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They
also revived the career of a convicted sex-offender
'The Pianist' director, and made a star of an actor
whose previous best role was left on the cutting room
floor and finally giving full recognition to one of
the world's premier actresses.
The Oscars had something for everyone -- the expected and the unexpected -- and it provided a forum for boos and cheers on America's role in the Iraq war.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences celebrated the razzle-dazzle of the hit musical 'Chicago' by naming it best picture and it gave its best director award to a towering figure it had previously overlooked.
But that winner wasn't filmmaker Martin Scorsese as Miramax studio boss Harvey Weinstein had lobbied for in an embarrassing campaign that appears to have backfired.
Instead, it was Roman Polanski , a man who can't set foot in the United States without going to jail because of a 1978 conviction for having sex with a 13-year-old girl.
Since fleeing the United States, Polanski had a mixed career with few of his films until 'The Pianist' reached the levels of critical acclaim of 'Chinatown' and 'Rosemary's Baby'.
And it was not just Polanski who was honoured for 'The Pianist'. Its star, Adrien Brody , was named best actor and he gave the award acceptance performance of a lifetime.
Dazed when his name was announced, Brody raced to the stage grabbed presenter Halle Berry , took her in both of his arms and gave her a long, deep kiss watched by hundreds of millions of people around the world.
'That was better than the gift bag', he said, referring to the bags that that are full of expensive products for the winners. Backstage, he was asked if Berry kissed back, and he replied, 'oh yeah'.
But accepting his award, his joy turned tearful as he remembered making the film and thought about the war in Iraq. He said his experiences playing Jewish pianist Waldyslaw Szpilman trying to survive the Warsaw ghetto had made him 'very aware of the sadness' war causes.
'Let's pray for a peaceful and swift resolution', he said, which brought the audience to its feet.
Brody spent a year working as the lead in Terrence Malick 's 1998 film 'The Thin Red Line' only to see his role left on the cutting room floor. A casting director saw the outtakes and suggested that Polanski hire him.
At 29, Brody becomes the youngest best actor winner, beating the previous record set by a then 30-year-old Richard Dreyfuss.
Nicole Kidman , who was nominated last year for best actress playing a comely courtesan in 'Moulin Rouge', won this year for playing suicidal writer Virginia Woolf in 'The Hours', a role for which she is on screen for just 30 extraordinary minutes and wearing a prosthetic nose that made her unrecognizable.
For much of this year's awards season in Hollywood, 'Chicago' had been a front-runner, and coming into the Oscars it was an odds-on favourite in many top categories with 13 nominations, more than any other film.
It won six Oscars, the most of any film, but many of those were minor awards. When 'Chicago' star Renee Zellweger lost best actress to a tearful Kidman, the curtain finally came down on the musical about a pair of homicidal hoofers and the media which made them stars.
Producer Martin Richards, 71, was ecstatic with his victory after shepherding the movie through dozens of writers, directors, actors, and actresses ever since 1975.
Catherine Zeta Jones , who attended and performed
at the Oscars even though she is nine months pregnant,
won for best supporting actress for 'Chicago' and
the film also picked up Oscars in art direction, sound,
costume design and editing.
For about the first two hours of the show, the Iraq war was hardly mentioned but then burly Michael Moore took to the podium as the winner for a best documentary feature, his anti-gun movie 'Bowling for Columbine'.
His statements set off a round of boos in the audience, which was met with some cheering, then more boos. The noise became so loud, Moore could not be heard finishing his speech.
FULL LIST OF ACADEMY AWARD WINNERS 2002
Best picture Chicago (Miramax Films) Martin Richards, producer
Best director Roman Polanski The Pianist
Best actor Adrien Brody The Pianist
Best actress Nicole Kidman The Hours
Best supporting actor Chris Cooper Adaptation
Best supporting actress Catherine Zeta-Jones Chicago
Best original screenplay Pedro Almodovar Talk To Her
Best adapted screenplay Ronald Harwood The Pianist
Best foreign language film Nowhere In Africa Caroline Link, director
Best animated feature film Spirited Away Hayao Miyazaki, director
Best documentary feature Bowling For Columbine Michael Moore, director & Michael Donovan, producer
Achievement in cinematography Conrad L Hall Road To Perdition
Best original score Elliot Goldenthal, Frida
Best original song 'Lose Yourself' from 8 Mile. Music by Eminem, Jeff Bass & Luis Resto. Lyric by Eminem.
Achievement in film editing Martin Walsh Chicago
Achievement in art direction John Myrhe (art direction) & Gordon Sim (set decoration), Chicago
Achievement in costume design Colleen Atwood Chicago
Achievement in sound Michael Minkler, Dominick Tavella & David Lee Chicago
Achievement in sound editing Ethan Van Der Ryn & Michael Hopkins The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers
Achievement in visual effects Jim Rygiel, Joe Letteri, Randall William Cook & Alex Funke, The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers
Achievement in makeup John Jackson & Beatrice De Alba Frida
Best animated short film Eric Armstrong The ChubbChubbs! (Sony Pictures Imageworks)
Best live action short film This Charming Man Martin Strange-Hansen & Mie Andreasen (M&M Productions, Novellefilm Productions)
Best documentary short subject Twin Towers (Wolf Films/Shape Pictures/Universal/Mopo Enterprises) Bill Guttentag & Robert David Port.
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