Anyone agree with me that Jessica Lange's electrifying performance is in this film should have won her the Best Actress Oscar that year? Yes, I know, she received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for TOOTSIE the same year as a consolation, but it didn't console me. Lange's riveting work in this film was a hundred times more interesting than Meryl Streep's turgid, labored, and affected work in SOPHIE'S CHOICE.
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Thank you for your post...I'm so glad I'm not the only one who recognized what an astonishing performance this was and how wrong it was to pass Jessica over for Best Actress.
shareOscars are always a difficult decision in years when there are powerhouse performances by several actors (when not based on politics, of course). I absolutely adored Meryl Streep in "Sophie's Choice" and it is still one of my favorite and most memorable movies today. I cannot watch it often because I get too emotional and I have friends who are parents who refuse to watch it based on the subject matter. While I agree that Lange was just riviting in this role and should have at least won a Golden Globe, it was probably because of the intense storyline of "Sophie's Choice," Streep's exquisite portrail of a concentration camp survivor (which was brilliant and what I believed has caused her to be and remain the Acadamy's "Baby" - in addition to her many subsequent outstanding performances, of course), and perhaps the simple fact that Streep had done so many wonderful roles before ("The Deer Hunter," "Kramer vs. Kramer" where she won best supporting Oscar, etc.). But keep in mind, it seems that actors, directors, etc. have to keep wining these awards or they tend to be forgotten - I'm sure you can think of many actresses who were huge one year with a best-actress Oscar and were subsequently either forgotten or relegated to doing B-pictures. Marisa Tomei is one that comes to mind; another is Luise Rainer, who was the first actor or actress to win back-to-back Oscars in the 1930's and is now pretty much forgotten. It's unfortunate but Hollywood is more about money than talent. I'd be curious, however, to see the voting results for 1982 because I'd like to think it was a very close call.
shareJessica was definitely robbed of an Oscar that year, but not by Meryl Streep, but by the awful members of the Academy. They did the same the same thing to another supperior peformance in 1948 when Olivia de Haviland lost for devastanting peformance in the Snake Pit. What can we do now, nothing, it is history.
shareI loved Meryl Streep's work in Sophie's Choice, but Jessica Lange was astonishing in Frances. It is a devastatingly raw, soul-baring tour de force and one of the best female performances of all time.
shareJessica Lange's performance is without a doubt the most powerful acting ever!!! The film leaves me exhausted and moved. Meryl Streep was good, there is no denying, however I felt I was watching Frances Farmer...feeling her pain!
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IIII AAAAAAAAAAGgGGGGGRRRREEEEE!!!! My Jessica was robbed!!!!!! She shouldve won both Oscars that year for both movies!!!
shareNow don't get me wrong here, because I find Jessica Lange to be a wonderfully talented actress, but...
Honestly, I think Jessica Lange's performance in Frances is quite...meh.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=G01a5y84oDc
That scene is the perfect example of how NOT to act. You can see her calculating, saying to herself "okay, now be angry. Now be REALLY angry."
*BE ANGRY! Grit teeth! Open eyes wide!*
She's entirely too monotonous and dull. Every word was said with the same intensity and tone. It's like listening to that damn Clear Eyes commercial with Ben Stein.
Meryl Streep's gut-wrenching, inspiring, and out-of-this-world performance in Sophie's Choice is often referred to as one of the best performances in the history of film (and still yet by many, THE best). There's really no comparison here...I just don't get it. I never believed Jessica's performance, not once. It was like she was reading off cue cards. Hmph.
Oh, and I forgot another thing I wanted to add.
I prefer her in her Oscar winning performance in Blue Sky. Fantastic performance, deserved to win for that.
I just didn't like her screaming all the time...she was so whiney! (Though, I guess I should take that up with Frances, and the writers of the script).
She wasnt robbed she just lost to a better performance
shareIt should have been a tie.
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I agree with you about Karen Black.She was amazing in that movie.She never gets the credit she deserves.Her performance in Day of the Locust is brilliant too.As for Jessica(she's my favorite)Overacting....That's bull!She played that part to perfection.Streep was great as Sophie however when I watch the film I always feel she's on a different plain than the other actors and I'm watching this great actress giving a great performance in a movie.Time stands still.Watch her do this watch her do that.Look what she did there.It becomes more about the performance then the character.
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I can't deny the virtuosity of Streep.I think her best performances were in Ironweed and Silkwood....but Lange is my favorite.She just gets to me on a very emotional level....like no other!
shareMeryl Streep's performance in Sophie's Choice is arguably the best female performance of all time. Strangely I felt it was LANGE who gave the turgid, labored and affected performance. Clint Eastwood dissed Lange saying the same exact thing about her performance that it was way too actressy. She was the one that was forced whereas Streep gave a beautiful, controlled and haunting performance that had she not been awarded the Oscar and it was given to that overdone actressy performance Lange gave, it would have been the biggest crime in Oscar history. Streep murdered Lange with her performance IMO.
Mama:They're all gonna laugh at you!
Carrie:For reals?Then I'll f*k them UP!
Yes,which one of Clint Eastwood's two facial expressions did he have when he "dissed" Lange.....please!He also dissed Kim Stanley.It's laughable.Especially when one considers his choice of leading ladies in the early 80s and those brilliant "Monkey movies" he made.I loved Streep in "Sophie's choice" as I loved Lange in "Frances".Lange was considered so superb in Frances and Tootsie that the Academy couldn't ignore her.It's been brought up that "Hepburn"(who many consider the greatest actress in screen history)I don't..."Dissed Meryl Streep's acting.Lange is one of the best of her generation and nothing Clint Eastwood said 25 years ago is going to change that....IMO.
shareTo be fair, Eastwood is an academy award winning director, and has directed a handful of oscar winning performances, and has been nominated twice for best actor. Im not saying his opinion is right though but he has the accomplishments and achievements to have an opinion like that
shareAt the time Frances came out he had none of those accomplishments or achievements.I just feel it's strange to single out the stiff,wooden Eastwood(IMO) on HIS opinion of "good acting" on a performance that was among the most praised,that year. The idea that "even Clint Eastwood" didn't care for her, somehow makes it all true.
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And do you really think Jessica could have pulled off the caracter of Sophie as brilliantly as Meryl did?!?
Meryl was the best that year!Deal with it!
No, she wasn't. Streep's performance in Sophie's Choice is my favorite acting performance of all time. I recall the response of the acting community towards her in the film as a sort of new high water mark.
Lange deserved her nomination but not the win.
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He directed a statement string of super hammy performances himself. Sean Penn in mystic river...... Ouch!
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