1990's Best Supporting Actor race is full of surprises. The first is Al Pacino's nomination for the comic strip adaptation Dick Tracy, where he goes big as gangster Big Boy Caprice. Pacino being nominated wasn't the surprise - the Golden Globes so honored him earlier - it was the fact that he got in for Dick Tracy and not in Best Actor for The Godfather: Part III that shocked.
The bigger surprise was the winner. Before there were 105 "precursors," common wisdom still held that the New York Film Critics held a lot of sway with Academy voters; this year's winner was Bruce Davison in Longtime Companion. He also won the Golden Glove and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male. The only thing he didn't win was the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award, though he was named runner-up to Joe Pesci in GoodFellas (Pesci was reportedly runner-up to Davison's NYFCC win). If you wanted to win your Oscar pool, you were predicting Davison.
And you would have lost:
Well, here's how I'd rank 'em:
5. Andy Garcia as Vincent Mancini
The Godfather: Part III
only nomination; Golden Globe nominee for Best Supporting Actor
It's not a juiceless character: he's sexy, possesses the same quick-to-action anger as his father Sonny, possesses the ambition of his uncle Michael, and finds himself pursuing a forbidden romance with his cousin. A lot of potentially interesting things to play, so why is none of it very interesting? Garcia is trying, but the movie is gradually less interested in him and his "romance" has no sparks.
4. Bruce Davison as David
Longtime Companion
only nomination; Golden Globe winner for Best Supporting Actor, NYFCC Awards winner for Best Supporting Actor; LAFCA Awards runner-up for Best Supporting Actor
I appreciate his light touch, the ease with which he and Mark Lamos communicate a lifetime's worth of memories and devotion. It is enough to really sell the scene that cinched his nomination, where he sits at his husband's bedside and tells him it's OK to let go. It's an emotional scene, one that Davison plays just right, the culmination of a performance that has seen him shouldering one tragedy after another without tears.
3. Joe Pesci as Tommy DeVito
GoodFellas
second of three nominations; LAFCA Awards winner for Best Supporting Actor, National Board of Review's Best Supporting Actor of 1990; Golden Globe nominee for Best Supporting Actor, NYFCC Awards runner-up for Best Supporting Actor
As Pesci plays him, Tommy is crude and crass. He's the life of the party, so long as you don't notice how his humor is cruel and built around the humiliation and fear of everyone around him (or maybe you do notice and that's part of the charm, you're all in on the joke of your superiority). Naturally his own meanness makes him extremely sensitive - he's violent, but he lets the resentment simmer before he explodes, like when he shoots Spider or kills Billy Batts. The anger is the only hint of subtext Pesci gives Tommy, too: there is nothing deep about this man, he is a blunt instrument, he stopped growing up the moment he pulled his first adolescent rip-off. And he is frightening.
2. Graham Greene as Kicking Bird
Dances with Wolves
only nomination
Wild that this performance wasn't nominated everywhere, not just because it's part of the Best Picture frontrunner, but because it's so good. Though he is as wary as his fellow tribesmen when it comes to the white invaders, there is curiosity, too, you see that in his eyes, even in the way his head follows every movement the other man makes: he wants to understand Dunbar and he wants Dunbar to understand him. Natural warmth and quiet strength throughout, even when he casts doubts. No showboating required.
1. Al Pacino as Big Boy Caprice
Dick Tracy
the sixth of his nine nominations; BAFTA Award nominee for Best Supporting Actor, Golden Globe nominee for Best Supporting Actor
Everything is so much, the makeup (that he designed), the physicality, the constant yelling, the pursed lips and bug eyes. Well, it oughta be, everything else here is bright and bold. Pacino's mere presence makes this almost a co-lead, a testament to his overwhelming, overwhelming performance. The way he sucks at his lips as he sweatily mouths "we're being bugged," the overconfidence with which he choreographs (poorly) and sings (well, aggressively shouts) Madonna's floor number, his malaporpisms attributed incorrectly but with certainty: it's too much. It's hilarious. It's a blast.
Tomorrow, the nominees for Best Actor: Kevin Costner (Dances with Wolves), Robert De Niro (Awakenings), Gerard Depardieu (Cyrano de Bergerac), Richard Harris (The Field), and Jeremy Irons (Reversal of Fortune).
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