The Verdict -- Best Supporting Actress 1985

#5. Anjelica Huston in Prizzi's Honor: Anjelica is the first winner to receive a last place ranking from me, and that's due to her uneven but memorable performance as Maerose Prizzi. Her opening scenes rank among the best of these five ladies, but the amount of lackluster scenes that pile up after that dull her impact incredibly. Still, this is a performance with many classic lines and moments, and one that I used to despise and now only feel mostly ambivalent towards. Chalk that up as a small victory for Anjelica, I suppose.

#4. Meg Tilly in Agnes of God: Clearly the most out-there performance of the batch and thus the hardest to compare with her fellow nominees, but Meg Tilly sure does entertain as Sister Agnes. My closing thoughts in my review still stand, and I still have trouble describing my opinions on her memorably strange turn. She's a very unlikable and grating character, but she almost single-handedly makes the film work, and somehow makes her character not only believable but more believable than the two pedigreed actresses that costar in her film. Wonderfully weird is a good way to describe this one, I suppose.

#3. Amy Madigan in Twice in a Lifetime: I have literally never heard anything about Amy Madigan or this film before reviewing her performance, so I was pleasantly surprised to find her performance in Twice in a Lifetime to be a very strong one despite the dubiousness of the film. She's the film's trump card, and she makes the movie work almost single-handedly with her dynamic energy and forceful unwillingness to let her family off the hook. Her performance may not be as memorable or as over the top as her fellow nominees, but her restraint and self-awareness make this performance completely nomination-worthy.

#2. Margaret Avery in The Color Purple: These long four months have been the most beneficial to Margaret Avery, as her performance has climbed it's way up two spots after my initial viewing found me significantly less satisfied with it. But I'm glad I've seen the light, because this is a very elegant and graceful performance that fits very well with her director's style. Her Shug Avery may not be as fleshed out as she could be, but what she's lacking in raunch she makes up for in pure emotional impact and phenomenal chemistry with Whoopi Goldberg. If she had sung her own songs, this might have even been a half a point higher.

#1. Oprah Winfrey in The Color Purple: Though I fell in love with both of the Color Purple ladies, there was no denying that Winfrey's Sofia is my choice in this strong year. She's the least realistic character in The Color Purple, and is very often cartoonish, but by the time she circles back around and absolutely breaks your heart you don't even really care about that anymore. Larger than life, and as entertaining as can be I have no shame in my love for this performance.

The Year in Review: The amount of time it took me to complete this year should not be looked at as a commentary on the quality of these ladies' performances, but rather a commentary on my lack of motivation and extreme business over the last few months. In what seems to be a running theme, of these 4 films I really didn't like three of them (I give you 0 guesses as to which ones), though for the most part these ladies were the best parts of their respective movies. In an ideal world, the three ladies from Clue would have been duking it out for the Oscar, and I'd be satisfied with any of them having won really. But alas. Not to take anything away from Oprah, who is fantastic. I have another year already lined up, but I'm going to play it smart and get at least two or three reviews in the can before I even announce it. I'll throw out a useless hint: It's a year from 2000s with 2 nominees sharing a single film.

Shoulda Been a Contender: Eileen Brennan in Clue; Madeline Kahn in Clue; Lesley Ann Warren in Clue


All Supporting Actress Nominees Ranking:

1. Patty Duke in "The Miracle Worker" (1962)
2. Dorothy Malone in "Written on the Wind" (1956)
3. Thelma Ritter in "Pickup on South Street" (1953)
4. Linda Hunt in "The Year of Living Dangerously" (1983)
5. Anna Paquin in "The Piano" (1993)
6. Cher in "Silkwood" (1983)
7. Eileen Heckart in "The Bad Seed" (1956)
8. Emma Thompson in "In the Name of the Father" (1993)
9. Julianne Moore in "Boogie Nights" (1997) 
10. Ellen Burstyn in "The Last Picture Show" (1971)
11. Oprah Winfrey in "The Color Purple" (1985)
12. Patty McCormack in "The Bad Seed" (1956)
13. Claire Trevor in "Dead End" (1937)
14. May Whitty in "Night Must Fall" (1937)
15. Margaret Avery in "The Color Purple" (1985)
16. Mildred Dunnock in "Baby Doll" (1956)
17. Angela Lansbury in "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962)
18. Ethel Waters in "Pinky" (1949)
19. Amy Madigan in "Twice in a Lifetime" (1985)
20. Meg Tilly in "Agnes of God" (1985)
21. Gloria Stuart in "Titanic" (1997)
22. Alfre Woodard in "Cross Creek" (1983)
23. Barbara Harris in "Who is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?" (1971)
24. Geraldine Page in "Hondo" (1953)
25. Anne Shirley in "Stella Dallas" (1937)
26. Amy Irving in "Yentl" (1983)
27. Kim Basinger in "L.A. Confidential" (1997)
28. Shirley Knight in "Sweet Bird of Youth" (1962)
29. Cloris Leachman in "The Last Picture Show" (1971)
30. Margaret Leighton in "The Go-Between" (1971)
31. Rosie Perez in "Fearless" (1993)
32. Mercedes McCambridge in "All the King's Men" (1949)
33. Joan Cusack in "In & Out" (1997)
34. Anjelica Huston in "Prizzi's Honor" (1985)
35. Ann-Margret in "Carnal Knowledge" (1971)
36. Donna Reed in "From Here to Eternity" (1953)
37. Glenn Close in "The Big Chill" (1983)
38. Alice Brady in "In Old Chicago" (1937)
39. Mary Badham in "To Kill a Mockingbird" (1962) 
40. Holly Hunter in "The Firm" (1993)
41. Celeste Holm in "Come to the Stable" (1949)
42. Ethel Barrymore in "Pinky" (1949)
43. Minnie Driver in "Good Will Hunting" (1997)
44. Thelma Ritter in "Birdman of Alcatraz" (1962) 
45. Winona Ryder in "The Age of Innocence" (1993)
46. Grace Kelly in "Mogambo" (1953)
47. Mercedes McCambridge in "Giant" (1956)
48. Marjorie Rambeau in "Torch Song" (1953) 
49. Elsa Lanchester in "Come to the Stable" (1949)
50. Andrea Leeds in  "Stage Door" (1937)

Oprah Winfrey in The Color Purple

Oprah Winfrey received her first and only Oscar nomination to date for her performance as Sofia in Steven Spielberg's The Color Purple. The film is about Celie Johnson (Whoopi Goldberg), a young black woman who is forced into marriage at a young age, and Celie's growth from a timid and confidence-less young woman to a stronger one willing to stand up for herself. I've seen The Color Purple twice now in an effort to motivate myself to write about either Margaret Avery or Oprah Winfrey's performances (which is not a comment on either the film or the nominated ladies, but rather my lack of motivation and exhaustion from work) and each time Sofia has stood head and shoulders as the most vigorous presence in the film. It's really a combination of the charisma of Ms.Winfrey and the larger than life ardor of the character she plays. Sofia is the domineering wife of Harpo (Willard Pugh), the buffoonish and ill-behaved son of the tyrannical "Mister" (Danny Glover).

Sofia is the absolute opposite of Goldberg's Celie in nearly every way, a spirited and boisterous character with an energetic physicality that makes her character larger than life. She storms into the film and is instantly the most magnetic personality on screen, as she fights back against the various offenses thrown her way by Mister, Harpo, and even Celie. Winfrey allows Sofia to be a woman of perseverance and undying vitality. When the frequently beaten Celie advises Harpo to beat his wife to set her straight, Sofia confronts her and shows the ferocious doggedness of her refusal to be treated as a lesser person and the love she has for her husband. Sofia only knows how to be her wholly independent self, and won't allow herself to be anything else or hold back in the same way that Celie will. Winfrey drifts between comedic and dramatic moments gracefully, all the while maintaining the unapologetic girth of her character. Which, of course, makes the demoralization of her character even more completely and utterly devesatating.

After punching the condescending (and white) mayor, Sofia finds herself physically and emotionally beaten down and placed first in prison and later in service of the mayor's doltish wife, Miss Millie (an amusing and spiky Dana Ivey). Separated from her family and physically scarred for life, Sofia shrinks in everything but physical stature and becomes a broken version of her dominant self. Winfrey once again nails the physical aspects of the character, effectively showing the shameful and despondent nature of  Sofia's life through her walk and body language. This previously overly-expressive woman becomes a broken woman just moving through life without really living it. Winfrey's scenes working for Miss Millie is like watching an emotional zombie as she tunes out the world around her and puts her head down and does as she's told. She has many devastating moments where Miss Millie flirts with reuniting Sofia with her family, and ultimately none of them succeed and Winfrey shows a Sofia so broken that it doesn't even faze her. She's numb to the world around her.

At the end of the film, we don't exactly get an explanation as to how Sofia is reunited with her family but she is, and the climactic dinner table scene is a fabulous denouement to the film and both Winfrey and Goldberg's performances. Celie finally gains the conviction to leave her husband, and this show of perseverance reignites the old Sofia into action. It all happens a little quickly, but Winfrey adds such emotional heft to the scene (I suspect Spielberg cut some scenes here too) that you don't really care. It' an emotional journey that Winfrey travels, and one that is more than worth taking. Sofia can be a bit of a cartoon at times, especially in the beginning of the performance, but Oprah balances out the cartoonish and touching in a very cinematic way. Do people like Sofia exist in real life? Probably not but Winfrey succeeds in making you not care about realism and instead loving the force of nature Sofia is. 4.5/5 Fancy Funerals.

Best Supporting Actress 1985

And the nominees were....

• Margaret Avery as Shug Avery in The Color Purple
• Anjelica Huston as Maerose Prizzi in Prizzi's Honor (winner)
• Amy Madigan as Sunny Sobel in Twice in a Lifetime
• Meg Tilly as Sister Agnes in Agnes of God
• Oprah Winfrey as Sofia in The Color Purple 

The Field: It's been a while since I've done a year from the 80's, so I was pleased to see this year come up, even if I was kind of hoping to do a year from the 2000's. But I'm a stickler for keeping it random, and this year is one I'm excited for too. The Color Purple is one of those classics that I'm ashamed I haven't seen yet, so that is easily the film I'm most looking forward to. I've seen Prizzi's Honor but don't have particularly fond memories of the film itself, so hopefully this time around the experience will improve. Amy Madigan is the first up, and hopefully sooner rather than later.