Sunday, March 24 was a day of firsts for the 74th Annual Academy Awards. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences took center stage as it honored this year’s finest actors, actresses and movies from around the world with the most coveted statuette, the golden naked man known simply as Oscar.
Tinsel Town rolled out the red carpet in front of the Kodak Theatre for the first time on Sunday. The new 3,100-seat theatre, built as the home for Oscar and his guests, is nestled in the heart of movie Mecca, on Hollywood Boulevard. It was a homecoming of sorts, for it’s been 42 years since the award ceremony was held in the heart of Hollywood. Now The Oscars are there to stay, and everyone settled into the new digs for a night of stiff competition as this year presented one of the tightest contests for Best Picture, Actor and Actress.
The evening started off with Tom Cruise reflecting on September 11 and the need to keep making movie magic. Host Whoopi Goldberg, entered suspended on a trapeze, dressed as a showgirl (ala Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge) welcoming everyone and introducing the presenters for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar which was given to Jennifer Connelly for her performance in A Beautiful Mind.
Some highlights from the next few hours leading up to the big four awards in Direction, Picture, Actor and Actress, were the presentation of each of the Best Picture nominations by Whoopi Goldberg draped in the style of dress from each picture and followed by a video presentation of the essence of each film.
Many of the award presentation clips that introduced each award tried to give a behind-the-scenes feel to the audience, from showing technical aspects of filmmaking in categories like cinematography and special effects, to reading excerpts from the script as that particular scene unfolded on screen. This year’s Oscars offered a polished and classy look at the art of filmmaking and presentation.
This was the first year for the presentation of Best Animated Feature. Shrek won the honor, and the animated characters were shown as if they were in attendance.
Sydney Poitier won an honorary Oscar for his life-long success in film and also honoring the first African-American to have received the Best Actor Oscar in 40 years. His speech was low-key as he thanked all the people, white and black, that supported him as he tried to select films that broke barriers and stereotypes
Robert Redford received a Lifetime Achievement Award for his body of work in acting, directing, film preservation and for founding the Sundance Film Festival that he founded. Redford emphasized bucking conformity in favor of stretching the norm to achieve the full artistic potential that Hollywood is capable of.
Throughout the evening, special documentaries were shown highlighting film’s scores, honoring Poitier and Redford, a tribute to New York and those in the film industry who died this past year. The most entertaining performance of the night came from Cirque du Soleil, a dance group that acted out many of the most famous action and special effects scenes from this year’s nominees.
As the nearly four and a half hour show wound down, leading up to the final four awards, some surprises had already been revealed. Jim Broadbent, from Iris, won Best Supporting Actor, upsetting Ian McKellen, the insiders’ favorite. Gosford Park’s screenplay took away the statuette from the favored Memento. Best Foreign Film was given to No Man’s Land over the highly lauded Amelie. Randy Newman finally received his first Academy Award for Best Song, after sixteen previous nominations.
Halle Berry became the first black woman to win Best Actress. Her tearful acceptance speech moved the audience, for it was an evening of honoring diversity in pictures.
Denzel Washington upset last year’s winner Russell Crowe, for his portrayal of a crooked cop in Training Day, and received the Best Actor statuette. In his acceptance speech he thanked Poitier, who he has been chasing his entire acting career.
This had also been the first year that three black actors had been nominated for these top honors. Will Smith was also nominated for his performance in Ali.
Opie finally got his Oscar. Ron Howard won his first golden man for Best Director for A Beautiful Mind. He had to return onstage to accept his second Oscar when A Beautiful Mind won the top honor of Best Picture. The movie depicting the life of the famous mathematician John Nash was neck-and-neck with the fantasy picture, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.
The mood over the entire evening was one of camaraderie and fellowship. When the red carpet was finally rolled up and all the limos departed for their respective post-Oscar parties, A Beautiful Mind walked away with five awards and The Fellowship of the Rings left with four.
The canned jokes were not too cheesy and nothing outrageous or scandalous tainted a clear and peaceful Sunday evening as the movie industries came off one of its most successful financial years. There was plenty to cheer about and people to cheer for as everyone walked away from the celebration honoring films and the people that make them possible.
The Academy appears to have gotten another step closer to color blindness, and the industry is aware of the power that it can influence on our fears and feelings in this world following Sept. 11.
