Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actress 1989

The Contenders:

Isabelle Adjani: Camille Claudel
Jessica Tandy: Driving Miss Daisy (winner)
Michelle Pfeiffer: The Fabulous Baker Boys
Jessica Lange: Music Box
Pauline Collins: Shirley Valentine

Feet of Clay

Film: Camille Claudel
Format: DVD from Arlington Heights Memorial Library through OCLC WorldCat on The New Portable.

Every now and then I mention how much I enjoy it when someone goes against type. Seeing Tom Cruise play a villain, for instance, or having Alan Rickman play a romantic hero in Pride and Prejudice is always fun. And yet there are reasons that some people are typecast and play similar roles over and over. Isabelle Adjani is a case in point. While she is certainly a capable actress, she’s at her best playing crazy. Films like Possession and The Story of Adele H are a case in point, but Camille Claudel might well be the centerpiece of that fact.

Camille Claudel was a sculptor who began her career as a sort of protégé of Auguste Rodin. This was in a time when women simply weren’t artists. In saying that, it’s important to remember that Camille Claudel didn’t live centuries ago. She died in 1943, which means both of my parents were alive when she was. Rodin was (according to my very limited art knowledge) the last of the great realistic sculptors. Because of that, I always assume he was pre-Impressionist, but he absolutely was not.