Reception
Jennifer Jason Leigh was voted the year’s Best Actress by the New York Film Critics Circle and at the Montreal World Film Festival, nominated for an Independent Spirit Award, and was widely predicted to receive her first Academy Award nomination for the role. Surprisingly though, it was Mare Winningham who actually went on to receive an Oscar nomination (as well as an Independent Spirit Award and Screen Actors Guild nomination) as Best Supporting Actress, while Leigh was controversially overlooked by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, much to the disappointment of critics and fans. Speaking to MetroActive magazine, Winningham said: “I felt incredibly honored and touched to be nominated… But it was hard to be separated from Jennifer, because she was the heart and soul of that film. While we were making the movie, I thought not only that she would get a nomination, but that she would win. I saw the kind of work she was doing. In my mind she will always be the greatest performance of that year, and a lot of other people thought so, too. Meryl Streep grabbed me at the Academy Awards. She said, 'Jennifer should be here!' and I said, 'I know!'” When Leaving Las Vegas star Elisabeth Shue won her Independent Spirit Award as Best Actress, she personally dedicated it to Leigh’s performance in Georgia.
For all its critical acclaim, Georgia was not as successful commercially, grossing only $2.9 million in the U.S. In the ten years since its release, however, it has picked up a small but devoted cult following.
Read more about this topic: Georgia (1995 film)
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)