By Max McAuliff, Opinion Editor
Leonardo DiCaprio suffered defeat in the best actor category once again at the 92nd Academy Awards last Sunday. Joaquin Phoenix defeated DiCaprio and others to win the award for his portrayal as Arthur Fleck in “Joker.”
This is DiCaprio’s fourth loss in the best actor category at the Oscars, along with a supporting actor loss. DiCaprio was nominated for his roles in “The Aviator”, “Blood Diamond”, “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”, which served as his most recent loss. His supporting actor loss came for his role in “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” when he was only 20 years old.
DiCaprio is certainly deserving of having more than one best actor Oscar and has been snubbed many times. Not only was he worthy of winning best actor for all the roles he was nominated for, but he has also been snubbed in terms of nominations many times.
He did not receive a nomination for his roles in “Romeo and Juliet”, “Titanic”, “Catch Me if You Can”, “The Departed”, “Inception” and “Django Unchained.” While some of those roles would have been best supporting actor, DiCaprio was nonetheless worthy of at least a nomination.
The worst snub of DiCaprio’s career came in the form of Jordan Belfort from “The Wolf of Wall Street.” DiCaprio’s turn as the lovable but heinously corrupt stockbroker is a performance for the ages. DiCaprio plays Belfort with the right amount of emotion that the viewer can’t help but like. Through all the manipulating, lying and cheating, the viewer finds themselves rooting for Belfort most of the film.
DiCaprio, however, would finally emerge victorious only two years later.
DiCaprio’s Oscar win finally came for his role in The Revenant, where he played a frontiersman seeking revenge for the death of his son. While filming “The Revenant,” DiCaprio, along with the rest of the crew, had to suffer through temperatures of roughly -30 degrees Celsius. Along with the freezing cold, DiCaprio also ate raw liver, had to wake up at 3 a.m. for a five-hour makeup session and battled the flu multiple times.
Along with bearing all of those conditions, DiCaprio also gave one of the best performances of his career. The extent to which DiCaprio went for his performance in “The Revenant” cements it as not only one of DiCaprio’s best performances, but as one of the most legendary performances of all time.
DiCaprio was willing to get hypothermia to win an Oscar and he set a bar for himself that will be very difficult to top. Audiences will constantly have very high expectations for DiCaprio in all his films. While DiCaprio gave a phenomenal performance in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” it didn’t meet the level of expectations that audiences have had for DiCaprio since “The Revenant.”
Joaquin Phoenix lost 50 pounds to play the role of Arthur Fleck, a man who slowly loses his sanity and by the end of the movie adopts the name Joker. Phoenix is without a doubt deserving of his best actor win and losing 50 pounds is part of the reason why.
Actors are almost expected to go through physical transformations for roles nowadays, and that is something that DiCaprio did not do for “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”
DiCaprio set the bar very high with his performance in The Revenant and may not be able to surpass it. Whether he does or not, DiCaprio will go down as one of the best actors of all time.
mcaulimr18@bonaventure.edu
