Number 71: Shelley Winters as Rose-Ann D'Arcy in "A Patch of Blue" (Best Supporting Actress Ranking)

While all the other performing types have a very good share of two-time winners, there are only two girls who have received two Supporting Actress Oscars. Shelley Winters turned the first ladies to do so when she received her 2nd Oscar for her portrayal of Rose-Ann D’Arcy, a loud, vulgar and disgusting racist who treats her blind daughter Selina (whom she blinded herself by incident) like a slave, beating her at every single attainable situation. To see a character like this awarded by the Academy seems relatively stunning but the weak point of the group that 12 months and Shelley Winters’s acceptance as an actress probably aided her to take residence the Oscar. And, of course, as Mo’nique has proven last calendar year, the character of a brutal and violent mother appears to have some type of fascination for the Academy. I don’t want to comment on Mo’nique now but as you can previously see, my stage of fascination for the performance by Shelley Winters is relatively low.

A Patch of Blue works like a fairy-tale, with a inadequate princess who is terribly dealt with by her evil step-mom (only in this situation, it is her real mother) and waits to be saved by a white knight (only in this circumstance, the knight is black). In this context, Shelley Winters overall performance performs since she is pure evil: full of detest and anger without a one redeeming function. When we listen to her footsteps outside the house the condominium, we truly feel just as terrified as Selina (Elizabeth Hartman in an amazing lovely and touching performance that should have received the Oscar). Shelley Winters is also extremely efficient when she screams and shouts at her or even slaps her. Sure, she is the evil mother from a fairy tale and we have no sympathy for her.

Shelley Winters herself explained that she hated the character and didn’t understand her. The Academy was most likely really impressed that, in spite of her detest for the character, Shelley Winters was even now capable to make her so successful and severely terrifying. But my personalized problem is that Shelley Winters took a too easy way to perform Rose-Ann. She did not comprehend the character and it’s quite apparent from the way she performs her, that she did not even try. Alternatively of trying to go truly into the element and give Rose-Ann some depths and maybe an clarification for her character (In 1 scene, she manipulates her father against Selina with a absolutely evil search. Why does she do that to her own daughter???), she made the decision to simply make her as loud and negative as possible, basically operating on the outside alternatively of the inside. Simply because of that, it is a completely two-dimensional functionality in which Shelley Winters continually gets the chance to scream at the prime of her lungs. But what Shelley Winters did, as well, is to turn Rose-Ann into a whole cartoon character, a caricature. Of program, the script does so, way too. Shelley is given strains like ‘Answer me or would you like a slug in the puss?’ or ‘Can you feel it? After the smack-about I gave her last night time?’. Only at the conclude, Shelley appears to display some thoughts for her daughter or when Selina throws up in the condominium, she tells her with a caring voice “Stop that. Stop it, Selina!”

It is a very puzzling overall performance for me. On the 1 hand, I love the motion picture itself and the efficiency by Elizabeth Hartman and Shelley Winters usually retains her very own against her and never feels out-of-location in the story. Just like Jane Fonda in Coming Home or Charlton Heston in Ben-Hur, Shelley Winters’s overall performance feels completely fine even though you’re viewing the movie but becomes shockingly missing by even more focus. I will not deny that she contributes to the film – a motion picture which is for me completely superb but I think her contribution only takes place in the constrained prospects of her portion. She is so powerful because she is so constrained – but this doesn’t make Shelley Winter’s performing extraordinary.

In the finish, her functionality performs as the evil villain who is a overall distinction to the saint-like Sidney Poitier, but it is also small to compete with the other performances in this rating.