Although such explanations make a fascinating and compelling case for honoring Serkis' contribution to the film, the idea of awarding an Oscar nomination to an actor who never appeared on-screen is still difficult to swallow. But Jackson and Serkis have pointed out a significant parallel between their own situation and that of David Lynch's 1980 release "The Elephant Man," which received eight Oscar nominations. Most significant among these was a best actor nomination for John Hurt, who performed the haunting title role beneath elaborate prosthetics that left only his eyes visible. As Serkis has explained in interviews, "[Hurt] gave a voice and a physicality, but was completely disguised by the prosthetics, and this in many ways is similar." In Gollum's case, New Line argues, the prosthetic is computer-generated instead of physical, but the question is the same: Does the performance belong to the actor who brings a character to life, or to the production team that gives the character its form?

While Jackson and Serkis have pointed to "The Elephant Man" for precedent, perhaps they do not realize just how instructive their example is. Although nominated for best actor, John Hurt did not win in 1980, a loss he has partly attributed in recent interviews to the fact that the audience could not recognize him at all. It seems almost certain that Serkis, had he been nominated, would face the same problem. The more interesting and less noted parallel, however, is that which exists in the Academy's treatment of the technical contributions made by each film. While it seems certain "The Two Towers" will claim this year's honors for best visual effects, "The Elephant Man's" groundbreaking contributions in the field of cinematic makeup and prosthetics, surprisingly, went unrecognized by the Academy. Why? Because in 1980, the Academy had not yet instituted an award for best achievement in makeup, a category that was announced in 1981 as a direct result. The technical accomplishments of "The Elephant Man" were never honored, an oversight that forced the Academy to revise its own structure to accommodate and honor an emerging field.

Perhaps it is too soon to suggest that the Academy take similar measures to create an award honoring computer-enhanced human performances, though the upcoming releases of Ang Lee's "The Hulk" and the all-computer-generated feature "The Polar Express" might prove otherwise. (It is interesting to note, however, that the Broadcast Film Critics Awards now include an annual award for best digital performance.) In either case, the incidents of "The Elephant Man" and Gollum both seem to suggest a greater problem: that the Academy has never been well prepared to evaluate or honor groundbreaking innovations and accomplishments in cinematic production. In most cases, the films that first utilize innovative techniques or approaches to moviemaking rest in unmarked graves, anonymous soldiers who paved the way to recognition for their often-inferior successors.

The truth is that it's never been altogether clear who "owns" a film performance, and the issue has become even less clear as cinematic production techniques become more and more advanced. Onstage, lighting, makeup and costuming affect performances, but the actor ultimately retains control over how he or she is presented to the audience. In film, this has never been the case: Long after the actor has left the set, directors and producers make decisions that determine what audiences will and will not see, and how they will see it. The question becomes one of where to draw the line: Does the application of a "virtual prosthetic" represent a more significant alteration of an actor's performance than a director accomplishes through editing?

As digital effects become increasingly prevalent in cinema, this question of performance ownership will become impossible to ignore, and audiences will be forced to decide whether it is the performer or the performance that is worth evaluating.

The initial question, of course, remains unanswered. Should Serkis have received a best supporting actor nomination for his contribution to the performance of Gollum? In the end, the answer is no, not because his talents are less significant than those of the supporting actor nominees, but because the work that he has done here is not equivalent. It would be a disservice to the other nominees to compete against the computer-enhanced Serkis, just as it would be a disservice to Gollum to be written off as an accomplishment of acting. The fact is that Gollum represents a new breed of synthespian performers, far more interesting than "Simone's": computer-generated performance not as a replacement for human performance, but as an extension of it.

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