Alternate Best Supporting Actor 1997: Results

5. Cary Elwes in Liar Liar - Elwes brings charm and the proper comedic dorkiness to his small role.

Best Scene: His "the claw."

4. Dan Aykroyd in Grosse Pointe Blank - Aykroyd isn't the first man you'd expect as a hitman, and in turn this is a most entertaining oddball turn from him.

Best Scene: Breakfast

3. J.T. Walsh in Breakdown - Walsh gives a wonderfully sinister turn by being both believable as a caring trucker and of course the duplicitous bastard his character is in truth.

Best Scene: Breakfast

2. Bruce Greenwood in The Sweet Hereafter - Greenwood gives a powerful portrayal of a man dealing with grief both in moments of raw heartbreak and of confronting the fallout of it head on.

Best Scene: Watching the accident

1. Masato Hagiwara in Cure - Good predictions Matt Mustin, Calvin, Michael Patison, RatedRStar, Tahmeed, Aidan and Luke. Hagiwara gives a quietly terrifying performance that aids the film greatly in his quietly unnerving turn that slowly gets under your skin.

 

Best Scene: Hypnotizing the doctor.

Updated Overall

 

Next: 1979 Lead 

Alternate Best Supporting Actor 1997: Masato Hagiwara in Cure

Masato Hagiwara did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Mamiya in Cure.

 

Cure is one of the most honestly unsettling films I've seen about a detective investigating a series of strange murders with similar traits yet done by different people. 

Cure isn't about the big scares but rather a certain nightmarish mood that cuts beneath a skin, similar to the way the scenes featuring Robert Blake's Mystery Man from David Lynch's Lost Highway, also from 97. Both films are not about the horror jumping out at you, but rather the horror is just right there reminding you of itself, a horror that is both tangible and ethereal. At the center of the horror of both films is a performance, performances that are very different yet strangely similar. One trait consistent is the way both characters seem to appear out of nowhere to reek a kind of havoc on the living and normal existence around them. Hagiwara suddenly appears in the film, as the film seems to reveal its truth however even then to say the mystery becomes solved probably would be a rush to judgment. Hagiwara's first full appearance comes as a seeming nondescript young man coming to see a doctor.  Hagiwara's performance becomes anything but as he speaks to the woman in dulcet tones that quickly lure her into a trance.  Hagiwara's performance is really quite startling and also remarkable, because really a classic hypnotism scene is about as cheesy as they come in general conception, yet it really is all in the execution.  Hagiwara's work is a key in this in the ease he brings in delivery that makes it unnerving as it is strangely believable as he begins to speak the woman into his sway. More unsettling however is as his suggestions become more sinister in nature, suggesting her desire to perform surgery and Hagiwara's eyes take on this demonic allure. There's a satisfaction in the implanting the suggestion, a smile that Hagiwara reveals in the man enjoying essentially setting up a murder. In a way, the most strangely disconcerting moment is when he snaps his victim/accomplish out of it by throwing water in her face. There is such aggression yet also blithe disregard in Hagiwara's manner as he dispatches her presence away from her simply as though she truly is nothing to him. 

Eventually, the police find the mysterious young man as the common factor and arrest him on his peculiar murder incitements, however just because he is caught, the horror of the character does not cease. Rather Hagiwara achieves the unique achievement of making his mere presence in any scene something that is instantly unsettling. Just the way he stares seemingly into everyone's soul, even as it seems like he's been caught, even when he is being physically hit, Hagiwara looks on with an incisive stare that suggests a man with some enigmatic knowledge of the world, but also this withdrawn caustic glee as looks upon the chaos he is creating by his mere existence. Every scene with Hagiwara is a frightening mystery because he seems to know so much while revealing so little. It is with this quietly assured quality within every side-eyed stare and overly comfortable delivery that Hagiwara makes a most unorthodox terror. Hagiwara achieves that particular visceral quality within his performance as just being around him creates this anxiety, and again fascinating against Robert Blake's performance, who both might be playing some form of the devil, as they each craft a creature that is both unknowable yet feels strangely tangible. Every time Hagiwara saunters into a scene he instantly makes the air seemingly grow cold and as the man stares with this fascination towards all as though they are just a victim waiting for his words. There's just that sincerity of the fiendish pleasure in every word. He never raises a fist or twists a knife, rather every word is this strange message of paranoia and a kind of doom. Hagiwara's performance is such that even when it seems he's under control, or disposed of entirely, that he seems to still be haunting the film. His performance is brilliant though as again any choice here slightly off would've instantly removed the horror of the character, yet every line, every stare from Hagiwara is pitch perfect in creating this distressing figure that eases his way unpleasantly beneath your skin, and never leaves.

Alternate Best Supporting Actor 1997

 And the Nominees Were Not:

Dan Aykroyd in Grosse Pointe Blank

 

Masato Hagiwara in Cure

Cary Elwes in Liar Liar

Bruce Greenwood in The Sweet Hereafter

J.T. Walsh in Breakdown

Nor were they the Boogie Nights All Stars:

 

Don Cheadle

 

John C. Reilly

 

Philip Seymour Hoffman

 

Thomas Jane

Alfred Molina

 

Predict the ranking of both sets, if you like.