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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."
"Sssssallllonnnnn yessssss... can't pay rent, no!!! Kicked out of officessss ssssoooon! Homelessssss... poor poor homelesssss... Sssssaallllon."
...and now we'll never get to hear Serkis thank "his precious" for helping him win in the acceptance speech.
Dude, where's my packet?
The Academy Awards long ago ceased to be about who was most deserving to win or be nominated. If indeed they ever were about that at all. They are not much more than a cliquish popularity contest and a way to make political statements.
In a way this mirrors the failure of the recording industry to 'get it' in our rapidly changing times. The entrenched establishment of the music and movie industry is so hidebound that nothing short of dramatic reform (i.e. tear it all down and start over) will probably fix it.
As CGI and other digital effects become more and more commonplace, there will have to be a change in perception by the Academy (aside: Do they teach something? I thought Academies were teaching institutions???) or they will become increasingly irrelelvant. Already, to many movie lovers, the Oscars are more of a joke than anything else.
Just my not so humble opinion. Your milage may vary.
"despite the pressure that Peter Jackson and others placed on the Academy to get the nomination"
I do think he should get a nomination, but aren't these things supposed to be related to actual performance by the actor compared to his contemporaries, and not crooked lobbying?
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Tron wasn't nominated for an Oscar in visual effects because it used computers and wasn't animated. Andy Serkis wasn't nominated this time, but people will be nominated one day.
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For me, the very things which made gollum have such a big impact on the movie were provided by the actor. The emotion, the delivery, the facial expressions and the movement were all provided solely by the actor - I think this makes Andy valid for an oscar nomination. It's altogether different to the usual voice-over stuff that Eddie Murphy and Tom Hanks have pulled off so well in the past for truly computer generated characters.
He did more than just voice act. He also made all the necessary movments etc and then the special effects were placed on top of him. More like digital makeup on an actor than a fully digital creation ala Jar Jar.
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.
This does not bode well for the new character being introduced in The Return of the King who is also digitally generated.
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You're wrong. Read up on how they did Gollum.
The actor was in about all his scenes, and it's essentially his face you see in the movie. Mostly live sound, too. The actor wore a body suit with indexing marks which were later used as guides for the body animation.
So yes, the actor did perform on-camera, including face, and body movements, and deserves most of the credit for the Gollum performance. CGI just changed the body and reanimated some movements.
Definately the Academy has to accomodate this type of performance. Regardless, in this case the actor was superb, CGI or not.
I completely agree with what you said but I'd go a step further and state that I think the whole idea of awards for movies and other art seems bizarre and way too subjective. Supposedly, top talent have chosen to make movies because they love the artform. So why would an award be meaningful to them? Awards are useful in athletic competitions but are they truly appropriate for art? I would argue that they are not. The creative talent in Hollywood (please don't snicker) should find that the chance to make art they think is meaningful and appreciated by others is reward enough. A golden statue and lavous ceremony should not be necessary.
We are then stuck with the question: why do we have award ceremonies (and so damn many of them as well)? I submit to you that the reason is purely popularity, politics and marketing as dreamchaser said. I don't give a damn about the Oscars and, quite frankly, I don't understand why anyone else does either.
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the digital makeup (as mentioned above) is not at all unlike any other kind of costume and makeup. I mean, if women in the 80s can cream their panties over the otherwise homey Ron Perlman as The Beast in 'Beauty and the Beast', and he was covered with a great deal of makeup, then why can't people recognize digital-on-actor is just another form of makeup?
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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.
Titantic - took the Oscar and was a huge commercial success - maybe you didn't like it but you talked about what the public enjoyed. This was in 1997.
Braveheart - took the Oscar and was also a huge commercial success for the year 1995.
Forrest Gump - another huge commercial success that also won an Oscar - 1994.
I could continue but I think I've made my point. You're claiming that movies which are nominated for best picture haven't been commercial successes. This is incredibly false as I've shown by just showing which huge commercial movies have WON the Best Picture Oscar.
Next time you rant, make a little sense.
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...to see Serkis rush the stage and yank the Oscar out of whoever's hands wins it this year while screaming "my precious!". Would be a great way to generate hype for the next movie, as well as make a mockery of the snide-old-men's club that rejected him.
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Not to pick nits... (hey, it's Slahdot! I guess I will pick nits! c'mere, nits!)
I'm not trying to be flip.
There is an inherent problem in portraying something like Gollum on the screen. He's not going to ever look really 'real', in a sense, because you've never seen a real one.
I spoke last year with a friend who had worked on some of the CG in Spider-man. It too was criticized quite a bit for looking 'cartoony', not moving right, etc. This friend went to great lengths to explain to me that the problem was physics. You've never seen a guy move 3x faster than a normal human, while doing flips and handstands and generally flinging himself all over the place. Guess what? It looks really weird. He was quite disappointed that none of the hardcore fans had picked up on this, and actually felt slighted: here was the Spider-man CG team, actually sticking to the described physical limits of the character, and of course it looks a little strange.
Now, as far as Gollum goes, I can't buy that he looked cartoony, or that the motion was 'off'. It all looked pretty damn perfect to me. (If anything, they needed to grain him up a bit as sometimes the CG looks a little too clear.) Of course I know its not real, but that's because I know.
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