Okay, think of these three films: Citizen Kane, Shadow of a Doubt, The Third Man. Now try to imagine them without Joseph Cotten.
Even in Citizen Kane where his is a supporting role the two cannot be separated. Think of him in the audience during the opera. Think of him tearing away at that program and then getting drunk afterwards because he can't bear to do what he knows he has to do if he wants to live with himself: Be honest about his reaction to Susan Alexander's "talent." Think of his numb stare when Charles Foster Kane says to him, "Sure, we're speaking, Jedediah: you're fired."
Now think of Shadow of a Doubt. Think of that warm, kind and gentle uncle who seems just a bit on edge. Think of that dinner when he has this exchange with his niece:
Uncle Charlie: Women keep busy in towns like this. In the cities it's different. The cities are full of women, middle-aged widows, husbands dead, husbands who've spent their lives making fortunes, working and working. And then they die and leave their money to their wives, their silly wives. And what do the wives do, these useless women? You see them in the hotels, the best hotels, every day by the thousands, drinking the money, eating the money, losing the money at bridge, playing all day and all night, smelling of money, proud of their jewelry but of nothing else, horrible, faded, fat, greedy women.
Niece Charlie: But they're alive! They're human beings!
Uncle Charlie: Are they? Are they, Charlie? Are they human or are they fat, wheezing animals, hmm? And what happens to animals when they get too fat and too old?
Now think of The Third Man. Think of Holly Martins journeying across the landscapes of the confused, naive and bewildered to the bitter, knowing and finally resigned. Resigned to indifference. Try to imagine another actor able to navigate that terrain as well as Joseph Cotten does in that remarkable film. Think of that conversation he has with Harry Lime on the Ferris Wheel. Think of how he seems at once angry, disappointed and confused with what has become of this man who was once his friend.
Now think of this: Joseph Cotten was not nominated for one of these performances. Now take it a step further: Joseph Cotten was not nominated once for anything, ever, over his entire career. He has not a single nomination. Joseph Cotten was an actor of formidable skill and talent. He elevated the mundane and enriched the great. He was at once rural (The Third Man) and urbane (Gaslight). He was selflessly calculating (Under Capricorn) and selfishly political (The Farmer's Daughter). He was rational (The Magnificent Ambersons) and obsessive (Portrait of Jennie). He was all these things and more but he wasn't an Oscar winner.
Now think about the Oscars and how they award an honorary Oscar to those artists that they ignored during the course of their active careers. Think to yourself that surely they gave one of those to Cotten to make up for the oversights of the past.
Think again.
