Naturally, after last year’s 100 Essential Female and Male Performances lists, we felt the need to further explore the performances by those great male and female actors that did not initially make our epic lists. Whether through the helpful suggestions in the comments section, grueling grad genre studies or just good old-fashioned movie watching, I have been made aware of some truly great performances over the past year that I think deserve a similar treatment, deserve to have the spotlight shined on them.
Though our initial lists of 100 were divided into “Male” and “Female”, further updates will merge the gender barriers for equality’s sake, queuing the honorees in alphabetical order, 25 men, 25 women. Some of the people on the list already transgress the boundaries of what is male and what is female: to categorize a performance like Volker Spengler as Elvira in Rainer Werner Fassbiner’s In a Year of 13 Moons by solely by gender makes little sense. In addition to taking the gender division out of list for this round, we are keeping the categories from the first list (Life Support, The Dark Side, Classics You Should Have Seen By Now, From Page to Screen and Under the Radar), though we are no longer ordering our lists bycategory.
From Page to Screen
Tony Leung Chiu-Wai
Lust, Caution
(Ang Lee, 2007)
There are few actors from Asia who can convey melancholy like Leung. The glint of a fixed gaze, the slight frown of the lips, even in the way he smokes a cigarette, there’s the air of ineffable sadness about him. As the head of the secret police in 1940s Shanghai, Mr. Yee, Leung’s performance relies on subtle shifts in desire. His pursuit of the student spy, Wong Chia Chi (the luminous Tang Wei) is at first tentative, then urgent and forceful. Her youth and directness arouses him in the way Marlon Brando was aroused with Maria Schneider in Last Tango in Paris, and he wants to sublimate his repressed rage, sexually, onto this young, mysterious woman.
There’s a fascinating story that Ang Lee tells about Eileen Chang’s original story, Lust, Caution penned at the height of the Japanese occupation of Shanghai:
“In Chinese we have the figure of the tiger who kills a person; Thereafter, the person’s ghost willingly works for the tiger, helping to lure more prey into the jungle. The Chinese phrase for this is wei hu dzuo chung. It’s a common phrase and was often used to refer to the Chinese who collaborated with the Japanese occupiers. In the story Eileen Chang has Yee allude to this phrase to describe the relationship between men and women. Interestingly, the word of tiger’s ghost sounds exactly like the word for prostitute. So, in the movie, in the Japanese tavern scene, Yee refers to himself with this world. It could refer to his relationship to the Japanese — he is both their whore and their chung. But it also means he knows he is already a dead man.”
Throughout the film, Yee wears this mask of implacable froideur. Leung’s cool Yee has a drifting, sad, sleepy quality, with moments of quiet irrepressible rage. He’s playing a man doomed to die, but clinging on to carnal pleasure to feel more alive. Only in a few of the film’s warmer moments, do we begin see his glacial facade melt away. Once, when climbing up the stairs to his house and he hears the lilting voice of Wong Chia Chi, a look of realization hits him, and his entire posture shifts in anticipation; then again in a sleazy Japanese tavern, when he’s moved to tears by a traditional song she performs for him. And then, in the final shot of the film, when he’s alone in her bedroom. Lust, Caution is a film about sexual obsession, and how love emerges from even the most exploitative of relationships.
Farisa Khalid
Life Support
Gunnel Lindblom
The Virgin Spring
(Ingmar Bergman, 1960)
Based on the medieval Swedish ballad “Töres dotter i Wänge” and then itself later the inspiration for Wes Craven’s notorious shocker The Last House on The Left (1972), Bergman’s The Virgin Spring is but one telling of this tale of three men who rape and murder the virginal daughter of the family whose home they later come to take unwitting refuge in, only to be subject to brutal revenge at the hands of the family’s patriarch. But the character of Ingeri, the unwed, pregnant, Pagan-worshiping stepdaughter of this devoutly Christian family, is unique to this version, an original creation of Bergman, screenwriter Ulla Isaksson and actress Lindblom.
Bergman regular Lindblom plays Ingeri with a range that strikes at first with feral intensity as she flails about in a desperate Pagan ritual, then with palpable horror in the moment that she finds herself frozen and unable to act as she bears witness to the violation of her stepsister, and then finally with startling vulnerability while seeking redemption in the film’s heartbreaking closing scenes. Through Lindblom’s Ingeri, Bergman is able to transform a relatively clear-cut moral fable into a rather more complex analogy on the shift from medievalism’s mythology to the firmer spiritual grounding of the encroaching modern age. In this regard, The Virgin Spring becomes very much a story told through a series of simple, powerful images of Lindblom’s face (the human face being Bergman’s favorite film subject) and thus one that, for all of the legend’s inherent power, owes much of its resonance to her anguished, unforgettable presence.
Jer Fairall
From Page to Screen
Melanie Lynskey
Heavenly Creatures
(Peter Jackson, 1994)
Melanie Lynskey. If you watch network TV or a slew of indies, you will know her instantly, though you may not be able to put face to name (a recurring role on CBS’ hugely popular Two and a Half Men has ensured face recognition for her forever). In Heavenly Creatures, Lynskey debuted opposite neophyte Kate Winslet, who quickly rose to the cinema’s A-List. Lynskey’s career, while successful, hasn’t followed the same traditional Hollywood leading lady trajectory, which is a crying shame as she gives the arguably more complex performance in Heavenly Creatures, one that positively chills while breaking the spectator’s heart.
As Pauline Parker, a New Zealand teen who, in 1954, killed her mother with the help of her best friend Juliet (Winslet), Lynskey undergoes two metamorphoses, from introverted and brooding teen girl to giggly and energetic playmate and then finally to cold-hearted killer. Along the way, she displays an extraordinary range, moving through giddy infatuation, uncontrolled rage, devastating heartbreak, childish impudence, and pathetic insecurity with an ease usually seen in older, experienced actresses. Still, it is not what Lynskey puts on the screen that makes her performance noteworthy; what is implied is far more powerful. The lesbian subtleties of the girls’ relationship give insight into how such a quiet girl can so radically change, as Lynskey brilliantly portrays Pauline’s growing dependence on Juliet through the slightest glance or a rollicking fit of laughter. It is these hidden moments, shared only with Winslet and viewers, that make us question what is truly going on in the mind of every Girl Next Door. |You see her every day, you know her face, you have no idea what she is capable of.
Michael Abernethy
The Dark Side
Kyle MacLachlan
Twin Peaks
(David Lynch, 1990)
“You want to know why I’m whittling?” says the FBI’s Special Agent Dale Cooper (MacLachlan) to local Sheriff Harry Truman (Michael Ontkean) on a stakeout at the Roadhouse. “That’s what you do in town where a yellow light still means slow down, not speed up.” “Agent Cooper is full of funny little turns of phrases and hokey, small-town aphorisms and in the feature-length pilot to Lynch’s Twin Peaks television series, he fires off some great ones about cherry pie and hot black coffee, but that is just the sunny side of this quirky G-man. Cooper is an accomplished, capable detective who employs mysticism and the supernatural in his quest to stop a demon serial killer who is terrorizing young women in the gauzy, emerald Northwestern United States, with which Cooper has become positively enchanted. “Smell those trees. Smell those Douglas Firs,” he breathlessly says while riding in the car with Harry, and familiarizing himself with what will be his newest hunting ground, in the unforgettable wake of local golden girl Laura Palmer’s murder.
What makes Cooper such a miraculous creation, and MacLachlan’s performance such a gloriously low-key, underrated achievement, is the way both men glue the pieces together. MacLachlan expertly plays the hackneyed bumble-headedness like Gary Cooper crossed with Jimmy Stewart; the kind, empathetic eyes; the sardonic deliveries and grins; and the specific look of slicked back black hair and fitted suit to match without Cooper ever losing his air of authority. These are all familiar characteristics of cinematic government agents — the stoicism, the cool facade, the vast knowledge of the criminal mind, the trench coat — yet when the actor unites each individual aspect, external and internal, the final product is an iconic, landmark character that people are still talking about 20 years later and still blissfully discovering new things about. The chivalrous armor Agent Cooper wears is forged in molten steel and his sheer will and determination to piece together the mysteries of the oddball Twin Peaks and to bring a murderer to justice is romantic, scary and completely original. Agent Cooper stands with the greatest heroic leading man turns in film history, a true blue good guy fighting absolute evil. Diane: please note that without Special Agent Dale Cooper, it is hard to imagine other similarly eccentric FBI agents existing at all.
Matt Mazur
Gary Oldman, Michelle Pfeiffer, and more
Under the Radar
Steve Martin
The Jerk
(Carl Reiner, 1979)
At the end of ’70s, Steve Martin was a ridiculously successful stand up comic who developed a fervent fan base that would shout his jokes along with him. While this may have been a boon to many performers, it was a setback for Martin, as the audience reaction ruined the comic timing of the bit. The grueling work schedule of repetitive performances also began to take his toll, and Martin wanted to transition his legacy from a temporary stand up fad to a more enduring medium: film. He and his co-writers wanted to do something epic in scale but shorter in running time, so a modern take on Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot was dubbed The Jerk. Martin used bits of his stand up to shape the movie, and the whole concept came from one of those lines: “It wasn’t easy for me. I was born a poor black child.”
While Airplane is often credited for inventing the joke-a-minute format, The Jerk predates it and is jam packed with great, silly material from beginning to end. It’s one of those movies where almost every part could possibly be your favorite part. Whether it’s the, “I’m picking out a thermos for you” song, or Pizza-in-a-cup, these hysterical, detailed little bits stick with you for life. Martin’s performance is comic gold, while it also shows a lot of vulnerability and heart. The actor was always trying to find the love of his real life and though he might have, to date, not realized that dream, you can still see that tender, romantic side of him in onscreen as Navin Johnson. While The Jerk became the ultimate expression of Martin’s surreal stand up, it also had a sweet nature to it that is best represented by this scene with co-star Bernadette Peters, which Martin cites as his favorite.
John Lindstedt
Life Support
Lonette McKee
Sparkle
(Sam O’Steen, 1976)
Sister (McKee) is the wounded heart and soul of Sparkle, a film built around the story of three African American sisters coming of age in the late ’50s. Sparkle pinpoints the exact moment when Sister realizes she is a star, a realization which sets in motion the chain of events leading to her drug-fueled, tragic end. The sisters (along with two neighborhood guys) are performing as a vocal harmony group at a local talent contest (the kind where, if your performance is deemed sub par, you get pulled off stage by a giant hook) and they’re all a bit nervous as they begin their well-rehearsed, though mannered number. Once the music starts, however, Sister reveals herself as a natural scene-stealer and steps out of the line to become a soloist, playing directly to the audience and relegating the others to the role of her backup singers. The next time we see the sisters perform they’re a polished trio dressed like the Supremes in flame-colored gowns and long evening gloves with the lithe, tawny-eyed Sister front and center. Her very movement and posture indicate that she is the star as she sashays in perfect time with Curtis Mayfield’s “Hooked on Your Love”.
Like Icarus she will fly too close to the sun and pay for her presumption: Sister’s beauty and talent attract the wrong kind of attention and drugs and domestic abuse follow rapidly, leading almost inevitably to a white satin-lined coffin. The other stories end more hopefully as Dolores (Dwan Smith) joins the Civil Rights movement while Sparkle (Irene Cara) becomes a vocal star but the story of McKee’s Sister remains the film’s most indelible memory, thanks to the perfect casting of hyphenate McKee, who, like Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge sings, dances, and dies; flying high on soul-infused love songs, cocaine and a fatally bruised wing.
Sarah Boslaugh
The Dark Side
Julianne Moore
Savage Grace
(Tom Kalin, 2008)
With a career characterized by hotly-charged performances that are full of ambivalent sexuality, it would not appear that playing the subversive role of Barbara Baekland would seem like too significant a departure for Moore, one of the most adventurous, intelligent American actresses working in film today. But when the truth is stranger than fiction, as it can be in Savage Grace, is the obvious way to approach this type to play to its camp leanings or against them? While Moore and director Kalin cannot always resist the allure to indulge in the excesses of this true story, they bravely and successfully face the challenge of composing a compassionate, humane meditation on poisonous familial and romantic relationships.
In collaboration, they go to the core of how such toxicity can contaminate an already desperate and bruised woman like Barbara. Simmering beneath Barbara’s surface histrionics is a boundless reserve of frozen rage and restlessness that manifests itself in forbidden passions and fatal romances. Having been mishandled by the men in her life (primarily her husband Brooks [Stephen Dillane]), her manic frustrations surface after finding herself ensnared in situations where she is expected to accept and submit to patriarchal, social hierarchies of power. After Barbara’s husband leaves her for a much younger woman (and lover of their son Tony [Eddie Redmayne]), Barbara obstinately retaliates by living a contrarian, bohemian bon vivant lifestyle of gaudy decadence and little pleasure, as she tries to establish herself as a professional artist.
Her recoveries are only ever partial, at best, and ultimately, her self-destructive impulses harm not only herself, but the few people who are able to actually love her. Finding a line to connect and develop a character who crosses so many cultural and class boundaries but is also equal parts frivolous and fickle, is no small achievement. It is hard to imagine anyone but Moore in the role, considering her past experience with daringly, darkly staring through the looking glass at mother archetypes, isolation, and stereotypical American portrayals of female sexuality — in film such as Robert Altman’s Short Cuts, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights and Magnolia and Todd Haynes’ Safe and Far From Heaven — and returning to present a unique vision each time she appears on screen.
David Acacia and Matt Mazur
Life Support
Gary Oldman
The Professional
(Luc Besson, 1994)
Whether you watch the 110-minute theatrical cut or the 133-minute international version, Oldman only pops up for about 20 minutes of The Professional. Like many great supporting thespians, Oldman strides into the picture, steals it, and departs. Yes, Jean Reno and a young Natalie Portman deliver impressive takes on the film’s two central roles. So why are we left thinking about Oldman’s portrayal of Stansfield after either version of the film?
It’s his energy. The power, oomph, and liveliness everyone (and I mean everyone) either loves or loathes in Oldman’s performance. Critics called it “over the top”. Admirers knew better. Sometimes actors get a little too lively and burst out of character through a series of fits, manic gestures, or barked exclamations. This isn’t quite one of those times.
The fits, gestures, and exclamations are all present, but they’ve been skillfully crafted into intimidating eccentricities. Every time Stansfield pops a pill, his spine contorts violently enough to shatter. He dances to music playing on his Walkman before literally sniffing a drug dealer he expects is lying to him. He even gives a few long, scary speeches reminiscent of Bond villains — except he’s got a 12-year-old girl in his sights. It’s these calm little moments before the storm that are truly uncanny.
Then the storm hits and its Oldman’s vehement vigor that establishes the corrupt cop as more than just another mark for Leon. He’s not a bad guy. He’s thee bad guy, and we can tell in less than 20 minutes.
Ben Travers
The Classics You Should Have Seen by Now
Michelle Pfeiffer
The Fabulous Baker Boys
(Steve Kloves, 1989)
As Susie Diamond, a hard-boiled call girl turned lounge singer, Pfeiffer nabbed every major critics award (eventually losing the 1989 Best Actress Oscar to Jessica Tandy) and, thanks to a slinky, Steinway-humping rendition of “Makin’ Whoopee”, entered the pop culture pantheon of bombshells in red dresses. But as Pfeiffer’s leading-lady turns grow infrequent in the 21st century, Baker Boys seems especially precious in retrospect: it marks her bloom into a restrained, intelligent actress and, at the same time, remains a career-pinnacle she would never quite best. (See also: a murderous mom in White Oleander, a snarling Catwoman in Batman Returns and an aging courtesan in Cheri for some dazzling almosts.)
In Susie, Pfeiffer finds the perfect conduit for her most singular talents, mining deep reservoirs of sadness under the character’s steely facade. We’ve seen this archetype before — the erstwhile hooker-with-a-heart-of-mush — but Pfeiffer is so fiercely funny, so magnetic in her remoteness, so ineffably right that we can’t help forgetting. And did I mention she sings, too? A nearly rangeless vocalist — with a throaty purr that strains for top notes and quavers above bottom ones — Pfeiffer possesses the near-indescribable gift of acting a song, suggesting the depth of Susie’s bruised core, her great emptiness, her unfulfilled dreams. There is something inherently honest at work in the film’s musical numbers and, whenever Susie takes the stage of yet-another airport lounge, the whole film becomes bewitched by her quiet intensity, held momentarily in the thrall of an magnetic, difficult-to-place star.
Ray Dademo
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