History tends to repeat itself. For example, as film historians we compare the Cold War mentality and movies of the 1950s to the 1980s, when Reagan brought back a wave of right-wing chauvinistic movies with that 1950s mentality. But who could have predicted that the fierce battle between Annette Bening and Hilary Swank for the 1999 Best Actress Oscar would repeat itself just five years later?

As pointed out in an earlier column, this season there’s dearth of strong leading female roles. Right now, the Best Actress category is narrowing down to a triangle of frontrunners, headed by Ms. Bening for Being Julia and Ms. Swank for Million Dollar Baby, with Imelda Staunton as the dark horse for Vera Drake.

For those with short memory, here’s a recap of Hilary Vs. Annette, Round One. In 1999,American Beauty, was the most talked-about film, a combined result of writer Alan Ball’s darkly humorous anatomy of American suburbia, prestigious theater director Sam Mendes’ stunning filmmaking debut, Kevin Spacey’s superlative performance, and Terry Press’ brilliant marketing campaign that began as early as the Toronto Festival in September.

Bening was cast as Carolyn Burnham, a brittle wife-mother pathologically obsessed with making everything just right, but falling apart under the gleaming surface. Her over-the-top performance (the only wrong note in a well-acted film) denied her critical acclaim. Most of the kudos that year went to unknown Hilary Swank, for Boys Don’t Cry, a fictionalized account of the life of Teena Brandon. However, after nabbing the influential SAG Award, on Oscar night, a very pregnant Bening had high hopes to win. But she lost to Swank.

And now comes Hilary Vs Annette Round Two, with a different set of pro and con factors for each contender.

PRO ANNETTE

The Role’s the Thing
Bening may join the ranks of Gloria Swanson(Sunset Boulevard), Bette Davis (All About Eve),Simone Signoret (Room at the Top), Geraldine Page (Sweet Bird of Youth), and Dianne Wiest(Bullets Over Broadway), all of whom were nominated or won for playing aging, flamboyant actresses. The two most prominent professions among female Oscar roles are actresses and prostitutes. You don’t have to be a sociologist to see the link between the two occupations, or to understand the sexism that underlines their prominence in Hollywood. Both acting and prostitution are service-oriented professions that rely heavily on physical looks and the desire to please.

Actresses playing actresses stand a good chance to receive Oscar recognition for other reasons. First, the Acting Branch has the largest number of members (about one fourth of the Academy) and is easily biased toward portraits of eccentric showbiz personalities. Second, playing a performer, preferably afflicted with a problem or disease, provides a meaty part that lends itself to histrionics and wide gamut of emotions.

The witty comedy Being Julia provides Bening the perfect role (See: Oscar Alert: Annette Bening). She plays Julia Lambert, a beguiling actress at her peak, whose successful theatrical career and marriage to impresario Michael Gosselyn are becoming too familiar, even stale. Julia is smart enough to know that she’s becoming a woman of a certain age, that as her youth and celebrity fade, she’ll have to relinquish the romantic leads and be relegated to supporting parts. Longing for novelty and excitement, Julia falls for Tom Fennell, a callow youth half her age. The affair proves to be the best antidote to a mid-life crisis–until she discovers that Tom is courting a younger actress and potential rival. Summoning up her considerable powers, Julia masterminds a brilliant revenge that places her where she belongs, center stage and in the spotlight.

Quality of Acting
Bening is marvelous, playing the kind of juicy role that theater critics describe as delicious. Breaking all the sacred rules of acting, she is not content merely to “be” Julia or let the camera “discover” her character. She projects big, attacking the role the way a stage actress reaches for the balcony. Bening has always been too theatrical for the big screen, but in Being Julia, she puts her theatricality to good use. The relish with which Bening feasts upon her role is contagious; thoroughly invigorating what is a stock role. In the movie’s big climax, set on opening night, Julia turns her fading actress status into greatest triumph. She’s now in control of her career and her life, fully accepting her newfound maturity.

Experience
At 46, Bening possesses the self-assurance of an experienced performer. There is an entire universe in Bening’s face — bemusement, bafflement, comic hauteur, rudeness, gleaming pleasure, and disdain — that’s intoxicating to observe. She gives Julia style and the right brittle and irony. Playing a character her own age, Bening is perfect as a woman who never doubts for an instant that she’s meant to be the center of attention, on stage and off. Bening races through the motions with reckless assurance, turning temper tantrums into opera arias. The role and Bening’s temperament as a star are inseparable.

Oscar History
In 1990, Bening received her first, supporting nomination for The Grifters, playing Myra, a sexy con artist, always on the lookout for easy hustles. Bening stole every scene she was in, confirming her talent as a solid performer. Having been nominated for American Beauty, Being Julia would be Bening’s third Oscar nomination.

Hollywood Insider
In 1991, Bening joined Hollywood royalty when she married former playboy, actor-director-producer Warren Beatty. They met on the set of  Bugsy, a stylish crime-gangster film that was nominated for Best Picture and reenergized Beatty’s career but didn’t do much for Bening the actress.

CON ANNETTE

Being Julia is a small film, which got decent, but not great, reviews. (See Emanuel’s Review) Besides, few actresses have won the Oscar for a role in comedy . Unfortunately for Bening, few have seen the film. The Sony Picture Classic release has grossed about $3.2 million at the box-office (as of 12/12/04). Finally, Bening plays a clichéd, typically feminine role in an old-fashioned movie that’s a throwback to the romantic star vehicles of yesteryear, which may work with the Academy’s older but not younger viewers.

PRO HILARY

The Eastwood Supremacy
Clint Eastwood is one of the Academy’s favorite sons, having won Best Director and Picture Oscars for Unforgiven in 1992, and the Irving Thalberg Memorial Award for a career full of achievements.

Critical Attention
Million Dollar Baby has just been cited by the LA. Film Critics as the runner-up for Best Picture (the winner was Sideways), and is getting rave reviews. The film was placed on the Ten Best List of the National Board of Reviews and is likely to on the Ten Best List of many critics around the country. The picture is number ten on my rank-ordered list.

Classic Hollywood Cinema in Disguise of Modernism
Million Dollar Baby is an uneven film in which the first reel is formulaic a la Rocky, the second a good boxing melodrama a la indie Girlfight, and the third an intimate drama that matches in pain and intensityIngmar Bergman’s best psychodramas.

The film represents a shrewd, calculated combination of classic Hollywood cinema with some modern touches. A light feminist streak runs through the film, which mixes conventions of the boxing drama, a femme-driven story about a poor girl, a love story between an older man and his trainee who becomes his surrogate daughter, and a compassionate social-problem narrative. Miraculously, the end result is a touching and engaging drama.

The Role’s the Thing
Swank plays a meaty, substantial, crowd-pleasing role, a female version of Rocky. As Maggie Fitzgerald, she’s an ambitious girl determined become a pro boxer at all costs. Despite a life of constant struggle, Maggie possesses raw talent, unshakable focus, and will power. More than anything, she yearns for someone to believe in her. However, in their first encounter, Frankie (Eastwood) tells Maggie bluntly that she’s too old and he doesn’t train girls. Maggie doesn’t take no as an answer. Unwilling to give up, she works herself to the bone at the gym, encouraged only by Scrap (Morgan Freeman). In boxing, Maggie finds purpose, pride, and happiness. Untrained, at 31, she’s considered too old to begin a career, but, with no education or support from her family, boxing is her only way out. Scorned by the male boxers, the only encouragement she gets is from Scrap, an ex-fighter, who slyly throws Maggie small tips to improve her technique, while nudging Frankie in her direction.

Two Generational/Interracial Plot
Million Dollar Baby is structured as a triangle of three fully developed relationships between an older white man, his buddy, and a working-class girl from the wrong side of the tracks. The fact that Scrap (Freeman) is black is irrelevant in the story, which is politically correct and in tune with the times, though Freeman may bring in a larger black constituency than the usual, thus increasing the movie’s already strong commercial potential.

The Sentimental-Emotional Factor
Though boxing plays an important role, Million Dollar Baby is not a picture about boxing; it’s about love and human relationships. Eastwood treats the film as a love story about a person who’s distressed about his non-existent relationship with his daughter, and who then finds a surrogate daughter in the shape of Maggie.

The Message’s the Thing
Perfectly timed as a Christmas release, Million Dollar Baby is a spiritual, even religious movie about the search for redemption of an old Irish Catholic who’s become disillusioned with the church and the lack of significant family relationship. Through his relationship with Maggie, Frankie redeems himself and experiences a moral and emotional rebirth at the most tragic circumstances.

Shaking the Oscar as a Jinx
It may be premature to declare Million Dollar Baby a comeback performance for an actress who’s been around for only a decade. But perhaps more than other Oscar winners, Swank has made mostly bad movies since winning the award. In fact, her clout/cachet was so low after the abysmal The Affair of the Necklace, that when she vied for the lead in Proof, she was rejected and the part was given to Gwyneth Paltrow.

CON HILARY

Swank has already won Best Actress, and at a very young age. While Boys Don’t Cry was not her feature debut, it was one of Swank’s first films, a clear breakthrough performance.

Unlike the middle-aged Bening, Swank has just turned 30, and the Academy might think that she has a whole future ahead of her.

The tension in the case of Hilary versus Annette is increasing by the day. And it shows, at the very least, what a difference a release date can make when it comes to a certain film directed by a certain director. (Originally Million Dollar Baby was slated for 2005.)
It seems like Hilary Swank has come out nowhere again.

December 14, 2004
E-mail Emanuel Levy

Samuel Butler once observed that, “Every man’s work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.” About Emanuel Levy …

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