When you look at the rest of the field for Best Actor at the 1983 Academy Awards, Robert Duvall’s win — for his performance as an alcoholic ne’er-do-wellcountry singer in Tender Mercies — makes a certain kind of sense. Duvall was the only American among four British actors: Michael Caine (Educating Rita), Tom Conti (Reuben, Reuben), Tom Courtenay (The Dresser) and Albert Finney (The Dresser). More significantly, his role was the only one that was created specifically for the screen; all the others originally came from stage plays. When you add in Duvall’s longstanding goodwill within Hollywood, the (well-earned) belief that he was among his generation’s finest working actors, and the fact that he also took home Golden Globe, LA Film Critics and New York Critics Circle awards for his performance, his Oscar that year seemed pretty much foreordained.
But did Duvall deserve it? That’s what we’ve been asking Hollywood in EW’s Recall the Gold survey revisiting all the major Oscar categories from 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 years ago, and that’s also what we’ve been asking you, PopWatchers, over the last few months. So what do you think? The contrast between Duvall and his fellow nominees is so stark, you can pretty much say exactly the same thing about why the other four men didn’t win: Their performances all felt too small and stage-y, and none of them were Robert Duvall. If any actor had even a small chance at an upset, it was probably Caine as a crappy, alcoholic professor who helps a working-class woman (fellow nominee Julie Walters) earn a degree. His career was just as storied as Duvall’s, but it was also peppered with far more dubious choices (Beyond the Poseidon Adventure, anyone?), and the Academy may have figured he’d have many more chances to take home an Oscar. (Indeed, to date, Caine has two Oscars to Duvall’s one.) Finney and Courtenay, as respectively an overbearing, alcoholic Shakespearean actor and his costumer/manservant/confidante, effectively canceled each other out. And Conti’s performance as an alcoholic (noting a pattern?) Scottish poet who sleeps his way through New England’s universities was apparently one of those tour-de-force turns with a short pop-culture half-life: Though Conti took home the National Board of Review’s award for Best Actor that year, there isn’t even a whisper of a clip from the film to be found on the internets.
The Academy had its say back in 1983, but now its your turn, PopWatchers: Which actor deserved the golden statue? We’ve got reminders from some of the films after the jump if you need them; while you’re at it, if you haven’t already, vote in all the other polls from our ongoing walk down Oscar’s memory lane. Next week, we’ll look at the 1998 race for Best Supporting Actress, and you can check out coverage of this year’s awards contenders in Dave Karger’s Oscar Watch blog.
Michael Caine, Educating Rita
Robert Duvall, Tender Mercies
Tom Courtenay & Albert Finney, The Dresser — Link to trailer on IMDb.com
The only one of these performances I have seen is Michael Caine in “Educating” which was very funny and the nomination was very deserved. This is another year/category that will not change once you count your votes. I have no doubt that Duvall was great because he almost always is.
For me, it was a two-man race, with Duvall narrowly edging out Caine.
I have to say that, even in most of his “paycheck gigs” [like Jaws 3-D], Caine rarely phoned in a perfomance.
Duvall just made the most of a slightly better role.
Duvall’s win was much deserved. It was a delicate tender performance just like the movie itself. Some of this “Recall the Gold” stuff is downright stupid. You unnecessarily discussed a lot of deserving wins but you’re yet to discuss Marisa Tomei’s win(the one Oscar that should be recalled hands down). What gives?
All of these performances are spectacular! I loved ‘The Dresser’ and would have voted for Albert Finney if I was forced to pick one. All of these actors deserved to win. This was one year that ‘being nominated’ was indeed like winning.
Most def Duvall earned/deserved it
Delon, what gives is that they announced at the beginning they were doing all the major races from specific years: “we’ve been revisiting all the major Oscar categories from 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 years ago…”
This was a great Duvall performance. It is not flashy but very understated, as were many of this films performances.
Very contrasting with his in your face performance as Bull Meachum in The Great Santini two years before. This was a well deserved Oscar.
Of course Duvall deserved to win. Rightfully he should have won for the Godfather I or II, since his was the most difficult role to pull off. Besides watching him do anything on the screen is such a pleasure. Half the charm of Lonesome Dove is watching him on the screen.
He deserved it, compared to the others. He also deserved to win for The Apostle when he lost to Nicholson basically playing himself in As Good As It Gets.
This is a no-brainer. Duvall all the way. It doesn’t have anything to do with him being the only American in the group, it has to do with the best performance in the best movie of the choices. Finney does a lot of “look how greatan actor I am” mugging, and The Dresser was overall an annoying film. Caine was okay in Educating Rita,but it doesn’t stand out. Duvall on the other hand, in this film and in every other movie I’ve seen him in, never even appears to be acting. He is one of the most subtle and underrated actors of his generation.
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