Best Actress in a Supporting Role 1939: Geraldine Fitzgerald in Wuthering Heights

Geraldine Fitzgerald received her only Oscar nomination for her performance as Isabella Linton in Wuthering Heights. 

Wuthering Heights is a terrific film about the tormented and destructive love story between Heathcliff, a stable boy, and Cathy, who belongs to a higher class. First off, I have not read the book on which the movie is based so I'm probably less bothered by the several differences between the novel and the film. I personally find the movie to be great thanks to William Wyler's atmospheric direction, Gregg Toland's stunning cinematography and Alfred Newman's wonderful score. I think the acting is also very good - I didn't care for Merle Oberon's performance when I first saw the movie but she has really grown on me on a rewatch, and I think she would have been very deserving of an Oscar nomination for her effort here. 

Geraldine Fitzgerald plays Isabella Linton, the sister of Edgar who is the wealthy man Cathy marries. Fitzgerald does have a few scenes in the first half of the movie but these are pretty thankless moments in which she is mostly kept in the background. Nonetheless, Fitzgerald uses these few, sparse moments to build the foundations for the character of Isabella: she has the grace fitting to the wealthy and educated girl Isabella is but her performance is also rid of any pompousness and arrogance that can be found in people of her social position. Fitzgerald makes the most out of these scenes making Isabella a rather endearing presence, and while those moments are too little to have an impact per se they prove themselves to be necessary as they eventually make Isabella's eventual character arc resonate even more. 

Isabella starts to play an important part in the story once Heathcliff comes back as a rich man carrying desires of vengeance against Cathy and Edgar: he therefore buys Wuthering Heights from Cathy's brother and seduces Isabella in order to spite the two. Fitzgerald is terrific as she shows Isabella's growing attraction towards Heathcliff and their scenes together are beautifully acted on both ends: Olivier excellently shows Heathcliff's true intentions while Fitzgerald is very touching as she shows how Isabella genuinely wants to know Heathcliff and spend some time with him. The scene in which she visits Heathcliff with an excuse and tells him she would like to be his friend is a truly lovely moment thanks to Fitzgerald's heartfelt portrayal of Isabella's genuine feelings for the man. She's also excellent in the party scene as her sincerity and honesty make her naturally stand out among Olivier's and Oberon's characters, whose actions are at times very questionable. It would be quite easy to just deem Isabella as stupid and overly naive but Fitzgerald never oversimplifies her character and instead portrays Isabella as the worst victim of the story, a woman who simply happened to fall in love with the wrong person. She is fantastic in her confrontation with Merle Oberon that she portrays with an excellent display of passive aggressiveness, showing unexpected new layers of Isabella's personality. 

Her strongest moment in the movie though is her final scene that takes place a few months after Isabella's and Heathcliff's marriage. Isabella's transition from a graceful, warm girl to an embittered, somber woman is a bit rushed but Fitzgerald manages to make it work perfectly and she's excellent at portraying Isabella's physical and emotional state. She does a great job at carrying herself with a haggard, exhausted demeanor that bears no resemblance to the lively person she used to be and she is absolutely heartbreaking as she portrays Isabella's longing for Heathcliff to love her. Her line-delivery of "If Cathy died, I might begin to live" is a shocking, heart-stopping moment due to the amount of bitterness and coldness she brings to it. And she couldn't be more moving in her final plea to Heathcliff as she begs him to love her and not to go to Cathy's deathbed. It's a truly devastating moment acted to perfection by Fitzgerald - it's rare to find such raw acting from that era. 

The role of Isabella Linton could have been played wrong in a million ways: it has a very difficult and extreme character arc that has to happen in a short span of time and it features some very emotional scenes that are not easy to handle. Fitzgerald though nails the role giving such a heartbreaking portrayal of Isabella's decay and beautifully brings to life this tragic and compelling character. 

4.5/5