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Salon on Gollum's Failed Oscar Nomination
Masem writes "Salon has an interesting commentary on the failure for Andy Serkis, the actor that used as the model and voice for Gollum in The Two Tower, to garnish an Oscar nomination despite the pressure that Peter Jackson and others placed on the Academy to get the nomination. They had previously pointed to John Hurt's Best Actor nomination in "The Elephant Man", in which the only visible feature of Hurt was his eyes after the elaborate makeup and costuming, but even then, Hurt did not win, he himself believing that it would be hard to connect the real actor to the role that he played. Salon suggests that the Academy needs to seriously consider how digital technology is affecting the way movies are being made and to be more open to non-traditional roles and films as potental Oscar material."
This is a real toss-up because it's the seamless integration of his voice acting WITH the rendering of the character. .. He didn't do all that himself. . One is useless without the other.
Maybe they should nominate "teams" in the case of dig-characters. .or have a seperate award.
but seriously best actor ...?
come on guys, be serious here, acting has a lot to do with facial expressions, and body language and these are not effective when done by animated characters no matter how reallistic they look
may be oscar should start a seperate catagory for animated characters, or may be best vocal performance for ppl who do the talking but best actor ?
what next nominate peter jackson for noble prize ?
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
Admittedly I didn't realize this, but it's still not clear cut like a classic acting role in a film.
.or have a special award for this . .
I think rather than continuing to just ignore roles like this that "don't fit" into a category, they should do SOMETHING.
As it stated, the way CG characters were handled in the past was that they were thrown in during post-production so that the person responsible for the movement and whatnot wasn't really involved in the scene at the time it was being shot. Jackson took a different approach during the filming and actually had Serkis involved in the process while it was being shot.
The Academy is a little too uppity to throw in new categories until they've already become such an obvious addition that their lack of addition becomes a controversy. The Oscars are really more of a salute to Hollywood's aging stars than rewarding innovative work. [I know that's a generalization and it's not always true - but for the most part it is.]
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
This has been coming on for a couple of years, and I suspect that it's only going to get murkier in the near future.
It's time to ask the question: What IS an actor? Strictly speaking, I'd say that the voice and visual inspiration for a digital character is, in fact, an actor. However, the final onscreen character is the result of many people toiling away in many different jobs. The animator, the designer, the painter, the guy who runs the mocap studio... they all have a hand in it. Perhaps the academy simply needs a new category. Best digital actor, or something similar. Certainly all the work put into something like Gollum deserves more than an fx nomination!
It's remarkable that Serkis did both the (incredible) voice work and (astounding) physical performance. There will be more characters like Gollum over the years, but they're unlikely to match Serkis' incredible range. You'll have a dancer for the body, a rubber-face for the face, a voice actor for the voice, and so on. It's rare to encounter so much talent in one person.
This is a golden moment for the Academy to honor an astounding performance the likes of which we may never see again.
I can't hold it against them too much: for the most part the Academy wouldn't recognize good acting if it walked up and bit them. They too often honor "showy" acting, largely one-dimensional with huge emotional swings and featured parts, that are actually built on a combination of music, camera work, editing, and a host of other factors outside the performance itself.
I'm an actor myself, and IMHO on film you can see only a performance, not an actor. That's good: you're not supposed to be watching the acting. The hard work of acting is accomplished where you can't see it, in rehearsal rooms and in the actor's bathroom, in front of the mirror, and in long talks with fellow actors at the bar worrying about each syllable, on set finding the right tone not just for you but for everybody in a scene. All of which can be lost by different editing, direction, a music choice going the other way, or another actor taking a different choice.
I applaud Serkis' work, and I want to see if he has range as well as talent. I'm sorry the Academy chose not to honor him, and that's always going to hurt no matter how meaningless the award and no matter how thunderous the accolades from the people whose opinions really do matter.
Putting aside for a moment that the Oscars are absolute garbage awards that have no bearing on the artistic worth of the films they award, this topic isn't so tough a question to answer to me. Personally, I think that maybe they need a Best Voice Actor award, and that perhaps that would be the best category for Serkis in this case. Acting is more than speaking, it includes movement and posture as well. The fact that an entire team of people intepreted Serkis' performance and then modified it completely to suit their needs leads me to believe that it would be quite unfair to his competition to nominate him individually as an actor. They, the competition, had to rely on themselves to come up with convincing (or unconvincing as the case may be) physical performances. Maybe they need to have a Best Team Effort at Creating a Digital Actor award.
Maybe some actors like the idea of "modeling" for a digital character; probably a lot of directors are intrigued by the possibilities. But I bet the majority of the Academy members hate the whole idea.
The reason we still have awards ceremonies is simple. It makes money for the industry. If people stop watching then two things happen. One, no more advertising revenue. Two, no more manipulative tool to get people to go see movies that they wouldn't have otherwise seen ('Gee, it was nominated for five awards, it must be good, I'll go see it!').
Good points. You should be modded up!
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I think rather than continuing to just ignore roles like this that "don't fit" into a category, they should do SOMETHING. .or have a special award for this . .
Best Voice / Digitally Enhanced Acting Performance. That would also let actors from animated films get a chance.
millions in the way of a publication is NOTHING. they didn't BLOW thru any cash. they have always operated leanly, and managed to pay writers what they are worth. they didn't/don't have outrageous rooftop parties, expensive perks, or anything else remotely like what other dot-com era companies had.
they managed to stay alive on a subscription business model for this long, which is more than i can say for ANY publication on the web with original daily content. ESPN.com couldn't do it, as many others.
whether you like salon or not, credit is due to them for surviving as long as they did. when the economy changed, they adapted.
they were one of the first to embrace open source technologies...and I mean embrace, not just webserving. they were the first to publish original content that other publications wouldn't.
they remain (whether they closed their doors or not) as the ONLY independently run online publication.
for some perspective, USA today was in the deep red for *FIVE* years before they turned one profit, and is STILL not recognized as either original or of high reputation.
I can't find the article right now, but if I remember correctly the academy refused to give TRON a special effects nomination because they "cheated" by using computers :)
Sounds like they're often a bit behind the times to me.
Cheers.
Gollum won't get nominated for the same reasons that Peter Lorre never got any significant award. No matter how good the actor is at playing the part, and no matter how important the role is to the movie, it's just not the type of role that gets nominations. It's not anti-CGI bigotry, it's anti-creepy-guy bigotry.
I certainly don't think the academy is anything but a manifestation of the peculiar and bizarre politics of Hollywood, but frankly I don't see any reason to assume the nomination was deserved, from the voice acting or the CGI character point of view. Of the supporting actor nominees I've only seen Chris Cooper (Adaptation) and John C. Reilly (Chicago), but there's no doubt whatsoever in my mind that these performances were far and above superior to the hammy charicature of Gollum. And I found the CGI character to be distractingly unreal as usual. As far as I'm concerned these CGI characters still aren't there. Yes, they are agonizingly detailed, writhingly articulated, mapped and textured and fractalled up one side and down the other, you can see every strand of "hair" and the reflections in the tiny beads of sweat on their noses... and they DON'T LOOK REAL. I look and what my brain says is, wow, that is an amazingly detailed cartoon. Every time Gollum came on screen it knocked me out of the illusion.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
For any of you who still doubt just how much of Andy Serkis is in the Golum performance, particularly in his face, download this little MPEG file I just whipped up. It's a 15 second clip showing the some refernce work Serkis did compaired to the actual Golumn CGI character. They're practically identical. (Note: there's no sound)
k is _reference.mpg
http://members.evansville.net/ckohler/video/ser
I got the video snippits for this clip from the official Lord of the Rings website.
http://www.lordoftherings.net/
but anyone who saw the movie knows that Gollum was probably the most likeable film character of 2002, and proof that all-digital characters can be taken seriously (unlike the infamous Jar-Jar)
For that matter, they also ought to have a category for 'best digital character' for a completely CGI created character with no motion control or anything else. Of course the character could be voice acted but the award would only consider the visual aspects.
Given some of the other obscure (and often-times seemingly redundant) categories that the Academy has (including many which are, apparently, not even worthy of inclusion on the prime time awards broadcast) I don't think this is too much of a stretch.
Understanding is a three edged sword. - Ambassador Kosh Naranek, Babylon 5