Despite the normal mediocrity of the Oscars, the nomination announcements on January 24th might add some intrigue to the oft-banal spectacle. The ultimate question will be whether or not Andy Serkis will receive a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his turn as Caeser in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. According to a report in last week’s The Hollywood Reporter:
Fox will push to create momentum for a possible best supporting actor Oscar nomination for Andy Serkis for his performance as ape Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Fox Filmed Entertainment co-chairman and CEO Tom Rothman said here Monday night. (THR)
Certainly, this nomination would reopen the door for questions about what qualifies as an acting performance: does the actor or actress have to physically appear on screen, or can a nomination-worthy performance be channeled through a computer-generated image? Coincidentally, this question was first raised when Serkis played Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and once again as Avatar crushed box office records and pulled nine Academy Award nominations – none of which were for acting.
However, the primary difference between Serkis’ performance in Apes and the earlier discussions surrounding Gollum or Avatar is that Caesar was the film. Gollum was intriguing and an integral part of the trilogy, but there were many other plot points driving the story, and when Gollum wasn’t on screen, I wasn’t waiting for him to appear. To his credit, Serkis’ mannerisms and movements made Gollum precociously ominous, but, in all honesty, the CGI wasn’t nearly as good in 2000 as it is now. This is not to suggest that the trilogy failed on a visual level. On the contrary, Lord of the Rings succeeded in part because Jackson convinced the world that Attack of the Clones was not the apex of CGI. However, the amalgamation of animation and real life was still flawed, often leaving the motion-captured creatures flat and cartoonish.
Regarding Avatar, it cannot be said that the story was the focus of the film. All jokes about it being the bastard child of Ferngully and Dances With Wolves aside, Avatar was driven by its visuals and exemplifies motion-capture pornography. The question of whether or not any of the actors should have gotten nominations is more metaphysical than realistic. Frankly, the actors were inconsequential. Their jobs were to deliver simple lines to move us from one visual accomplishment to another. While the realism of the Na’vi facial expressions was awesome, the emotions conveyed were often exaggerated and served the same expository function as an actor or actress yelling “I’m very angry now!”
The same cannot be said for Serkis’ Caesar. Admittedly, Rise is often driven by its visuals, but of all the primates on screen, Caesar is the most believable and the one that keeps the audience riveted. The rest of the cast is rather wooden and just moves the story along. However, the only truly emotional scenes come when Serkis is on screen, and he’s the focus of the film. Sure, the plot points are often predictable, but there are very few moments that I watched Caesar and was jarred out of the movie by a discontinuity or a flaw in the CGI. In the end, Serkis’ mannerisms transform a motion-capture ape into a genuinely honest and humane character that is just as much a part of the cast as any of the “real” actors and actresses.
The precedent set by the nomination could certainly open up various other debates that might champion nominations for voice actors in Pixar films, or perhaps even resurrect deceased actors and actresses if someone – or better yet a computer program – could mimic their voices. Just imagine the opportunity for a Bogart, Colbert, Gable, or Crawford to win another Oscar posthumously. Perhaps, ultimately, estates will be nominated.
These are the debates we’re destined to enter as innovations progress, but we must also be able to adapt and differentiate between films furnished with technological capabilities and those with integral performances that transcend these capabilities.
