Elizabeth Taylor's Oscar?

Melina Mercouri should have won hands down for Never on Sunday. But, Elizabeth Taylor was excellent in BUtterfield 8.

Make Pulp Fiction #1 on the top 250!http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110912/

which all goes to prove...

Oscars mean NOTHING...

they are politics...

all Oscars are are people in the same fields voting for each other, directors for directors, writers for writers, actors for actors...

if it were actors for directors, writers for actors, etc., then it'd be something legit, and would have something going, but it's just all political hogwash...

GOODFELLAS and CITIZEN KANE are proof enough for me!

The Oscars are a democratic process voted by the members of the Academy who comprize a motly crew of the well known and the obscure in Hollywood. As such, why someone gets an Oscar is always a bit of a mystery, just as why someone gets elected President. As many have pointed out, Oscars are sometimes given for reasons that have nothing to do with that particular movie or performance. Sympathy, the right political stand, the fact that the person had been passed over too many times, etc. But since we all love to discuss this kind of thing, what question about an oscar win can we ask that can be answered with some objectivity and certainty?

So the question might be, does she deserve the Oscar for a movie that was certainly not one of the greats? That particular question does not make sense, because she got the Oscar for her performance not the overall quality of the movie she was in. It is possible that a great performance can be in a movie of questionable lasting value.

So was her performance worthy of the Oscar that year? Again what do we mean by that? Do me mean that out of all the performances by Hollywood actresses, or at least the final nominees, was hers the best? Such jugements are always subjective, and finding the undeniable best performance of the nominees is always a debatable subject that can go on for years. Just check out message boards like this one and you will see endless debate that has and will go on forever.

Well how about this question? Does her performance, taken by itself, deserve the honor of Hollywood's most famous and sought after prize? Although still somewhat subject to opinion, that is probably the closest we are going to get to a question we can answer. The answer in the case of Elisabeth Taylor and BUterfield 8 is, I feel, quite definatly yes.

Consider just the opening scene where she wakes up, wanders around looking for her lover. She finds a torn dress, brushes her teeth with scotch, finds she has been offered $250 for the night, refuses it, checks her answering service, takes a mink coat and leaves. This is a discription of a moody slut, but not when played by Taylor. When she plays it, we see an elegant woman vascilating between sensuality, self loathing, self-pity, arrogance and pride. In this nearly wordless, long opening scene Taylor defines herself as an actress of the first rank. She does nothing to mar this image in the rest of the film. In short she delivers an Oscar level performance. The fact that the script (a bastardation of O'Hara's novel) and the rest of the players do not rise to this level only makes her performance stand out even more. She brought things to the movie that the director and scriptwriter never envisioned. She made the movie more than worth watching and she did it single-handedly.

It may not be her best performance, and some may argue that other actresses did better that year, but I do not think any intellegent and fair person could deny that her performance, taken by itself, was Oscar level. Good for you, Liz, you deserved every inch of that statue.

Hollywood is famous for giving Oscar's to people for all kinds of reasons other than their performance, ie, body of work, age, what they stand for, bla blah blah all kinds of things so never be surprised by this.

Have you seen the movie?

At certain points, it's really good - because of the actors. The script is nothing special. The acting and the casting bring it to a whole other level.

Elizabeth Taylor was fantastic..

People typically Love this movie or Hate it. There's very little in between.
I don't see why people would pan this movie, because it was not so terrible that it deserves a 2.

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The Academy gives Oscars based on many odd reasons, sometimes commercial, sometimes political, sometimes to make up for past omissions. I don't really respect their choices, and why should we care so much? They are just people too.
I realized they were all messed up the year the French Connection won best film.

I just saw this movie for the umpteenth time. Yes, it's a trashy movie, but it's good trash. I still believe Taylor deserved to win. She brought a lot of depth and pathos to the role. It's interesting that she hated the role because she really gives it all she's got.