Best Supporting Actor 1983: Results

5. John Lithgow in Terms of Endearment- Lithgow although hindered by the fact he has few scenes and the film doesn't really care about him gives a good performance showing the simple love expressed by his character well.

4. Jack Nicholson in Terms of Endearment- This is probably a bit of a surprise, but I did actually prefer the two above. Nicholson is inconsistent and some ineffective in his performance at first relying far too much on his trade marks that never meld with his character. He though becomes much better later on capturing the joyous energy of his boisterous character well, as well as creating an interesting relationship with Shirley MacLaine.

3. Charles Durning in To Be or Not Be- Durning only needs to do one thing here and that is for him to be funny. He is funny in all of his scenes and his scenes with co-star Christopher Lloyd are the highlights of the film for me.

2. Rip Torn in Cross Creek- Rip Torn's succeeds in every way Gregory Peck failed to in the role of the real person who inspired Peck's character in the Yearling. Torn creates a unique vivid portrait of his backwoods character and he especially brings great degree of emotional weight to his final scenes.

1. Sam Shepard in The Right Stuff- Shepard win this year giving a great performance in The Right Stuff. Shepard absolutely becomes test pilot Chuck Yeager flawlessly bringing to life the uninhibited confidence and strength of the man. He speaks few words but he holds every moment he appears on the screen.

Deserving Performances:
Darren McGavin in A Christmas Story
Ed Harris in The Right Stuff

Best Supporting Actor 1983: Sam Shepard in The Right Stuff

Sam Shepard received his first Oscar nomination for portraying Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff.

The Right Stuff tells of test pilots who later become astronauts due to the space race. 

The Right Stuff is an ensemble film but at the very beginning of the film Sam Shepard is the lead of the film as test pilot Chuck Yeager who is the first pilot to break the sound barrier. Sam Shepard takes quite a low key approach to his performance which certainly makes sense for Yeager who is a man of a very few words. Yeager although is in many ways an unassuming man, he at the same time is a man of great presence. Shepard does hold the screen as Yeager showing always that Yeager although quiet is an unmistakably strong willed man. Shepard makes Yeager a man who says more in one word than many would in a speech.

Yeager is always sure of himself, and ready for anything. Shepard makes Yeager's reaction to being challenged by the idea of breaking the sound barrier barely something that even phases him. Shepard is excellent here because he never makes Yeager seem like some sort of pompous man at all, even though he is shrugging off doing something that seemed impossible as almost nothing. Shepard brings a certain somewhat almost otherworldly quality to Yeager. He is a man who is simply completely true to himself he understands his own abilities, and knows there is no reason to ever sell himself short.

Shepard brings to life Yeager's complete self efficacy flawlessly. In short Shepard never lies in his performance. All of Yeager's complete self assurance, and confidence never seems forced for a moment. Shepard is the man in total control of his situation, and without a hint of hesitation or fear for situation despite the very likely chance of dying faced by all test pilots. When Yeager decides to proceed with his considered by some impossible task without a second thought despite having broken two of his ribs in a horse riding and needing a broom handle to properly secure that his jet's door is closed, we do not give it a second thought because brings to life this uninhibited confidence and drive perfectly.

After achieving his mission Yeager no longer is the main character as the film focuses on the first astronauts while Yeager rebukes the whole idea of being one believing the pilot is not an important facet of the whole thing. Yeager does not completely disappear as it shows the stories of the astronauts rather it comes back to him every so often to show how the attention has gone away from the original pilots, as well as Yeager's own changes in view toward the concept of being an astronaut. These scenes are short and of course with few spoken words, but again Shepard is flawless in his conveying of how Yeager sees the astronauts as more than spam in a can.

This is a good performance by Sam Shepard and he creates a vivid portrait of this remarkable man. Shepard manages to do this despite the fact he really does not have a single scene in which delves deep into his character. This is a performance that is constantly on the move, and is a performance that is very much in the moment. Shepard though makes the most of each and every one of these moments. Shepard always keeps us interested in Yeager even in just those short later scenes. He does not have a single wasted second in his performance, and makes Chuck Yeager the exact sort of man the title of the film refers to.

Best Supporting Actor 1983

And the Nominees Were:

Sam Shepard in The Right Stuff

John Lithgow in Terms of Endearment

Jack Nicholson in Terms of Endearment

Charles Durning in To Be or Not To Be

Rip Torn in Cross Creek

DAYS OF HEAVEN

Written and Directed by Terrence Malick

Starring Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, Linda Manz and Sam Shepard

Linda: I'm telling you; the rich got it figured out.

The effect is instantaneous. The moment DAYS OF HEAVEN begins, you are fully taken into what can only be described as the cinematic incarnation of heaven itself. Striking yet sumptuous still images of America and the suffering Americans of yore, fill the screen in a montage set to a classic Ennio Morricone score. It isn’t the content that constitutes heaven but rather the bold and commanding manner in which writer/director, Terrence Malick, presents it to his audience, that transcends the filmmaking abilities of any mere mortal. In that sense, Malick is the cinematic equivalent of God, and like God, Malick is omniscient. He is aware of all the tiny moments that make up the lives of his characters and how each of them can go on to change the world around them without even realizing what is happening. Sometimes, watching through Malick’s eyes feels like you might actually be watching from the clouds.

The world we are privy to in DAYS OF HEAVEN is farm country, Texas, 1916 (actually shot in Whiskey Gap, Alberta). Bill and Abby (Richard Gere and Brooke Adams) are a couple, riding the rails with Bill’s little sister, Linda (Linda Manz). They take up work in the wheat fields just in time for harvest season, after Bill got into a fight and accidentally killed his foreman at his previous manual labour job in Chicago. Everyone they encounter knows them as brother and sister, a decision made to avoid talk amongst the other prying workers. Believing her to be unattached, Abby catches the eye of the farm owner, played by Sam Shepard and known only as The Farmer. He is unmarried and ill, with only a short time left to live and no one to share his time with. When the harvest is complete, he asks Abby to stay on with her “brother and sister” and marry him and she decides to do just that. The trouble for The Farmer is he doesn’t know that she and her lover are just waiting until he passes away so that they can inherit his fortune. The trouble for Bill and Abby is that they don’t know how long their love can survive the charade, nor when The Farmer will die.

DAYS OF HEAVEN triumphs for a number of reasons, not the least of which is Malick’s incredibly focused direction. His screenplay is as lean as the times in the film. Dialogue is sparse and the plot is forwarded instead by the activity taking place on screen, allowing literally for the action to speak much louder than the words. All the while the harvest is happening, words are barely spoken, safe for some minor exchanges about being hungry or where someone is from. This leaves the viewer to piece together what is happening through looks and body language and fractions of larger conversations that reveal just enough to connect the dots. And who wants to listen to a lot of false dialogue anyway when you can allow your ears to take in the brilliantly designed soundscape, as mixed by Barry Thomas. Whether the wind is whipping through the wheat in the fields or locusts are descending in biblical proportions upon them, the sound is always impeccable and dynamic. It had better be too to keep up with Nestor Almendros’s Oscar-winning cinematography. Together, the viewer is drawn into the drawl one would expect when staring out into the fields on a hot day in the south and watching the buffalo roam. With every element coming together so brilliantly, it’s hard to believe this is only Malick’s second feature.

Another trait Malick shares with his maker is that he does not judge, at least not from behind the camera in DAYS OF HEAVEN. As the story unfolds in front of us, Malick is not concerned with taking sides or playing sympathy, he only seems interested in how best to present it to his audience. This great respect for the audience’s capacity to appreciate the depth of his artistry grows stronger as his scope goes wider. To pull away from the central story is to see the grander setting surrounding it. In it, Malick gives us the America of the time and the great divide between rich and poor. But even as Bill, Abby and Linda go from having nothing to having so much that they feel the need to throw food around as though it were nothing, Malick does not condemn them. That said, some fairly intense punishment does befall the whole lot of them eventually but even then, Malick is just there to observe, and beautifully so, as their fates are carried out. For better or for worse, this was just the America of the time and DAYS OF HEAVEN proves Malick is just one of the greatest American filmmakers of his time.