Volpi Cup Winners: Vivien Leigh

Vivien Leigh in "A Streetcar Named Desire"

(Won Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival in 1951 over Pier Angeli in "Teresa", Judy Holliday in "Born Yesterday", Nora Swinburne in "The River", and Simone Valère in "The Night Is My Kingdom".)

Grade: *****

In an awards haul that would eventually net her a second Oscar, Vivien Leigh brings to life -- from the pen of Tennessee Williams -- surely one of the most introspectively challenging characters ever depicted on screen. Her Blanche Dubois is rather like what a 48 year-old Scarlett O'Hara might have amounted to, had she developed a feminine strain of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and forgot that the American Civil War even happened.

Arriving by streetcar Blanche at first appears to be one of those annoying relatives, who come to stay with low expectations of the life that you have made for yourself, and leave with an even sourer opinion. Upon her arrival she flounces around, primly studying Stella's bowling alley surroundings as one would a herd of cattle, and immediately addresses the issue of her sister's downward class-convergence. She coos, Miss Jean Brodie-esque in her Estuary version of Southern drawl, "Oh Stella, do you really live in this place?", continuing to spout from meaningless subject to meaningless subject. It's obvious that Blanche is a narcissistic conversationalist, content to talk through you if she thinks she's constructing a positive image of herself, hiding from the implications of her presence at the Kowalski residence.

Leigh's chatter, with its kooky erratic pitch, and its focusless shifting intonation, makes her so opaquely inaccessible that it's no wonder that Stella's husband Stanley finds her presence a maddening bother. As she flirts with a hapless, lovestruck Karl Malden like a sixteen year-old awake past her curfew it suddenly dawns on you that this woman is never going to face up to her age or her past. Leigh addresses Blanche's complete loss of identity, telegraphing the fluid literary majesty of a Jane Austen heroine into an ageing spinster, playing up to multiple facets and ideals of respectability to attain a marriage that she isn't sure that she wants anyway. Is Blanche just bored with existence? Destined to live a life more ordinary than the ones she teaches in her English class?

When you get two people that are either unwilling or unable to back down from their ideals, things are bound to end messily, and Blanche's inability to curb her worldly outlook eventually makes her the victim of the piece. The permanent state of self-imposed, disillusioned fragility etched on Leigh's face in Blanche's never-ending soliloquies, distort her playful artistry into such an artificially condescending tool. In the scene where Blanche and Stanley have their final showdown she flirts as Kay Francis would in the Thirties, attempting to mould Stanley into the fellow that he just ain't. Leigh lets Blanche revel and strain in gathering control of their exchange, fretfully backtracking as Stanley's infuriation grows. Blanche isn't sure whether she wants to be the sister that everyone loves, the "older" temptress, or the virgin bride, but whichever it is she wants it on her terms. Leigh does an incredible job in making each sly remark, each flippantly false self-diminishment, a clamouring attempt at affection, painfully exposing Blanche's motives when we least expect her to crack.

Leigh's own well-documented precarious mental state has often been cited as a reason behind the ambiguity in her "Streetcar" turn. However accurate an assessment that is, her work here is a complete physical embodiment of identity crises, and a gauntlet-throwing emotional immersion into the pressures of repressed female sexuality.

Golden Lion Winners: Vera Drake

Vera Drake
Directed by Mike Leigh
Starring: Imelda Staunton, Philip Davis, Eddie Marsan, Sally Hawkins, Daniel Mays, Alex Kelly, Heather Craney, Peter Wright
Grade: A -

(Won the Golden Lion of San Marco in 2004, over "3-Iron", "Birth", "Howl's Moving Castle", "Kings and Queen", and "The Sea Inside")

It was around this time six years ago that "Vera Drake" was gathering buzz for its awards push, the height of which was for its little-known star Imelda Staunton. The film and Staunton went on to win the Golden Lion and Volpi Cup, before collecting three Oscar nominations. Although my feelings regarding the film's quality are unchanged, when I initially watched "Vera Drake" I considered it to be more of a parable, a tale of naivety being punished, than a social study. A recent viewing suggests that Vera herself is less sure or representative a heroine (she isn't made a martyr by Staunton or Leigh), and the production ultimately benefits from a more flexile approach towards the subject of guilt.

One of Mike Leigh's most enviable assets is how he compels his Actors to adapt to their filmic surroundings, to think about how their characters would react to the different social situations they find themselves in. As with any family the Drakes encompass an array of personality-types which flourish depending on the circumstance, the extended familial links allowing for nervous exchanges of budding relationships. It works well, meek daughter Ethel and her new fiancée Reg provide a platform for Vera to exercise her typical caretaking abilities; Stan's brother Frank and his wife Joyce act as an interesting aside on the growth of consumerism, part of the post-war baby boom that places Joyce on decidedly unsteady ground with the Drakes once Vera's revelation comes.

"Vera Drake" is much in the grain of theatre, subjecting its title character to a trial by proxy, rather discouraging us from taking a side in the moral issue on show. Abortion is a polarising enough discussion as it is without drawing attention to the spectrum of opinion, and for the most part the film is successful at relaying the matter to fearful glances and tension within the home environment. Leigh concentrates his focus and helps to richen our voyeuristic experience by using his Actors' own instinctive observations to broaden our sense of the period. Scripturally, his cast are making the best of what they have, and so the Drake family become a canny approximation of working-class post-war England, muddling through life without really taking it for granted. The literalisms of the narrative are strengthened by the aomebic, confined set-plays, anchored significantly by Dick Hope's squalid, tempered cinematography.

Imelda Staunton thrives on the responsibility of her character, ingratiating Vera's selflessness through her insistent tone. For a small woman she projects such a formidable air, and gives the impression that by allowing her to help you it will benefit her life as well as yours. One could imagine this frail, stubby woman carting bricks around, having hoodwinked builders into believing that her presence is indispensable. Vera's self-expository opening serves to create a sense of routine, of this being just another Monday in her busy life, and only enhances the dolorous fervour of her casual nursemaid act being violently upturned in the film's second half. Staunton reacts to the police's arrival with a mixture of firm acceptance and tangible collapse, and when forced to confront the severity of her crime in the subsequent interrogation, the geyser of shame has well and truly burst. A harrowing scene sees Vera whisper her secret inaudibly to distressed, faintly resilient husband Stan, the final fall from grace of a woman that appeared to be such an untouchable character.

While Von Trier's Dancer in the Dark so painstakingly draws attention to its politics, Godardian in the ferocity with which it questions why we think the way that we do, Vera Drake isn't on anywhere near as lucid a plain, since essentially Vera is guilty of the crime she is charged. That doesn't prevent her demise from bearing resemblances to Dancer's Selma: the creative, theatrical side of Selma -- where she isn't following instructions so much as exercising her rite as a leading lady, basking in a rare limelight -- is somewhat relative to the way that Vera wants to craft a path for her children, in a facilitative but harmlessly-maternal capacity. The primary function of both women is to serve their family, and when Vera is eventually confronted about her actions, the assimilating dread of being unable to organise family events, or oversee the births, marriages, and deaths in her period of impending absence, is the most sympathetic part of her plight.

Volpi Cup Winners: Victoire Thivisol

Victoire Thivisol in "Ponette"

(Won Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival in 1996 over Oyanka Cabezas in "Carla's Song" and Irene Papas in "Party")

In her role as a girl who suddenly loses her mother Victoire Thivisol (Four years old during the filming of "Ponette") has emotion and sentiment on her side; rarely are children afforded an entire feature-length picture with which to display such a wrenching sense of loss. It's understandable since surely people as young and technically fledgling are somewhat of a loose cannon -- few kids beyond Jackie Cooper have commanded continual respect as a leading character actor. Thivisol never again attained the level of admiration she managed with this performance, but at the age of 19 one would certainly never count her out. A follow-up role in Chocolat brought promise, and she is still working, so perhaps if a hefty role comes her way she may become the next Marion Cotillard, however much you view that as a success.

"Ponette" is a brave film, not least because most of the dialogue centres around infant playground chatter, innocent remonstrations on religion and whether when people die they are truly "gone". Writer/Director Jacques Doillon modifies religious scepticism to accomodate the naivety of youth, and rarely over-calculates the spats Ponette has with her wily friends. He recognises the whys and why nots of grief, the struggle of accepting loss, and especially the problems that children have with understanding ideological difference (or indifference) in adults. Ponette's early reaction to the death of her mother -- a result of a motor accident involving the two -- is churlish, stroppy, as she clambers atop a car, part-rebelliously and somewhat uncertain of how such a vehicle has contributed so heavily to her mother's demise. Thivisol immediately asserts that Ponette is thinking about her situation, not merely reacting to finality by bursting into tears and stamping her feet. She accepts the "death" but evidently doesn't know how it will affect her life, whether she should even cry, since her father has confronted the event with a boulder-like sense of resentment. Even at such a dizzyingly-unidentifiable age Thivisol is able to impart an impressive amount of detail into the relationship she has with her father, reacting to him with fluid, unrehearsed fear, and recognises that this fear stems from emotional-not-physical abuse. Her later scenes with him possess a more aggressive dynamic, and you can see that Ponette wants him to cry, to confirm the pain that she is feeling instead of launching into a verbal coming-to-terms speech that doesn't help to explain what is buzzing around inside of her head.

Thivisol's emotional intelligence is such that even the intermitten breakdowns that come from prayers that don't produce, kids that attack her weakness, a growing inner-conflict between faith and logic, are telegraphed as waves of uncertain emotion, rather than wailing releases of surefire showmanship. She palpably wrestles with the internal unanswered questions we ask ourselves when someone dies, and therefore captures grief in its purest form. Keisha Castle-Hughes' Paikea also had an absent mother in 2003's "Whale Rider" (a role that made 13 year-old Castle-Hughes the youngest ever Best Actress nominee at the Oscars), and while I admire that performance immensely her efforts feel more orchestrated (either by her or Director Niki Caro) to generate sympathy for their protagonist. Thivisol benefits from the fly-on-the-wall style of her director, occasionally unsure of where to look and what to do, and subsequently the plight of Ponette is a much looser, organic prospect. Even at her blankest moments of extreme close-up Thivisol is crafting something for herself and the film, which I find astonishing given the enormity of the task involved and the obvious limitations imposed by her minimal acting experience.

In the late stages of Doillon's film Ponette is crouched over the grave of her deceased mother, clawing at the soil that separates her from the source of parental affection that she isn't getting elsewhere. When asked about this scene, or more specifically about how she managed to make herself cry, Victoire replied that it was normal for Ponette to cry because her mother was dead. It's an observation that only serves to reinforce the instinctual impression Thivisol brings to "Ponette", a generous respondent to her Director's studious childhood melancholy.

The Volpi Cup and its History of Best Actresses

(Note: Years skipped are those where the prize was not handed out, for whatever reason.)

• 1934 Katharine Hepburn in "Little Women"

• 1935 Paula Wessely in "Episode"

• 1936 Annabella in "Veille D'armes"

• 1937 Bette Davis in "Kid Galahad" & "Marked Woman"

• 1938 Norma Shearer in "Marie Antoinette"

• 1941 Luise Ullrich in "Annelie"

• 1942 Kristina Soderbaum in "Die Goldene Stadt"

• 1947 Anna Magnani in "L'onorevole Angelina"

• 1948 Jean Simmons in "Hamlet"

• 1949 Olivia de Havilland in "The Snake Pit"

• 1950 Eleanor Parker in "Caged"

• 1951 Vivien Leigh in "A Streetcar Named Desire"

• 1953 Lilli Palmer in "The Four Poster"

• 1956 Maria Schell in "Gervaise"

• 1957 Dzidra Ritenberga in "Malva"

• 1958 Sophia Loren in "The Black Orchid"

• 1959 Madeleine Robinson in "À Double Tour"

• 1960 Shirley Maclaine in "The Apartment"

• 1961 Suzanne Flon in "Tu ne Tueras Point"

• 1962 Emmanuelle Riva in "Thérèse Desqueyroux"

• 1963 Delphine Seyrig in "Muriel"

• 1964 Harriet Andersson in "Att Alska"

• 1965 Annie Girardot in "Trois chambres à Manhattan"

• 1966 Natalya Arinbasarova in "Pervyj Uchitel"

• 1967 Shirley Knight in "Dutchman"

• 1968 Laura Betti in "Teorema"

• 1982 Susan Sarandon in "Tempest"

• 1983 Darling Legitimus in "Rue Cases Negres"

• 1984 Pascale Ogier in "Les Nuits de la pleine lune"

• 1986 Valeria Golino in "Storia d'amore"

• 1985 Kang Soo-yeon in "Contract Mother"

• 1988 Shirley Maclaine in "Madame Sousatzka" & Isabelle Huppert in "Une Affaire De Femmes"

• 1989 Peggy Ashcroft & Geraldine James in "She's Been Away"

• 1990 Gloria Münchmeyer in "La Luna en el Espejo"

• 1991 Tilda Swinton in "Edward II"

• 1992 Gong Li in "Qiu Ju Da Guan Si"

• 1993 Juliette Binoche in "Trois Coleurs: Bleu"

• 1994 Maria de Medeiros in "Três Irmãos"

• 1995 Sandrine Bonnaire & Isabelle Huppert in "La Cérémonie"

• 1996 Victoire Thivisol in "Ponette"

• 1997 Robin Tunney in "Niagara, Niagara"

• 1998 Catherine Deneuve in "Place Vendôme"

• 1999 Nathalie Baye in "Une Liaison Pornographique"

• 2000 Rose Byrne in "The Goddess of 1967"

• 2001 Sandra Ceccarelli in "Luce Dei Miei Occhi"

• 2002 Julianne Moore in "Far From Heaven"

• 2003 Katja Riemann in "Rosenstrasse"

• 2004 Imelda Staunton in "Vera Drake"

• 2005 Giovanna Mezzogiorno in "The Beast in the Heart"

• 2006 Helen Mirren in "The Queen"

• 2007 Cate Blanchett in "I'm Not There"

• 2008 Dominique Blanc in "L'Autre"

• 2009 Kseniya Rappoport in "The Double Hour"

I have see 12 of these 56 performances, and there isn't a bad one among them. I've probably been spoiled there. The win that sticks out the most has to be Shirley Knight for "Dutchman", victorious over Catherine Deneuve in "Belle de Jour" (the Golden Lion that year), and in a sex comedy that lasts less than an hour. Still, who am I to judge?

Analysis of some of these women to follow soon, beginning with the youngest of them. Stay tuned!