Number 65: Ruth Gordon as Minnie Castevet in "Rosemary's Baby" (Best Supporting Actress Ranking)

I previously confirmed in my Greatest Actress Ranking that some performances, no subject how iconic they are, basically don’t do it for me. In the Supporting Actress category, there is almost certainly rarely an additional overall performance far more legendary than Ruth Gordon’s next-door-witch but as you can see from this position, I am not a actual admirer. When compared to my old position, she got a higher position, but only a couple of spots…

Ruth Gordon is undoubtedly one more member of the ‘I’m glad this actress has an Oscar but why did it have to be for this film?’ club. Very first, what bugs me is that her functionality and her character are so a single-dimensional…I suggest, aside from actively playing an annoying neighbor, what else does she do? There is no depth, no emotion, absolutely nothing. At minimum I would have expected some concealed symptoms of evil in her character, but not even that (except for her conversation on the mobile phone when she talks to the physician about Rosemary’s being pregnant and the seem on her experience when Rosemary tells her that she’s heading out can cannot have her drink, but which is not sufficient). Ruth Gordon’s very own individuality and screen-presence make confident that Minnie is as eccentric and weird as achievable but underneath all this lays a sadly extremely vacant and unremarkable efficiency.

It’s mainly the mixture of Ruth Gordon’s strange voice and her costumes that generates Minnie as the effectively-acknowledged character she is. With these property, she is capable to go away an effect and becomes unusually entertaining but, in the long run, her part is genuinely practically nothing a lot more than an underwritten comedian reduction since her probabilities to portray a more sinister side in her character are so restricted. It’s genuinely aggravating to watch her, like Lee Grant in Shampoo, give everything for a part that is not really worth it. I feel that the actor who played Minnie’s spouse was far more profitable in generating a character that is each the stereotypical bothersome neighbor but also evokes a emotion of insecurity, of threat. It is a combination that Ruth Gordon skipped however.

It is surely an interesting overall performance and I will not deny that Ruth Gordon is amusing to watch but there is as well significantly lacking in this portion for me to give her a much better place.