'English Patient' comes out on top of 'em all

Stars shine at the 69th Annual Academy Awards where independently made films rule the proceedings

By Scott Foundas
Film Editor

The 69th Annual Academy Awards was off and running Monday evening, and almost immediately left no doubt in anyone's mind that if there was ever one man born to host that most stately of awards presentations, it was Billy Crystal.
Hosting for the first time in four years, Crystal started things smashingly with a riotous montage of scenes from Best Picture nominees into which he had been inserted in place of the original actors, from Cuba Gooding Jr. in "Jerry Maguire" to Luke Skywalker in a clip from the special edition of the "Star Wars" trilogy. After that, a sharply written installment of Crystal's perennial "Oscar medley" had the host batting 1.000. Quite simply, he is the best host Oscar has ever had or ever will.
Then, 25 minutes into the show, last year's Best Supporting Actress Mira Sorvino stepped onto the stage of the Shrine auditorium to present the first award of the evening, Best Supporting Actor. The winner was Gooding Jr., who proceeded to give a riotous and emotionally charged acceptance speech, worthy of the character he played in Cameron Crowe's hit film. In fact, Gooding shouted and danced his way about the stage well into the swelling orchestra cue indicating that his 90 seconds were up.
Next, "The English Patient" picked up its first couple of trophies for the night for Art Direction and Costume Design, adding statuettes to the mantles of Stuart Craig and Ann Roth, respectively.
The African lion-hunting drama "The Ghost and the Darkness" picked up the Sound Effects Editing Oscar, presented by Beavis and Butt-head, while "The Nutty Professor" picked up a win in the Makeup department. Backstage, legendary makeup artist Rick Baker mentioned that the significance of this win for him was that it made an even number of trophies for his mantle, adding that it was much more difficult to create convincing make-up for human subjects than for the werewolves and gorillas he is so often associated with.
Kevin Spacey's announcement of Best Supporting Actress, Juliette Binoche, provided the night's biggest upset, sending gasps through the press room and causing the surprised star herself to say, "I thought Lauren was going to get it, and I think she deserves it. I think it must be a French dream." Lauren Bacall, of course, was predicted by most Oscar pundits (including myself) to win, as the sentimental favorite. Instead, Binoche became the second French actress in movie history (after Simone Signoret) to win the coveted award, and added a third jewel to "The English Patient'"s ever-blossoming crown.
David Spade and Chris Farley provided tag-team coverage of the short film awards, presenting Best Animated Short Film to Thomas Stellmach and Tyron Montgomery's "Quest" and the Best Live Action Short citation to David Frankel and Barry Jossen's "Dear Diary," the debut project from Dreamworks SKG that failed to generate interest as a television pilot, and was released theatrically instead.
Mary Poppins herself, Julie Andrews, was next on stage to present the evening's first honorary Oscar, to legendary film choreographer Michael Kidd, who has been responsible for some of the silver screen's most memorable dance sequences, from the courting dance in "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" to the rooftop romancing of Fred Astaire and Cyd Charise in "The Band Wagon."
Backstage, I asked the notoriously curmudgeon Kidd how it felt to see the presented clips of his work all these years later and the tremendous audience reaction they inspire.
"When I look at (the clips), I say, `I couldn't have done that,'" Kidd said. "I did them some time ago, and at the end, I'm impressed because I didn't realize I worked that hard and that thoroughly."
Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith presented the documentary awards, with "Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O'Brien" collecting the gold for Best Documentary Short Subject.
Then, in a moment destined for the Academy's next highlights reel, Leon Gast was awarded Best Documentary Feature for "When We Were Kings," marking the culmination of work begun over 20 years ago. Adding to the moment, Ali himself left his seat in the audience and slowly ascended the stage to a standing ovation, as Gast sang his praises as an underappreciated cultural hero.
For the second year in a row, Jim Carrey did some hilarious schtick before offering up the winner of this year's Oscar for Best Achievement in Visual Effects. The names in the envelope belonged to the effects team behind the summer blockbuster "Independence Day."
The great Walter Murch, a USC alumnus and the frequent right-hand collaborator of Francis Ford Coppola, proceeded to pick up two Oscars back-to-back, for his Sound and Film Editing of "The English Patient." This was Murch's first citation for picture editing, despite having been honored numerous times for his sound work.
In the first of the evening's music awards, Rachel Portman bucked what has always been an all-boys club by picking up the Oscar for Best Original Musical or Comedy Score for "Emma," while Gabriel Yared added a Best Dramatic Score Oscar to the Golden Globe he already won for his work on "The English Patient." "The English Patient'"s total was now at six. It had won every category in which it was nominated.
"The English Patient" made it seven for seven with a win for Best Cinematography by Australian lenser John Seale, while the Czech Republic's "Kolya" captured the Foreign Language Film Oscar.
"Well, thank heavens there wasn't a song in `The English Patient' is all I can say," quipped a jovial Andrew Lloyd Webber when it was revealed that "You Must Love Me" from "Evita" was the year's Best Original Song. Webber was joined on stage by his lyricist, Tim Rice, both of whom praised director Alan Parker's film version of their broadway show in the press room.
Arkansas-born Billy Bob Thornton proved triumphant with his "Sling Blade" screenplay, picking up the first of the night's screenplay citations for Best Adapted Screenplay for the script he based on his short film of the same name.
The Academy then got its chance to honor the hometown favorite "Fargo" with a Best Original Screenplay nod for Joel and Ethan Coen.
Then, it was "Fargo'"s name in the envelope again, when Frances McDormand (director Joel's actual wife) picked up Best Actress for playing the snowbound and pregnant Minnesota sheriff Marge. In a memorable acceptance speech, McDormand thanked her frequent collaborators, acknowledging "the co-writer, director and producer of `Fargo,' Mr. Ethan Coen, who helped make an actor out of me and his brother, Mr. Joel Coen, who made a woman of me."
"Shine'"s Geoffrey Rush made it a clean sweep for the year's Best Actor prizes, adding the Oscar to a slew of critics' trophies and a Golden Globe. On stage, Rush acknowledged the recent critical backlash against Helfgott's tour by addressing part of his speech to Helfgott, saying, "To those people who said it's a circus, then with your celebration of life you show me that the circus is a place of daring and risk-taking and working without a safety net and giving us your personal poetry."
Then, as predicted, "The English Patient" made it a total of nine wins with Best Director (Anthony Minghella) and Best Picture. Accepting his third Best Picture Oscar, producer Saul Zaentz, who had already received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award earlier in the evening, stated, "I said my cup was full before, now it runneth over."
With that, the 69th Annual Academy Awards came to a close, clocking in at exactly three and a half hours, 45 minutes longer than even "The English Patient" itself, and just 25 minutes shy of Kenneth Branagh's "Hamlet."