Los Angeles: The boxing saga Million Dollar Baby was the Academy Awards heavyweight, claiming best picture and other trophies, including honours for director Clint Eastwood, lead actress Hilary Swank and supporting actor Morgan Freeman.
The awards ceremony on Sunday night meant more heartbreak for Martin Scorsese. The Aviator, the epic about eccentric tycoon Howard Hughes, came away with the most Oscars – five, including the supporting-actress prize for Cate Blanchett – but Scorsese lost the directing race for the fifth time.
Eastwood, who at 74 became the oldest directing winner ever, noted his mother was with him when his Western Unforgiven won the 1992 best-picture and directing Oscar.
“She’s here with me again tonight, so at 96, I’m thanking her for her genes,” Eastwood said. “I figure I’m just a kid. I’ve got a lot of stuff to do yet.”
Scorsese matched the record of Oscar futility held by a handful of legendary filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock and Robert Altman, who also went 0-for-5 in the directing category.
Swank became a double Academy Award winner on Sunday for Million Dollar Baby while Jamie Foxx took lead actor for Ray.
The wins for Freeman and Foxx made it only the second time an afro-american won two of the four acting prizes.
Swank, who previously won the best-actress Oscar for Boys Don’t Cry, once again beat out main rival Annette Bening, nominated for the theatre farce Being Julia.
Bening had been the front-runner for American Beauty five years ago but lost to underdog Swank.
“I don’t know what I did in this life to deserve all this. I’m just a girl from a trailer park who had a dream,” said Swank, who played an indomitable boxer.
Swank joined Vivien Leigh, Helen Hayes, Sally Field and Luise Rainer as the only actresses with a perfect track record at the Oscars – two nominations and two wins.
Foxx won for his uncanny emulation of Ray Charles in Ray, which also received a second Oscar for sound mixing.
As he had at earlier awards triumphs, Foxx led the Oscar audience in a rendition of the call-and-response chant from Charles’ 1959 hit What’d I Say, whose funky electric-piano grooves play over the opening credits of Ray.
“Give it up for Ray Charles and his beautiful legacy. And thank you Ray Charles for living,” said Foxx, who climbed to Oscar glory after an early career built mainly on comedy, including his TV series The Jamie Foxx Show and the raunchy flick Booty Call.
Foxx had been a double Oscar nominee, also picked in the supporting category for the hit man thriller Collateral.
Playing Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator, Blanchett had the spirit of the Oscars’ most-honoured actress on her side. Hepburn, the love of Hughes’ life in the 1930s before she began her long romance with Spencer Tracy, earned 12 nominations and won a record four Oscars.
“Thank you, of course, to Miss Hepburn. The longevity of her career I think is inspiring to everyone,” said Blanchett. She added thanks to The Aviator director Scorsese, saying, “I hope my son will marry your daughter”.
Oscar host Chris Rock said Blanchett was so convincing that Sidney Poitier, Hepburn’s co-star in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, showed up at Blanchett’s house for supper.
The wins by Freeman and Foxx followed Denzel Washington and Halle Berry’s triumph three years ago for Training Day and Monster’s Ball, the only other time afro-americans claimed two acting Oscars.
“It means that Hollywood is continuing to make history,” Freeman said backstage. “We’re evolving with the rest of the world.”
The Sea Inside (Spain), directed by Alejandro Amenabar, won as best foreign-language film. It told the real-life story of a paralysed Spaniard Ruben Sampedro, played by Javier Bardem, who fought a legal battle for his right to die.
“This film is based on a man who despite his desire for death spread so much life around him,” Amenabar said in accepting the Oscar. “So the first third part of this award goes to him, belongs to him, wherever he is.”
The Oscar for best original song went to Al Otro Lado Del Rio from The Motorcycle Diaries, which was the first Spanish-language song ever to be nominated. Polish composer Jan A.P. Kaczmarek won the Oscar for original score for Finding Neverland.
Born Into Brothels, which examines the lives of children of prostitutes in Calcutta, India, received the Oscar for feature-length documentary.
The superhero action comedy The Incredibles won the animated-feature prize, beating 2004’s biggest box-office hit, the fairy-tale sequel Shrek 2. It was the second-straight animated Oscar for Pixar Animation, which won a year ago for Finding Nemo. The Incredibles also took a second Oscar for sound editing.
“I don’t know what’s more frightening, being watched by millions of people, or the hundreds of people that are going to be annoyed with me tomorrow for not mentioning them,” said Brad Bird, writer-director of the The Incredibles.
The latest win dabs salt on the Walt Disney Co.’s wounds over the looming expiration of its distribution deal for Pixar films, which ends after next year’s Cars. The back-to-back Oscars underscore Pixar’s growing ascendance and the weakening position of animation pioneer Disney, which has yet to win the animated-feature Oscar with any of its homegrown films and whose biggest recent cartoon hits have all been made by Pixar.
Unlike last year, when The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King dominated the awards as expected and flat-out front-runners took all four acting prizes, the 77th Oscars shaped up as a mixed bag, with only Foxx a virtual lock to win.
“Boy, am I glad there wasn’t a fourth episode of Lord of the Rings,” said John Dykstra, who shared the visual-effects Oscar for Spider-Man 2.
With no huge hits among top nominees, Oscar organisers worried that TV ratings could dwindle for the live ABC broadcast. The Oscars tend to draw their biggest audiences when blockbusters such as Titanic or Return of the King are in the mix, stoking viewer interest.
Producers of the show hoped the presence of first-time host Rock might boost ratings, particularly among younger viewers who may view the Oscars as too staid an affair. Rock had mocked the Oscars a bit beforehand, calling awards shows “idiotic” but he was on his best behaviour in his opening monologue.
Rock chided some celebrities by name and included one mild three-letter word but his routine was fairly clean for the comedian known for a foul mouth in his standup act.
“The only acting you ever see at the Oscars is when people act like they’re not mad they lost,” Rock said.
He recalled the year when Halle Berry won and fellow nominee “Nicole Kidman was smiling so wide, she should have won an Emmy at the Oscars for her great performance. I was like, ‘If you’d done that in the movie, you’d have won an Oscar, girl.’ ”
Organisers also tried to spice up the show with new presentation tactics, including herding all nominees on stage at the same time, beauty-pageant style, for some awards.
The first prize of the night, for art direction, was awarded that way, with a total of nine nominees from five films spread across stage behind presenter Berry.
The Oscar went to The Aviator, whose awards also included cinematography, film editing and costume design.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind took the original-screenplay award for Charlie Kaufman.
Sideways won the adapted-screenplay prize for director Alexander Payne and his writing partner, Jim Taylor.
“My mother taught me to write, and she died before she could see any of this, so this is for you, mom,” Taylor said.
Complete list of 77th annual Academy Award winners
Complete list of winners at the 77th annual Academy Awards, presented on Sunday night at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles:
Picture: Million Dollar Baby
Actor: Jamie Foxx, Ray
Actress: Hilary Swank, Million Dollar Baby
Supporting Actor: Morgan Freeman, Million Dollar Baby
Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett, The Aviator
Director: Clint Eastwood, Million Dollar Baby
Adapted Screenplay: Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, Sideways
Original Screenplay: Charlie Kaufman, Michel Gondry and Pierre Bismuth, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Art Direction: The Aviator
Cinematography: The Aviator
Film Editing: The Aviator
Visual Effects: Spider-Man 2
Sound Mixing: Ray
Sound Editing: The Incredibles
Original Score: Finding Neverland
Original Song: Al Otro Lado Del Rio from The Motorcycle Diaries
Costume: The Aviator
Makeup: Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
Foreign Film: The Sea Inside (Spain)
Animated Feature: The Incredibles
Animated Short: Ryan
Documentary Feature: Born Into Brothels
Documentary Short: Mighty Times: The Children’s March
Live Action Short: Wasp
Oscar winners previously announced this year:
Honorary Academy Award: Sidney Lumet
Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award: Roger Mayer
Gordon E. Sawyer Award (technical achievement): Takuo Miyagishima
Scientific and Technical Oscars: Horst Burbulla, Jean-Marie Lavalou, Alain Masseron and David Samuelson