Some actors work in miniature, constructing a life on screen the way Joseph Cornell fashioned a universe in a box. Others, depending on the story, rage against the dying light and splatter paint on a daringly expansive canvas.
The year 2007 brought some wonderful examples of both extremes to our screens, as well as the middle ground that, in the right interpretive hands, was anything but middle-of-the-road. It was a very good year to see a lot of movies, and the standout performances came in all sizes.
In honor of Feb. 24’s Academy Awards, here’s a quartet of nominated portrayals, along with a quartet of performances overlooked by Oscar.
Daniel Day-Lewis
‘There Will Be Blood’
Sitting at the rear of a turn-of-the-century train car heading west, a man in a big bowler hat gazes — fondly, from the surface of it — at his baby boy, who is parked in a satchel next to his father. The scenery glides by. The baby reaches out to touch his brushy mustache. The man smiles. Fade-out. That’s the gist of this atypically peaceful moment from “There Will Be Blood.” The way some people talk about Day-Lewis’ portrayal of the raptorlike oilman Daniel Plainview — loosely based on a character created by Upton Sinclair in the 1927 novel “Oil!” — you’d think Day-Lewis spent every second assaulting the audience with “I’ve abandoned my child! I’ve abandoned my child!” intensity. No. Day-Lewis has no time for inhuman monstrosities. He’s too witty a performer, for one thing. And the finesse with which he handles writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson’s train-car vignette — brief, wordless, complicatedly moving — well, you tell me: Is this the work of someone who doesn’t know how to modulate a huge performance?
Julie Christie
‘Away From Her’
As a woman slipping toward the abyss of Alzheimer’s, Christie strolls through the woods early in director Sarah Polley’s picture alongside co-star Gordon Pinsent. “I think you’re supposed to be able to put your fingers inside the curled petal and feel heat,” she says, kneeling to examine a bright yellow flower. “Well?” asks her husband. “Can’t be sure,” she says. “I can’t be sure if what I can feel is the heat … or my imagination. The heat attracts the bugs. Nature never fools around just being decorative.”
Neither does Christie. She may be a dozen kinds of beautiful, but she has learned over the years not to let her bone structure do the heavy lifting.
Tommy Lee Jones
‘In the Valley of Elah’
What Mr. Jones does in this little-seen drama, as a retired military policeman investigating his son’s disappearance, inverts the achievement of Daniel Day-Lewis in “There Will Be Blood.” Whereas Day-Lewis slips arresting moments of calm into a stormy landscape, Jones’ character is a stoic who, now and then, reveals to the camera what’s raging inside. The great scene in “Valley of Elah” finds Jones in a motel room near his son’s Army base. A soldier knocks at his door, bearing what Hank knows in his bones must be the worst possible news. Excusing himself after a bit of small talk, Hank retreats into the bathroom to take care of a shaving cut. Then the mask drops, and without a word of dialogue Jones expresses a world of loss and dread entirely with his eyes. Pauline Kael once said of Jones that those deep-set eyes (surrounded now by an interesting array of deep creases) don’t let in much light. But he’s so good in “Valley of Elah,” you’re reminded that our best screen performers create their own illumination from within.
Marion Cotillard,
‘La Vie En Rose’
Physical transformation may not be everything when it comes to playing a historical figure, let alone drawing serious awards consideration. But when you see the French actress Marion Cotillard in “A Private Affair” or even the smug Russell Crowe romantic comedy “A Good Year,” you know you’re in the presence of serious, easygoing glamor. As Edith Piaf, Cotillard had to trade one sort of charisma for quite another. The result is a performance full of technical facility as well as emotional yearning. I don’t love the movie — it’s no better and no worse than other Hollywood biopics — but in the long, late sequence in which the singer learns of her boxer lover’s fate, Cotillard cracks open a legend’s perpetually breaking heart.
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THE (SADLY) UN-NOMINATED
Anamaria Marinca
‘4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days’
As natural as breathing, the superb Romanian actress’ portrait of a young woman whose deadpan adaptability meets the harshest of late communist-era circumstances transcends conventional notions of documentary-style realism, whatever that even means. Marinca plays the friend and savior of a fellow student seeking an illegal abortion. Their friendship, fragile at best, is forever altered by the abortionist’s sexual blackmail. After Marinca’s character has sacrificed more than her dignity, she joins her boyfriend’s parents’ party on the other side of town. In a stunning scene, Marinca sits at a crowded dinner table while her elders talk of the old days, clucking over the callow and spoiled youth they see all around them. Marinca’s implacable expression tells her hosts nothing and tells us everything. The Oscars rarely award subtlety, unless someone such as Julie Christie can be accused of it; if they did, Marinca’s work in “4 Months” would be far more widely recognized. The Academy declined to even nominate the film in the foreign-language Oscar category. Wimps.
Don Cheadle
‘Talk to Me’
What a delight! As Washington deejay “Petey” Greene, Cheadle played glorious variations on the themes of scoundrel, civil rights conscience, famemonger, cancer patient and radio personality. This was a true star turn, the kind that doesn’t come early in anyone’s career. Though it wasn’t a big hit, “Devil in a Blue Dress” was the film introducing Cheadle to a wide audience — he played the volatile sociopath Mouse, a more interesting fellow than the supercool private eye Denzel Washington played — and while Cheadle seemed to come out of nowhere, he’d already been acting on TV and in the movies for a decade. That’s the experience he brought to “Talk to Me.” Sometimes an actor gets paid to have a ball, and sometimes the results are no less joyous for the audience.
Max von Sydow
‘The Diving Bell and the Butterfly’
As the Casanova father of the high-living hedonist played by Mathieu Amalric, Von Sydow has only two scenes in director Julian Schnabel’s uniquely seductive picture. Von Sydow and Amalric don’t spell out the obvious (nor does the screenwriter, Ronald Harwood) about the emotional particulars regarding this father-son relationship. We’re left to sort it out for ourselves, and in just a few lines, Von Sydow suggests an ordinary man near the end, playfully cranky (“If you cut me, I’ll sue you,” he says, as Amalric shaves his craggy marvel of a face) and grandly egotistical (“God, they don’t make them like me any more,” he says, regarding his face in the mirror). Then he says he’s proud of his wastrel son’s accomplishments. It all happens in a minute or two, and in those minutes Von Sydow is good enough to make you cry.
Kevin J. O’Connor
‘There Will Be Blood’
Some actors are required, by dictates of story and character, to be reactors foremost. O’Connor’s role in “There Will Be Blood’ embodies the reactive ideal. Playing the prodigal brother (“by another mother,” he notes) of Daniel Day-Lewis’ rapacious oilman, O’Connor sidewinds his way into the rich man’s affections. In each of their scenes together O’Connor watches Day-Lewis like a devoted puppy, while Day-Lewis regards his newfound half-brother like a hawk. While Paul Dano has the flashier (dual) roles in the supporting ranks, it’s O’Connor who proves he’s fully up to the challenge of acting alongside Day-Lewis. As a bonus, O’Connor looks as if he strolled to life straight out of an old snapshot, forlorn and searching.
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OSCARS ONLINE
Get ready for the Academy Awards at chicagotribune.com/oscars:
* Use an interactive ballot to compare your choices to those of Tribune movie critic Michael Phillips
* See movie clips and watch Phillips’ reviews of the best picture nominees * Watch a Chicago factory make the Oscar statuettes
* Find a complete list of the Oscar nominations
