|
|
Post by dadsburgers on Feb 27, 2024 1:19:08 GMT
Most Best Picture winners also win several other awards. Which do you think have only happened only because the film was the Best Picture leader?
I'm wondering about any categories, but especially Lead Actor/Actress. Rarely does someone win an Oscar based on pure merit alone, but the following leads won Oscars in Best Picture winners for performances that I feel like would not otherwise be recognized:
Michelle Yeoh for EEAAO
Jean Dujardin for The Artist
Russell Crowe for Gladiator
Gene Hackman for The French Connection
Agree? Disagree? Others? I'm sure others disagree about Yeoh and maybe Dujardin, but Hackman and Crowe were definite coattails, right? Tbh I was expecting to have more but when I looked at the list I feel like a lot of lead performances are actually what pushed films into Best Picture (Dustin Hoffman's, Colin Firth, Tom Hanks). Do you think there are more coattail winners in other categories?
|
|
|
|
Post by stephen on Feb 27, 2024 1:46:50 GMT
None of those are coattails. The reason those films work as well as they do are because of those leading performances, and the love for those performances are largely what propelled them to Best Picture in the first place. It's also kinda hard to see how a leading performance, which is usually a central focus of a movie, can reasonably "coattail" in the first place. Even a relative unknown like Dujardin had won Cannes and cleaned up the industry prizes; he was getting momentum even before his film was.
|
|
|
|
Post by stephen on Feb 27, 2024 1:53:17 GMT
To answer your question, though, I think it could reasonably be argued that Tom Hooper's Oscar win might count. Fincher had swept the season up till the guild (even winning BAFTA the same ceremony that The King's Speech cleaned house). Firth and the script were juggernauts but Hooper's momentum felt very much like a last-minute push by Weinstein (and probably is the reason why we see a lot more director splits nowadays).
|
|
|
|
Post by mikediastavrone96 on Feb 27, 2024 3:06:08 GMT
Yeah, hard for me to think of lead acting wins wins as coattails. They're literally the faces of the movie. A coattail is more something that feels like just an add-on because the movie was loved enough to win BP.
Jamie Lee Curtis last year would be a better example, being that she won for a part that is not terribly showy or the usual Oscar type; hell, there was a showier, more plot-significant supporting actress performance in her same movie.
The English Patient winning Best Sound over Twister, Independence Day, The Rock, and Evita is absolutely baffling.
|
|
|
|
Post by pupdurcs on Feb 27, 2024 3:28:57 GMT
What stephen said. Lead performance wins are almost never coattails. They carry the film and are often the reason the films get so much praise in the first place. Gladiator without Russell Crowe in the lead is almost unthinkable, imho. So much of the reason that film worked and got praised is because he brought a throwback Kirk Douglas/ Charlton Heston/Richard Burton type quality to a basically dead genre ( sword and sandals picture) that almost no other leading man in Hollywood circa 2000 was capable of doing so as convincingly ( Mel Gibson could have done it, but he's already done Braveheart and declined the role because he was too old. Daniel Day-Lewis could have done it, but he was in one of his "retirement" phases, and I'm also not sure he could have brought the pure "movie star" quality Crowe had then. And Denzel could have done it easily, but wrong race). Those are the only ones that come to mind, and I'm not sure it'd have been the hit it was with DDL. It's an incredibly short list. Hackman for The French Connection was definitely not a coattail win. He was the most praised element of the film. |
|
|
|
Post by stabcaesar on Feb 27, 2024 3:41:23 GMT
Beatrice Straight
|
|
|
|
Post by finniussnrub on Feb 27, 2024 4:13:17 GMT
Best Art Direction - On the Waterfront
|
|
|
|
Post by JangoB on Feb 27, 2024 13:21:46 GMT
The English Patient winning Best Sound over Twister, Independence Day, The Rock, and Evita is absolutely baffling. I'd put Slumdog Millionaire in the same boat - I feel that it comfortably swept the big Sound awards (Oscar, BAFTA, CAS) mainly due to the enormous love it had. It had no business winning over The Dark Knight, WALL-E and Benjamin Button. |
|
|
|
Post by JangoB on Feb 27, 2024 13:28:52 GMT
The Last Emperor winning Best Sound as part of its sweep was probably one tech too much.
Acting-wise, George Chakiris comes to mind.
|
|
|
|
Post by PromNightCarrie on Feb 27, 2024 14:04:23 GMT
I don't agree with those. I think last year we got the best example. Sure it helped that she is a veteran in the business, but she wouldn't have gotten it if she wasn't a passenger on that movie's train.
I guess we can argue some wins. We all know that the list of coattail nominations goes on and on and on.
|
|
|
|
Post by Pittsnogle_Goggins on Feb 27, 2024 14:49:24 GMT
Bohemian Rhapsody for Editing
|
|
|
|
Post by stephen on Feb 27, 2024 14:55:06 GMT
Jamie Lee Curtis last year would be a better example, being that she won for a part that is not terribly showy or the usual Oscar type; hell, there was a showier, more plot-significant supporting actress performance in her same movie. Jamie Lee Curtis is a weird outlier because she was the most vigorous campaigner of the whole production, and I still believe that Everything Everywhere owes a great debt to her putting in the effort behind the scenes and pushing voters and colleagues in the industry to see the movie in the first place. Curtis's win felt singularly a way to reward her for her efforts and her career, and while on paper it's a coattail win, when you look at the particulars it's not. |
|
|
|
Post by mikediastavrone96 on Feb 27, 2024 15:07:57 GMT
Jamie Lee Curtis last year would be a better example, being that she won for a part that is not terribly showy or the usual Oscar type; hell, there was a showier, more plot-significant supporting actress performance in her same movie. Jamie Lee Curtis is a weird outlier because she was the most vigorous campaigner of the whole production, and I still believe that Everything Everywhere owes a great debt to her putting in the effort behind the scenes and pushing voters and colleagues in the industry to see the movie in the first place. Curtis's win felt singularly a way to reward her for her efforts and her career, and while on paper it's a coattail win, when you look at the particulars it's not. I definitely think she was a big boon to the campaign, but I think what she did was help the movie to become the sweeper it ended up being (carrying her along for a career win). The movie I think had been in the race long enough for the industry to have taken notice and for passion to have develop and Curtis helped fan the flames. |
|
|
|
Post by stephen on Feb 27, 2024 15:16:59 GMT
Jamie Lee Curtis is a weird outlier because she was the most vigorous campaigner of the whole production, and I still believe that Everything Everywhere owes a great debt to her putting in the effort behind the scenes and pushing voters and colleagues in the industry to see the movie in the first place. Curtis's win felt singularly a way to reward her for her efforts and her career, and while on paper it's a coattail win, when you look at the particulars it's not. I definitely think she was a big boon to the campaign, but I think what she did was help the movie to become the sweeper it ended up being (carrying her along for a career win). The movie I think had been in the race long enough for the industry to have taken notice and for passion to have develop and Curtis helped fan the flames. It's a unique circumstance at any rate. Curtis was putting in so much work herself as the strongest individual campaigner that year without a doubt, and probably over the last few years; she really wanted it and made it known. Her win just added another notch in Everything Everywhere's belt, but I feel like her win was due to factors beyond them simply loving the movie that much, which most coattail wins are. It's hard to extricate one from the other for sure, but I just can't call her a simple coattail win like I can someone like, say, the aforementioned George Chakiris in West Side Story. To me, Curtis is closer to someone like a Judi Dench, whose Oscar win was due to outside factors beyond the love affair for her movie. |
|
|
|
Post by countjohn on Feb 27, 2024 17:54:19 GMT
If anything Gladiator's BP was a coattail win off of Crowe more than the other way around  |
|
|
|
Post by wallsofjericho on Feb 27, 2024 18:21:18 GMT
Hackman actually won most of the critics awards that year. One of the few times the industry and critics were aligned with their picks.
|
|
|
|
Post by JangoB on Feb 27, 2024 18:27:05 GMT
If anything Gladiator's BP was a coattail win off of Crowe more than the other way around wut. Gladiator won BP at the Globes, BAFTAs and PGA. Crowe lost at the Globes, BAFTAs and SAG. If anything, his win was a sign of how much everyone loved the film. |
|
|
|
Post by RiverleavesElmius on Mar 1, 2024 19:41:09 GMT
If anything Gladiator's BP was a coattail win off of Crowe more than the other way around wut. Gladiator won BP at the Globes, BAFTAs and PGA. Crowe lost at the Globes, BAFTAs and SAG. If anything, his win was a sign of how much everyone loved the film. Eh, if anything, Crowe's win was a sign of how many people loved his performance in THE INSIDER and were miffed he didn't win the year before for that one. Honestly, whether or not GLADIATOR won BP, I think there's slim to no chance he wins that Oscar if THE INSIDER never happened. No INSIDER, either Hanks wins his 3rd undeserved Oscar (ugh) or Harris pulled off a well-deserved upset. He and Bardem were the only great/deserving performances in that year's weak-ass line-up. I'd easily replace the other 3 with Bale, Ruffalo, and Patrick Fugit. Hell, as terrific a winner as Del Toro was, you could make a very convincing case that he should have triumphed in the LEAD category instead (like he did at SAG). |
|
|
|
Post by JangoB on Mar 1, 2024 19:57:33 GMT
wut. Gladiator won BP at the Globes, BAFTAs and PGA. Crowe lost at the Globes, BAFTAs and SAG. If anything, his win was a sign of how much everyone loved the film. Eh, if anything, Crowe's win was a sign of how many people loved his performance in THE INSIDER and were miffed he didn't win the year before for that one. Honestly, whether or not GLADIATOR won BP, I think there's slim to no chance he wins that Oscar if THE INSIDER never happened. No INSIDER, either Hanks wins his 3rd undeserved Oscar (ugh) or Harris pulled off a well-deserved upset. He and Bardem were the only great/deserving performances in that year's weak-ass line-up. I'd easily replace the other 3 with Bale, Ruffalo, and Patrick Fugit. Hell, as terrific a winner as Del Toro was, you could make a very convincing case that he should have triumphed in the LEAD category instead (like he did at SAG). Hmm, I don't know, I can't picture too many voters crying over not voting for him for The Insider and using Gladiator as a chance to right that wrong. Although The Insider sure helped establish him as a potential awards force (which he ended up being for a couple of years). I fully believe that Crowe benefited from two things: the success/love for Gladiator as a film + the Best Actor race being pretty much open that year with no proper frontrunner. |
|
|
|
Post by sterlingarcher86 on Mar 1, 2024 20:12:28 GMT
I’m with Stephen. I don’t see how a lead actor can be a coattail win. They are too instrumental in the success of the film.
|
|
filmnoir
Full Member
Posts: 820
Likes: 408
|
Post by filmnoir on Mar 1, 2024 20:16:56 GMT
Most Best Picture winners also win several other awards. Which do you think have only happened only because the film was the Best Picture leader? I'm wondering about any categories, but especially Lead Actor/Actress. Rarely does someone win an Oscar based on pure merit alone, but the following leads won Oscars in Best Picture winners for performances that I feel like would not otherwise be recognized: Michelle Yeoh for EEAAO Jean Dujardin for The Artist Russell Crowe for Gladiator Gene Hackman for The French Connection Agree? Disagree? Others? I'm sure others disagree about Yeoh and maybe Dujardin, but Hackman and Crowe were definite coattails, right? Tbh I was expecting to have more but when I looked at the list I feel like a lot of lead performances are actually what pushed films into Best Picture (Dustin Hoffman's, Colin Firth, Tom Hanks). Do you think there are more coattail winners in other categories? Hilary Swank for Million Dollar Baby. She had already won a few years earlier. If the film wasn't a Best Picture winner, I don't think she would have won a 2nd Oscar. And it's not like her career was at the level of someone like Jodie Foster. |
|
|
|
Post by stephen on Mar 1, 2024 20:24:57 GMT
Hilary Swank for Million Dollar Baby. She had already won a few years earlier. If the film wasn't a Best Picture winner, I don't think she would have won a 2nd Oscar. And it's not like her career was at the level of someone like Jodie Foster. Swank's the only leading winner I could maybe see an argument for, but I think her situation was more that there wasn't a clear consensus on a strong choice and Million Dollar Baby hit the zeitgeist at the exact right time for voting, and the film had enough strength to get Eastwood (a better coattail example) in over Giamatti in the bargain. I think there was a lot of hope that Swank would live up to the promise of Boys Don't Cry, and in that respect she succeeded. It's just that everything else she did afterward flatlined. |
|
