Best Actress in a Supporting Role 1975: Sylvia Miles in Farewell, My Lovely

Sylvia Miles received her second Oscar nomination for her performance as Jessie Helstead Florian in Farewell, My Lovely.

Farewell, My Lovely is an extremely weak adaptation of Raymond Chandler's novel with the same name about a private detective who, while investigating the murder of a former client, is hired by an ex-convinct to find his girlfriend. There are a couple of remarkable elements in the film - namely, Robert Mitchum's leading performance and the score - but otherwise it's a hugely unstatisfying picture. There are some inspired choices in the lighting, but for the most part the cinematography not only fails to capture the 1940s atmosphere but it's just plain poor, even cheap. Most of the cast, including Charlotte Rampling, fails to register (though admittedly most of the characters are presented as clichés). And most importantly it's just a dull affair that never sparks the interest and excitement of the viewer.

Sylvia Miles' performance in this movie is longer than her first nominated work in Midnight Cowboy, but only slightly: in fact, she appears in two scenes that amount to eight minutes of screen-time overall. I would say it's pretty interesting to compare Miles' two nominated performances and their respective movies: Mrs. Florian is not the most original role ever (the washed-up, alcoholic lady has been done a million times before and a million times after), but it's still a role that allows more nuance and complexity than Midnight Cowboy's Cass. Yet, ultimately I find her five-minute work in Midnight Cowboy to be a more effective and memorable piece of work. Why? Because in spite of the heavy limitations of the role, both screen-time and writing wise, John Schlesinger knew exactly how to make Miles' flashy and grotesque turn leave a certain impression within the movie. Instead, director Dick Richards and writer David Zelag Goodman squander Sylvia Miles' talents by reducing the character to a mere stereotype, being concerned only about her character's function within the main investigation without bothering to give it a proper life of its own. I think her two nominated performances are interesting as they show that an actor can only do so much with a role and how the quality of the movie, its direction and its writing can either increase or diminish the impact of a performance. In Midnight Cowboy, Miles gave a one-note performance that was made quite memorable not only by her fierce energy on-screen but also by the absurd, grotesque tone established by the direction that surrounds her performance: even if I don't necessarily think she deserved a nomination for her work there, her scene works very well and it does because direction, writing and acting are perfectly in-sync. In Farewell, My Lovely Miles delivers a technically impressive and potentially moving performance that is squandered by the direction and the writing: it's actually quite frustrating to watch this obviously talented actress fighting against all these setbacks trying to trascend the stereotype she's given, unfortunately not quite succeeding.

Her first scene occurs about twenty minutes into the movie, when Marlowe goes to her house in order to get some information about Velma, the girl he's looking for. I would say that Miles is actually very strong in this scene: it's a very calculated style of acting, as in a certain way you can see the technique, but it never looks forced or unbelievable. She's quite mannered yet, considering how loud her performance in Midnight Cowboy was, surprisingly subdued. I would say her physical acting in particularly is impressive: the way she moves around the room without ever taking her eyes off Marlowe, the way she throws herself at the bottle as soon as Marlowe unwraps it, the way her arms shakes while she pours the drink in the glasses, the way she casually opens up  her robe a little more while she flirts it the man... it's all done very convincingly and it's clear that Miles is squeezing every bit of potential from the role. There are two main traits to the character of Mrs. Florian: her alcoholism and her loneliness. Miles portrays both well, with her chemistry with Mitchum being actually quite solid - she conveys a certain urgency behind her softness and warmth in her interactions with him that betrays the character's desperation and longing for some company. The moment in which she briefly re-enacts her act from her years as a showgirl might be a little too much at times but Miles is effective at conveying her character's nostalgia towards those days with her little breakdown being quite an unexpected, effective moment. It's a very well acted scene that is very impressive while you are watching it - but it's over pretty soon, and when it is the story moves on rather quickly therefore undercutting its impact. It doesn't help that her second appearence in the movie feels much less inspired than the first one - it's a much smaller scene that mostly asks Miles to repeat what she did in the first scene. Miles is still completely okay in it, and you can almost see her longing for more to do, but there's no denying that the second scene feels like a repetitive, lesser version of the first one as it doesn't really add anything new to the character.

This is not a bad performance and perhaps in a better movie it could have been an excellent performance. The problem is that Miles is stuck in a rather clichéd role in an average movie that doesn't give her the space to fully flesh it out. She clearly has an understanding for her character and does everything she can to leave an impression, but she has the misfortune of being in a movie that doesn't really know what do with her. It's a wasted opportunity, because under different circumstances I'm sure she would have thrived, but as it is this is just a respectable but rather forgettable turn.

2.5/5