Once an evening of backslapping and merrymaking within the
narrow confines of Hollywood, the Academy Awards this time look
like a UN exercise in diversity.
The 79th annual Oscars yesterday feature their most ethnically
varied line-up ever, with stars and stories that reflect the
growing multiculturalism taking root around the globe.
Competing for best picture was Mexican director Alejandro
Gonzalez Inarritu's Babel, a sweeping ensemble drama. The
film's cast ranges from A-listers such as Brad Pitt and Cate
Blanchett to comparative unknowns Adriana Barraza from Mexico and
Rinko Kikuchi from Japan, who both earned supporting-actress
nominations for Babel.
Also in the running were Stephen Frears' classy British saga
The Queen, a portrait of the royal family in crisis, and
Clint Eastwood's Japanese-language war tale Letters From Iwo
Jima.
Those films joined two idiosyncratic American stories nominated
for best picture, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris' road comedy
Little Miss Sunshine and Martin Scorsese's crime epic The
Departed.
Though set among the distinctive cops and mobsters of Boston,
The Departed had a global connection itself. The film was
based on the Hong Kong crime thriller Infernal Affairs.
Of the 20 acting nominees, five were black, two were Hispanic
and one was Asian, while only two Americans Eastwood and Scorsese
were among the five best-director contenders.
With a Directors Guild of America award and other top film
honors behind him, Scorsese was considered a shoo-in to earn the
directing Oscar, a prize that has eluded him throughout his
illustrious career.
There were clear front-runners in all four acting categories, as
well: Forest Whitaker as Ugandan leader Idi Amin in The Last
King of Scotland and Helen Mirren as Elizabeth II in The
Queen for the lead-acting trophies, Eddie Murphy and Jennifer
Hudson as soul singers in Dreamgirls for the supporting
honors.
The best-picture race was up for grabs, though, with all five
films in the running but many Oscar watchers generally figuring it
was a three-way race among Babel, The Departed and
Little Miss Sunshine.
Organizers at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
hope the suspense of the wide-open best-picture category will help
offset moviegoers' relative lack of interest in the competing
films.
TV ratings for the Oscars tend to be lower when fewer people
have seen the top nominees.
Collectively, the five best-picture nominees had drawn a total
domestic theatrical audience of about 38.5 million people, about a
third the number of fans who have gone to see the contenders in
recent peak years when such blockbusters as Gladiator or
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King have won.
(China Daily February 26, 2007)
