Best Actress Ranking - Update

Here is a new update. The newly added performance is highlighted in bold. 

1. Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind (1939)
2. Jessica Lange in Frances (1982)
3. Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard (1950)
4. Olivia de Havilland in The Heiress (1949)
5. Anne Bancroft in The Graduate (1967)
6. Janet Gaynor in Seventh Heaven (1927-1928)   
7. Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons (1988)
8. Geraldine Page in The Trip to Bountiful (1985)
9. Edith Evans in The Whisperers (1967)
10. Norma Shearer in Marie Antoinette (1938)

11. Greta Garbo in Ninotchka (1939)
12. Faye Dunaway in Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
13. Bette Davis in The Little Foxes (1941)
14. Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music (1965)
15. Rosalind Russell in Auntie Mame (1958)
16. Glenda Jackson in Women in Love (1970)
17. Barbara Stanwyck in Ball of Fire (1941)
18. Julie Christie in Away from Her (2007)
19. Shelley Winters in A Place in the Sun (1951)
20. Ingrid Bergman in The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945)

21. Greer Garson in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)
22. Doris Day in Pillow Talk (1959)
23. Meryl Streep in One True Thing (1998)
24. Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity (1953)
25. Katharine Hepburn in Guess who’s coming to dinner (1967)
26. Teresa Wright in The Pride of the Yankees (1942) 
27. Jennifer Jones in Love Letters (1945)
28. Ellen Burstyn in Same Time, Next Year (1978)
29. Susan Hayward in My Foolish Heart (1949)
30. Diane Keaton in Marvin's Room (1996)

31. Loretta Young in Come to the Stable (1949)  
32. Mary Pickford in Coquette (1928-29)
33. Shirley MacLaine in The Turning Point (1977)
34. Irene Dunne in Cimarron (1930-1931)
35. Diana Wynyard in Cavalcade (1932-1933)

And a hint to the next performance that will be ranked:

YOUR Best Actress of 1985

Here are the results of the poll:

1. Whoopi Goldberg - The Color Purple (43 votes)

2. Geraldine Page - The Trip to Bountiful (41 votes)

3. Meryl Streep - Out of Africa (7 votes)

4. Anne Bancroft - Agnes of God & Jessica Lange - Sweet Dreams (1 vote)

Thanks to everyone for voting!

Best Actress 1985 - The resolution

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

5. Anne Bancroft in Agnes of God

Anne Bancroft gives a competent and sometimes very appealing performance that unfortunately never becomes truly memorable or outstanding because of both the writing and the acting which tends to let too many chances go by.

4. Meryl Streep in Out of Africa

                     

One could say that Meryl Streep gives a ‘standard’ performance but for a woman of her talents, this still means high quality work. Combined with the interesting part of Karen Blixen in a beautiful and moving epic, she was able to give a multidimensional and thoughtful performance that catches a lot of different angles of her character without feeling too forced or dominating.

3. Jessica Lange in Sweet Dreams

Jessica Lange may not really become Patsy Cline but she creates an image of a well-known artist and brings it to a captivating life and that way is able to expand the fascination of the real Patsy Cline – she doesn’t completely satisfy the viewer but she awakes an interest about the true Patsy Cline, her life and her work which results in a performance that seems to be more a tribute than a biography but she achieves this goal on a high level. 

2. Whoopi Goldberg in The Color Purple

Whoopi Goldberg creates an always growing woman, a flowing character who seems steady and withdrawn but grows scene by scene which Whoopi Goldberg underlines with an intelligent and heartbreaking performances that brings all the tragedies of Celie's existence to life without letting them appear too sentimental.

1. Geraldine Page in The Trip to Bountiful

Like few others, this performance is able to move the viewer with things that are never seen – it’s only an elderly woman and her dreams of the past, there are no heartbreaking images except the ones that Geraldine Page displays on her face. She has only herself to carry the story and create these images and she succeeded completely without ever making everything too corny or exaggerated. In her performance, she perfectly balanced her own experiences as an actress and the experiences of Carrie Watts to heartbreaking results.

Best Actress 1985: Whoopi Goldberg in "The Color Purple"

I guess I’m not the only one who was introduced to Whoopi Goldberg by her distinctive comedy work, sometimes slapstick, sometimes silly, sometimes intelligent, but always broad and loud. So it was always kind of surprising for me that she actually started her movie career as a serious dramatic actress in Spielberg’s sentimental movie version of The Color Purple, a story about abuse, incest and spiritual liberation. Hers is certainly one of the more acclaimed movie debuts in history and, considering her acclaim and her Golden-Globe-win, she might easily have become the first black woman to win the Best Actress Oscar if it hadn’t been for Geraldine Page who combined a strong performance with her legendary reputation and over-due status. In the end, it all worked out well for Whoopi since she would finally win an Oscar 5 years later after changing over to the territory we all know and love her for – the hilarious and loud comedy.

In The Color Purple, Whoopi Goldberg played Celie – a young, uneducated, apparently simple-minded woman who lives with an abusive husband after having already been abused by her father of whom she received two children. Whoopi Goldberg doesn’t enter the movie until about 30 minutes and she has a very difficult entrance – because up to that time the young Celie had been played by Desreta Jackson who gave a very moving and effective performance as the abused and suffering Celie so far and also delivered the movie’s most heartbreaking moment, the separation from her beloved sister by her husband. It is very often rather annoying or disappointing for a viewer when a character one has come close to is suddenly played by a different actor and especially in this case, when the young actress has left such a strong impression like Desreta Jackson, it could have been a disastrous interruption of the flow of the story, but thankfully Whoopi Goldberg was more than up to the task to take over the part and give such a strong and powerful performance that the change goes by almost unnoticed.

Like every serious movie that Spielberg makes, there is a distinctive ‘Spielberg-touch’, the danger of coming to close into the territory of cheap sentimentality or mistreatment of the seriousness of the topic. The Color Purple is certainly sentimental but surprisingly it still works very well thanks to the strong cast – the strong female cast, that is. Danny Glover lacks too much credibility and he also suffers from the fact that his character, an abusive and unlikable husband, is treated too often like some sort of comic-relief which destroys too much of the effect and feels too out-of-place. The whole movie sometimes dares to collapse under Spielberg’s touch but it is to the credit of Whoopi Goldberg, Margaret Avery and Oprah Winfrey that everything still turns out to be so moving and captivating.

Right from the first moment Whoopi Goldberg appears on the screen she perfectly captures a child-like attitude, a sense of frightened innocence and enjoyment of life – she seems to be in a constant state of fear of her husband but she also has accustomed herself to her life and knows how to handle it in her own ways. Her performance always remains seemingly simple and in total harmony with the character of Celie but, despite her inexperience as a movie actress, Whoopi Goldberg added much more complexity and multi-dimensionality to the part than written on the page. She always keeps that child-like attitude about Celie at the beginning of her performance – her curiosity and fear when Shug arrives, her sadness when she leaves, her wide-eyed excitement, underlined with a wide, child-like grin, at Shug’s opening of a new world until Whoopi Goldberg slowly changes Celie to demonstrate how she finally grows up. Whoopi Goldberg manages to give an intelligent performance of a character that has been repressed and kept in ignorance all her life. There is nothing stereotypical about her but the realization that Celie is a woman who could do anything she wants if she was given the opportunity. This heartbreaking performances manages the trick to be complex only to appear simple and bring a character to live who seems simple only to emerge as complex.

The character of Celie is very tricky because she is both very monotonous and overshadowed. The introvert character of Celie could very easily become annoying but Whoopi Goldberg is able to keep the viewer’s interest and demonstrate the inner change in Celie without letting it become too sudden. Whoopi Goldberg’s face that expresses and represses so many emotions, her worn-out tiredness while remaining a faithful and lively spirit help her to make scenes like the one when she tells her step-son to beat his wife into obedience believable without letting her character be judged. Whoopi Goldberg is able to captivate the viewer by showing the apparent hopelessness in Celie but she also adds a certain sense of strength, of possibilities, a feeling that Celie is a woman who might be able to escape one day.

Besides the danger of appearing too one-dimensional Whoopi Goldberg has another obstacle to overcome – the fact that the character of Celie is often too invisible next to the supporting players. In fact, Whoopi Goldberg threatens to be overshadowed by both the supporting actresses and the writing. The screenplay gives her the most prominent part and puts her fate in the middle of the action but it provides the supporting players with a much stronger parts that both are influenced by their surroundings but also create themselves and that way also create a new Celie. And Margaret Avery and Oprah Winfrey take these parts and use every opportunity they offer them to leave their mark on the story. That way, the supporting players, written and acted much more active, domineering and captivating, easily put the character of Celie in the background – but Whoopi Goldberg is such a strong presence on the screen and knows how to use Celie as a symbol of suffering and ultimate liberation, how to present her fate in a constant changing light, that she prevents her from being overshadowed and puts her into a line with Shugh and Sofia. That way she makes her transition believable and turns Celie into the driving force of the story even she isn’t.

The Color Purple shows how friendship and support help Celie to find herself and her freedom – and love. Even though the relationship between Celie and Shug was changed from love to friendship in the movie, the long kiss between them and the camera movement still tell enough. Whoopi Goldberg is smart enough to avoid any pathos in her role. She plays Celie with a straight-forward dramatic intension, mixed with a little sense of comedy. The final scenes are again a perfect example of the effective sentimentality of the story – it feels a little too manipulative for its own good but the whole reunion scene is so heartbreaking thanks to Whoopi Goldberg whose facial expressions and shaking body work so perfectly with Spielberg’s concept. She runs along with the sentimentality of the story but at the same time she keeps her dignity and rises above the directorial intentions – just like she did for the entire movie. Who can forget her ‘Nettie!’ when she finally reunites with her sister? It’s a perfect delivery of a single name that expresses excitement, happiness, disbelief and realization of a new life and a new time. It’s the highpoint in Celie’s journey of self discovery, a gift for her own strength. Sentimental? Sure. But does Whoopi Goldberg know how to find every nuance of dignity and heartbreaking emotions while never selling the character short to gain the audience’s sympathy? Definitely.

Just as moving is the scene when Celie finds the letters of her sister. Suddenly, Nettie, who has left Celie’s life years ago, comes back and all the lost hopes and feelings come back to Celie. Again, Whoopi Goldberg wonderfully underplays the scene without any great emotions and instead lets the moving situation influence her and react. This word perfectly describes her performance which is so often a ‘reacting’ performance but Whoopi Goldberg also knows how to demonstrate that Celie is much more active than expected, a curious and smart woman.

At the table scene, Whoopi Goldberg wonderfully stays in character when Celie suddenly snaps – and thanks to Whoopi Goldberg’s magnificent portrayal so far, this has been the moment everyone has been waiting for. When Celie suddenly speaks up and defies her husband and the conventions and finds the way how to use her inner strength – she didn’t just find this inner strength, it has been inside her for a long time but now she arrived at the moment when she dares to let it out. Whoopi Goldberg keeps Celie’s calm safe, she doesn’t go over-the-top with grand emotions but plays this scene with a gripping intensity that becomes almost magical.

Whoopi Goldberg creates an always growing woman, a flowing character who seems steady and withdrawn but grows scene by scene which Whoopi Goldberg underlines with an intelligent and heartbreaking performance that brings all the tragedies of Celie’s existence to life without letting them appear too sentimental. For this, she gets

Best Actress 1985: Jessica Lange in "Sweet Dreams"

Surprisingly, Jessica Lange didn’t receive any other awards attention for her performance as ill-fated, legendary country singer Patsy Cline than a nomination at the Academy Awards – not even a nod from the Golden Globes which have an extra category for performances like hers. But the Oscars continued their love affair with Jessica Lange and gave her her fourth nomination in four years.

I am completely unfamiliar with American country music and all that I know about it has been taught to me by a movie that will forever be seen as the superior version of the two biographies about the two first ladies of Country Music – Coal Miner’s Daughter which features Sissy Spacek’s acclaimed and award-winning role as country singer Loretta Lynn. And this means that Patsy Cline has already come alive again for me by Beverly D’Angelo’s celebrated but sadly unnominated supporting performance. The fact that Beverly D’Angelo did her own singing while Jessica Lange, like so many actors and actresses in biographies about singers, lip-synched Patsy Cline’s famous voice and that hers is a showy and scene-stealing turn made it hard for Jessica Lange to follow her footsteps. But even though Sweet Dreams does tend to be rather forgotten compared to Coal Miner’s Daughter, Jessica Lange gives a wonderful and passionate performance in a character that she both copies and creates herself.

Right at the beginning, the fact that Jessica Lange doesn’t sing the songs herself becomes painfully obvious – the difference between Jessica’s speaking voice and Patsy Cline’s incredibly distinctive vocals is too big and sometimes Jessica Lange also lacks credibility in her singing scenes. But these impressions begin to slim down very quickly – it seems that Jessica Lange became more relaxed in the later scenes and improved the lip-synching until Jessica and Patsy really seemed to have become one. Playing a real-life character can be done in various ways – by copying the looks and mannerisms of the person or by creating the character by oneself, focusing more on the inner characteristics than the outside. In Sweet Dreams, Jessica Lange did the latter – she may not really look like Patsy Cline or make the viewer forget for one second that this is Jessica Lange on the screen, but she fills her part with an inner fire, a playfulness of a fun-loving girl combined with the seriousness and determination of a true artist to create her own version of Patsy Cline which still makes a believable and captivating performance. That’s why the lip-synching becomes less obvious after a while – Jessica Lange may not be Patsy Cline but she does create something on the stage that shows a true and living artist, a fascinating performer who can stand on its own without being reduced to a pale comparison to the original.

Apparently, this is one of the few parts (maybe even the only part) that Meryl Streep desperately wanted and didn’t get. And while Meryl Streep certainly would have given a great performance, too, Jessica Lange leaves a distinctive mark on this role and her ability to play characters with much more freedom and spontaneity, her talent to live in the moment instead of preparing the moment like Meryl Streep does, helps her to be incredibly effective in the one characteristic that seems to be important for every country singer – a sassy and lively charm, a free spirit, a woman who enjoys every moment of live even when it offers her nothing but sorrow and pain. This may make Patsy an appealing and somewhat stereotypical character but Jessica Lange also shows a vulnerability beneath Patsy’s strong exterior that shows how much she was able to build a character without simply trying to imitate another artist. Jessica Lange also succeeds in showing both sides of Patsy Cline’s music – the rousing, fast and entertaining melodies and the heart-breaking and poignant ballads. When she sings ‘Sweet Dreams’ at the end on a stage, she shows that Patsy completely lives in her work, her hands moving without a direction, completely overwhelmed by her own dedication to her craft. Again, the lip-synching is very obvious but as mentioned before, Jessica Lange creates something beyond the pure imitation and is able to create a fascinating on-stage performance to a fascinating off-stage voice – both may not blend together but they exist fascinatingly next to each other.

The biggest challenge in playing a famous artist is the fact that the audience only knows the public side of this artist – the private, more personal sides have to be investigated with more care by the actor or actress because they demand to keep the well-known spirit alive but also add more layers and dimensions to the character that work in perfect harmony with the well-known images of the artist. Jessica Lange succeeded in this area by simply investing both the public and the private Patsy with that recognizable sassy charm and lively spirit – this way she maybe reduces some aspects of the character too much but she is able to find a constant in Patsy Cline that connects the public and private sides believable. She shows that Patsy Cline is a born artist but not in an obsessive way – she has the talent and the charisma to dominate a stage but she does this because she loves it and she loves it because it fulfills her. Patsy Cline knows what she can but also that she has to work for fame – her success isn’t a surprise to her but the result of dedication and hard work. But still, Jessica Lange doesn’t let Patsy Cline the artist dominate Patsy Cline the woman and she shows that there is always more to Patsy than the performer on the stage.

In these ‘private’ scenes, it’s Patsy Cline’s relationship with her husband Charlie, played by Ed Harris, that receives the most attention. This relationship is both captivating and confusing. The ups and downs of their marriage that go from romantic tenderness to domestic violence, their constant fights, the love and hate between them never reaches the level of Marlon Brando and Kim Hunter or, ironically, Ed Harris and Marcia Gay Harden, mainly because Ed Harris fails to show why Patsy is so fascinated by this man. Jessica Lange does her best to carry the scenes of their relationship to a higher level but in Ed Harris she has a screen partner who focused too much on being unpleasant and dislikable without any redeeming feature that would give their scenes together the edge needed. This is another point where Coal Miner’s Daughter wins again against Sweet Dreams as Sissy Spacek and Tommy Lee Jones, who both portray a quite similar couple, know exactly how to make their relationship believable. Here, it’s hard to understand why Patsy would remain with this man after she has already left another husband before – the screenplay doesn’t hint at any reason, a self-destructive behavior or passionate obsession. Jessica Lange’s strong characterization and the screenplay’s actions sometimes seem to drift too far apart and she and Ed Harris simply lack the chemistry needed to really make these parts of the movie work. That way, the lyrics of ‘Sweet Dreams’, telling of a woman who should hate a man but keeps loving him, don’t really connect with Patsy Cline’s life as presented in Sweet Dreams because it’s simply too hard to understand.

In the end, Jessica Lange’s star qualities provide the movie with the spark needed to raise it above mediocrity but one can’t help but feel that she would ultimately have been helped by a better movie – because she obviously would have been able to carry it. Her best scenes are with Ann Wedgeworth who plays her supportive mother since both actresses create a comfortable aura and a believable mother-daughter-relationship that more than once provides the movie’s most interesting moments.

Jessica Lange may not really become Patsy Cline but she creates an image of a well-known artist and brings it to a captivating life and that way is able to expand the fascination of the real Patsy Cline – she doesn’t completely satisfy the viewer but she awakes an interest about the true Patsy Cline, her life and her work which results in a performance that seems to be more a tribute than a biography but she achieves this goal on a high level. This fascination is only caused by Jessica Lange’s performance since she gives the movie a spirit and live that it wouldn’t have without her.

It’s not a perfect performance but still a devoted and respectful tribute to a great artist that gets

Best Actress 1985: Meryl Streep in "Out of Africa"

Another Best Actress line-up of the 80s, another nominated Meryl-Streep-performance, another accent. In 1985, she was nominated for her performance as Karen Blixen, a Danish woman who follows her new husband to Africa and experiences wild nature and wild romance in Out of Africa. The movie was certainly very popular with the Academy and its win for Best Picture elevated Meryl Streep into an elite circle of performers who have had prominent parts in 3 Best Picture winners.

Out of Africa is an opulent, romantic and, despite its length, very captivating epic that presents beautiful people in beautiful landscapes, supported by a beautiful score. Still, all these ingredients don’t turn Out of Africa into Gone with the Wind, another long epic that puts an unconventional female character in the center. But the comparisons to Gone with the Wind provide an interesting observation. Both movies seem to rest on the shoulders of the leading ladies who are present at basically every moment of the story, both characters are fighting for their land, for their existence and for their traditional way of life while realizing the changing times at the same moment. Of course, there are more differences between Scarlett O’Hara and Karen Blixen than similarities but the fact that these two epics seem so completely to depend on the work of the leading actresses is certainly fascinating because it appears only true at a first look. Gone with the Wind, even though a bombastic story, is still a character study that stands and falls with the character of Scarlett – her character and the movie itself are forever bonded together. Out of Africa is different. Sydney Pollack creates some overwhelming images but it seems that he was always more interested in the surroundings and the story itself than in the protagonists. Out of Africa is told through the eyes of Karen Blixen, it follows Karen Blixen and seems to worship Karen Blixen – but it somehow never depends on Karen Blixen. In Out of Africa, Karen is presented as a storyteller and even though she is a woman who takes her destiny into her own hands and is fighting for her own existence, she very often appears rather passive. The movie never really seems to be about what Karen did but rather what happened to her. Her character and the movie are never really bonded together and it seems that Out of Africa could also exist without the central character – Robert Redford gives a serviceable, but not outstanding performance but it doesn’t hurt the overall quality of the movie either and instead, like Meryl Streep, creates all the right emotions without any surprises that might damage the conventional flow of the story. But besides being trapped in a role that demands of her to carry the movie but never thanks her for it, Meryl Streep has another obstacle to overcome – the fact that she isn’t really a romantic lead. She has done tragic romance before and would do it again but it doesn’t really seem like her territory. But Meryl Streep wouldn’t be Meryl Streep if she wasn’t able to overcome all these barriers and still give a well-crafted and layered performance in which she is able to give another display of her undeniable talents.

She maybe doesn’t reach the passionate fascination of Kristin Scott-Thomas in The English Patient that could explain why men would be drawn to her nor the lyrical willingness of Emily Watson in Breaking the Waves that feels so completely uncontrolled and spontaneous but her, as usual, thought through and carefully developed performance still reaches to much higher levels than many other actresses could have. The part of Karen Blixen may appear more demanding and complicated than it actually is and Meryl Streep never makes any surprising or unexpected choices in her performance but she knows how to create her own character while blending herself into the beautiful images of Sydney Pollack. That way she builds a character who began an intellectual search for herself, a woman who likes to become part of the wild nature around her but also never gives up her European upbringings. Thankfully Meryl Streep never tried to turn Karen into a saint – she shows that Karen is not afraid to get in contact with the locals but Karen lives at a time where these locals are her servants and an apparent God-given superiority separates her from them and Meryl Streep isn’t afraid to show these traces of arrogance and superiority in her character without overdoing it. She may be amused about the natives fascination with her Cuckoo’s Clock but she never looks down on them for it. The same way she shows Karen’s determination to help an injured young man – she wants to help him but she doesn’t demand that he obeys any orders.

Meryl Streep begins her performance as a woman who is neither a romantic fool nor cold-hearted but instead as a character who is looking for a conventional life in unconventional manners – a husband and security in another land, even wild and exotic, like Africa. In Karen, Meryl Streep portrays a certain insecurity that she tries to hide between a frank directness and openness but too often her face carries her true emotions. Meryl Streep uses her technical abilities to shows these facets of Karen in a very convincing and interesting way that enables her to awaken the viewer’s interest in her during her first few scenes.

Meryl Streep plays her arrival and first moments on the dark continent thankfully not with girlish excitement or exaggerated fear but instead with a sense of curiosity mixed with uncertainty. She shows that Karen Blixen will never become a part of this world but she comes as close as possible for a woman in her situation. She is caught between two worlds but not helplessly or unwillingly but by choice and her own will. That way she tries to discover the best life for her. When she arrives with all her precious belongings from home, she doesn’t play Karen’s nervousness too dark or too light but instead finds the right tone to show a woman who is beginning a new life in a new country.

With her usual acting style that combines technical perfection with a good deal of honest emotions, Meryl Streep does her best to create a character who symbolizes both limits and potentials. That way Karen becomes appealing enough to keep that viewer’s interest she secured at the beginning over the complete running time of the story. Since the movie follows her character, everything that Karen experiences for the first time is also new for the viewer and Meryl Streep’s interesting approach to the part makes sure that Karen never slips too far in the background behind the exotic scenery. In Out of Africa, Meryl Streep chose a rather subtle approach to her character that still seems to proclaim ‘Look at me!’ but it is still very effective  and works in perfect harmony with Sydney Pollack’s direction.

Meryl Streep’s Karen Blixen also finds new sides in her own character without becoming a different person. Karen develops a strange sense of self-assurance that sometimes doesn’t seem to fit to her character – how she follows her husband to the frontline or other signs of independence but it becomes clear that Karen is a woman who is used to play second fiddle, even in her own life, but who has the courage and the strength to take charge of every situation if she has to. Karen is a woman who wants to be braver and stronger than she really is – only to find out that she is, indeed, that strong and brave, a trait in her character that was set free in the wild and free nature of Africa.

As mentioned before, the main characters and their actions sometimes appear strangely insignificant for the overall impact of the movie but Meryl Streep, despite appearing too cold from time to time, still infects Karen with enough warmth and inner charisma to make the romantic aspect of the movie work without letting it become too dominant. She also develops a very convincing and captivating chemistry with Robert Redford – they both seem like the most unlikely pairing but they succeed in showing their love and devotion to each other. Meryl Streep also becomes the dominant force of the relationship as she is also trying to control its direction – when she slowly changes from passionate lover to a woman who resembles a jealous wife, the transition is exciting and believable. The romantic part of the story, even though probably the central aspect of it, never feels too forced into the story nor does it feel undeveloped – just like Meryl Streep’s performance, it fits rights into the flow of the movie and goes along with it. Meryl Streep can play love, sorrow, passion and desire just as well as shock, strength and fear in other scenes. That way she finds enough moments to shine and show her talent for various emotions. Her scenes of love and anger towards Klaus Maria Brandauer, her shock to the news of her illness, her fight for her land and her own life and especially her speech at the funeral and her pleadings for the land of the locals are great moments that allow Meryl Streep to be very technical but also very honest.

One could say that Meryl Streep gives a ‘standard’ performance but for a woman of her talents, this still means high quality work. Combined with the interesting part of Karen Blixen in a beautiful and moving epic, she was able to give a multidimensional and thoughtful performance that catches a lot of different angles of her character without feeling too forced or dominating. For this, she gets

Best Actress 1985: Anne Bancroft in "Agnes of God"

Anne Bancroft received her fifth and final Oscar nomination her performance as Mother Miriam Ruth, a Mother Superior who has to deal with unexpected happenings in the movie version of the Broadway play Agnes of God. The story centers on a young novice nun, Agnes, who has given birth and apparently killed the child – and she insists that her pregnancy was the results of a virgin conception. A psychiatrist, played by Jane Fonda, who is sent to investigate the murder and the character of Agnes clashes with Mother Miriam about how to deal with this case and about more general themes like religion and science, life and death.

The character of Mother Miriam is a very surprising one – she is not the kind of woman one would expect in a movie like this, with a plot like this, with characters like this. She isn’t a strict, unforgiving, humorless and domineering woman who terrifies the nuns into blind obedience like Meryl Streep in Doubt. Instead, Mother Miriam is a warm, concerned, caring and almost down-to-earth character who doesn’t turn a blind eye to the needs and worries of the nuns around her, who takes charge when she has to and knows how to deal with ‘the world outside’ just as much as with ‘the world inside’. Anne Bancroft underlines these features by refusing to play Mother Miriam like a stereotype but instead leaves the viewer constantly wondering and speculating about her real intentions and her knowledge about the night when Agnes gave birth. The way she leans over a waste basket in Agnes’s room and reacts with a combination of shock and grief about its content seems already to suggest that she maybe knows more about what happened in her monastery than she is willing to admit.

By deciding to underplay Mother Miriam, Anne Bancroft certainly avoided the trap of overacting or incredibility and her own warm, loving and likeable screen presence helps to turn her character into a woman that seems warm, loving and likeable but also constantly surprises the viewer when she suddenly pulls back and fights Dr. Livingston about Agnes and about the interpretation of what happened. The two develop an interesting love-hate relationship in which Mother Miriam is the domineering part as she is the one who is laying the rules and constantly defining their levels of cooperation or rejection.

All this certainly sounds very impressive and Anne Bancroft certainly chose and interesting way of brining Mother Miriam to live but at the same time it seems that she let a lot of possibilities to widen her character slip by. The truth is that in the triangle of Mother Miriam, Agnes and Dr. Livingston, Mother Miriam is the most uninteresting and unimportant character who constantly slips in the background whenever a scene doesn’t precisely focus on her. Agnes is the true central character of this story and Meg Tilly gives a surprisingly effective and show-stealing performance as this naïve and mysterious woman and even Jane Fonda, even though her material isn’t the best either, makes a bigger impression than Anne Bancroft simply because her character is, next to Agnes, the second motor who keeps the story going. Mother Miriam, even though a strong influence in the proceedings, doesn’t get the same chances to become an active character. And by deciding to underplay her, Anne Bancroft didn’t really do herself a favor as Jane Fonda and, especially Meg Tilly, know that Agnes of God is the kind of movie that simply needs some overacting, some histrionic moments and that way easily put all the attention on themselves. Anne Bancroft circles around the story and the monastery like an eagle, paying close attention and watching everything with her sharp eyes, but she hardly comes down to become a part of it. Jane Fonda and Meg Tilly play in the arena while Anne Bancroft is like a member of the audience who is invited to join them for a special number. And while I usually lack the imagination to think about what other actors might have done with a part, it’s impossible not to picture the actress who originated the part on the stage, Geraldine Page, who was born to play this kind of character and whose tics and mannerisms would have suited the role perfectly and made Mother Miriam a much stronger presence in the structure of the story and resulted in a maybe predictable, but more interesting performance.

But even though Anne Bancroft underplayed a little too much and allowed herself to be outshine a little too often, she still did a lot of things right. Her exaggerated friendliness when she meets Dr. Livingston for the first time which quickly turns into mistrust and rejection when the questions become too much is already a very effective introduction and shows the characters most important features. Like Meryl Streep’s character in Doubt, Mother Miriam was married before her life as a nun and so is able to use her own experiences of a ‘normal’ life to run the monastery with a combination of religious and secular methods. She doesn’t believe in useless suffering for the sake of religious enlightenment, she calls nuns who believe in beating and strict discipline ‘stupid’, she swears when she has to and tells the other nuns that they should not be ashamed of their menstruations. Anne Bancroft plays all these things in a way that make her character very easy to relate to but at the same time she seemed to focus a little bit too much on the modern and ‘secular’ sides of her character – sometimes it’s easy to forget that Sister Miriam is still a nun. The balancing of her characteristics sometimes didn’t fully work out for the best. She is arguing in favor of the Catholic Church in all her discussion with Dr. Livingston, who left the church years ago, but it sometimes appears that Anne Bancroft wasn’t too convinced of Mother Miriam’s beliefs herself…

But even though Anne Bancroft tended to over-simplify her character, this worked well in the context of the overall movie because that way her Mother Miriam became an unexpected island of calmness, almost the only ‘normal’ person in the story and because of that Anne Bancroft’s scenes tend to be the most quiet ones, even when she is fighting with Dr. Livingston, some welcome moments of peace and sanity in a world that seems to have forgotten about this. It’s mostly these unexpected sides of Sister Miriam that Anne Bancroft portrays the best. Especially the moment when she and Dr. Livingston are secretly smoking together, talking and laughing, forgetting about their disputes and talking earnestly, is one that Anne Bancroft plays with a wonderful mix of drama and comedy and the right amount of gentleness while not forgetting who she is or what she wants.

The most interesting aspect of Anne Bancroft’s performance as well as the character of Mother Miriam is her relationship with Agnes, a young woman who believes in all the things that Mother Miriam would describe as nonsense, like starving or suffering. She wants to help Agnes to have a more modern vision but at the same time she isn’t able to escape the strange fascination that Agnes creates. Mother Miriam wants to do her best to keep Agnes away from the dangers of the world outside the monastery but at the same time she doesn’t fully understand her or know how to handle her. She wants to be an insider but remains an outsider like everyone else, no matter how much she knows or understands. The mystery of the situations has apparently caught her as much by surprise as everybody else but she is the one who has to stay strong and do her best to protect Agnes, maybe even from herself.

It’s a competent and sometimes very appealing performance that unfortunately never becomes truly memorable or outstanding because of both the writing and the acting by Anne Bancroft which tends to let too many chances go by. For this, she gets

Best Actress 1985: Geraldine Page in "The Trip to Bountiful"

In 1960, Geraldine Page was nominated for a Tony Award for her performance in Tennessee Williams’s Sweet Bird of Youth but lost the award to Anne Bancroft in The Miracle Worker (in fact, this Broadway legend never won a Tony Award). Two years later, Geraldine Page recreated the part for the film version and was nominated for an Academy Award – but lost to Anne Bancroft who also recreated her role in The Miracle Worker. 30 years later, Geraldine Page took the lead role in the Broadway production of Agnes of God but when this story was turned into a movie, the part went to – Anne Bancroft. At the 1985 Academy Awards, both women again faced each other but this time Geraldine Page’s name was finally called.

The five nominees in 1985 were certainly an interesting mix. Both Jessica Lange and Anne Bancroft already had an Oscar at home, Meryl Streep even two. The only nominees without a little golden guy were Whoopi Goldberg and Geraldine Page – two actresses from complete different ends of the career spectrum. Whoopi Goldberg gave only her second screen performance and received her first nomination while Geraldine Page was an acclaimed, famous and award-winning actress nominated for the eight time. So, when F. Murray Abraham announced that the winner was the women whom he considers to be the greatest actress in the English language, it couldn’t have been a surprise to anyone to whom he referred.
The fact that this was Geraldine Page’s eight nomination and her movie had basically disappeared after the awards again made it easy to accuse the Academy of ‘sentiment’ and refer to her win as a ‘career award’. But thanks to the Internet and DVDs, The Trip to Bountiful has found its way back to the public eye to prove that, even though Geraldine Page was certainly overdue for an Oscar in 1985, her performance is an outstanding achievement all on its own.

In The Trip to Bountiful, Geraldine Page played Carrie Watts, an elderly woman who lives with her son and her shrill, uncaring daughter-in-law in a little apartment and dreams of returning to her childhood-home. But this wish is not a priority for her son and his wife – he is struggling to get through the rough economic times and wonders if he should ask his boss for a raise while his wife is mostly concerned with going to the movies or drinking a Coke. The movie shows right from the beginning that Carrie Watts is living in a typical situation that so many elderly people know – living with your relatives, but being more a burden than anything else, not taken seriously. Her son is not ill-willed when he denies his mother her wish to go back, but this is simply something that he hasn’t the time nor means to do. And since she is living with them, she has to live according to their own rules.

The rule that Carrie Watts most likes to break is that of her daughter-in-law that she shouldn’t sing any hymns – Carrie is constantly singing or humming some melody while she runs around in the little apartment (even though running is another thing her daughter-in-law forbids). Geraldine Page works wonderfully to bring all the different aspects of the story together right in the first scenes – her desperation to return once to her childhood home, her misery about her life, her constant fights with her daughter-in-law but she also makes sure that she doesn’t portray Carrie is a poor victim of circumstances – she shows that it’s certainly not easy to live with this old, stubborn and hymn-singing woman around the house who, like so many old people, constantly dreams and talks about the past and the better days while the younger people have to concentrate on the present and the future.

The Trip to Bountiful has one of the most wonderful openings ever – not because of any special visual sights but because of Cynthia Clawson’s hunting rendition of “Softly and Tenderly” in which she repeatedly sings the words “Come home”. This is not to be meant literally – she refers to the sinners who should come home to Jesus and even though religion is not a theme of the story, it still describes the journey of Carrie Watts very well. For her, it’s also not just a trip home – it’s a journey to the past, in a better life that only exists in her memory, a time that seems pure and innocent and when she still had everything ahead of her. In this part, Geraldine Page becomes a symbol for lost hopes and dreams, for regrets and happiness, for the questions of life, if we made the right or the wrong choices and how could things have been otherwise. Carrie Watts has the easy to understand wish to return once to her childhood home but she also escapes reality into a world that is long gone. It’s a feeling that everyone, young or old, can understand, a longing for happiness that doesn’t exist, a mind game made of ‘If’ and ‘Maybe’, a theoretical question that will never be answered but everyone likes to pose to themselves anyway.

This universal and touching theme combined with Geraldine Page’s incredibly moving and effective performance in which she leaves all her tics and mannerism behind her that so often end in very memorable but too actorly performances and instead displays a variety of simple and, most of all, honest emotions results in an unforgettable and hunting story that should touch even the most cynical heart. In this role, Geraldine Page creates a woman that seems both delicate and strong like a tiger, dedicated and impulsive. It’s maybe a simple story but Geraldine Page creates a very human and layered character who never asks the audience to love her and instead simply invites us to accompany her on her journey – Carrie Watts knows what she expects from it but she leaves it to the audience to find out for themselves.

Geraldine Page works wonderfully to create a character who carries her heart on her tongue and successfully establishes her as a woman worthy of all the sympathy that the script asks us to give her. It’s a magical and incredibly moving performances and the eyes of the viewer are just as wet as those of the main character. Her expressive and experienced face shows the excitement but also the expectations of Carrie Watts right from the first moments on the bus.

Considering that this woman is up to return to the home of her childhood, it could be very easy to lose interest in the story because so many questions seem so come up – who is Carrie Watts anyway? Why should we follow her? But Geraldine Page’s performance during the journey in which she opens the character up to another traveler who is the receiver of all the information the audience wants is among the most heartbreaking work she has ever done. Memories of misery and happiness, of sorrow and denial come up, things that Carrie Watts has kept inside of her for all these years but now that she comes back, she is overwhelmed by the power of her memories. In a performance where Geraldine Page spends most of her time sitting, it’s only her facial work that tells the story, past and present. And Geraldine Page is so subtle in her emotions and keeps the simplicity of Carrie Watts always afloat while never forgetting to suggest all the things that she was and could have been. Just like Carrie Watt’s life is full of ‘What would happened if’ and ‘Why didn’t I do’, her whole character is also made of ‘If’ and ‘Maybe’ – and Geraldine Page accomplishes all this with a performance that creates such a real and believable woman in the most hunting and moving way but thanks to her strong screen presence and ability to always find a greater truth behind the surface, she completely transforms herself to create an unforgettable character, an epic symbol of a simple desire.

It’s a performance that touches so many emotions and feelings that one is almost left with a feeling of emptiness – all the tears seem to have been cried, all the laughter been laughed. Especially the scenes at the bus station almost break your heart when Carrie Watts seemed to have lost the battle, only a few miles away from home but her astonished relief and sad smile when she is given the possibility to go turn everything around again. If Katharine Hepburn and Henry Fonda achieved to create the illusion of having spent a lifetime together in On Golden Pond, Geraldine Page did the same thing with a piece of land and an old, abandoned house. It’s an almost intimate moment when she walks around through these rooms and breathes the air, full of memories. In these wordless scenes, Geraldine Page tells the whole story of Carrie Watts’s life without telling anything at all – she leaves everything up in the air, a past of possibilities. And it’s in these moments when she shows how this trip has changed her life, no matter how many years are still to come. Seeing the abandoned town of Bountiful has given her peace and allows her to let the past rest – the desire is gone, the past is over and seeing the old houses, she realizes that it also will never return. This visit has satisfied her for now and for the future. Everything seems to look much different now, even her relationship to her daughter-in-law.

Like few others this performance is able to move the viewer with things that are never seen – it’s only an elderly woman and her dreams of the past, there are no heartbreaking images except the ones that Geraldine Page displays on her face. She has only herself to carry the story and create these images and she succeeded completely without ever making everything too corny or exaggerated. In her performance, she perfectly balanced her own experiences as an actress and the experiences of Carrie Watts to heartbreaking results for which she gets

Best Actress 1985

The next year will be 1985 and the nominees were

Anne Bancroft in Agnes of God

Whoopi Goldberg in The Color Purple

Jessica Lange in Sweet Dreams

Geraldine Page in The Trip to Bountiful

Meryl Streep in Out of Africa