as when his health begins to fail, which Rey carries the right sort of physical hesitations and exhaustion however it's not a focal point. We even get a completely random incest scene, well Chaplin also plays her own mother, so maybe it's not supposed to be that, either way. Rey delivers a fine performance here, you certainly sense the history between the two, the limited growth, the understanding, the care, but also the separation. It is largely of reactions, however Rey effectively brings this internal within his own work, even if this is very much Chaplin's film. 

Alternate Best Actor 1977

And the Nominees Were Not:

William Devane in Rolling Thunder

 

Rutger Hauer in Soldier Of Orange

 

Fernando Rey in Elisa, Vida Mía

 

Bruno S. in Stroszek 

 

Boris Plotnikov in The Ascent