If Oscar prognosticators are right, then Jean Dujardin has a good chance of beating out George Clooney for best actor at this year’s Academy Awards. Dujardin is excellent in The Artist, capturing the insouciant charisma and tragic vanity of a past-prime matinee idol. Yet Dujardin is the frontrunner for a very simple reason: He acts without speaking. Every actor in every film made before 1929 performed without dialogue, but since then it’s become an excellent way to receive attention during awards season. In fact, Dujardin isn’t the only nonspeaker to receive an Oscar nomination this year: Max von Sydow is up for best supporting actor thanks to his work in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. He’s the best thing about the film, bestowing equipoise and ambiguity upon an otherwise cloying tear-Hooverer—but again, it’s likely because he was so good without speaking that the 82-year-old Swedish workhorse received his first nomination in 23 years (only another-82 year-old workhorse, Christopher Plummer, stands in his way).
No comments:
Post a Comment