Alternate Best Actor 1987: Results

10. Gaspard Manesse in Au Revoir Les Enfants -Manesse gives a fine natural turn however his performance is largely limited as the perspective of a mostly naive young boy.

Best Scene: The ending.

9. Steve Martin in Roxanne - Martin gives a surprisingly respectful sendoff of the Cyrano character re-imagined as a fireman, though I perhaps wish he stayed even truer to the spirit of the original.

Best Scene: Smelling fire.

8. Joe Mantegna in House of Games - Mantegna is limited by the character however he gives effective portrayals of the many different sides of a con man, from the sucker, to the smooth operator, and even just the slime ball beneath it all.

Best Scene: "Thank you sir, may I have another"

7. Klaus Kinski in Cobra Verde - Kinski as usually makes an impact in his emotionally raw turn however his work is constricted by the film's distant perspective character.

Best Scene: How to spear

6. Martin Short in Innerspace - Short gives an absolutely hilarious portrayal of an especially unlikely hero, but he also naturally finds some dramatic substance in his character's journey towards confidence.

Best Scene: The dream in reality.

5. Christian Bale in Empire of the Son - Bale gives a dramatic and compelling portrayal of the gradual maturation of a young boy through the horrors of war. His work though often seems strangely at odds with Steven Spielberg who seems often too timid to make a story about the loss of innocence.

Best Scene: After the bombings. 

4. Terry O'Quinn in The Stepfather - O'Quinn is in a garbage film however he breaths a genuinely chilling life into a man who thrives on the love of family but does so through killing them.

Best Scene: Who am I?

3. Cary Elwes in The Princess Bride - Elwes gives a somewhat underrated turn, in a highly regarded film, as his work captures just the perfect tone between earnest charisma, and sly comedy.

Best Scene: "Drop your sword"

2. Richard E. Grant in Withnail and I - Richard E. Grant delivers a marvelous feature film debut in his varied comical, yet not without pathos, portrayal of an actor trying his best to play the play that is his life.

Best Scene: Hamlet in the rain.

1. Mickey Rourke in Angel Heart - Rourke tops this list with ease in his charismatic yet also brilliantly exhaustive portrayal of a vicious mental and moral decay of a man as he descends towards hell.

Best Scene: "I know who I am"

Updated Overall

Next Year: 1987 supporting

Alternate Best Actor 1987: Gaspard Manesse in Au Revoir Les Enfants

Gaspard Manesse did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Julien Quentin in Au Revoir Les Enfants.

Au Revoir Les Enfants is an effective film following a schoolboy in Nazi occupied France during World War II.

 In 1987 there were three films that featured the child's perspective during World War II, obviously I just reviewed Christian Bale as the British boy in Japanese occupied China in Empire of the Sun, then there was a British boy in the blitz in John Boorman's Hope and Glory, and then finally we have Louis Malle's semi-autobiographical here. Although all three feature that perspective the latter two have a more distant approach in terms of how the central performance is utilized. Of course this does not speak to the quality of the films, I believe the latter two films to be superior than Spielberg's film. The two though are not strictly of innocence breaking rather the idea of innocence is reflected in the boy's interactions with their situation. This is what we have here in Gaspard Manesse as the schoolboy simply attending a catholic boarding school. There is a bit of fear but even this is portrayed in a pretty low key way by Manesse as Julien says goodbye to his mother. Not in an underwhelming way mind you, Manesse delivers it as the slight hesitations of a well adjusted boy, and it isn't anything that one would need to dwell upon.

The film then is mostly of Julien attending his school. Now far more is going on around it with the Nazi soldiers prowling around, an anti-Jewish sentiment being pervasive in some, the priest principal at the head of the school seeming as though the weight of the world on his shoulders and one fellow school boy who just doesn't seem to quite fit in. In the middle of this is Julien who isn't blissfully ignorant, but rather Manesse's portrays the ignorance of a boy not really at an age where that would press unto his mind. Manesse's performance rather realizes the state of Julien as simply a boy who wants to do well in school and perhaps make a few friends. This eventually is the boy who doesn't quite fit in named Jean. Manesse's portrayal of interactions with the boy though is that of boy's being boys. That being a bit of jealousy at first, at his mutual academic performance, that slowly transforms into camaraderie and friendship. None of this is particularly intense in nature, nor should it be, rather both young actors just realize the friendship of two boys as though they were of any time. There are hints of the boy's situation of course, and this is perhaps where Manesse's greatest challenge in terms of his performance is realized.

This being in Julien's slow realization that the boy Jean is in fact Jewish and is being hidden to escape persecution by the Nazis. Manesse manages to handle this largely in reactionary moments throughout the film. This being in granting a particular focus to certain moments where Jean's background is questioned. Again though Manesse's handling of these moments is still just a boy who is quietly discovering something, not of some investigator of any sort. Julien is not in some quest of any kind he's just a friend to the boy, and exists in a world of just trying to live his life. Eventually the Nazis do come for the Jews being hidden in the school, and Julien accidentally telegraphs Jean's location. This is a good moment as played by Manesse as just a most genuine fear of a boy for his friend. He handles the whole "purging" sequence well by conveying the growing anxiety in the boy with this certain sense of disbelief as though his whole world is crashing down. This too is reserved, though effectively so, as Julien is not the one being arrested, and he really can't do much about it. Manesse's depiction is that of a nearly being petrified which is an honest portrayal given that Julien is not any more than just a boy who hasn't experienced much hardship in his life. Manesse's performance is still rather moving in its final moments of portraying the overwhelming sadness in the boy as he watches those being taken away. Manesse's whole performance is one that works well for the film however it is limited. It is distant, though detached, as this straight forward representation of a young student simply living a young's student life, until suddenly the horrible outside world tears that simplicity from him.

Alternate Best Actor 1987

And the Nominees Were Not:

Cary Elwes in The Princess Bride

Joe Mantegna in House of Games

Richard E. Grant in Withnail and I

Steve Martin in Roxanne

Gaspard Manesse in Au Revoir Les Enfants

Predict those five, these five or both.

Mickey Rourke in Angel Heart

Terry O'Quinn in The Stepfather

Klaus Kinski in Cobra Verde

Martin Short in Innerspace

Christian Bale in Empire of the Sun