Best Actress in a Supporting Role 1969: Sylvia Miles in Midnight Cowboy

Sylvia Miles received her first Oscar nomination for her performance as Cass in Midnight Cowboy.

Midnight Cowboy is an excellent film about a naive hustler from Texas who goes to New York looking for fortune and befriends a street con man with a limp. The movie deserved all of its three Oscars, as the directing by John Schlesinger is excellent and even if I probably preferred They Shoot Horses, Don't They?'s screenplay I can't complain at all about Midnight Cowboy's win in that category either. I also think the movie should have received a Best Cinematography nomination due to how beautifully shot the party scene is. Overall it's a compelling and poignant movie, that is obviously made all the more memorable by the two leading performances.

Sylvia Miles plays Cass, a middle-aged woman with whom Joe (Jon Voight) has sex. It's an extremely brief role that only appears for about five minutes at the beginning of the movie and is never mentioned again; I would say Miles' nomination must have been extremely surprising back then not only due to size of the role but also due to the fact that Brenda Vaccaro (with a slightly larger role) got a nomination at the Golden Globes for the same movie. There is no denying that Miles really gives her all in her few minutes on screen and the energy of this performance cannot be denied: right from her very first moment, Miles is quite enjoyable as she is rather over-the-top in a way that fits perfectly her trashy character, a shallow woman who fills her life with empty sex. Each of her lines is very well delivered and I found myself enjoying her performance just as she was clearly enjoying delivering it - I particularly like the moment in which she is talking on the phone with a married man and kissing Joe at the same time. The most memorable part of her performance comes at the end of her scene, when she has to leave to meet another man and when Joe tentatively asks her for money, she yells at him as she hadn't realized the reason why he slept with her and starts crying until he ends up giving her money. It's a very entertaining moment and Miles is actually rather funny at portraying Cass' hysterical outburst ("Who the hell do you think you're dealing with, some old slut on 42nd Street? In case you didn't happen to notice it, ya big Texas longhorn bull, I'm one helluva gorgeous chick!" is just priceless).

So, yes, I really do appreciate Miles' turn in this scene, but at the same time I ask myself - as enjoyable as she is, is her effort really worthy of an Oscar nomination? Her scene is indeed entertaining, but when the movie is over is her performance really one of the things that truly stand out? Not really. I also feel that the grotesque nature of her character works both for and against her: it is partly what makes her performance enjoyable but at the same time it prevents Miles from making Cass a little less one-note - with a little more screen-time, I think Miles might have been able to dig a little deeper into the role but ultimately her screen-time is too brief for her to overcome the limitations of the role. She actually does convey the sad, pathetic side of her character unwilling to acknowledge the passing of the years but by the time I felt the really great part of her performance was starting it was already over.

Overall I think this is an extremely hard performance to rate and there really is not much to say about it. I enjoyed immensely her turn when she was on-screen but at the same time I never thought she did anything so remarkable to truly deserve a nomination for the highest award in terms of movie acting (and to be honest I thought Vaccaro was actually the best supporting performer in the movie). She leaves an impact to be sure but at the same time I hardly felt she was a one-scene-wonder. I originally intended to give her a lesser rating but I feel she does anything she could have in the role, so I'll give her a rating that I think suits her performance best - solid and respectable but not truly noteworthy.  

3/5