1940 – James Stephenson
The Letter
James Stephenson did an adequate job. He played the part as it was written with sincerity, though he didn’t appear to have much to work with. This wasn’t the actor’s fault. Nor was it entirely the fault of the script. The director had a little to do with how I saw the actor in this film. I have three thoughts when it comes to why I don’t really agree with his nomination.
First is that Stephenson seems to suffer from what I sometimes call British emotional subtlety syndrome. British emotions are usually down-played so much that you’d think they didn’t have any strong emotions in them at all. So he is a lawyer who is defending a murderess. Her story is that she killed in self-defense. But he learns that story is all a lie. It is when he learns the truth that he begins to go on his dramatic character arc. Rather than allowing her to be convicted, he buys the damning evidence and keeps it out of the trial.
At best, this puts his career in jeopardy. At worst, it gives him a guilty conscience. The few times when his emotions come close enough to the surface to be seen is probably what earned Stephenson his Oscar. But really, even those moments were subtle to a fault. For example, during the trial, he lies through his teeth, proclaiming his client’s innocence. He pauses once or twice in his closing arguments, and you can see him sweating. But that was about it. The problem is that, though the dramatic emotion was there, I really had to look for it.
The second thing had to do with the way his character was filmed by the director. I think he spent more time with his back to the camera then he did his face to it. He was in scenes where he wasn’t the focus of what was happening, or even what was being said. It was a disservice to the actor, and it didn’t help his performance.
But the third thing that I think took away from his performance was the script. He was just written as an emotionless man, so I guess in that respect, he played the part well. It just made him a little uninteresting to watch on the screen. In the end, his performance was good, but maybe not worthy of an Oscar nomination.