Capote and the Cowboy

One of the more interesting debates currently taking place in several Oscar-oriented forums is who’s more deserving to win Best Actor come March 5: Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote or Heath Ledger for Brokeback Mountain. Right now, Hoffman seems to be the one to beat, judging from the numerous pre-Oscar awards he had won, from both critics and industry insiders. But a large number of those participating in these forums, many of them Brokeback fans, contend that Ledger deserves to win, simply because it’s much harder to breathe life into a fictional character than impersonating a factual one, especially someone as colorful as Capote.

That reasoning intrigues me for two reasons. First, for its timing. The Academy Awards has had a history of nominating actors playing real-life characters. Last year alone, Jamie Foxx and Cate Blanchett won for portraying showbiz icons Ray Charles and Katharine Hepburn, respectively. Two years ago, it was Charlize Theron for her performance as a real-life serial killer. And the year before that, Nicole Kidman for playing Virginia Woolf. And the list goes on and on and on. This year is no different: writers (Hoffman and co-star Catherine Keener, who plays To Kill a Mockingbird author Harper Lee) and singers (Walk the Line's Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon, as country-music icons Johnny Cash and June Carter) are represented, as well as comparatively lesser-known but no less real-life people (David Straithairn, Charlize The­ron, Paul Giamatti). You didn’t see the unusual passion marking the Hoffman vs. Ledger acting debate in previous Oscar races.

Second, for it allows me, a non-actor, to discourse on acting. As a dramatist, I have great respect for actors; they bring the characters the playwright creates to life. I always define true, honest acting as embodying a character’s outer and inner selves. It becomes great if that embodiment is indelible and thorough. On the other hand, impersonation is surface pretense. Between playing a factual character and a fictional one, the challenges of portraying a real-life person are grea­ter. It’s even more so if the person being portrayed is well-known. Playing a real-life person has more trapdoors—reducing the character to a caricature, or reducing the performance into an impersonation, and so on—the actor could easily fall into if he/she is not careful. But if he/she successfully avoids them and completely embodies the character, then that makes for a performance worth awarding, because the risks in taking on such a role are much higher.

But in the end, it all comes down to this: Is the performance effective? Do you believe the actor to be the person he or she is playing? That’s always the main consideration, whether or not the actor is playing a real-life character. But at the Oscars, that’s not always the case. After all, AMPAS is made up of chosen industry insiders, more inclined to watch a movie subjectively than objectively.

As to who is going to win Best Actor, I can’t say for now. I haven’t watched Capote yet, but all I can say about Ledger in Brokeback Mountain is this: he’s Ennis Del Mar.