Picture perfect: 'King' goes 11 for 11
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King wins every award it was up for, including best picture, to become one of Oscar's most-honored films.
By STEVE PERSALL, Times Staff Writer
Published March 1, 2004
One film ruled over all at the 76th annual Academy Awards when The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won all 11 Oscars for which it was nominated including best picture of 2003.
Peter Jackson's epic trilogy based on J.R.R. Tolkien's novels surpassed Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather saga as the most honored three-part series in Oscar history with 17. Return of the King's 11 trophies tied the mark set by Ben Hur (1960) and repeated by Titanic (1998).
The last film to show such dominance at Hollywood's annual rite of self-celebration was 1988 when The Last Emperor went 9-for-9 including best picture. Even Titanic lost three of its 14 nominations.
Sean Penn was named best actor for his role as a grieving father seeking revenge for the death of his daughter in Mystic River. Penn, a critic of U.S. military policy in Iraq, began his speech by briefly referring to the military's inability to locate the weapons of mass destruction that were a reason for invading Iraq.
"If there's one thing that actors know - besides that there are no WMDs - it's that there is no such thing as best in acting," Penn said in praising his fellow nominees.
Charlize Theron was named best actress for her stunning transformation from world class beauty into Florida serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster. She became the first actor ever from the African continent to win an Oscar.
"I know everybody has been thanked in New Zealand tonight," she said, recalling host Billy Crystal's joke after numerous Return of the King acceptance speeches. "I'm going to thank everybody in South Africa, my home country. They're all watching tonight and I'm bringing this home next week."
Theron also tearfully thanked her mother in the audience. "You sacrificed so much for me to be able to live here and make my dreams come true," she said. "There are no words to describe how much I love you."
Jackson claimed the best director Oscar for his nine-year labor of love and special effects, dedicating the prize to his parents who died in recent years and never saw his completed masterpiece.
Tim Robbins' performance in Mystic River as a man traumatized by childhood sexual abuse earned best supporting actor honors.
Renee Zellweger was named best supporting actress for her role as a roughhewn Civil War-era woman in Cold Mountain. It was Zellweger's first Oscar win after two previous best actress nominations, for Bridget Jones's Diary and Chicago.
From the start, the evening was dominated by The Return of the King. In addition to best picture and director, Jackson's epic realization of author J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy world won Oscars for best film editing, visual effects, art direction, makeup, sound mixing and costuming. Howard Shore's alternately thunderous and ponderous music for The Return of the King won the best original score Oscar; it also won best original song with Into the West, by Fran Walsh and Howard Shore and Annie Lennox.
Perhaps the film's most surprising win Sunday was in the best adapted screenplay race, with Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens winning over the more highly touted scripts for Seabiscuit and Mystic River.
The original screenplay Oscar went to Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation, making her family only the second in Academy Awards history with three generations of winners after her father, director and screenwriter Francis Ford Coppola, and her grandfather, composer Carmine Coppola. The first to reach that distinction were the Hustons: director John and his supporting actor father Walter for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and Anjelica as best supporting actress for Prizzi's Honor.
The film with the second-most nominations, 10, Master and Commander: The Far Side of theWorld, won for its sound editing and cinematography.
The highest-grossing animated film of all time, Finding Nemo, was selected as 2003's best animated feature. That's a mixed blessing for Walt Disney Pictures after the film's production company, Pixar Animation Studios, recently ended negotiations for an extension of their partnership.
Canada's The Barbarian Invasions, a wry eulogy of a decadently full life, was named the best foreign language film of the year. "We're thankful that Lord of the Rings did not qualify in this category," producer Denise Robert joked.
The live action short film Oscar was voted to Two Soldiers, which, like Cold Mountain, was set during the Civil War in North Carolina. The animated short film Harvie Krumpet, the story of a guy whose bad luck gets interrupted by spasms of joy, was named the best of 2003.
First-time Academy Awards producer Joe Roth promised more comedy and delivered from the outset. Sean Connery regally introduced a tribute to "the magic of the movies" that began with Crystal bootlegging a videotaped copy inside a theater, a nod to the biggest offscreen story in Hollywood last year. On the screen was Crystal's customary insertion of himself into scenes from this year's nominated films.
The "plot" involved Crystal's anxiety over hosting the Oscars for the eighth time but his first since 2000. The comedian's face was digitally pasted onto the split personalities Gollum and Smeagol from The Return of the King, arguing the point.
Later in the sketch, Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Michael Moore showed up protesting that film's "fictitious war," only to be stomped by a Middle-earth creature. The audience - some perhaps prompted by Moore's anti-President Bush acceptance speech last year - cheered.
Another segment immediately set aside any concerns that the show's producers were skittish after Janet Jackson's Super Bowl breast-baring and the ensuing crackdown on network television standards. Crystal posed discreetly nude, screaming with embarrassment like Diane Keaton in Something's Gotta Give while Keaton and co-star Jack Nicholson were shown shrieking in horror.
A scripted moment like that established loose boundaries for the ABC censor whose finger was on the delay button. Later, presenter Robin Williams taunted that watchdog by pulling back his lapel as if to flash a breast. "Here's the reason for our five-second delay," Crystal quipped.
If the censors had been nervous at what the more politically active award winners might say in their acceptance speeches, they likely breathed easier when Robbins used his acceptance speech to urge real-life victims of sexual abuse to seek assistance.
"If you are out there and are a person who has had that tragedy befall you, there is no shame and no weakness in seeking help and counseling," Robbins said. "It is sometimes the strongest thing that you can do to stop the cycle of violence."
The 45-year-old actor is accustomed to speaking on behalf of causes, most recently against U.S. military policy, making him one of the film industry's leading liberal voices. The theme and sincerity of his remarks drew warm applause.
Best documentary feature winner Errol Morris, whose The Fog of War featured a dissection of Vietnam War policy by former U.S. secretary of defense Robert McNamara, delivered the evening's most overtly political statement about the current war in Iraq:
"Forty years ago this country went down a rabbit hole and millions of people died. I fear we're going down a rabbit hole again."
Many audience members applauded in support of Morris' statement before he continued: "And if people can stop and think and reflect on some of the ideas in this movie, then perhaps I've done some damn good."
Crystal quickly lightened the mood. "I can't wait for his tax audit," he said after Morris left the stage.
Unlike Robbins and Morris, Zellweger kept her acceptance speech to the standard list of thanks for co-stars, the film's creators and her agent. She also thanked two co-stars from early in her career: Vincent D'Onofrio (The Whole Wide World) "for teaching me how to work" and Tom Cruise (Jerry Maguire) "for showing me very early that kindness and success are not mutually exclusive."
Lifetime achievement award winner Blake Edwards made a comic entrance worthy of his clumsy creation Inspector Clouseau, in an out-of-control motorized wheelchair crashing through the set. Edwards, 81, closed out his remarks by paraphrasing legendary showman George M. Cohan and recognizing his wife of 33 years, Oscar winner Julie Andrews:
"My mother thanks you, my father thanks you and the beautiful English broad with the incomparable soprano and promiscuous vocabulary thanks you, and I sure as hell thank you."
Comedians Jack Black and Will Ferrell presented the best song prize to Into the West from The Return of the King after singing the previously unknown - but very funny - lyrics to the tune Oscar orchestras play to urge long-winded winners off the stage.
Even the most serious touch to the early proceedings, a tribute to Bob Hope, who hosted the Oscars 17 times, was filled with the late comedian's one-liners about never winning an Oscar for his acting. More somber tributes to Katharine Hepburn and Gregory Peck featured highlights from their long careers, and were followed by the usual recognition of Hollywood figures who died in the past year.
Sunday's program was the third at the academy's Kodak Theatre, opened in 2002. Television ratings for Oscar broadcasts have been dropping during recent years, from a record 55-million viewers in 1998 when best picture winner Titanic was a phenomenon, to last year's 33-million viewers, the lowest since Nielsen Media Research started keeping records in 1974. Overnight ratings for this year's 3 hour, 45 minute telecast will be announced today.
[Last modified March 1, 2004, 01:31:03]
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Picture perfect: 'King' goes 11 for 11
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