Veteran director Martin
Scorsese and his crime tale The Departed were big winners at the 79th
annual Academy Awards ceremony in Hollywood, California. The drama won
four of the movie industry honors. Mike O'Sullivan reports, Helen Mirren
and Forest Whitaker earned key acting awards.
Martin
Scorsese was named best director for The Departed, a crime thriller set in
Boston. The Departed also earned the key Oscar for best picture, and
awards for its adapted screenplay and film editing.
Scorsese was a six-time directing nominee, but this was his first
Oscar. He was favored to win this year, but seemed surprised.
"Thank you. Please, please. Thank you, thank you. Could you double
check the envelope?" Scorsese said.
Helen Mirren was named best actress for her role as Britain's Queen
Elizabeth in The Queen. The film looks at the royal family after the death
of Princess Diana.
Accepting the award, Mirren paid tribute to the
woman she emulated.
"And I salute her courage and her consistency, and I thank her because
if it wasn't for her, I most certainly would not be here. Ladies and
gentlemen, I give you the Queen!" she said.
Forest Whitaker was named best actor for his role as Idi Amin, the
former Ugandan dictator, in The Last King of Scotland.
The actor said he has come a long way since his youth in rural Texas
and inner-city Los Angeles.
"It is possible for a kid from East
Texas raised in South-Central L.A. and Carson who believes in his dreams,
commits himself to them with his heart, to touch them and have them
happen," Whitaker said.
Jennifer Hudson was named best supporting actress for her role as a
rhythm and blues singer in the musical Dreamgirls. The Chicago native
found fame on the talent show
American Idol. Like Whitaker, Hudson is African American, and said she had
opportunities denied to her grandmother, who was her inspiration.
"She was a singer and she had the passion for it, but she never had the
chance," she said. "And that was the thing that pushed me forward to
continue."
Alan Arkin received the Oscar for best supporting actor for the comedy
Little Miss Sunshine. The film also won an award for its original
screenplay.
The documentary An Inconvenient Truth earned an Oscar for its
producers. The film features former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and
focuses on his crusade against global warming. Gore said the issue of
climate warming is a moral, not a political, issue.
"People all over the world, we need to solve the climate crisis. It is
not a political issue, it is a moral issue," Gore said. "We have
everything we need to get started, with the possible exception of the will
to act. That is a renewable resource. Let us renew it."
Pan's Labyrinth, a fantasy from Mexico won three Oscars, for its art
direction, makeup and cinematography. But the Oscar for best
foreign-language picture went to a German film called The Lives of
Others. |