‘Beauty’ Dazzles at Oscars

Capping an Oscar season in which nominated movies and stars were promoted with the savvy of an intense political campaign, the dark satire “American Beauty” was the big winner at Sunday night’s 72nd annual Academy Awards ceremony at the Shrine Auditorium.

“American Beauty” won five Oscars: best picture, actor, director, original screenplay and cinematography.

The victory was particularly sweet for the film’s young studio, DreamWorks SKG, which last year saw its best picture hope, studio co-founder Steven Spielberg’s World War II epic, “Saving Private Ryan,” upended by arch-rival Miramax Films with its comedic romp “Shakespeare in Love.”

It was the first best picture Oscar for the studio founded in 1994 by Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen.

A provocative and wickedly funny look at middle-age angst in American suburbia, “American Beauty” was one of the year’s surprise commercial and critical hits.

Award-winning film and stage actor Kevin Spacey, 40, walked off with his second Oscar, this time for best actor, as the acerbic Lester Burnham, who is going through a midlife crisis with a crumbling marriage and lust in his heart for the cheerleading friend of his teenage daughter. Spacey had previously won best supporting actor for 1995’s “The Usual Suspects” as a crafty criminal kingpin.

“This is the highlight of my day,” Spacey told the appreciative audience. “I hope it’s not all downhill from here.”

He dedicated his win to the actor who inspired his performance and whom he also looks upon as a friend, mentor and father figure--Jack Lemmon.

Spacey also thanked his friends “for pointing out my worst qualities.”

“I know you do it because you love me,” he said. “That is why I loved playing Lester, because we got to see all of his worst qualities and still grew to love him.”

Surprising Victory

Hilary Swank, who came out of nowhere from TV’s teen-fave “Beverly Hills, 90210,” won best actress for her role as transsexual Brandon Teena in “Boys Don’t Cry.”

Although the independent production, which cost under $2 million, has yet to find a large audience, Swank became a darling of film critics for her gritty and no-holds-barred portrayal of a woman whose sexual identity crisis ends in murder. Although based on a true story, the film has drawn some criticism for deviating from real-life events in a small Nebraska town.

Swank’s victory was the all the more stunning because it is rare that a little-known actress from a low-budget production without much fanfare was able to appeal to the Academy’s often more mainstream tastes.

With Spielberg himself standing on stage to announce the winner, first-time feature director Sam Mendes won the Oscar for “American Beauty.” Mendes previously won the Golden Globe for best director and was voted outstanding feature film director by the Directors Guild of America.

The award-winning London and Broadway stage director thanked DreamWorks for “hiring a bloke from English theater” to do a movie about American suburbia.

Not only did he thank Spielberg, but Mendes also honored Oscar-winning director Billy Wilder for inspiring him.

In a year when the written word often equaled or surpassed the power of the visual images on screen, the Academy bestowed the Oscar for best screenplay adaptation on novelist John Irving for “The Cider House Rules.” It was the first time Irving had adapted one of his best-selling novels.

As debate rages in the United States over abortion rights, the movie took a firm pro-choice stand. In his acceptance speech, Irving thanked Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Rights League.

In the original screenplay category, Alan Ball won for “American Beauty.” He previously had taken home virtually every honor leading up to the Oscars, including the Golden Globe and the Writers Guild awards.

Ball thanked director Mendes, saying he had gotten it “just right.” He also credited “an amazing cast . . . that a screenwriter can only dream about,” for also helping make the film a critical and box office success.

Renowned cinematographer Conrad L. Hall also was awarded an Oscar for “American Beauty.” A nine-time nominee, his only other win was for 1969’s “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

Caine Gets Second Oscar

The veteran British actor Michael Caine, who had to adopt an American accent as the New England ether-addicted orphanage doctor in “The Cider House Rules,” picked up his second best supporting actor award.

Nominated five times in his career, Caine first won for 1986’s “Hannah and Her Sisters,” but at the time chose not to appear at the ceremonies. This time, he was front and center, using his moment in the spotlight to praise his fellow nominees.

To Michael Clarke Duncan, the gentle giant of “The Green Mile,” Caine simply described his performance as “astonishing.” To Jude Law, a co-star of “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” Caine remarked that he was “going to be a big star no matter what happens.” To Tom Cruise of “Magnolia,” he joked to the box office mega-star, “If you had won this, your price would have gone down so fast. Have you any idea what supporting actors get paid?” And, to 11-year-old Haley Joel Osment of “The Sixth Sense,” Caine said, “When I saw you, [I said] ‘This leaves me out of it.’ ”

Angelina Jolie, who plays a deeply troubled young woman incarcerated in an institution for women in “Girl, Interrupted,” captured the best supporting actress trophy.

The 24-year-old daughter of Oscar-winner Jon Voight, had been a clear favorite throughout the awards season, previously winning the Golden Globe and the Screen Actors Guild award.

Dressed all in black with inky Morticia Adams locks, the actress thanked her famous father, saying Voight is a “great actor but a better father,” but she reserved her dearest comments for her older brother, James, who accompanied her to the ceremony. “You are the strongest, most amazing man I have ever known,” she gushed from the stage as he fought back tears in his seat.

“My dad said he was proud of me and that I was a good actress,” Jolie said later backstage. “For him to think I’m a good actress is kind of a big deal for me.”

Previous Oscar-winner Warren Beatty picked up the prestigious Irving G. Thalberg Award.

The 62-year-old actor and filmmaker, whose award-winning films include “Bonnie and Clyde,” “Shampoo,” “Heaven Can Wait,” “Reds” and “Bugsy,” was cited by the Academy for his “passion for film, for getting it just right and his courage in producing pictures that many other producers might have considered to dangerous to try.”

In a long-winded but touching and sometimes humorous acceptance, Beatty noted that he had once been taught by some of the previous winners of the Thalberg, such as producer Samuel Goldwyn, who “was in his 80s, God bless him, and he treated me like a grown up. Now, most people teaching me seem to be in their early 20s. I try to get them to stop treating me like a grown up, but I thank them.”

Beatty, who was presented by his good friend and occasional co-star Jack Nicholson, stressed the importance of family in his life and noted that no self-respecting screenwriter would ever concoct an implausible device like Beatty accepting the Thalberg as his pregnant wife, best actress nominee Annette Bening, sat in the second row about to give birth.

The Oscar for best art direction went to “Sleepy Hollow” a Gothic horror tale based on the famous Washington Irving tale whose sets and designs evoke the mystery and horror of a haunted Colonial town

Beamed to a worldwide TV audience of about 1 billion viewers, the 4-hour-plus Oscar telecast on ABC-TV Channel 7 capped one of the truly bizarre Academy Award seasons in recent memory.

First, the Oscar ballots were misrouted in the mail, then the shipment of 55 gleaming gold-plated Oscar statuettes disappeared from a loading dock at Roadway Express, only to be found by a salvage man named Willie Fulgear, who stumbled across 52 of the Oscars while rummaging through a trash bin in Koreatown district of Los Angeles. Fulgear, who received a $50,000 reward from Roadway Express, was invited to Sunday night’s glittering and star-studded ceremonies nattily attired in a top hat and tux. Three Oscars remain missing.

Host Billy Crystal, returning for his seventh stint as Oscar’s master of ceremonies, was carried on stage in the arms of someone dressed as a Los Angeles police officer, and in a joking reference to the department’s Rampart scandal, said he was worried about getting to the Shrine, so he had an LAPD officer “plant me.”

In a filmed comedy montage, Crystal appeared Zelig-like in scenes from such famous movies as “The Gold Rush,” “The Godfather,” “The Graduate,” “Taxi Driver” and “Casablanca.” Then he sang his traditional medley of Oscar-nominated best films, warbling the “The Green Acres” theme for “The Green Mile” and “People” for “The Sixth Sense” (“People, people who see dead people. . . . “ ).

Foreign Film, Best Music

Best foreign film went to Spain’s Pedro Almodovar for “All About My Mother,” a moving and often funny story of a middle-aged woman mourning the death of her grown son who finds strength in her friends.

“This is for Spain!” Almodovar exclaimed from the stage.

Best original song went pop singer and songwriter Phil Collins for “You’ll Be In My Heart” from the Disney animated film “Tarzan.” But the biggest response from the audience came from the rousing Robin Williams-led production of the “South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut” song “Blame Canada.”

Classical music composer John Corigliano won for his original score for the Canadian-produced film “The Red Violin,” beating out such high-profile nominees as “American Beauty” and “The Cider House Rules.”

“One Day in September,” a look back at the tragedy that unfolded during 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich when Arab terrorists killed Israeli athletes, won for best feature-length documentary. Just completed in October, the film has not yet reached U.S. theaters. “King Gimp” won for best short documentary.

Academy voters awarded the Oscar for best live action short to “My Mother Dreams the Satan’s Disciples in New York.”

“The Old Man and the Sea,” an animated IMAX film based on Ernest Hemingway’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, won this year’s Academy Award for best animated short film. The Oscar for best costume designer went to Lindy Hemming for “Topsy-Turvy” with its 19th century period clothes plus ornate Gilbert & Sullivan operetta regalia. The film, which re-created such lavish musicals as “The Mikado” and “The Pirates of Penzance,” also captured an Oscar for best achievement in makeup.

The high-tech cyber-thriller “The Matrix” walked off with four statuettes: for editing, sound, sound effects editing and visual effects.

Veteran Polish director Andrzej Wajda received an honorary Oscar for a body of work including “Ashes and Diamonds” and “Danton.” The award was presented by Jane Fonda, in her first appearance on the Oscars show in a decade.

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