It's shocking that Jodie Foster didn't win her third oscar for Nell and Jessica Lange won instead!! Maybe it was just because Foster already had two ... what does everyone else think??
shareProbably.They almost never give you two,let alone more than two.
sharethere are people who have won more than two oscars jack nichoson won 3 kathirine hapburn won 4 n i am sure there r others who have won more then 2 as well oliver stone has even though he aint an actor but i agree foster should have won for nell i am shocked she dident she really deserved this oscar i guess the acdeamy cant be right ever time they have been wrong before n i am sure they will be wronm again
shareI agree with you 100%! This is one of my favourite films & Jodie Foster's acting in it is second to none.I too cannot believe how she lost out at the Oscar's to Jessica Lange & especially to the fairly mediocre film Blue Sky at that.Talk about adding insult to injury! By the way does anybody know why was Blue Sky made in 1991 & yet not released until three years later?
As said whilst Ms Foster's acting was really great in Nell I feel as if I should also make special mention to Liam Neeson's thespian skills too as the chemistry between these two great stars was nothing short of amazing. The two of them worked really well together I thought.
These are two great actors, and even though Neeson may have been overshadowed here somewhat, his acting in this and in Schindler's List (in my opinion, 1993's best performance) prove how high-caliber his acting is.
There's more to life than being really, really, really, ridiculously good-looking.
Not everybody playing a "retard" automatically deserves an Oscar.
Bart: "Dad! You shot zombie Flanders!"
Homer:"He was a zombie?"
Retard???
Unbelievable though many aspects of this film are, the court scene at the end (in itself unbelievable after Nell's disturbence and catatonia (is that the word?)) demonstrates that she is anything but a retard - that is if you are applying the term to its normal usage. Her condition was not that of a mentally damaged person (though she may well have been emotionally damaged), but of an almost totally unsocialised person. Sean Penn studied the behaviour of mentally handicapped people for months and as a result of his dedication to the role and hard yakka produced a performance of shere brilliance in "I am Sam". I wonder what precedent there was for Jodie to study for her role as Nell? Perhaps it was left to the shere imagination of Jodie and the writer/film-makers? Perhaps in this way it was as much a challenge for her as was Sean Penn's character?
But "retard"? - No. Not much thought behind *that* comment!
I agree with you. I never got the feeling she was retarded. However, the only thing I was diappointed in was the movie ends where it is 5 years later, and Nell doesn't seem to have made any progress in her speech and social skills. I would like to have seen her progress more as she became more of a member of society.
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You have a good point their. I was just hoping that she would have made
huge leaps forward after 5 years of being discovered. I think even an infant would have. I liked Nell, but was disappointed in the ending. Maybe they shouldn't have said "5 Years Later", and just said "2 Months Later", and I wouldn't have been so disappointed with her lack of progress.
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"5 Years Later" was their way of introducting the lovely little girl Lovell and Olsen, now married, brought to Nell's birthday party, an act of love so deep I can't find words. The timing of that scene was to imply an emotional replacement for Mae, in the person of the child of their marriage, a reciprocal gesture for the love Nell brought to the two of them. If you listen closely to the conversation between Nell and the little girl, you can hear that Nell's words and sentences are clearer than before.
shareOf the studies conducted on feral children, it has been shown that their is a critical time in a child's life for learning language, and sentence structure. If during this critical time the parts of the brain controlling speech are not stimulated, the synapses (points between neurons that transport nervouse impulses) in the brain grow too far apart, ultimately parmenantly crippling that section of the brain. Feral children who have suffered this have learned a large vocabulary of words, but are often unable to formulate these words into sentences. It is not a matter of being retarded. Therefor, in my opinion, it is highly plausable, and in fact I would have been disappointed if it were otherwise, that Jodie Foster's character remained child-like in her speach and behavior. I loved this movie, and Foster and Neeson were both brilliant in it.
sharei think the ending is perfect - i wouldn't want , and i don't htink nell herself, would have wanted to become too much more of a part of what we call society. her speech in the court room kind of says that. i think she wanted to stay where she was and in touch with nature and not become subject to the worries of the average life.
jack nicholson has 3 oscars and 12 nominations, so what? jodie should have won her third one, besides, she's one of the most intelligent and excellent actresses of these times.
shareActually she seems much more progressed to me. She is hanging out with everybody when Liam Neeson etc. show up, and then she teaches her rhyme to the little girl but after she finishes she says to her "Remember that" in perfectly clear English.
muffie
To "averageandproundofit"! She doesnt deserve an oscar cause she played "retard"... dude! She deserves an oscar cause of the way she plays it! And she just plays it very very very good!
shareI agree with jellybeens. The ending was just right. We tend to assign our own ambitions to others and I was under the impression that Nell was a happy person before she was discovered and later, after her harsh introduction to 'civilized' people, she ends up still living in her world and is still happy. The whole concept of the movie was the way society tries to fit everything and everyone into a neat little box of what they perceive to be right, acceptable or proper. Nell's world was no less a 'proper' world than the outside world. It was just different.
Jodie should have won the Oscar. I cannot fathom why she didn't. Who knows what the voters look for in a performance.
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I thought Lange's performance was not even nomination worthy. If screaming and crying for an extended period of time should win an Oscar, where's Chris Crocker's?
Roxanne
1993-2007
You'll always be with me
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I'm one of those weirdos who judges a performance on my standards and not the standards of the Golden Globes or the LA Critics, who are mostly playing a political game anyways. IMO, Lange's win is one of the biggest Oscar jokes of the past 20 years.
Roxanne
1993-2007
You'll always be with me
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I believe that there is no possible way any other performance could be more Oscar-worthy than JF's as Nell. Her ability to be as open and audacious in this character as she was is exactly what acting should be about. She is as humanly real as it gets. I guess the Academy made the decision based on quite a few other factors.
If I fail, at least I will have failed my way. - Jodie Foster
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All Jodie did in "Smell" was babble her fake language and dance on rocks like a fifth-rate Martha Graham wanna-be and THAT deserved an Oscar? Puh-leeeese! The fact that she was even nominated was almost as outrageous as that no-talent walking stick figure Gwenyth Paltrow winning for "Shakespeare in Love" over my girl Cate Blanchette in "Elizabeth". Of course the Academy is notorious for such screw-ups.
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I'm basing it on the fact that there was nothing more to it than screaming and crying, and she never became the character.
How anyone can call Foster's second oscar a joke is beyond me.
When you're 17 a cow can seem dangerous and forbidden...am I alone here?
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Jessica Lange deserved her Oscar, but I felt Jodie Foster gave a wonderful performance in this film that was not appreciated by a lot of people.
shareThe Academy Awards as as fixed and worthless as the Nobel Awards.
"They sucked his brains out!"
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