Martin Scorsese's
mob epic The Departed won Best Picture at the
Academy Awards on Sunday and earned the filmmaker the
directing prize that had eluded him throughout his
illustrious career. Forest Whitaker won for Best Actor
and Helen Mirren took the Best Actress trophy.
''Could you double-check the envelope?'' said
Scorsese, who had been the greatest living American
filmmaker without an Oscar. He also had never
delivered a Best Picture winner before, despite crafting
such modern masterpieces as Raging Bull and Goodfellas.
Scorsese received his Oscar from three
contemporaries and friends, Steven Spielberg, Francis
Ford Coppola, and George Lucas. ''So many people over
the years have been wishing this for me,'' Scorsese said.
In an evening when no one film dominated as the
Oscars shared the love among a wide range of movies
from around the world, three of the four acting
front-runners won: Best Actress Mirren as British monarch
Elizabeth II in The Queen; Best Actor Whitaker as Ugandan dictator
Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland; and Best Supporting Actress Jennifer Hudson
as a soul singer in Dreamgirls.
The other
front-runner, Eddie Murphy of Dreamgirls, lost the
Best Supporting Actor race to Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine.
''For 50 years
and more, Elizabeth Windsor has maintained her dignity,
her sense of duty, and her hairstyle,'' said Mirren, who has
been on a remarkable roll since last fall as she won
all major film and television prizes for playing both
of the United Kingdom's Queen Elizabeths.
''She's had her
feet planted firmly on the ground, her hat on her head,
her handbag on her arm, and she's weathered many, many
storms.... If it wasn't for her, I most certainly
wouldn't be here. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the
queen,'' Mirren said, holding her Oscar aloft.
The Departed led the evening with four Oscars,
also winning for adapted screenplay and editing.
The Oscars had their most diverse and
international scope ever, with wins for two black
actors and global dramas that included Pan's Labyrinth, Babel, and Letters From Iwo Jima.
The soft-spoken
Whitaker won for an uncharacteristically flamboyant role
as the barbarous yet mesmerizing Amin.
''When I was a
kid the only way I saw movies was from the backseat of my
family's car at the drive-in movie,'' Whitaker said. ''It
wasn't my reality to think I would be acting in
movies, so receiving this honor tonight tells me it's
possible. It is possible for a kid from east Texas,
raised in south-central L.A. and Carson, who believes in his
dreams, commits himself to them with his heart, to
touch them and to have them happen.''
Arkin played a
foul-mouthed grandpa with a taste for heroin in Little
Miss Sunshine, a low-budget film that came out
of the independent world to become a commercial hit and
major awards player.
''More than
anything, I'm deeply moved by the openhearted appreciation
our small film has received, which in these fragmented times
speaks so openly of the possibility of innocence,
growth, and connection,'' said Arkin.
Hudson won an
Oscar for her first movie, playing a powerhouse vocalist
who falls on hard times after she is booted from a 1960s
girl group. The role came barely two years after she
shot to celebrity as an American Idol finalist.
''Oh, my God, I
have to just take this moment in. I cannot believe this.
Look what God can do. I didn't think I was going to win,''
Hudson said through tears of joy. ''If my grandmother
was here to see me now. She was my biggest
inspiration.''
Little Miss Sunshine also won the original
screenplay Oscar for first-time screenwriter Michael Arndt.
The film follows a ghastly but hilarious road trip by
an emotionally messed-up family rushing to get their
darling girl (10-year-old supporting actress nominee
Abigail Breslin) to her beauty pageant.
''When I was a
kid my family drove 600 miles in a VW bus with a broken
clutch,'' Arndt said, describing a road trip that mirrored
the one in the film. ''It ended up being one of the
funnest things we did together.''
The nonfiction
hit An Inconvenient Truth, a chronicle of Al Gore's campaign to warn the
world about global warming, was picked as Best
Documentary.
''People all over
the world, we need to solve the climate crisis. It's
not a political issue. It's a moral issue,'' Gore said,
joining the film's director, Davis Guggenheim, on the
stage.
An Inconvenient Truth also won original song
for Melissa Etheridge's ''I Need to Wake Up.'' ''Mostly, I
have to thank Al Gore for inspiring me, showing me
that caring about the Earth is not Republican or
Democrat, it's not red or blue. We are all green,''
Etheridge said.
The gay Etheridge
kissed her partner, Tammy Lynn Michaels, on the lips
when her name was announced and onstage referred to Michaels
as her wife. The couple held a commitment ceremony in
2003 and are the parents of twins.
''Maybe someone
at home is going, 'Did she say wife?''' Etheridge said
backstage. ''I was kissing her because that's what you do,
you kiss your loved one when you win an Oscar, that's
what I grew up believing.''
Earlier, Gore
appeared with Best Actor nominee Leonardo DiCaprio to
praise organizers for implementing environmentally friendly
practices in the show's production.
DiCaprio set up a
gag with Gore, asking the 2000 presidential candidate
if there was anything he wanted to announce.
''I guess with a
billion people watching, it's as good a time as any. So
my fellow Americans, I'm going to take this opportunity
right here and now to formally announce my intentions
...,'' Gore said, his voice trailing away as the
orchestra cut him off.
Composer Gustavo
Santaolalla won his second straight Oscar for original
score for Babel, a film ''that helped us
understand better who we are and why and what we are here
for,'' he said. He won the same prize a year ago for Brokeback Mountain.
The
dancing-penguin musical Happy Feet won the
Oscar for feature-length animation, denying
computer-animation pioneer John Lasseter (Toy
Story) the prize for Cars, which had been
the big winner of earlier key animation honors.
''I asked my
kids, 'What should I say?' They said, 'Thank all the men for
wearing penguin suits,''' said Happy Feet
director George Miller.
The savage fairy
tale Pan's Labyrinth took three Oscars. The
Spanish-language film won for art direction, makeup,
and cinematography.
''To Guillermo
del Toro for guiding us through this labyrinth,'' said art
director Eugenio Caballero, lauding the writer-director of Pan's Labyrinth, the tale of a girl who concocts an
elaborate fantasy world to escape her harsh reality in 1940s
Fascist Spain.
Germany's The
Lives of Others, about a playwright and his
actress-girlfriend who come under police surveillance
in 1980s East Berlin, won the foreign-language Oscar, the
films it beat including Pan's Labyrinth.
Letters From Iwo Jima won the sound editing
Oscar for Alan Robert Murray and Bub Asman. Murray's father
was an Iwo Jima survivor.
''Thank you to my
father and all the brave and honorable men and women in
uniform who in a time of crisis have all made that decision
to defend their personal freedom and liberty no matter
what the sacrifice,'' Murray said.
The record holder
for Oscar futility, sound engineer Kevin O'Connell,
extended his losing streak to 19 nominations without a win.
This time, O'Connell and two colleagues were nominated
for sound mixing on Apocalypto, Mel Gibson's
portrait of the savage decline of the ancient Mayan
empire, but they lost to another trio of sound engineers
who worked on Dreamgirls. Apocalypto lost in all three categories in
which it was nominated, all for technical
achievements.
Once an evening
of back-slapping and merrymaking within the narrow
confines of Hollywood, the Academy Awards this time looked
like a United Nations exercise in diversity.
This
ceremony--the 79th annual one--featured the most
ethnically varied Oscar lineup ever, with stars and
stories that reflect the growing multiculturalism
taking root around the globe.
''What a
wonderful night. Such diversity in the room,'' said Ellen
DeGeneres, serving as Oscar host for the first time, ''in a
year when there's been so many negative things said
about people's race, religion, and sexual orientation.
''And I want to
put this out there: If there weren't blacks, Jews, and
gays, there would be no Oscars,'' she said, adding: ''Or
anyone named Oscar, when you think about that.''
(David Germain, AP)
