HOLLYWOOD -- Shock and awe: The Oscars today belong to Canadian-born filmmaker Paul Haggis for Crash, his smarty, gritty and explosive race drama.
In the end, Crash only took three Academy Awards last night but it scored when it counted the most, as best picture for 2005. By beating out the favourite in that category -- nominations leader Brokeback Mountain -- Crash scored the biggest upset since Shakespeare In Love knocked off Saving Private Ryan for top spot seven years ago.
"What an amazing night!" Crash co-producer Cathy Schulman gushed as she stood with Haggis, a native of London, Ont., on the Oscar stage. "Thank you to all of the members of the Academy for embracing (the film)," she said.
"Can you mention them by name?" Haggis quipped. "Every single one?"
It was the only comment that the giddy Haggis, who admitted later his mind was "mush" at the time, could get in edgewise at the end of the show. Schulman had taken up all the allowed time for the acceptance speech so the microphone went dead and the stage lights dimmed.
But, backstage, Haggis had plenty to say, including a shout out to his Canadian homeland -- he is proud of being "an outsider" in the Hollywood film business -- and an emotional tribute to his late mother. But more on that in a moment. First some hard facts about Haggis' film.
Crash also took the prize for best original screenplay, an Oscar that Haggis shares with longtime collaborator and friend Bobby Moresco. And it won for best film editing, reflecting the complex way editor Hughes Winborne interconnected a series of separate but overlapping stories on the mean streets of Los Angeles.
The total of three for a best picture winner is the lowest in 29 years. There have been a lot of winners with four overall Oscars, including Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby last year, but the last to do it with three was John Avildsen's Rocky (1976), starring Sylvester Stallone as the Philly boxer who wins by losing.
Rocky and Crash are in good company, however. Four years before Rocky, Francis Ford Coppola's classic Mafia film, The Godfather (1972), earned only three Oscars overall in triumphing as best picture. One of those winners was for Marlon Brando, who refused to accept his trophy and sent a dubious Indian activist in his place, stirring up controversy and making a bit of history as a maverick.
Further back in Oscar's 78-year history, in the Golden Era, three films won as best picture and got nothing else. They were Broadway Melody, Grand Hotel and the 1935 version of Mutiny On The Bounty. In the case of Grand Hotel, it had not even been nominated for anything else, the only best picture winner ever to have that weird distinction.
The only real sour note for the Crash clan was the ugly squabble that preceded the Oscars, as lawsuits were filed among some of the six credited producers over financial issues. And one of the litigious producers, Bob Yari, also sued the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences because his name, and three other producers including co-star Don Cheadle, were deemed unworthy to be included as the producers of record for the best picture Oscar (the Academy, working with the Producers Guild of America, have their own arcane rules and secret meetings to determine who gets official credit at the Oscars).
"Do we look muted?" producer-writer-director Haggis told The Sun backstage when we asked if the credits controversy had taken the edge off his celebration with Cathy Schulman (the other producer of record). "Do our reactions come off as muted? Because we're pretty f...ing happy!"
Haggis said it with a big grin and garnered huge applause in the media room. "None of us expected this -- but you hope. We had a tiny picture. We opened at the wrong time, you know (earlier in 2005 than any other best picture nominee). But thank God for Lionsgate (the Vancouver-based distributor for the U.S. and Canada) because, in doing everything wrong, they did everything right. And they were so smart the way they did this. They broke all the rules and I guess this is the year that Hollywood rewarded rule-breakers."
On a personal note, Haggis said he was thrown into an emotional state when, before he went on stage to accept the screenplay award, his sister gave him a precious ring that had belonged to their mother. "And I was going, Jesus, why did you do that to me? And it just threw off everything I was going to say. And, yeah, I miss my mom very, very much."
On the night, the riches were spread far and wide, demonstrating that the pool of films up for Oscars was rich but that no single film -- including Crash -- stood out as a clear-cut classic that deserved all the hardware.
Thanks to the upset in the best picture category, there were four films tied with the most Oscars. In addition to Crash, Brokeback Mountain also took three, including Ang Lee as best director. Two other films, Memoirs Of A Geisha and King Kong, took three each in artistic craft categories.
No other film won more than one trophy in the 20 feature film categories, with eight doing so. They were: Syriana, Walk The Line, The Constant Gardener, Capote, Hustle & Flow, The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, Tsotsi and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit.
Missing in action altogether were two of the best picture nominees, George Clooney's Good Night, And Good Luck and Steven Spielberg's Munich. They were skunked on the night, although Clooney emerged as the most charismatic star throughout Oscar night.
The Crash upset led to tremendous speculation in the press room backstage, where the announcement of the best picture winner by droll presenter Jack Nicholson had produced gasps and then applause.
Was this evidence of the "secret homophobia" among the 5,800 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that Oscar analyst Tom O'Neil had speculated about in The Envelope, the online service of The Los Angeles Times? Or is it just because Crash is a deftly made urban drama while Brokeback Mountain is a superb and laconic rural tale of two modern gay cowboys who spent a lifetime trying to resolve their closet romance?
Brokeback director Ang Lee was wary of speculating but, unlike Haggis, he was muted backstage in the media room. "It was a surprise to me, frankly," he said about losing the best picture Oscar. "But congratulations to the Crash filmmakers."
Co-writer Diana Ossana echoed the same sentiments backstage when talking about her win for best adapted screenplay. "It's bittersweet, certainly."
Lee said he would not have changed a frame of Brokeback, even if he had known what was going to happen at the Oscars. "I would do exactly the same. I'm so proud of the movie. They didn't vote for it. I don't know (why)."
Onstage, Lee had said his film is not just about a gay romance but about "the greatness of love itself."
Backstage, he said he was not sure if the loss meant the gay subject matter of his film was a problem for the Academy's 5,800 voters, especially because it is still the boxoffice leader among the five best picture nominees. This past week, Brokeback nudged over the $75 million figure in North America, making it a modest hit.
Meanwhile, there has also been tremendous support for Crash as a quality film, not just as a "straight" alternative to Brokeback. For Larry McMurtry, the Oscar-winning co-writer of Brokeback, the real issue is the rural setting for his film, in contrast to the urban setting of Crash.
Based on his past experience writing best picture nominees, urban films are more likely to win, he said. "It's not easy getting a rural story made." McMurtry's rural nominees, Hud, The Last Picture Show and now Brokeback Mountain lost as best picture. His urban story, Terms Of Endearment, won.
"Members of the Academy are mostly urban people," McMurtry said. "We are an urban nation. We're not a rural nation."
Crash, a brilliant film which rips into the racial divide in the heart of L.A., is not only urban but it is also "a hometown movie" for Hollywood, according to McMurtry. So it had a built-in advantage, he said, shuffling on the backstage podium in a black tie shirt and coat over a pair of blue jeans. "I always wear jeans," McMurtry said. "My native costume. Why should I change? I just put on a tuxedo top."
In the end, the Crash upset meant that Oscar's own version of a gay pride parade Sunday night was re-routed at the last moment. It had started so well with Philip Seymour Hoffman winning as best actor for playing the title character of real-life gay writer Truman Capote in Capote. Hoffman did, however, beat Heath Ledger in the category. Ledger played one of the two gay lovers in Brokeback. Jake Gyllenhaal played the other, losing to George Clooney for Syriana in the best supporting actor category.
Meanwhile, all four of the winners in the acting categories -- Hoffman as best actor for Capote, Reese Witherspoon as best actress for Walk The Line, Clooney as best supporting actor for Syriana and Rachel Weisz as best supporting actress for The Constant Gardener -- were first-time winners. In fact, they were first-time nominees. That established a new pecking order in Hollywood, at least for one night.
"Wow," Hoffman said onstage in accepting his Oscar. "I'm in a category with some great, great, great actors. Fantastic actors and I'm overwhelmed. I'm really overwhelmed."
Hoffman admitted later his brain was whirling and confused on stage but he had the moxy to thank his mother, Marilyn O'Connor, for her inspiration and support as a single mom who introduced him to theatre as a youngster. "Her passions became my passions," Hoffman said.
Backstage, Hoffman confessed he thought for a moment about barking part of his acceptance speech like a dog, in tribute to a college friend because they had discussed him doing that years ago. But he didn't get the bark out.
"You know, I literally lost all control of my bowels up there," Hoffman said to laughter. "I couldn't think. I was swimming in my head. So I was lucky to get out what I got out."
Also backstage, Hoffman managed to pay tribute to Canada. Capote was shot in Winnipeg and a Vancouver company, Infinity Pictures, invested in the indie film.
"It was a perfect place for the film," Hoffman said of Winnipeg, which stood in for Kansas, where the real murders that Truman Capote investigated for his legendary book, In Cold Blood, took place. "That's what I have to say. Actually, the town treated me very well. And I'm not just saying that. I actually have fond memories of being dealt with very well. But it was cold. Cold!"
As for Witherspoon, she played tribute to the late country singer June Carter when accepting the best actress trophy for playing her in Walk The Line. Carter had inspired her.
"People used to ask June how she was doing and she used to say: 'I'm just trying to matter.' And I know what she means. You know, I'm just trying to matter and live a good life and make work that means something to somebody. And you have all made me feel that I might have accomplished that tonight. So thank you so much for this honour."
Backstage, Witherspoon had wiped away the pool of tears that had gathered in her eyes during her acceptance speech. But she was also excited because she had just found out that Crash had won best picture. And her husband, Ryan Phillippe, is part of the ensemble cast for that film.
Witherspoon also had time to pay tribute to her family, particularly her mother and grandmother, both of whom had inspired her throughout her life.
"I came from a wonderful family," Witherspoon said. "Very intelligent people, very eccentric people, a wonderful southern family. I've been very lucky and blessed that there was a lot of love in my family, no matter what else was going on. We all love each other very much so it really is a gift and I think that's a huge part of how I was able to achieve what I did tonight."
Specifically with her mother and grandmother, Witherspoon said they showed the way for a strong woman. "I mean, really they taught me a lot, a lot of characteristics that a woman should have in life and how tough women are and how strong we are. And I feel like it really helped my performance with June, because I sort of came in with an innate knowledge of who she was as a woman."
As for Clooney, he won as best supporting actor for playing a rogue CIA agent in the thriller Syriana. "Wow! Wow!" he enthused onstage.
Then he launched into an impassioned and supportive speech about the liberal mindset of Hollywood. This despite accusations, and Oscar host Jon Stewart's jokes, that it means Hollywood is out of touch with George W. Bush's mainstream America. "I'm proud to be part of this Academy," Clooney said, "proud to be part of this community and proud to be out of touch."
Clooney cited the willingness of liberal activists in Hollywood to bring forward concerns such as the U.S. Civil Rights movement, and more recently, the fight against AIDS, before the general population caught on.
He cited the best supporting actress award that went to Hattie McDaniel for Gone With The Wind (1939) "when blacks were still sitting in the backs of theatres" as an example of Hollywood being in front of social change. She was the first black performer ever honoured with an Oscar, or even a nomination.
Clooney's win also set a precedent for the Oscars because he is the first winner in an acting category who was also nominated in another category for a different film. Clooney was up for best director and for co-writing the best original screenplay for the political drama Good Night, And Good Luck. But, because he won the support category off the top of the show, he deadpanned: "All right, so I'm not winning director ..." And he was right.
Backstage, Clooney joked about the extra 40 pounds he packed on to play the role in Syriana. He did so, Clooney said, to model himself after the real-life CIA agent Robert Baer, who inspired Syriana and Clooney's character. But, when Baer found out that "a Hollywood guy" was going to play him, he promptly lost weight.
"So it probably doesn't matter," Clooney said of his own transformation.
Rachel Weisz, who is seven months pregnant, won as best supporting actress for The Constant Gardener.
Thrilled, she said, "I share it with others." Specifically, she said, she meant her co-star Ralph Fiennes for his "luminous" acting, her director Fernando Meirelles for his support and author John le Carre for his "unflinching, angry story."
For her, it caps off an extraordinary year of awards, including the best supporting actress prize at the Screen Actors Guild.
Weisz said backstage that she was dumbstruck watching Meirelles' previous film, City Of God, when The Constant Gardener was being cast.
"I chased him down for this role. He is an incredible filmmaker. It is an honour to work with him."
Before she won last night, her baby starting kicking furiously. "The baby was going crazy," she revealed with a giggle. But, once she was onstage, things settled down in her tummy. "I didn't feel anything."
As yet, Weisz said she did not know if her baby is a boy or a girl. While names have been discussed for both genders, "Oscar isn't amongst them!" she said, grinning slyly.
Weisz also offered her take on a recent controversy in Britain, where she had lost to Witherspoon as best actress in the BAFTAs (the British film awards, which are open to films from around the world).
"The BAFTAs first of all decided to put me in the best actress category, against Miss Witherspoon," Weisz said. "I think she absolutely deserves the best actress prize."
So there is no controversy in her mind, she said. "Absolutely not. It's a democratic process. It's not luck. It's a group of people who voted and they vote for who they think is best." And she agreed with the final vote. Now she is happy with her own trophy in the correct category, as a support actress.
Few of the Oscars were better received than the British stop-action animated comedy Wallace And Gromit: Curse Of The Were-Rabbit winning best animated feature.
Backstage, co-directors Nick Park and Steve Box were incredulous. "We're really up with the giants tonight," Park said of winning over American genius Tim Burton and Japanese master Hideo Miyazaki.
Box said the best thing about Wallace & Gromit is that Gromit the dog is silent, which helps convey the humour to people in any country. "It just translates to any language."
Also popular was the French-made documentary March Of The Penguins, with two of the four-man filmmaking team carrying giant stuffed penguins that were made for them by their Japanese distributor.
Director Luc Jacquet whistled into the microphone as he arrived on stage. "That's thank you in penguin," he said. On a serious note, Jacquet said he hopes that the popularity of the film and its Oscar will focus attention on the expiring treaty governing protection of the Antarctic, where his film was shot next to a colony of Emperor penguins. That colony could be threatened if the rules change, he indicated.
"Maybe the March Of The Penguins will inspire them," he said of the politicians who will oversee the process.
For the first time in Hollywood history, the best foreign language film prize went to a South African film (which was a co-production with Britain). Backstage, Tsotsi director Gavin Hood said the occasion was momentous.
"I think it's going to change the way South Africans view their moviemaking. Last year, Yesterday was nominated but we're the first film to win. We grew up watching American films and I hope that Americans will watch our stories and, just as we've learned about Americans and the rest of the world, people will now more about us from our stories and find that we're actually so similar as human beings inside. So, thanks South Africa."
