More praise for Cate's Kate By Michael Bodey 04dec04 SUDDENLY, Cate Blanchett has firmed for an Academy Award for her bang-on portrayal of Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorsese's biographical epic about Howard Hughes, The Aviator. That would be the Oscar she should have won in 1999 for her incredible transformation as the English monarch in Elizabeth. Since that inexplicable snub, Blanchett has continued to build on her towering reputation as an actor and star while Shakespeare In Love's best actress winner in 1999, Gwyneth Paltrow, has lurched from bad films to public ignominy for her showy displays of dippiness. Within days of The Aviator's first Hollywood screenings this week, Blanchett and Scorsese's names were suddenly on everyone's lips again. Critic Todd McCarthy, of Hollywood newspaper Variety, described Blanchett's performance as a "dead-on rendering of the star's hauteur and vocal peculiarities" that leaves a "startling impact" in "Scorsese's most pleasurable narrative feature in many a year". The Hollywood Reporter described Blanchett's performance as "perfectly pitched" . Visually, at least, Blanchett looks the part as the haughty actress many consider the greatest of the 20th century. And her performance is arguably the most keenly anticipated in Scorsese's swoop through the wild life of billionaire Hughes. The world didn't really know Hughes (played by Leonardo DiCaprio), nor does the modern world share a particular fascination for other characters in the film, Errol Flynn (Jude Law), Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale) or Jean Harlow (No Doubt's Gwen Stefani). Hepburn is another matter, Scott Berg's recent biography only adding to the legend of an outspoken actor known for classic comic turns opposite Cary Grant or romantic dramatics next to her paramour, Spencer Tracy. Blanchett, now playing a recovering Cabramatta junkie for Rowan Woods' Sydney film, Little Fish, was the perfect chameleon for Scorsese. Her range is extraordinary, her adaptability envied by her peers. Those sharp, high cheekbones are the only physical concession to what Hollywood would regard as conventional beauty. Such an adaptable face has allowed Blanchett to vamp wonderfully, barely recognisable, in films such as Pushing Tin, Bandits and The Shipping News, to transform herself into actual personae, including the dogged Irish journalist Veronica Guerin and Elizabeth I, play two sisters in Coffee and Cigarettes or even the elf Galadriel in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Rightly, she has been described as "a character actress in a leading lady's body". Scorsese has watched her transformations since Elizabeth, he told US Vogue. "She was so brilliant in it that I believed her. I kept thinking, her roles are so different, yet she's so unique to each one," he said. Blanchett, as is her style, took this transformation into Hepburn very seriously. She is known for her meticulous preparation, something that Hepburn, particularly in her latter years, couldn't boast. Cinephile Scorsese held full screenings of Hepburn's films for Blanchett to watch. "It was far easier to absorb and analyse her performances on the big screen, their nuances," Blanchett said to US Vogue. "But the actor voice is so often different from the person's natural speech, and so few interviews of Hepburn exist. I drilled through them, like a language lab." She also had to match the very physical actor, who lived to age 96 and prescribed the benefits of daily swims in the icy lake below her US country house for good health. Blanchett experimented briefly with the ice-water reinvigorations, and persisted with golf lessons and played tennis three times a week. Her preparation for the role involved "reading everything written about her, but mostly watching, absorbing, listening to all the various opinions, the idolatry, the ownership of who she was," she said. "A woman who makes an impact, shocks, provokes, and challenges, will always inspire conflicting opinions. I thought the best thing I could do was listen to all of them; the person lies somewhere in there, all those things are true and they're all untrue." Australians won't be able to see Blanchett's work until February 10. Nor will we see her performance opposite Bill Murray in Wes Anderson's comedy The Life Aquatic until March, which poses something of a problem for her. Both films are jostling in North America's end-of-year release schedule in which Academy Award contenders hope to shine. In a mediocre year for female roles, Blanchett's nomination as best supporting actress for The Aviator is considered a certainty - if her supporting role in The Life Aquatic doesn't cannibalise her own votes from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. A handy problem to have, to be sure, although Blanchett dismisses any notion that she might desire such validation. The countless plaudits from her peers are enough, although the same might not be said of her director, Scorsese. Given that Scorsese is famously scared of flying, the irony of him having to do a film called The Aviator to finally win a gold statuette would be too much. Seemingly, The Aviator has as good a shot as any of his previous works. Scorsese's $128 million film concentrating on the billionaire's high-flying early years, the 1920s through to the '40s, rather than his phobic decline into a hermit. The period in which the eccentric industrialist romanced some of the world's most beautiful women, produced Hollywood films and tested innovative aircraft will clearly be more palatable to a commercial audience, especially with Titanic's DiCaprio in the role. As will the un-Scorsese-like use of more than 400 special-effect shots, combined with his own cinematic tricks that aim to give The Aviator the look of a film from Hughes's heyday. Add Blanchett's timeless quality, and Scorsese looks to be piloting a winner at last. -- 年頭必是大紅人 年尾提名她沒份～ 凱特‧布蘭琪 今年雙片氣勢高 凱特女王將淚噴～ CATE BLANCHETT 【鍥而不捨】【鬼影迷蹤】【神鬼玩家】【海海人生】 --

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