YOUR Best Actress of 1978

Here are the results of the poll:

1. Ingrid Bergman - Höstsonaten (23 votes)

2. Jill Clayburgh - An Unmarried Woman (10 votes)

3. Geraldine Page - Interiors (4 votes)

4. Jane Fonda - Coming Home (3 votes)

5. Ellen Burstyn - Same Time, Next Year (1 vote)


Thanks to everyone for voting!

Best Actress 2004: Kate Winslet in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"

It is unlikely that Kate Winslet will ever be forgotten by movie audiences thanks to the overwhelming success and popularity of Titanic but it seems that it is her performance in the quirky, original and already legendary cult movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind that will secure her reputation as one of the finest actresses of her generation.

The Academy-Award-winning screenplay tells the story of Joel Barish who learns that his ex-girlfriend Clementine Kruczynski had her memory of their relationship erased. Hurt and angry, Joel wants to do the same but during the process, his mind realizes that even though the relationship ended, he doesn’t want to lose the memory of Clementine and he desperately tries to save it while Dr. Mierzwiak, played by Tom Wilkinson, keeps erasing all traces of her in Joel’s memory.

It’s a crazy, fascinating and completely original story executed in the most perfect way which makes the whole movie one of the most thrilling experiences ever. And Kate Winslet’s performance as the quirky, strong and insecure Clementine who wants independence but is also looking for love and support fits perfectly into this. She meets all the challenges of this unusual script and creates a character who is a firework of emotions, sometimes impossible to bear, sometimes selfish and mean but strangely fascinating and loveable at the same time.

In the role of Clementine, Kate Winslet wisely avoids to focus solely on the eccentricities and quirkiness of the character and also develops a real character underneath the colorful hair. She wonderfully mixes scenes of Clementine as an unpredictable, happy-go-lucky character with scenes of moving depth. Kate Winslet never lets the exterior of Clementine influence her performance but instead believably creates a woman who is all the things the scripts asks her to be. Clementine is mostly an escaping memory but Kate Winslet uses every moment of her performance to show that she is a woman who, as different as she may be from him, Joel wouldn’t want to lose. Every moment of her performance is filled with humor, originality and a certain sadness that creates an unforgettable heroine and perfectly add to the style of the movie itself.

Kate also works wonderfully with Jim Carrey. Both create characters that seem like outsiders, both seem rather lost and alone in the world but they cope differently with their feelings. Joel is rather shy and silent while Clementine tries to hide her personality behind constant layers of eccentricities and openness and shows that Clemintine is very nonstandard.

Even though Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is an extraordinary story, Kate Winslet never tries to make Clementine an extraordinary character. Yes, she adds a lot of humor and unusualness that evoke memories of Diane Keaton in Annie Hall (but Kate Winslet’s performance never feels like a rip-off and instead is able to stand on its own two feet) but at the same time, Clementine is a rather average character: a young woman looking for love and wanting it in her own way. She can also be unreasonable and unpleasent, she is in no way the perfect heroine of a romantic comedy but instead a very real and believable character. It’s probably the greatest achievement of Kate Winslet that she was able to carry the fairytale aspects of the story just as easily as the more realistic ones and that she found the perfect balance in her character for these two complements.

Kate Winslet wonderfully handles the comedy and the drama of her part and is able to turn Clementine into a fascinating, captivating and most of all believable character. When she talks to Joel about being ugly, Kate Winslet allows the viewer to look right into Clementine's most inner feelings and emotions.

Even though her character is mostly seen through the eyes of Joel, Kate Winslet never lets Clementine become an object of affection who is defined by others and instead constantly surprises with her fresh and exciting characterization. While Jim Carrey works as the protagonist and carries the story, it is Kate Winslet who adds the allure and enchantment to the movie.

Just like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind itself, Kate Winslet’s performance sprinkles with creativity and originality. For this, she gets

Best Actress 2004: Annette Bening in "Being Julia"

To play a great diva of the theatre world is always a challenge and a reward for each actress. If she succeeds in the part, then critical praise and awards attention are guaranteed. But to succeed, she must be able to meet all the challenges of this part.

An actress has to be confident enough in her own talent to be able to fill both her own performance and the constant performances of her character with all the qualities that make a diva so unique. She must be able to be a complete bitch to everyone else in the movie but make the audience love her at the same time. She has to walk a thin line between being an eccentric diva and a hateful woman. She has to be larger-than-life but never go over-the-top. She must also know when to show a real character behind the grand exteriors. In a part like this, an actress must constantly act but avoid to appear unrealistic. And most of all, an actress has to have enough personality to be believable as this diva.

In the part of Julia Lambert, a great star of the London stage during the 30s, Annette Bening achieved all these demands wonderfully. Her eccentric, larger-than-life diva who is full of self-assurance but also very insecure is an unforgettable portrayal that is able to entertain and astonish the audience with its humor, wit and originality. Julia Lambert is not a rip-off of other famous divas like Margo Channing, instead Annette Bening created a character that is totally her own. She also succeeds in bringing the screenplay to a greater level since Julia is not that well written and brings together a lot of clichés but Annette is able to combine these well-known clichés with a lot of depth and creates a real, three-dimensional character.

Annette Bening almost bursts of confidence in her performance. She makes Julia a force of nature, a true diva of the theatre who knows who she is: a true star and a gifted actress. Julia has no doubt in her own talents and her own success but she slowly learns that life outside of the theatre is not going according to her own script. But when everything seems to slip away from her, she is confident and strong enough to fight back – and what else could she be using as her battlefield but her own territory, the stage of the theatre? She needs that stage to bring her personal life back into order.

Annette is a totally commanding presence on the screen and both she and Julia reduce everyone around her to mere props. But the gift of Annette is that she may take full spotlight with her performance but she allows others to shine, too, and is always able to create great chemistry with all her co-stars.

Annette Bening’s biggest success is how she is able to show so many sides of Julia. Her Julia on the stage talks and moves totally differently from the Julia off-stage but even the off-stage-Julia has more than one personality. There is the off-stage-Julia who is still acting and reading lines to get what she wants and there is the honest, the real Julia who sometimes becomes visible. It’s thrilling to watch Annette Bening turn Julia into a real tour-de-force and how she constantly plays with her intentions, motives and behaviors.

Annette is able to make Julia’s constant acting and awareness very natural and believable which is probably the biggest challenge of them all. It is clear that Julia is never letting her real personality become apparent and instead puts on an act for everyone but Annette presents this as a natural part of Julia’s character. When she is visiting her young lover at night and starts to cry one is never certain if she is acting or really honest. Only when she later breaks down in the quietness of her own room, it seems to become clear that this time, Julia really is herself. She constantly has to trick both the audience and the characters around her about her real intentions.

As said before, Annette Bening also has to be able to be really unpleasant to the characters around her but at the same time make the audience care about her and she also succeeds in this part. The most famous scene of the movie when Julia takes revenge on a young, upcoming actress on the stage during a premiere is certainly the highlight of Annette’s performance. One feels sorry for the young woman whose most important night of her life is turned into a personal fiasco but at the same time it’s impossible to not love Julia while she is doing it. Annette Bening’s smile can brighten up the whole screen and she is able to turn Julia into a character so crazy, eccentric, real and loveable that one finds oneself always on her side.

The only thing working against Annette is that she is in a movie that certainly adores her and gives her every opportunity to shine but is never able to catch up with her. Sometimes, Annette’s performance is too big for the movie because while she has to struggle with the eternal problems for every theatre diva – age, love and a new young rival – it is done in a rather simple way that can’t live up to Annette’s performance. Everything that happens to and around Julia is never as epic as Julia herself. Sometimes, Annette’s performance is too spectacular for its own good.

Still, Annette Bening turns Julia Lambert into one of the most extravagant, stylized, real and memorable divas ever and for this, she gets

Best Actress 2004: Catalina Sandino Moreno in "Maria Full of Grace"

At the age of 23 Catalina Sandino Moreno gave her film debut in Maria Full of Grace – and received an Oscar nomination for it. She played Maria Alvarez, a young pregnant woman who lives in a poor village in Colombia. To earn money, she agrees to work as a ‘mule’ by carrying drugs into the United States by swallowing drug-filled pellets.

In a lot of scenes, it is rather visible that this is Catalina’s film debut. Sometimes her face appears a little too blank, sometimes her inexperience becomes a bit too obvious. But the wonderful thing is that Miss Moreno never lets this hurt her performance in any way but rather makes all these features a part of Maria’s character which results in a very raw and realistic performance that could easily be a role-model for every beginning actor.

Catalina never overacts or tries to ‘act’ too obviously which would be possible considering her inexperience. Instead, she gives a beautifully understated and subtle performance which helps to make Maria a very captivating character and her dangerous journey so riveting. Everything that Catarina does feels very naturally. She plays Maria as exactly what she is – a 17-year old girl who is unsatisfied with her life and her job at a flower plantation. She has to give most of her money to her sister who has a little baby and she is also not too happy with her boyfriend. When she gets pregnant and tells him about it, he wants to marry her but Maria refuses – she sees the world realistically, she knows that they don’t love each other and that they would never have a happy life. Instead, Maria wants her freedom and her own life. Like all young people, she rejects the authority from her sister and her mother and when her boss at the flower plantation treats her unjustly, she quits even though she doesn’t know where else she could earn money. When she meets a young man who offers her a job as a ‘mule’ which could give her financial security, she doesn’t need much time to accept it – even though the transport of the drugs might kill her if one of the pellets rips inside of her.

Catalina flawlessly demonstrates all the different feelings that Maria is experiencing in her preparation for the journey. Her hope for a better life but also her fear of being caught – or worse. Catalina’s success in the part is that she doesn’t show Maria as a naïve young woman but instead that Maria is always aware of what she is doing – or at least that’s what she thinks. Like a lot of 17-year olds, she thinks that she already knows everything and that she can handle a situation like this. By never overplaying the fear and worries of Maria, Catalina is able to add a lot of tension to the scenes when Maria takes off to America.

Catalina also wonderfully shows how Maria grows in a very short time in America. She doesn’t only have to deal with the police and brutal drug dealers but she also has to take care of her friend who also decided to smuggle drugs into the country and with whom she later flees from the criminals. In a few days, Maria has learnt the realities of life. But even though Maria is a different country and has to deal with criminals, she hasn’t lost her own willpower and her own sense of right and wrong. She openly tells the criminals that she wants the money that should have gone to another girl who died and give it to the family of the girl. Maria is not willing to be repressed by anyone.

Catalina is amazing able to show all the complexities of Maria and carry the movie with a wonderfully simple performance that never draws attention to itself. Instead, she completely disappears into the character and gives a face to all the people who have no other choice but risking their life and taking part in crimes. But in the part of Maria, Catalina never asks for forgiveness or tries to show Maria as a suffering heroine. She simple demonstrates her situation, her dreams, her hopelessness and how she finally ended up in a little room, swallowing over 60 drug-pellets.

Catalina’s prim charm is wonderfully suited for her part as the headstrong but also insecure Maria. She hits all the right notes and makes Maria an unforgettable character by giving a very subtle, relaxed and natural performance that dominates the movie and helps to tell this very moving and gripping story. For this, she gets

Best Actress 2004: Hilary Swank in "Million Dollar Baby"

Hilary Swank received the second Oscar of her career for her role as Maggie Fitzgerald, a woman who aspires to become a professional boxer in Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby.

Hilary Swank is certainly not among the greatest actresses ever, but she has the ability to sink her teeth into a certain type of role: an underdog who has to fight for her dreams and gets beaten down more than once.

So it is nor surprise that she is magnificent as Maggie who seems to be too old to be a boxer but too young to give up. She is already doing some boxing and she is winning, but she wants more – she wants to get to the top and she is determined to get Frankie Dunne as her trainer. She openly tells him “If I’m too old for this, then I got nothing” – and this is right. She knows that she is ‘white trash’ and life will never change for her unless she actively tries to change it herself. And boxing is the only thing in her life that makes her feel good.

The first appearances of Maggie make her seem like a rather strange character. Frankie is unwilling to train her, openly rejects her over and over again but she keeps training in his gym, trying to make him change his mind. She calls him “boss” even though he doesn’t want it and she refuses to be trained by anyone else but him. It is never told why Maggie is so interested in having Frankie in her life – because she doesn’t only want a trainer, but also a friend, maybe even a father. It’s not clear why she chose Frankie for this but what does becomes clear is why this woman is so desperate to be loved and accepted – her own family looks down on her for her profession and never show Maggie anything but disinterest. Hilary Swank wonderfully shows how hurt Maggie is when her family rejects her – this strong woman who can beat anyone in the ring grew emotionally lonely. Hilary successfully shows a woman who is desperate to be loved and who tries to reject but also accept her own roots.

Hilary Swank could easily be accused of trying to get the audience’s sympathy by constantly smiling and showing no complaints even when her character is at its lowest. But she wonderfully shows how Maggie’s past in an unloving family turned her into a rather needy character who is looking for acceptance and affection. She throws herself at Frankie’s feet, hoping not only to find a trainer but also a friend. She tries to please everyone but at the same time she also wants her own way as she tells Frankie when she shouts “Don’t you say that if it ain’t true!”

Hilary Swank is able to show both the weakness and the strength of Maggie’s character without jumping back and forth between these two extremes but rather merges them most effectively. From the first moment she appears out of the dark to her last shot, she creates a strong-willed, determinant, but also insecure and uncertain character. Maggie knows what she is worth and what she can achieve but she not sure what life will give her.

Hilary Swank also has a wonderful chemistry with Clint Eastwood. Both lonely in their own way, both comfortable around each other. It’s a relationship that never becomes romantic but they both develop a loving, relaxed and open connection.

The performance by Hilary Swank contrasts of two parts, as far apart from each other as possible. In the first half, she does a lot of physical work while the second part of her performance is completely done by her face. Hilary is able to make both parts of her performance as effective as possible and shows how Maggie never loses her spirits even when her willpower weakens.

The highlight of Hilary’s performance is her final plea to Frankie which is an unforgettable moment. Hilary Swank shows so much with her eyes and delivers every line perfectly. Maggie may have lost her independence but she still wants to decide her life for herself. A wonderful portrayal of a fighter who is ready to stop fighting – and who is not afraid to ask for help.

Hilary is able to make Maggie both a dreamer and a worn-out character at the same time. She combines her hopes and dreams, her fears and disappointments in the greatest way and gets

YOUR Best Actress of 1965!

Here are the poll results:

1. Julie Christie - Darling (20 votes)

2. Julia Andrews - The Sound of Music (9 votes)

3. Simone Signoret - Ship of Fools (3 votes)

4. Elizabeth Hartman - A Patch of Blue (2 votes)

5. Samantha  Eggar - The Collector (0 votes)


Thanks to everyone for voting!

Best Actress 2004

The next year will be 2004 and the nominees were

Annette Bening in Being Julia

Catalina Sandino Moreno in Maria Full of Grace

Imelda Staunton in Vera Drake

Hilary Swank in Million Dollar Baby

Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Best Actress 1978 - the resolution!

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

5. Jane Fonda in Coming Home

Jane’s performance never fights against the weakness of the script that reduces Sally to a boring love interest but rather even emphasizes it by also investing Sally with nothing else but a simple-mindedness that does nothing to make her the least bit interesting.

4. Ellen Burstyn in Same Time, Next Year

                     

Ellen Burstyn’s performance is charming and lovely, sometimes amusing, sometimes touching, but her acting stays mostly on the surface and she is never able to create a full-flesh human being out of her paper-thin character.

 3. Geraldine Page in Interiors

Even though her screen time is limited, Geraldine Page still dominates the whole movie with a convincing, shocking, frightening and sad portrayal of a woman who loses control and is not able to deal with the failure of her own marriage.

2. Jill Clayburgh in An Unmarried Woman

Jill Clayburgh is smart, funny, sexy, strong, weak and, most of all, very natural and always confident while she creates a very relaxed and self-assured character with a wonderful mix of strength and humor.

                

1. Ingrid Bergman in Höstsonaten

Ingrid Bergman gives a devastating performance as a woman who lives a live of pretending, who can associate with everyone but her own daughters and who finally has to look into her own past and her own soul to see who she really is.

Best Actress 1978: Geraldine Page in "Interiors"

Geraldine Page’s role as interior decorator Eve in Interior, Woody Allen’s homage to Ingmar Bergman, is another of those borderline cases where both the Supporting and the Leading category would have made sense. Had Geraldine Page entered the Supporting category, she probably might have won (just as she did at the BAFTAs) but so she had to settle for a nomination.

Geraldine Page is very famous for being an actress full of tics and manners and these features worked very well in her performance as Eve who is a neurotic mess. Eve is a woman who is just as sterile and cold as the designs she uses to decorate other people’s homes. Even though the role of Eve is not very large, she is still a very overpowering presence in the movie since almost all the talk and conversations of all the other characters (mainly Eve’s two daughters) is about her. That way the viewer learns more about Eve by other characters than by Eve herself.

At the beginning the viewer sees Eve for the first time when she is visiting her daughter and her son-in-law whose apartment she decorates. Eve seems very stressed, uneasy and tense. It seems that she can’t make up her own mind about what she wants. And it becomes very clear that she is a woman who needs control over everything. When she finds out that her son-in-law moved a lamp that she bought for the bedroom and put it in the living room, the idea seems unbearable for her. Eve is a woman who needs control, who must be in charge and who can’t stand the thought of being unable to influence any situations.

By flashbacks the story tells the viewer that Eve’s world collapsed when her husband suddenly left her. Eve takes this news with a combination of denial and rejection. When her own daughter describes her mother as ‘a sick woman’, the viewer begins to see her in a different light. Suddenly it becomes clear that her cold emotions and her obsessions show a woman always on the edge of a nervous breakdown. She actually already tried to kill herself once and she prepared her flat to fill it with gas just with the same precision as she would think of interior designs. But even after her suicide attempt, she did not change herself and thinks that her husband will return to her in the end. Geraldine Page’s acting when she receives a get-well-card and flowers from her husband is magnificent and shows a woman who is unable to show any emotion while she is filled with false hope at the same time .

Geraldine Page’s acting effectively points out all of Eve’s characteristics. Her major decision was to play Eve with a constant masque-like face that perfectly underlines her distance and coldness to everyone around her. Geraldine shows Eve as a woman who is unable to be emotional and whose mind breaks when her own world, which she wants to be as perfect and organized as her own designs, falls apart. The highlight of her performance is certainly the scene in the church when her husband tells her that he wants to finalize their separation with a divorce. Geraldine Page’s face shows terror and devastation while showing nothing at all. Her face is again like a masque but Geraldine Page expresses an enormous amount of feelings at the same time. Slowly, her masque begins to drop until Eve finally shouts out her anger and desolation. Geraldine Page’s tics and manners are all visible and her performance constantly feels very calculated but it all works for the character of Eve.

Geraldine Page as Eve also succeeds in making her character the exact opposite of Pearl, her husband’s second wife. Pearl, played by the wonderful Maureen Stapleton, is full of life, open and a real fresh of breath air in a family that is forever influenced by an overbearing and unstable mother.

Even though her screen time is limited, Geraldine Page still dominates the whole movie as a woman who loses control and is not able to deal with the failure of her own marriage, who is terrified of a new life alone. It’s a convincing, shocking, frightening and sad portrayal that gets

Best Actress 1978: Jill Clayburgh in "An Unmarried Woman"

Jill Clayburgh received the Best Actress award in Cannes, critical praise and an Oscar nomination for her performance as Erica, a woman whose world is suddenly turned upside down when her husband divorces her.

The character of Erica must certainly have been a revelation in 1978. A woman beyond her 30s with a teenage daughter who learns that her live doesn’t end without a man. A woman who speaks about her first period with her psychiatrist. A woman who is confident enough to rediscover her own sexuality without having to defend herself.

In the role of Erica, Jill Clayburgh is smart, funny, sexy, strong, weak and most of all – very natural and always confident. Jill Clayburgh does not only play Erica with a lot of confidence but she also invests Erica with a very relaxed self-assuredness that is thrilling to watch. She never lets Erica be pushed around in any way but instead always shows her strength and her humorous nature even in the most serious situations. She is such a bubbly presence on the screen that everything besides her seems to fall into darkness.

Jill Clayburgh visible portrays that Erica is more than satisfied with her life. She is married to a seemingly great guy with whom she still has exciting sex but she also constantly holds her own against him and never lets him reduce her to a little wife. She also regularly meets with her girlfriends who always talk about love and relationships and Erica’s steady marriage seems to be one-of-a-kind among the group.

Already in the early scenes of An Unmarried Woman, Jill Clayburgh shows all the facets of Erica and establishes her as a self-assured woman who later must redefine her life. But Jill Clayburgh never ever makes Erica arrogant or dominant in her self-assuredness but instead shows that she is a woman who enjoys life and who knows who she is, what she can do and what she want.

Her most outstanding moment comes when all these believes are put to test when her husband walks with her along a street and suddenly stops and breaks into tears before he admits that he has an affair and wants to leave Erica. The look on her face while her husband is crying and saying how sorry he is (in a very unlikable way because it makes him look like he wants to tell her “Hey, I know, I am a bad guy and I feel terrible about it – so forgive me!”) is unforgettable – this confident woman who always believed in her marriage suddenly faces the ruins of her life. In this moment, Jill Clayburgh is incredibly powerful and incredibly subtle at the same time as only her eyes really show the devastation inside of her.

From that moment on, Erica is a different woman who is trying to go on with her life and see what else it has to offer. Jill Clayburgh certainly gives an amazing performance in an unlikely role. On paper, Erica is an interesting character but never outstanding enough to justify awards attention. But Jill Clayburgh turns her into one of the most fascinating female characters from the 70s. After her life has changed forever, Erica does not retreat but she finds herself again and also experiences a new sexuality with new partners.

In her scenes with her psychiatrist, Jill Clayburgh wonderfully shows Erica’s fears, her doubts, her drams and her hopes in a very captivating way. Her performance always remains as natural as it is impressive. And also when Erica starts a new relationship, Jill Clayburgh’s performance never stops to show Erica as a witty, independent woman who always knows what she wants even if she sometimes loses her way.

Not a lot of actresses could have turned Erica into such a rich and complex character and make An Unmarried Woman a very strong and absorbing movie. Jill Clayburgh’s performance is the only real strong ingredient An Unmarried Woman has but it so strong that it turns the movie into gold. Jill Clayburgh is able to make Erica’s journey so captivating because her character is so easy to recognize but at the same time she always shows new layers and a constant development in Erica. At the end of the movie, Erica is still the smart and funny woman she always was but she also is a new person and Jill Clayburgh is able to portray this without over- or underplaying it.

It’s a very unique performance of an ordinary, but also extra-ordinary woman that gets