YOUR Best Actress of 1988

Here are the results of the poll:

1. Jodie Foster - The Accused (50 votes)

2. Glenn Close - Dangerous Liaisons (33 votes)

3. Meryl Streep - A Cry in the Dark & Sigourney Weaver - Gorillas in the Mist (24 votes)

4. Melanie Griffith - Working Girl (10 votes)

Thanks to everyone for voting!

Best Actress 1988 - The resolution

After having watched and reviewed all five nominated performances, it's time to pick the winner!

5. Melanie Griffith in Working Girl

Tess could have been a great character if the writers hadn’t bended her too many times to fit into the story and that way robbed her of any credibility. Combined with Melanie Griffith’s uninspired acting which only emphasizes the problems of the character by being surprisingly monotonous and dull, Tess McGill becomes one of the most frustrating and disappointing creations in the history of the Best Actress category.

4. Jodie Foster in The Accused

                     

It’s laudable that Jodie Foster so completely threw herself into the part and was not afraid to show a more unlikable side of her character while never letting her lose her dignity. But she still seemed too often destined to make sure that her character would be the dominant force of the story even though she didn’t have to do that since the movie’s structure guaranteed that already. It’s clear that she played the part very effectively, but just sometimes, a little less would have been more. But it’s still an unforgettable performance of a very challenging role.

3. Sigourney Weaver in Gorillas in the Mist

Who is this Dian Fossey? What is her past? What are her reasons? These questions are unanswered and Sigourney Weaver does her best to let them remain so and solely focuses on the present and future and that way creates a very intriguing because never fully explainable woman who constantly seems to slip away from understanding even if her reasons and intentions seems perfectly clear.

2. Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons

Chilling, unforgettable, delicious, outstanding. In this part, Glenn Close has to do most of her acting with her eyes and her stern face – and she succeeds on all levels. It’s a subtle portrayal, presented as a true force of nature. Glenn Close uses her unique looks, strength and overpowering screen presence to create an apparently powerful, but ultimately helpless character.

1. Meryl Streep in A Cry in the Dark

It’s an all around stunning achievement as Meryl Streep crafts a character with multiple layers and gives various interpretations of this woman at all kind of target groups, all at the same moment. It’s a performance that, like most of her works, seems carefully prepared and thought-through but Meryl Streep is a master in this technique and that way gave an intense and fascinating performance that easily ranks among the best she has ever done.

Best Actress 1988: Sigourney Weaver in "Gorillas in the Mist"

Making Oscar history is always something special. Luise Rainer did it when she became the first person to win two acting Oscars. Katharine Hepburn has the most wins, Meryl Streep the most nominations. Fay Bainter was the first person to be nominated for both a leading and a supporting Oscar in the same year. In 1988, Sigourney Weaver also wrote Oscar history but I am pretty sure that she would have preferred not to – on Oscar night, she became the first double-nominee to lose twice. In the supporting category, she lost for her performance as manipulative business woman Katharine in Working Girl and she also had to remain seated when the winner in the leading category was announced where Jodie Foster’s rape victim prevailed over Sigourney Weaver’s portrayal of real-life zoologist Dian Fossey, who studied Gorillas in the Rwandan mountains and was mysteriously murdered, in the drama Gorillas in the Mist.

Gorillas in the Mist luckily never pretends to be a scientific documentary about gorillas in their natural habit but turns out to be a surprisingly balanced look on the life of the controversial researcher that mixes reality with the expected ingredient of Hollywood melodrama. The movie never tries to turn Dian into either a saintly hero who tried to protect endangered animals or an unapologetic activist who went much too far in her quest but gives fairly even view that lets the audience decide for themselves. Of course, the movie suffers from the fact that only parts of Fossey’s life could be portrayed and that way a clear simplification of her actions took place but even despite that, it’s still a gripping, touching and shocking story that provided a formidable central role for an ambitious actress.

Sigourney Weaver remarkably inserted her performance into the tone of the story as she, like the story itself, tries her best to keep her portrayal as balanced as possible, always swinging to one side or the other, never making Dian static but keeping the constant flow in this woman alive. Sigourney Weaver had the not easy challenge to live up the script’s demands and bring this mysterious character to live while also making the story perceptible as it wants to touch both the mind and the heart of the viewer for which it needs the character of Dian and the performance of Sigourney as its vessel.

Sigourney Weaver is an actress with an overpowering screen presence, not only because of her physics but simply because of the stern determination she brings to her characters and that is always perceivable in her face and body language. Right from the beginning she excels in showing the passionate determination that Dian possesses and controls her life just as much as everybody’s around her – she is such a stern and strong actress that when she looks serious, the audience immediately knows it is serious. Her childlike wonderment and excitement about the miracles of nature combined with her strong and withstanding decisiveness when she is fighting for a position in Africa already lays a wonderful foundation for what is yet to come. It’s a foundation that still seems undecided about which way to go which works well for the character – who is this woman? What is her past? What are her reasons? These questions are unanswered and Sigourney Weaver does her best to let them remain so and solely focuses on the present and future and that way creates a very intriguing because never fully explainable woman who constantly seems to slip away from understanding even if her reasons and intentions seems perfectly clear.

Despite her strong determination, Sigourney Weaver also succeeds in portraying a certain naivety in Dian as she arrives in Rwanda – a newcomer to this place, not used to the realities of African life, a woman who seems very unpractical about everything as she is mostly concerned about taking a shower and having all her luggage brought up the mountains. While these moments contrast effectively with later scenes that show a much more experienced Dian, Sigourney Weaver sometimes overdoes her performance in the beginning. But what works very well in her interpretation is the fact that Sigourney Weaver is the kind of actress, regarding both her physic and her talent, who seems to belong in her surroundings, who makes it believable that a women like her not only wants to be in this place, but rather belongs in this place. Even at the rocky beginning, Sigourney Weaver is already able to show a certain fascination in Dian, a wonderment. Just like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, she suddenly enters a colorful and exiting new world. Later, Sigourney Weaver does a wonderful job in showing Dian’s attachment to her new life, how she learns to bargain on the market and becomes accustomed to a new way of life.

The biggest task of Sigourney Weaver is to make the excitement about this new world and her encounters with the gorillas believable and noticeable for the audience at home. While it’s up to the cinematography, art direction and direction to create the feeling of 'being there', she has to create the fascination of this place, of her work, and evoke an understanding and desire in the viewers for being there themselves. And Sigourney Weaver is fully up to the task and is able to bring the allure, the once-in-a-lifetime-feeling, the simply overwhelming happening to the audience, an almost intimate contact, a private moment, captured on a camera for everyone to see. She has to make these encounters as believable as possible in order to make Dian’s own feelings and later obsession understandable. In these early scenes, she builds a second foundation for scenes and events again yet to come. She has to bring the audience on her side and later, just as easily, pushes those back who may not agree with her. Just like her co-nominees Jodie Foster, Meryl Streep and Glenn Close, Sigourney Weaver gives a performance that both brings her character close to the audience but also alienates it again.

Sigourney Weaver’s performance sometimes has to take a step back and suffers from occasional bad writing and directing but she still carries the production and gives it life. She also glides through the story with a welcoming lack of self-importance. Even though she is obviously telling an important story, Sigourney Weaver never seems to highlight this fact and instead gives an honest and subtle performance, even in her loud and showy moments. Surely not a lot of actress could have handled the scene when Dian jumps around in her hut, imitating a gorilla. Instead of appearing laughable, Sigourney Weaver makes the scene surprisingly effective and exciting as she demonstrates Dian’s growing fascination and obsession but she is also able to combine it with a sense of comedy when Dian realizes that she is being watched.

The man who watches her is a photographer who will also become the obligatory love interest. But Sigourney Weaver understands the material and the character well enough to not play a woman who is swept off her feet and falls in love head over heels but rather demonstrates that she simply loves the togetherness, the companionship, the fact that they are both interested in the gorillas. In these love scenes, Sigourney displays the subtle joy of life that Dian possesses inside of her and she lets Dian become a much more relaxed person when she is with the man she loves – a man who is her only contact to the realities of life, a life in which she is a co-star and not the Queen of the mountain, a man who keeps her on the ground until he is not able to compete with her other love anymore. Because there is also another love in Dian’s life – the gorillas. As already mentioned, Sigourney Weaver makes this love very believable and realistic and understandable. And that’s why her later scenes, when the poachers kill some of them, including her most beloved gorilla, are so incredibly moving. Her devastation when she sees the beheaded body is devastating, just as her scenes with the dying gorilla baby that she carries into a hotel lobby to confront the rich business man who gave the order to capture it. It’s impossible not to feel with Dian in those moments and Sigourney’s strong performance makes it easy to root for her in – even if one doesn’t agree with her, Sigourney’s strong, honest and charismatic performance makes it hard to deny Dian any respect and sympathy (but I have to say that while I am usually a very cynical viewer and analyze too much instead of just watching a movie, cruelty against animals is one of the few things in movies that is too much for me and so Sigourney Weaver’s acting may have a bigger emotional closeness for me than it might have otherwise).

When a couple of young people come to join her in her work years later, Sigourney Weaver uses these scenes perfectly to demonstrate how far Dian has distanced herself from the rules of civilization. Dian starts more and more to fight the poachers without any rules, burns their houses, puts on a witch mask to scare them away and even fakes executions. The shocked reactions of her co-workers don’t even interest her anymore and she instead shows them that basically, on this mountain, she is now the Queen. She seems to have lost the ability to judge, to analyze her own behavior and she expects the same kind of determination from anyone else. When she finds two of her co-workers in bed together, she seems to be so upset because she has lost her own love but also because this isn’t what they should be there for. Dian mourns the death of the gorillas and she can’t bear the thought that the others don’t do it in the same way.

Sigourney Weaver uses all the scenes of Dian’s anger and shocking actions to show a woman who is not crazy but simply helpless and desperate. Dian is still able to see her own eccentricities but at the same time she seems to have lost control over them. She is a woman who acts very impulsively but at the same time very peremptory. Sigourney Weaver made the wise decision to show that Dian’s determination and strong believes aren’t something that happened overnight. This determination was already visible in her first scenes in the auditorium and the fight against the poachers isn’t something that made her become more and more decided but rather something that aggravated her characteristics. Just as Sigourney never made Dian look crazy for staying with the gorillas, for living there and for devoting her existence to them, she avoids a too simple characterization in these later parts. She shows a woman who uses all the advantages she has in her desperate fight, a woman who begins to think of herself as more powerful than she really is – maybe it may even be a racist view by her, maybe she thinks of herself superior to everyone else around her and that way loses her sense of self-defense and becomes too trustful in her own security. It’s not clear and Sigourney Weaver gladly leaves room open for all kinds of speculations and that way avoided to go overboard with her acting and always stopped before any kind of overacting.

What, of course, shouldn’t be forgotten is the fact that Sigourney Weaver has the help from the fact that the movie makers show very shockingly the cruelty against the gorillas and that way, as mentioned before, Sigourney’s character is easy to relate to in her anger and fury. What, unfortunately, diminishes the impact of her performance somehow is the fact that sometimes she isn’t given the best material and her character sometimes lacks a certain depth. While the change in character and her arc is portrayed impressively, the mystery of Dian Fossey is never really as mysterious as it could have been. Sigourney Weaver wonderfully plays all the different aspects of her character but she often doesn’t really combine them and instead plays them one by one. It’s a strong, challenging and ultimately difficult part that Sigourney Weaver handles with apparent easy and impressive dedication but she doesn’t quite achieve the result by herself – it seems that it’s the situations that help her performance achieve a high level instead of the other way around. A dying gorilla baby is always moving by itself – Sigourney Weaver does mourn gracefully in scenes like this and her reaction shots perfectly mirror the feelings of the viewer, but it seems that she is very often given nothing else to do but react to the situations instead of creating them. Ultimately, it seems that she is sometimes overshadowed by the story itself – and the gorillas. Maybe this was intended but it doesn’t help Sigourney Weaver.

But in the end, it’s a very strong and unforgettable performance in which Sigourney Weaver always lets Dian keep her dignity – a respectful portrayal of a sometimes controversial person which gets

Best Actress 1988: Meryl Streep in "A Cry in the Dark"

In 1988, Meryl Streep completed her domination of the 80s with her 6th Best Actress nomination during that decade. It seems just as impossible to find a Best Actress year back then without her as to find a nominated performance of hers without one of her famous accents. This year she discovered her inner Australian to play the real-life character Lindy Chamberlain, an unusual, apparently unemotional woman who claims that her baby was killed by a dingo in the Australian outback.

It’s always dangerous to see a performance for the first time when a certain part of that performance has already been parodied countless times – Lindy’s famous expression “The dingo’s got my baby!” and all its different variations are always good for a laugh and so it may be hard to appreciate the actual drama and tension in this moment. But there was certainly no need to worry – Meryl Streep's emotional devastation that she portrays in the few seconds when she searches the tent for her baby in panic is one of the most shattering moments in her career and ever captured on the screen. Her desperation and shock are played in a highly tense way, as if she is waiting to wake up, waiting for a deliverance that won’t happen, moments of fear and panic followed by grief and what seems to be to soon acceptance. Right from the beginning Meryl Streep crafts a woman who seems both very real and a product of stylized movie making but she knows how to invest her with a great deal of emotional honesty while also preserving an aura of mystery and inexplicability. She is able to lay a foundation of a warm and caring woman, a woman who naturally and obviously loves her children and her husband – basically, a typically ordinary woman who enjoys her life. That she and her husband are very religious and members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and looking for God’s reasons in everything that happens to them will ultimately turn their lives for the worst very soon.

As the movie audience we have an undeniable advantage over the people who actually witnessed the case themselves – we know that Lindy is innocent as the cameras shows us a dingo running away and Lindy frantically searching for her lost baby. This means that Meryl Streep actually gets to play a part that has ‘sympathy’ written all over it – a woman who wrongly gets accused for a crime she didn’t commit. But instead of simply going up a few steps on the acting mountain and then resting on the little hill called ‘sympathy’, Meryl Streep backpacked all her talent and bravely went up to the top because instead of letting the audience pity her and immediately take her side, Meryl Streep plays a mysterious, distant, cold and sometimes dislikeable side for both the other characters in the story but also the viewer at home. The other characters in the story don’t know if Lindy is innocent or not but her behaviour surely doesn’t win her any friends. The audience knows that Lindy is innocent but Meryl Streep kept this cold behaviour throughout the entire running time and that way even alienates the viewers from her character. When Lindy is lying in a hotel room, just hours after her baby was taken, she complaints about the cold in the room and takes a sleeping back even though her husband warns her that is has blood stains on it – blood stains from her own baby but Lindy doesn’t mind and covers herself with it. It’s moments like this that Meryl fills with an undeniable strange charisma that makes her character a complete mystery, a woman who is as fascinating as she is off-putting. Meryl also doesn’t use scenes when she is alone with her husband and away from the hunger of the media to show another side in Lindy – there is no devastated break-down about the death of her baby, no teary pledge for her innocence. Lindy is a very independent woman who doesn’t care about the media and who even begins to see humour in her situation – when a woman spits at the phone booth that Lindy is using, she is only laughing about it, not a fake laugh that hides her fear and worries but a real laugh that shows how ridiculous the whole situation is for her.

Meryl Streep knows how to project a character than can be seen as guilty of everything she is accused of, who knows about the possible consequences while at the same time completely unaware of them. She perfectly executes the scenes when Lindy is talking to the media as she constructs a woman who thinks she is doing the best in her situation while actually ruining her reputation by behaving so completely abnormal – at least for the public. The viewers are, to some extent, able to understand this woman, that this is simply a part of her character and since we know that she is innocent, we take a completely different look at anything she does but Meryl Streep makes it both understandable how Lindy acts and why the other movie characters would think different than the viewers at home. It’s an all around stunning achievement as Meryl Streep crafts a character with multiple layers and gives various interpretations of this woman at all kind of target groups, all at the same moment. It’s a performance that, like most of her works, seems carefully prepared and thought-through but Meryl Streep is a master in this technique and that way gave an intense and fascinating performance that easily ranks among the best she has ever done.

Meryl Streep plays a part that is similar to one that she would play later in her career – the strict, unforgiving nun in Doubt. Of course the characters aren’t similar in an obvious way but both don’t act like society expects of them and that way all their actions and doings become suspicious. It’s this character of Lindy which Meryl Streep brings to life with a frightening clearness for the viewer while making her a confusing mix of sympathy and dislike for the other characters. Lindy Chamberlain is a woman who accepts things as they happen to her. She and her husband believe that God does everything for a reason and if God decided to take their baby then it must have happened for a particular reason they both may be not able to understand but have to accept. But Lindy’s husband is still the more emotional part in the relationship who shows more grief and sorrow, not only over his child’s disappearance and death but also over the following events while Lindy keeps a cool, logical façade, a woman who seems to be both a victim and a perpetrator. This difference in characters is also what later causes a temporary rift in their relationship as even the husband cannot understands his wife’s intentions. But Meryl Streep clearly and thrilling builds a character who is not willing to change her behavior for the sake of the media or a jury – which is basically the reason why it came to suspicions and a condemnation at all. A Cry in the Dark is mostly a story about the power of the media and prejudices. The media and the public expect a crying mother, a likeable woman who movingly mourns the loss of her child and Lindy does not meet these expectations. Meryl Streep has to turn Lindy Chamberlain into a kind of woman who can evoke the most fervid discussions, a woman who can keep a whole country on the edge while never putting an end to any discussion because her character seems to allow all kinds of interpretations by the media and the public. Lindy doesn’t play by the rules of society and so becomes a woman one loves to hate, a welcome prey for the media who loves nothing more than knocking somebody down for the sake of a great story. Meryl Streep perfectly portrays this woman and makes her believable at every step of the story. When she is condemned for murdering her child, the reaction of two women in the jury perfectly sum up what Meryl Streep had carefully constructed – they cry out of guilt for having found her guilty which perfectly underlines how conflicting the character is.

The scenes on the witness stands surely belong to the best Meryl Streep has ever done in her career. When she talks about what happened that night with a mix of grief for her child but also anger for the lawyer and the whole court, a subliminal fury, it seems to be the first time that she is not sure what to think or do anymore, as if she is overwhelmed by the whole situation even though she does her best to tell what’s on her mind. It’s shown how much the whole court is already against her as the lawyer is asking her questions in the most insensitive way which Lindy has to but is also willing to endure just to bring the whole affair to an end. In these scenes, Meryl Streep is able to be both incredibly moving while also so complex and fascinating that it’s almost impossible to feel anything while watching her except a radical tension.

Glenn Closes’s Marquise wants the viewer’s respect but enjoys to throw it back in their faces – Meryl Streep’s Lindy doesn’t care for respect nor the viewers themselves. Like Greta Garbo, she would like to be left alone but at the same time she has no problem to face the spirits she called. In the beginning of the story, Meryl Streep found the right tone to show a believable naivety in Lindy that is not overdone to become a plot device but a realistic result of shock and grief when she allowed the media to enter her life, an invitation they greedily accept. Meryl Streep shows a strong side in Lindy that doesn’t cover and signs of weakness but rather are an undeniable part of her which seems to be a blessing and a curse for her own good. It’s this constant mix of all kinds of different emotions that turns Lindy Chamberlain in one of the most interesting and perplexing movie characters of all time.

Meryl Streep herself stated that this is the performance she is the most proud of. And even among the high standards of Meryl Streep, this performance is a stunning achievement that naturally gets

Best Actress 1988: Melanie Griffith in "Working Girl"

Performances in comedies have always been appallingly underrated at the Oscars. Maybe I should be more specific and say ‘Leading performances in comedy have always been appallingly underrated at the Oscars’. The supporting category seems to be where the Academy likes to see the funny guys and girls but for the leading category, they want their tears and drama. The complaints about the disregard for comedic performances have always been loud and clear. But, of course, this does not automatically mean that every comedic performance that does manage to receive a nomination should be praised to heavens. Because comedy is very hard to do successfully and not every actor and actress can pull all the tricks off. And it gets even harder when the comedy they star in is a movie that is hardly a real comedy because it offers almost nothing funny or even slightly amusing – like Working Girl.

It’s a badly aged story that actually tackles some timeless themes like success, morals and how far one is willing to go to get ahead but at the same time it’s presented in a very dull, unlikable and simply unfunny way with a screenplay that has some clever ideas but fails to implement them into witty dialogue or plot. So, all that could safe Working Girl at the end of the day is the acting.

The main tasks are given to Melanie Griffith, strangely billed third behind Harrison Ford and Sigourney Weaver despite being the central character, who received her only nomination for playing Tess McGill, an ambitious secretary who dreams of getting ahead in the business world. The introduction of her character takes place on a ferry on which she, together with hundreds of other women, is on her way to work. Considering the haircuts and the cloths that all the women display, the movie could also be called ‘Voyage of the Damned’ but this pain for the eyes (and good taste) shall not distract from the performance by Miss Griffith.

Tess McGill combines a lot of different aspects but it is never clear if she is a complicated or simply badly written character. The screenplay establishes very soon that she possesses a golden gift for the business world: instincts. These instincts tell her on the one hand what would be a good business idea but they also tell her that a career is not something that will happen to her – she has to make it happen. So she takes speech classes and does her best to make sure that everybody else will notice her talents, too. So, her instincts tell her on the one hand what she can do and on the other hand what she has to do. But for some strange reason, her instincts don’t tell her how to behave in her work space and when it would be better to be silent – it is told that she had to change her job three times in a short space of time because of her big mouth and too often unacceptable behaviour. The movie takes the side of Tess, though, because it wants to make clear that Tess is actually always right because all she wants is to be taken seriously and treated with respect. So, Tess is a character with a lot of aspects – she wants to get ahead and knows how but at the same time doesn’t, she lives in a world of business and should know how to be taken seriously (for example by changing her hairstyle and her outfits) but at the same time doesn’t, she seems intelligent but at the same time she doesn’t. Ultimately and unfortunately, everything that Tess does and says doesn’t come from being an actual person but is simply written in a way that it fits the ideas of the plot. This brings us back to the aforementioned opinion that Tess is either complicated or badly written. Actually, it is both – she is badly written and this makes it very hard for an actress to turn her into a believable character. So the question is: was Melanie Griffith up to the challenge? Could she combine Tess’s intelligence, ambitions, instincts with her naivety and stupidity?

Let’s put it this way: the constant clearing of her throat that Tess demonstrates is actually the most inspired acting choice of Melanie Griffith in Working Girl because it shows her insecurity, her shyness and nervousness before she speaks – but considering that she does this clearing also at basically every other moment, even when she is in bed with Harrison Ford, makes it questionable how thought through this concept really was.

Right in her first scenes Melanie Griffith demonstrates something that she will keep for the rest of the entire movie: a complete lack of ability for comedic acting mixed with unappealing deliveries of her dialogue. This results in a shockingly monotonous and flat performance that is not only a victim of the bad writing but ultimately becomes also a failure in its own.

One can say that she possesses the right acting style for a light, romantic comedy but she lacks any sort of charm or genuine likeability and after a while of watching Working Girl it becomes clear that her acting is not really light but she simply lacks the talent to go beyond the surface of her character. All this makes Melanie Griffith a surprisingly huge bore and forgettable in her own star-vehicle. Sigourney Weaver acts her off the screen without even trying – her screen presence and talent to infuse a good deal of comedy into her interpretation of Katharine makes her a wonderful commanding character and, despite all the signs of furtiveness, one that is much more likable than Griffith’s Tess. Sigourney Weaver knows how to expand her fake friendliness to a level where her character seems to be genuine friendly while Griffith’s lacks the presence, the charm, the humour and basically, the talent to compete with her on any level. Sigourney Weaver isn’t the only one in the cast to outshine her easily – Joan Cusack is more memorable and funny in what feels like 3 minutes of screen time while Harrison Ford, despite giving a goofy performance of a goofy character, has more appeal in his left foot than Melanie Griffith in her whole performance.

But what is it about Miss Griffith that her performance seems so insufficient? Well, first of all, there is such a complete lack of energy in everything she does that it becomes both frustrating and boring to watch her after a couple of minutes. But wait: Doesn’t this make sense because Tess is much too shy and inexperienced to ever put herself in the foreground or speak with anything else than a whisper? Maybe but isn’t this also the Tess who has no problem to complain when things don’t go as she wants? Yes, but isn’t Tess now in a different position, working for Katharine, and trying to make a good impression while also being too intimidated by her power? Yes, that’s right – Katharine is an experienced and powerful business woman while Tess is an inexperienced and unimportant secretary. So, it can make sense that Griffith holds everything back in her performance to portray this woman. At a party Tess confesses that she can’t deal with people the way Katharine does. Here are a teacher and a pupil. So the question is: will Melanie Griffith show a development in Tess’s character as she makes her way to the top or will she keep her awkward acting style? In the first case, there may be some logic in her earlier scenes while the second case would only prove her lack of ability to pull this character off.

But this doesn’t change the fact that in her performance in the early scenes Melanie Griffith concentrates solely on showing Tess’s insecurity and rebellious attitude against everyone who doesn’t take her seriously. It was already mentioned that the character of Tess doesn’t make a lot of sense and in the hands of Melanie Griffith, she makes even less because she lacks one substantial element in her performance – plausibility. Tess is actually an intelligent women because she knows her own faults but at the same time also her talents but Melanie Griffith simply fails in showing this. Because she possesses zero energy, she completely fails to show any ambition and, yes, intelligence in Tess. Because of Melanie Griffiths’s performance it is just unbelievable that Tess is a woman with even a single idea in her head, much alone a business idea. When she suggests a different kind of food for Katharine’s party it has a deeper meaning because Tess has read about it, showing how she keeps herself informed about everything, even down to things like finger food. But she is so drowsy in these scenes and simply fails to make the actions and thoughts of Tess believable. It again seems hard to judge Melanie Griffith for doing what seems to make sense at this moment (because, as mentioned, Tess is too insecure to talk in a different way in front of Katharine) but considering the things that Tess will do later, this total lack of confidence just doesn’t feel right. Even if Melanie tries to show Tess’s inexperience, it’s all so frustrating because she simply must show a certain sense of comedy, a likeable charm and an aspiring personality to create also a woman who can carry the story and be the centre of attention but it seems that Melanie Griffith is too determined to walk monotonously and almost bored from scene to scene.

When she makes her first real business idea to Katharine, it’s certainly obvious that she has a great idea but doesn’t quite know to bring it best across. While Melanie Griffith plays these reluctant parts well, one can’t help but feeling that she simply couldn’t do it any better – apart from this monotonous reluctance, there is nothing else in her performance. The script certainly wants to express that Tess has a brilliant idea but Melanie Griffith fails to make it believable that Tess is able to come up with brilliant ideas.

After the first negative impressions in her performance, Melanie Griffith starts to get a little more tolerable in her part – probably because one gets used to her after a while. It becomes now clearer that Tess has dreams and wishes but she misses experience and self assurance and so shows her character as the complete opposite of Katharine. She’s very naïve and doesn’t have yet what it takes. Later it becomes clear that she is also the exact opposite of Katharine when it comes to values and morals. Early on, Tess thinks it would be the best thing to copy Katharine as much as possible but soon she finds out about the true nature of her boss. Working Girl seems to want to make a point of showing that it isn’t necessary to throw your values overboard to get to the top – and that’s why at the end of the story, Tess is basically still the same woman as at the beginning. This means, that Melanie Griffith still plays her in the same monotonous, bored way. Yes, but isn’t this the point? Tess got ahead without denying who she is! Yes, but isn’t this what actually happened – Tess lied, she stole Katharine’s boyfriend, she manipulated people around her. So she actually did do a lot of things that Katharine would have done. It’s just not believable that none of her actions would have affected her character. Is it really believable that in the end, Tess goes to her new job without even knowing what it is? The ending of Working Girl creates only more contradictions in Tess and Melanie Griffith simply decided to ignore all of them and not create any controversy by simply running the gamut of emotions from A to B. All this makes it sadly clear that also in the early scenes, Melanie Griffith didn’t really act in character but simply did as well as she could – which, unfortunately, is not much.

When Tess begins her journey into the upper business world, Melanie Griffith again makes it never believable that she could really hold her own in any of those scenes or impress even a single person. That’s why it made sense to give her Harrison Ford as a screen partner who basically plays her key to this business world. He gives her guidance and expertise – but since Jack thinks that Tess is an experienced business woman herself he doesn’t do too much which brings us back to the question how she could convince even one single person. And this includes Jack. While Harrison Ford and Melanie Griffith have…some chemistry together, it’s not nearly enough to make his fascination of her believable and when he tells her he loves her it’s easily the most alive moment in the movie simple because the viewer suddenly wakes up and asks “What? Why?”

Basically, Melanie Griffith always seems like a deer caught in the headlight – not knowing why she is there or what she has to do next. From her bored way of talking to a bride at a wedding to her incredibility as a romantic interest or a business woman she simply makes an unbelievable character even more unbelievable.

Even at Tess’s hour of glory, when the truth is revealed and Katharine exposed as a liar, Melanie Griffith keeps the same face the entire time and it again makes absolutely no sense that any of the business people would believe her instead of the strong and believable Katharine. And the fact that Jack at this moment decides to basically put his whole career into her hands is an even bigger mystery.

Tess could have been a great character if the writers hadn’t bended her too many times to fit into the story and that way robbed her of any credibility. Combined with Melanie Griffith’s uninspired acting which only emphasizes the problems of the character by being surprisingly monotonous and dull, Tess McGill becomes one of the most frustrating and disappointing creations in the history of the Best Actress category. While she finds some ways of entertaining the viewer, Melanie Griffith never goes any further and so can’t get more than

Best Actress 1988: Glenn Close in "Dangerous Liaisons"

Glenn Close received her fifth (and to this day, last) unsuccessful Oscar nomination for her performance as Marquise de Merteuil, a scheming and manipulative aristocrat in Stephen Frear’s Dangerous Liaisons. It is a story of lust, desire, lies, seduction and hate told through the Vicomte de Valmont (John Malkovich) and the Marquise who enjoy to manipulate and even destroy the life of the people around them.

In the role of this fascinating character, Glenn Close gives a deliciously evil and calculated performance that matches the fascination of this woman at every step. It’s a perfect symbiosis of character and actress as Glenn Close obviously enjoys playing a woman who obviously enjoys playing herself. Both the character and the actress seem totally satisfied with what they are doing and this accordance resulted in one of the great screen performances because that way Glenn Close does not only make everything she does so engaging but she also makes it incredibly entertaining. Even though Glenn Close is constantly ‘in character’, she also more than once winks at the audience – when she gets out of her carriage and gives an evil smile before appearing caring for the sake of her friend, she obviously doesn’t do this for her own amusement but rather as an inside joke for the viewer – but the result is still wonderful to watch. Glenn Close could even have looked directly into the camera and said ‘I know I am evil but I’m having a lot of fun’ and it would have been enough. It’s thrilling to see an actress who knows what she is doing in a difficult part and finding the perfect balance between taking the part too seriously and not seriously enough.

Besides that, Glenn Close gives a very controlled performance that seems calculated down to the slightest movement of her lips but the result is chilling because it so wonderfully works with her character – a woman who not only wants perfect control over the people around her but also over herself, a woman who must constantly put up an act for everybody to hide her true feelings and thoughts, a task which she has perfected over the years.

What’s so thrilling about Glenn Close’s work is how she is able to constantly top herself – from her first verbal duels with Valmont to her dialogue about her own development to her declaration of war to her breakdown to her final scene, her whole performance is a constant rise of excellence. It’s an almost magnetic quality that Glenn Close possesses in this part and her thought through line delivery and prepared body movements make every appearance of her character another highlight.

Dangerous Liaisons is a thrilling story filled with interesting characters but it’s Glenn Close and John Malkovich who carry the whole production on their shoulders. They may make life misery for every one around them but they are a real treat for every viewer. Their perfect chemistry in every one of their scenes together, the way they play with words, tease and irritate each other is certainly unforgettable. Both show a combination of love and hate for the other one as it becomes clear that the company of Valmont is the only time when the Marquis can show her true face and be herself. This also seems to be the only time that she really enjoys herself even when she despises him.

Glenn Close crafts a woman who may spend most of her time sitting or lying in her own house but who still seems to know everything and everyone. A woman who sees herself as a spider in a web of intrigues and lies, a puppet master who pulls the strings of the emotions and actions of people as she pleases. Valmont may have his own agenda and be the most central character, but she truly dominates the story and always redefines the atmosphere of the story – whenever Glenn Close appears, she takes over, just like her character. What’s so delicious is that Glenn portrays all the arrogance and self-assuredness in her character while the movie is constantly working to destroy these images. This way she constructs a character slowly walking into her own destruction but who is too sure of herself to realize this. Her constant success in scheming and manipulation have made her blind for a situation when things don’t go as planned – the moment Valmont behaves in a way that she cannot control, she loses control over everything. She may think of herself as a puppet master but she is actually only a part of the overall game. That way she becomes as much pathetic as terrifying, a monster and a misery.

But Glenn Close doesn’t end on playing a character the viewers love to hate, instead she creates a character one might even hate to love. She constantly displays her fascination but at the same time she shows so many ugly and dangerous side in her that the viewer feels ultimately trapped by her. She dares the viewers to deny her any respect but at the same time throws it back in their faces. That way she creates a woman who constantly slips away from any understanding. The moment one feels to know her she is already two steps ahead in demonstrating that we don’t know her at all. By putting a lot more depth and complexity in the character than expected, the Marquise is as mysterious as she is real. Life may be a game for her – but a very serious one.

The Marquis may also have reasons for what she is doing but in displaying her constant manipulations, Glenn Close very often hints at a back story, a life before Dangerous Liaisons begins. It’s her greatest gift to expand the character way beyond everything in the script and suggest at the past in a way that hardly any other actress could have. Even though it sometimes appears that the Marquis is only acting out of a certain boredom that gives her opportunity and time to be completely absorbed in her own plans of revenge and misery, there seems to be a constant struggle inside her, a need to carry out her own desires and plans to prove her own abilities, dominance and, most of all, independence to herself. In a long monologue, wonderfully executed by Glenn Close, she tells how she developed her talents to listen and plan – it shows how a woman, hungry for power, found the perfect way for her to fulfill her needs and obsessions but it also is a testament to the emptiness inside her. The Marquise is a woman who spends a good deal of time looking in a mirror as if she is constantly checking that the woman she created is still in tact but with little looks of sadness and fear, Glenn Close constantly makes the viewer wonder if this woman is so keen on destroying the happiness of others because of her own misery, her own feelings of loneliness which she tries to overbear with meaningless affairs. Only once does this cool, calm and self-confident woman lose her temper – when she shouts at Valmont that she, after her marriage, will never again be ordered around. By the delivery of these lines, Glenn Close demonstrated how paper thin the aura of superiority and self assurance really is – the Marquise is a woman who apparently lives in constant fear of losing the control over her own life and becoming trapped in a world dominated by men. Her whole appearance of grace and confidence seems to a masque to hide an insecure woman who doesn’t know where she is going and how it will all end.

When Valmont wants a promise fulfilled, she seems cornered and finds only one way to escape – a declaration of war against him. It’s a fantastic moment as Glenn Close keeps her mysterious smile just until she pronounces the single word ‘War’ and even after that she still gives an almost unnoticeable, superior smile that shows how completely she transformed herself into this character. That way she crafted a complete person in a way that many other actresses might have missed. Instead of only focusing on the razzle-dazzle sides of the Marquis, Glenn Close tries to find a bigger truth even though the sometimes almost shallow and two-dimensional character doesn’t seem to allow that. But again, one can’t help but wondering if this declaration of war was really meant by the Marquise in the way it seems – how far would she go or is this just another game for her, not more unique or special than all the others?

This single world is basically the last real dialogue in her performance except for a few hysteric orders at her maids. From then on, she only acts silently but it’s the last scenes that offer some of the most unforgettable moments in movie history and tell more about her character than pages of dialogue could have. Her reaction to some terrible news is the only time that her performance doesn’t seem calculated as this is also the only time that the Marquis completely lets go – one of the most chilling scenes of pain and grief ever captured. Even though she always seems like a strong woman who didn’t need anyone in the world, it’s still clear that she lost the only one she considered her equal, a loss that can’t be replaced.

At the end her character arc develops for the worst. She may look down on society and secretly uses its conventions against itself but at the same time, she gets her whole self-esteem from this society – so when it turns against her, it announces the final decline for her. Like an onion, Glenn Close and the movie slowly peel layer after layer of this character until the last layer is finally deleted when the Marquise removes her make-up. It’s just a thin layer of powder that can be removed with one wipe but it suddenly changes her whole appearance which again demonstrates how paper-thin everything on the surface of this woman really is. At this moment, all that characterized her so far seems to slowly disappear, a woman looking at the ruins of her life and herself.

In this part, Glenn Close has to do most of her acting with her eyes and her stern face – and she succeeds on all levels. It’s a subtle portrayal, presented as a true force of nature. Glenn Close uses her unique looks, strength and overpowering screen presence to create an apparently powerful, but ultimately helples character.
Chilling, unforgettable, delicious, outstanding – all words that perfectly describe Glenn Close’s performance for which she gets

Best Actress 1988: Jodie Foster in "The Accused"

1988 was Oscar’s salute to the 80s. Rain Man, The Accidental Tourist, Working Girl, The Accused – all movies that couldn’t be more 80s even if they tried. But, of course, every decade produced movies that are a symbol of the time they are made in – not all movies can be set in Shakespeare’s times. But none of the aforementioned movies were able to really be timeless – today, they seem rather dated and even forgettable. Only The Accused, thanks to a very serious topic that will unfortunately never be dated, is still able to pack a punch but suffers mostly from the aura of ‘lifetime movie’ that constantly surrounds it. When all is said and done, it’s a powerful message told by an average movie with only two things to really make it worthwhile – the performances by Kelly McGillis and, especially, Jodie Foster.

The Accused was Jodie Foster’s transition from former child star into full-fledged, critically acclaimed dramatic actress. Her Oscar was won for the kind of tour-de-force that seems destined to win awards even before the first ‘Action!’ – as a lower class, white trash girl who gets gang-raped in a dirty bar by drunken patrons and wants to see justice done. What separates this movie from most others of this kind is that it takes justice even further when Sarah’s lawyer Kathryn also begins to prosecute those men in the bar who didn’t rape Sarah but who cheered and celebrated during the crime and that way provoked the others to continue to rape her.

Another thing that sets The Accused apart and ultimately makes it a much more layered movie is the fact that Sarah Tobias may be a rape victim – but she isn’t a saint. Jodie Foster’s performance never tries to gain the audience’s sympathy by presenting Sarah as a poor, sweet, innocent little girl who was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Instead, Sarah is loud, provocative, uneducated and easily loses her temper. Sarah wasn’t at the wrong place at the wrong time, she is a frequent visitor of the bar and on this particular evening she was angry at her boyfriend with whom she had a fight and so she decided to have some fun, danced and flirted with some guys, maybe even aroused them – her provocative outfit and sexy dancing made it easy for her to get the interest of the guys in the bar. Basically Sarah does everything that would most people who read about a case like this say ‘Ah, she was asking for it!’ But the movie makers and Jodie Foster make it perfectly clear that there is no ‘asking for it’. Because this time we don’t read about the crime but we are witnessing it. And that way we can see that, even though Sarah may have gone too far in her behavior, she clearly noticed that something went wrong and clearly asked the guys to stop it when they began to go too far. There is a sudden and dramatic change of atmosphere when the fun and desire in the room suddenly turns into a shocking crime. These scenes show that Sarah was certainly not asking for it, that she wanted to get out, that she screamed and kicked and that only force and violence could help her attackers to get what they want.

But, unfortunately for Sarah, the people around her react exactly the expected way. Her reputation, her behavior, her temperament that would make her an unlikable witness in front of a jury, turn against her. But Sarah is the kind of woman who wants to see justice. Jodie Foster shows that she certainly won’t change her character for the jury because for her, it’s not her character that’s on trial – it’s the criminals. Jodie Foster demonstrates that for Sarah, it’s all about the crime against her. Why should she not be a witness in her own case as her lawyer first insists because she is afraid that the jury would not like her? It’s up to Jodie Foster to bring this part to life and create a believable character who wants the crime to be judged while people around her judge the crime – and her. What works so well in this performance is the fact that Jodie Foster is one of the few actresses who is able to play characters that are not as smart as she is. A lot of actresses let her personal intelligence shine in their performances but Jodie Foster holds all her personal qualities back to create a real character from the lower end of society.

It’s certainly a showy role on every level but not one that produces an acclaimed result automatically – the level of difficulty is very high and only a talented actress can reach it. Jodie Foster certainly did reach even if she sometimes went too far in her interpretation.

In this performance, Jodie Foster doesn’t only show the terror or rape but also the terrible aftermath which is characterized by pain and fear. On a technical level, the performance is certainly a stunning achievement. The way Jodie Foster uses her voice is especially impressive – her constant whispering after the rape show how much her voice has suffered from the screams and shouts but also how introverted she is at these moments. Her mix of fear, shock and embarrassment is played extremely well and Jodie Foster doesn’t forget to also show the anger in Sarah. Anger for the people who did this to her. It seems that this anger is the driving force of Sarah’s character – the painful memory of the rape is always overshadowed by her thirst for justice, a justice carried out by the law. Even though Sarah may not be a very educated woman, she still has a strong feeling of what is right and wrong and how the search for justice should be done. She possesses strong instincts that guide her through life, even though they sometimes lead her into bad situations. Jodie Foster shows that Sarah mostly lets these instincts control her life and that way she creates a strong contrast to the character of Kathryn, an intelligent lawyer, who always thinks at least three steps ahead. It’s the combination of these two women that will lead to justice – one has the legal experience, the other one the strength and determination.

At the same time, it would have been better for both the movie and the character, if Jodie Foster had also invested more into the experience of the crime. Sarah never really seems to think about what happened except when the script calls for it. The scene when she tells the story of her rape in the witness stand is certainly unforgettable and Jodie Foster makes the events appear right in front of the viewer’s eyes (so making the later flash-back scenes almost unnecessary), but these memories only come when they are called for. A little more focus on how the rape affected her character would have been desirable.

The character of Sarah is very underwritten actually, so it is up to Jodie Foster to turn her into a three-dimensional human being. She succeeds in this area wonderfully by a) showing the tough side of her character, b) opening this side up more and more during the run of the story and c) adding little touches that show her life and back story. The relationship with her boyfriend is explained in a few scenes but the real highlight of Jodie’s performance is the telephone call to her emotionally unavailable and estranged mother after the rape. Here, she magnificently shows a woman who is longing for hold and support after a horrible incident but finds only distance and disinterest. These kind of phone-calls are always a great opportunity for every actor because you don’t have to share the screen and can demonstrate a wide range of emotions which Jodie certainly does.

As mentioned, during the movie, Jodie begins to show another side in Sarah, a more soft and understanding one. She begins to listen to her lawyer, trusts her and finds a better way of communicating than her usual anger. That way she is also able to create a character the audience can relate to and understand. It would have been very easy to let a character like Sarah slip away from the viewer but Jodie Foster carefully avoided this. She certainly found the right tone for most of the performance but unfortunately sometimes she seemed to have been too overwhelmed by the nature of the story that demanded one emotional roller coaster after another and sometimes she simply went too far. Especially noteworthy (in a negative meaning) is the scene when she is confronting Kathryn in her apartment. She expresses the anger and frustration of Sarah well but gets too over-the-top in her delivery. During most the story, Jodie Foster does a good job of projecting the feelings of hurt and shame that are in Sarah since the rape but at the same time, she too often appears too…exaggerated. If she had taken one step back during a lot of her scenes her performance could have been much more memorable. The technical and the emotional parts of her performance work very well but they never really connect. It seems that Jodie gets the best results in her performance in scenes that didn’t intend to be great and where she could be more relaxed. Whenever she knows that a scene demands strong acting, she seems to become a little to stiff. It’s also strange that, considering the dominant nature of her part, Kelly McGillis as Kathryn very often dominates the movie and is able to more than once, challenge Jodie’s performance with her own subtle portrayal.

Still, the one scene that will surely stay with every viewer forever, the scene of the rape, is done perfectly. Especially because Jodie Foster is finally extremely relaxed in the scenes leading up to the crime. Her way of flirting, the way she presents a woman who only wants to have a good time, her dancing is all done very believably and naturally until she suddenly changes the character and begins to show the horror of what’s happening to her. It’s exhausting to watch the scene and Jodie Foster certainly delivers a tour-de-force here, especially because the scent itself is so…long. The rape goes on and on, first by one man, then another and then another and Jodie goes on, too, stays in a state of pain and agony that she can only express with her eyes.

It’s laudable that Jodie Foster so completely threw herself into the part and was not afraid to show a more unlikable side of her character while never letting her lose her dignity. But she still seemed too often destined to make sure that her character would be the dominant force of the story even though she didn’t have to do that since the movie’s structure guaranteed that already. It’s clear that she played the part very effectively, but just sometimes, a little less would have been more. But it’s still an unforgettable performance of a very challenging role that gets

Best Actress 1988

The next year will be 1988 and the nominees were

Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons

Jodie Foster in The Accused

Melanie Griffith in Working Girl

Meryl Streep in A Cry in the Dark

Sigourney Weaver in Gorillas in the Mist