OREight nominations and zero wins. Above all the humiliation of a victory that was taken for granted robbata (as Gen z says) by Olivia Colman. It was 2019, and for Glenn Close (79 years old) it was bitterly understood that the hope of an Oscar would only come with the honorary statuette. Here it is. It will be presented to you on November 15th, during the 17th Governors Awards. So an Oscar all for her – once it was called «career» and they gave it during the ceremony, not separately, oh well – crowning an extraordinary career. Along with her, Ridley Scott, Floyd Norman (Disney’s first black animator) and the producers will be honored Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler, champion of independent cinema.
Glenn Close: the actress receives an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement
Without fear of stating nonsense: of Oscars, Glenn Close, should have already won two. Maybe even three, like her colleague Meryl Streep. In fact, if careers in cinema are defined even just by one epochal role, Close’s has countless ones, two of which are cemented in the history of pop and in the psyche of many audiences. That is to say Alex Forrest by Fatal attraction And the Marchioness of Merteuil by Dangerous Liaisons.
Two roles played back to back between 1988 and 1989. Two chilling characters with madness and strategic calculation who immediately became an irresistible negative model. It’s difficult, in our age of memes, not to have stumbled upon them at least once during infinite scrolling. She lost first to Cher, victorious with an Oscar for Bewitched by the moon which sounded like reparation for the snob of Behind the mask, and then against Jodie Foster, a former child star with a now precarious career saved in the corner by the role of a raped girl in Under accusation.
It went badly for the same reasons in 1983 too. Nominated for supporting role for her outstanding role as the mother in The world according to Gardlost to Jessica Lange in Tootsie. One of the few double candidates to win; usually in the history of the Oscars two nominations mathematically correspond to two bins. Jump to 2019, with the resigned face of Glenn – and all the other candidates – at the announcement of the victory of Olivia Colman in The favourite (effectively the career launch for the English actress). In short, bad Hollywood, blind Hollywood, Hollywood that says it will vote and then doesn’t. And then tries to recover.
Glenn Close’s footprints in the concrete of the Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. (Getty Images)
It’s only May, in fact, the ritual ceremony of footprints – hands and feet – and the star’s signature on the concrete in front of the Chinese Theatre. For someone like Glenn Close, a moment that was believed to have already happened for some time, but instead. It was therefore inevitable to think that the reparative Oscar was also in the pipeline. Irony, or moment of foreboding now clear, in 1994 Glenn awarded the Lifetime Achievement Oscar to Deborah Kerrunsuccessfully nominated six times.
More active than ever: from Hunger Games on TV, to the recovery of Sunset Blvd (Perhaps)
Like Jane Fonda and Streep herself, too Glenn – one year after the Eighties – she is an even more than active actress. The taboo by which the English triad Maggie Smith-Judi Dench-Joan Plowright was imported to play old women has now become an internal affair. Also because greats have aged, not half-socks. The fact is that while Streep has toured three quarters of the world for The Devil Wears Prada 2Close – with a plasticine face and a quid unique androgynous – will come to the cinema this autumn in the new chapter of Hunger Games. And in one part, that of the bad one Drusilla Sicklewhich blew brains over the look.
She was seen on TV All’s fair, that disaster of a TV series by Ryan Murphy which he defended from all the critical attacks (more or less: «Everyone is watching us, attack yourself!»). Recently, however, he had the satisfaction of a victory in Cannes with The black bola (Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival), a Spanish film in which he has a cameo together with Penélope Cruz (albeit smaller).
A project that could really give Glenn an Oscar – let’s say, clean – even after the honorary one, it is Sunset Blvd. But the film adaptation of Webber’s musical (for which Close won a Tony in the 1990s) is in constant search of a director and a production company. What is certain is that Close she’s the right age to be one Norma Desmond absolutely in part. Not to mention the gravitas that a veteran who knows the role inside and out can bring to the role.