Gollum: Dissed By The Oscars?
from the no-to-virtual-actors? dept
Late last year there was a lot of talk over whether or not Andy Serkis deserved to be nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar award for his "portrayal" of Gollum in The Two Towers. Everyone admits that it's a great performance, but you never actualy see Serkis. While he was on set during all of his scenes, he was later "replaced" with a computerized animation - which mimicked all of his moves and speech. The offficial answer appears to be that virtual actors don't count, because he wasn't nominated - despite a bit of a campaign put on by his backers. His argument is that it's really no different than an actor (like John Hurt in Elephant Man) where prosthetics to disguise themselves. However, it seems that many of the Oscar voters just aren't ready to deal with virtual actors.
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Even if he was human
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He's is not a virtual actor
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Gollum
It was completely believable (TT was the first movie in a while where I completely bought the alternate world without being aware of the suspension of disbelief). Furthermore, I never really understood this section of LoTR prior to seeing the movie. In the book - I just found Gollum's ravings tedious, repetitive and annoying. I also thought he was completely evil and had no idea why on earth Frodo bothered with him at all. In the book, it seemed like a contrived set of scenes, with Frodo coming off looking like a fool.
As a result, I was hoping Gollum in the movie would be a short appearance. Instead, I was completely blown away by the way Gollum was portrayed. Gollum onscreen made me sympathize with him, and even pity him.
I don't know if it deserved "best actor" (due the blurring between digital effects and human performance) - but out of everything I have ever seen in my life, that performance was one of the most effective I have ever seen.
For that reason, it seems a bit strange that the Oscars are ignoring it altogether.
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