BEST CHILD PERFORMANCES? AND WHY NO OSCAR CONSIDERATIONS FOR THIS MOVIE?
yes, SOOO much better than Pulp.
My guess, tho I was maybe 14 when I saw this, Portman had a natural sexiness that was odd in a nineties film involving a kid (this was 10 or more years removed from Shields and Hemingway, two other great performers as children) tho I could be wrong because Return to the Blue Lagoon had come out not long before this Besson but that involved to young people and not a young girl who had a crush on an adult, this aspect of Portman was again brought out in Beatuiful Girls a few years later
Portman = yes 100%
Oldman = no
The greatest child acting job (Victoire Thivisol) can be found in Ponette (1996)
Thivisol won the Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival.
She was 4 years old.
^ Fuckin’ WIN.
Let’s not forget our recent Director’s Cup entry, Nobody Knows.
i dunno..rocky…it’s amazing how many directors manage to coax good performances out of children..
this stuck with me: treeless mountain
and this:
and this from reha erdem
the list is endless! and i don’t even like children that much…um this seems to have turned into post a cute child thread..sorry…
How about Alain Becourt’s performance in Mon Oncle?
Or how about Jeanne-Pierre Leaud’s in The 400 Blows?
Or how about the performance of the children in Twenty-four Eyes?
Or how about the performances of all the children in A Summer at Grandpa’s?
Or how about essentially every child that had any kind of role in an Ozu film, especially in I Was Born, But…, Passing Fancy, Record of a Tenement Gentleman, and Earl Summer among many others. Ozu is by far the greatest directors of children.
and shimizu, and kiarostami…
maybe we should instead be looking for bad child performances….
^ Since you asked…
I thought he was just fine (it is not his fault Lucas wanted to play him cute) Hayden was the real problem.
Mason Gamble was a pretty lousy Dennis the Menace
I do agree that it was Lucas’ fault as he cast the part too young, the result was just as damaging. Hayden was indeed a problem. Compare Lloyd to Drew Barrymore in E.T. though and look how much more personality she conveyed (and she was even younger). Also,Henry Thomas gave one of the great kid performances in that movie as well.
idk I thought Llyod was just fine personality wise (he was also good in Deconstructing Harry)
but I am of the minority that liked the Phantom Menace very much while hating the other two
Muddy River
The Long Day Closes
i guess that means it’s ok to carry on…
only because i saw this earlier today….the adopted son
I disagree that it’s better than Pulp Fiction but it is for sure better than Forrest Gump.
deserving films at Academy Awards are getting fairly rewarded only in recent years so
I don’t know why are you surprised.
Three Kings ten years ago didn’t get a single nomination, nowadays I think it would sweep the awards.
Wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Peabody concerning “Ponette”.
A few notches below Ms. Thivisol, though, consider young Anthony Borrows as the title character “Liam”, a Stephen Frears film.
tatum o’ neil ‘paper moon’
brooke shields Pretty Baby
Ed Wood was better than both pulp fiction and the professional imo
I thought Immortal Beloved and Nobody’s Fool were much better than Pulp or Forrest (I only count American movies cause non American rarely get nominated for best picture)
I also think that the kid from Mercury Rising did great. Very underrated performance.
—PolarisDiB
Joks: regarding Tantrum O’ Neal:
“Can anyone think of other great performances from child actors and actresses in modern film history (for the sake of the exercise, let’s say since 1970) that were missed by the Academy?”
Tantrum wasn’t missed by the Academy. And I dare say Natalie Portman’s performance was far more impressive. Also, Tantrum had daddy to guide her on screen, every step of the way.
Kill Cinema:
I’m sticking to post 1970 films here. Otherwise, I think the list will become endless. However, since you’ve brooched pre-1970 fare, has anyone here seen “The Kid”? I’ve not had the pleasure, but there’s a big picture from the film hanging in the Astor Theatre.
Joks:
I agree “Ed Wood” was better than “The Professional”, but they are also two very different films. Comparing “Pulp Fiction” to “The Professional” seems more appropriate.
People may find this suggestion ludicrous, given generally tepid response to the film, but I really thought Brandon Walters in “Australia” was absolutely brilliant. Best supporting performance by an Australian actor in a 2008 film, by far…and one of the best child performances in modern cinema. And please don’t tell me how you didn’t like the film…so what? Regardless of anything else in the film, that kid was brilliant.
I disagree with you about daddy guiding her. She out acted him. And Paper Moon is a far better film than the Professional to me. it’s timeless. i loved The Professional in 1994 and even saw it 3 times at the theatre, had to sneak in every single time too!! But it didn’t hold up for me as well over time. Paper Moon just got better for me with age. not sure that i saw it at the time of release obviously.
Prossional is a very different film to Pulp Fiction too! closer than Ed Wood perhaps but still pretty far.
Shawshank was the best film that year.
As for kid acting… hmmm…Both the leads in the Let the Right One In were very strong
As for best child performance, for me it’s Anna Paquin in Piano, and Ivana Baquero in Pan’s Labyrinth
Joks, just because Tantrum O’Neal “outacted” her father in your view, that doesn’t change the fact she had her father standing next to her throughout the film. It makes a big difference to a child’s confidence. Regardless of who was better than whom, Ryan was there to hold Tantrum’s hand, et cetera.
“The Professional” and “Pulp Fiction”…both films in the crime genre…let’s not get too picky. Close enough to make an adequate comparison.
For me the best performances by a child or a group of children would definitely have to be all of the kids from Hanakes The White Ribbon and the little boy who was in th first installment of The Decalogue. I have never seen a better performance from any child in any film. And I was considering Pather Panchali but from what I read in interviews with Ray is that he used signals and cues and also verbal direction basically in every scene with the boy who played Apu so I wouldn’t say that the childs performance is entirely on his account. But it’s a great film none the less
-why was it not considered for a single Academy Award during its year?-
Value judgements aside, something no one’s mentioned yet, although Léon was in English and the exteriors were shot in New York, it was a French production, and that along severely hampered it chances at Oscar noms, which are of course hopelessly provincial. It probably wasn’t submitted for Best Foreign films because the French felt that Téchiné’s _Wild Reeds, which had beaten out Léon and Besson at the César Awards for both Best Film and Best Director, had a better chance of winning. By the way, Élodie Bouchez, who must have been about 20 at the time, also won the “Most Promising Actress” César for Wild Reeds that year.
Also, no one mentioned Jodi Foster in Taxi Driver?
Saoirse Ronan was very good in Joe Wright’s otherwise listless Atonement, she must have been about 12 or 13.
It deserves some recognition. Pretty original premise.
Best child performance? Nah.
MARK IS SUSPENDED IN GAFFA
Just saw this at the Astor revival cinema in Melbourne and must ask:
Luc Besson’s “The Professional”: why was it not considered for a single Academy Award during its year?
Most obviously, Natalie Portman, in only her second feature film role, should have been nominated for Best Actress. Her effort is one of the finest child performances I have witnessed in a motion picture. I’ve heard and read so much about this performance over the years and I must say, it exceeded expectations.
One could also make the case that Jean Reno and Gary Oldman should have been Oscar nominated, not to mention the magnificent score from composer Eric Serra. And why no Best Picture consideration?
So much better than “Pulp Fiction”…but I digress.
Can anyone think of other great performances from child actors and actresses in modern film history (for the sake of the exercise, let’s say since 1970) that were missed by the Academy?