The Hindu : The Lords of the Oscars, at last

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 02, 2004

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The Lords of the Oscars, at last

Sean Penn and Charlize Theron holding the Oscars they won for best actor and actress for their work in Mystic River and Monster respectively, at the 76th Academy Awards in Los Angeles - AP

LOS ANGELES, MARCH 1. They slew beasts, toppled tyrants and destroyed a ring of ultimate evil, becoming lords of the Academy Awards for their troubles.

In an all-around predictable evening at the Oscars, the ragtag heroes of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King hoisted the fantasy genre to a new artistic high on Sunday, earning a record-tying 11 awards, taking best picture and sweeping each of its categories.

Peter Jackson, who shepherded J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth saga to the screen, won the best director Oscar and shared the adapted-screenplay award with his two co-writers.

``I think the fact that we had goblins and trolls and wizards and everything else made it hard for people to take it seriously,'' Jackson said backstage. ``I appreciate that the academy and voters tonight have seen through all that.'' Tolkien's themes — ``forgiveness, courage, faith, friendship'' — are ``themes that go straight to the heart,'' he said.

All four acting front-runners won, each claiming their first Oscar. Sean Penn took the best-actor prize as a vengeful father in Mystic River, and South Africa-born Charlize Theron won for best actress as serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster.

Supporting-performance Oscars went to Tim Robbins as a man emotionally hamstrung by childhood trauma in Mystic River and Renee Zellweger as a hardy Confederate survivor in Cold Mountain.

Theron joked that since everyone in New Zealand — where The Lord of the Rings was shot — had been thanked, she had to thank everyone in her home country, South Africa. "And my mom,'' said Theron, who gained 13.5 kg for Monster and was unrecognisable behind dark contact lenses and unflattering makeup. Penn — who has been dismissive of awards in the past but graciously accepted after skipping the Oscars the three previous times he was nominated — was taken by surprise when the audience gave him a standing ovation.

Sofia Coppola's Oscar victory for original screenplay for Lost in Translation made her family the second clan of three-generation Oscar winners, joining Walter, John and Anjelica Huston. Her father is five-time winner Francis Ford Coppola, who was an executive producer on Lost in Translation, and her grandfather, Carmine Coppola, won for musical score on The Godfather Part II. ``I never thought my dad would be watching me get one,'' Coppola said. ``So it's just a thrill.''

Oscar voters saved the best for last on The Lord of the Rings trilogy, showering the final instalment with prizes after parts 1 and 2 won only technical or music awards. The sense from the time The Fellowship of the Ring hit theatres in 2001, followed by The Two Towers a year later, was that Academy members would withhold their big accolades for the concluding chapter.

Return of the King also won for song, musical score, visual effects, editing, makeup, art direction, costume design and sound mixing.

Composer Howard Shore took his second Oscar for writing The Lord of the Rings music, having won two years ago on Fellowship of the Ring. "Into the West," the wistful tune of farewell from Return of the King, won the best-song Oscar. It was written by Fran Walsh, the film's co-screenwriter, Shore and Annie Lennox, who sings the tune.

Jackson laboured for seven years to adapt Tolkien's trilogy — first convincing Hollywood bankers to stake him to the tune of $300 million, then marshalling a cast and crew of 2,000 to shoot the three films and land them in theatres just a year apart. The result was a nine-and-a half-hour saga that seamlessly blended live action and computer animation. Real actors credibly shared the screen with flying beasts, hulking trolls, and walking, talking ``tree shepherds.''

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