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Director Danny Boyle took the Oscar for best director for "Slumdog Millionaire." (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill) |
THE 81ST ACADEMY AWARDS
'Slumdog' leads the pack
Oscar favorite takes eight prizes; Penn and Winslet win top acting awards
Globalism came to the Oscars last night. "Slumdog Millionaire," a film set in a foreign country, featuring no known stars, and with a third of its dialogue in Hindi, swept the 81st Academy Awards last night, winning best picture and seven other Oscars. Danny Boyle's independent drama, which came out of nowhere late last year to dazzle audiences and dominate year-end lists and awards banquets, completed its remarkable journey from obscurity to pop-culture triumph, taking home statues in a total of eight of the 10 categories in which it was nominated.
Kate Winslet won best actress for her role as a tormented former Nazi death camp guard in "The Reader." Gasping for breath during her acceptance speech, Winslet recalled practicing her speech in front of her childhood bathroom mirror holding a shampoo bottle. "Well, it's not a shampoo bottle now," she said in disbelief.
Best actor was won by Sean Penn for his performance as 1970s gay political activist Harvey Milk. "You Commie homo-loving sons of guns," an abashed Penn told the audience, acknowledging "how hard I make it to appreciate me often" before calling for a rollback of California's gay marriage ban and tipping his hat to fellow nominee and "my brother," Mickey Rourke.
In the ceremonies held at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles, "Slumdog" also won Oscars for best adapted screenplay, for Simon Beaufoy's script; best cinematography, for Anthony Dod Mantle's colorful images; best editing for Chris Dickens's breathless pacing; best score for A.R. Rahman's soundtrack music; best song ("Jai Ho"); and best sound mixing. The film tells the story of an impoverished Mumbai youth who stands to win riches and regain lost love on a TV game show.
The late Heath Ledger won best supporting actor for his startling turn as the Joker in "The Dark Knight," an award that had been building up unstoppable momentum ever since the actor's death from an accidental overdose in January 2008. Accepting the award for Ledger were his parents, Kim Ledger and Sally Bell, and sister Kate Ledger. In the evening's most emotionally piercing moment, they thanked the Academy and commemorated the accomplishments of their son and brother.
Penélope Cruz won best supporting actress for her role as a fiery, emotionally unbalanced Spanish artist in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," one of the comparatively rare times the Oscar has gone to the favored nominee in a category famous for upsets. Cruz thanked Woody Allen for writing rich roles for women, a truism born out by the 10 actresses who have been nominated over the years in Allen films and the five performances that have won.
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," a languorously surreal and well-received drama in which the title character, played by Brad Pitt, ages backward, was nominated for 13 Oscars, one shy of the Academy record. It took home only three, however: best art direction, for Donald Graham Burt and Victor J. Zolfo's re-creation of a bygone New Orleans; best makeup, for Greg Cannom's artful reverse aging of Brad Pitt; and best visual effects by the film's team of techno-wizards. "The Duchess" beat out "Button" by winning best costumes for the film's 18th century finery, and "Slumdog" prevailed in almost all the other categories.
In addition to Penn's best actor award, "Milk" won a best original screenplay Oscar for Dustin Lance Black, who made an emotional speech on behalf of gay rights. The Gus Van Sant film was nominated for a total of eight awards, including best director and picture.
Despite an Oscar slate heavy on glamorous Hollywood stars and important themes, few of the nominated films garnered the groundswell of enthusiasm of "Slumdog Millionaire." The only other 2008 movie to draw such popular acclaim was "The Dark Knight," which was conspicuously absent in this year's major categories; it won for sound editing and supporting actor for Ledger. He was widely expected to win and did so, and there was a similar sense of inevitability extending to the ceremonies as a whole. One of the few upsets was in the best foreign language category, where Japan's "Departures," as yet unreleased in the US, won the statue instead of Israel's critically acclaimed "Waltz With Bashir."
Another movie some thought overlooked in the major categories,
"Man on Wire," the nonfiction film about Philippe Petit's high-wire walk between the World Trade Center towers in 1974, won best documentary; audiences in the Kodak Theatre and at home were treated to the sight of Petit balancing his Oscar on his chin in grateful delight. "Smile Pinki," about treating children with cleft palates, won the Oscar for best documentary short.
The 81-year-old Jerry Lewis was awarded the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for his years of work raising money to combat muscular dystrophy in children. The Kodak Theatre audience gave the comedy legend a standing ovation, to which he responded with a terse but heartfelt speech.
Contrasting sharply with the cinematic grit of "Slumdog" and real-world headlines full of economic malaise - not to mention the threat of a looming actors' strike - the ceremonies were a display of Hollywood glamour at its most swankly coutured, with a red-carpet traffic jam highlighted by fabulous dresses and a royal entrance by Pitt and Angelina Jolie.
In a break with recent tradition, the ceremonies were hosted not by a comedian but by actor Hugh Jackman, who tapped his relatively unknown song-and-dance talents for a frenetic opening number that paid tribute to nominated films with such recession-era twists as "the Craig's List dancers."
This year's telecast, produced for the first time by the team of Laurence Mark and Bill Condon, departed from standard procedure in other ways as well. The acting awards were each presented by five past winners, each of whom offered extended congratulations to one of the nominees. It was a classy idea movingly carried out, especially when icons like Sophia Loren and Shirley MacLaine took the stage to present the best actress Oscar. Still, it added to the length of an elongated evening, with montages devoted to such genres as animation and romance allowing images from some of the more popular un-nominated films of 2008 to grace the Kodak screen.
The aim was to reconnect the Oscars, which have diminished in ratings and cultural impact in recent years, back to the zeitgeist, although it seemed counter-intuitive to see clips from "Space Chimps," possibly the worst movie of 2008, celebrated at the Academy Awards. Like the mood outside the theater, the vibe in the auditorium was hopeful, uncertain, and more than a little nervous for anyone who wasn't involved with "Slumdog Millionaire."
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.
