http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/23/movies/awardsseason/23oscar.html?hpA ‘Slumdog’ Kind of Night at the Oscar Ceremony By MICHAEL CIEPLY and DAVID CARR
Published: February 23, 2009
LOS ANGELES —
“Slumdog Millionaire” and its director,
Danny Boyle, with their modern-day fairy tale about hope and hard times in the slums of Mumbai, pushed aside big-studio contenders to sweep top honors at the 81st annual Academy Awards on Sunday.
"You dwarf even the sky,” Mr. Boyle said in a tribute to the people of Mumbai, who figured by the thousands in his film. He spoke while accepting the best director award, only minutes before
“Slumdog Millionaire” was named best picture, helping give the evening a distinctly international tilt.
Mr. Boyle, 52, has been known for putting an inspirational twist on often dark and sophisticated movies that have included
“Trainspotting,” about heroin addiction, and
“Sunshine,” about sacrifice on a mission to reignite the sun.
The many prizes for
“Slumdog Millionaire” — whose writer,
Simon Beaufoy, was honored for best adapted screenplay, among others prizes for the film — completed the film’s steady march past competitors like
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” from Paramount Pictures and
“Frost/Nixon” from Universal Pictures.
The best picture award was a first for Fox Searchlight, which distributed
“Slumdog Millionaire” in the United States. In the past, the studio appeared to narrowly miss the big prize with a series of comic best picture nominees that included
“Little Miss Sunshine,” “Sideways” and
“The Full Monty.”(....)
Hollywood has been taking on more and more of a global tilt with each passing year, but on this evening it was especially evident in the show and in the awards themselves.
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Mr. Beaufoy, whose “Slumdog” screenplay was based on a novel by
Vikas Swarup, rattled off a list of places he never expected to be — “the moon, the South Pole, the Miss World podium and here” — as he accepted that award for his work on a film that captured many of the movie industry’s pre-Oscar honors and was widely viewed as a preordained winner of the evening’s final award, for best picture.
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“Slumdog Millionaire,” though it had no actors nominated for prizes, swept many awards other than those on the top line, including prizes for cinematography, sound mixing, score and film editing. “Slumdog’s” eight Oscars was the largest total won by a single film since “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” won 11 in 2004.
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The glittering event at the Kodak is generally a pretty grown-up affair, but this year children from halfway around the world made a splashy appearance. The kids from “Slumdog Millionaire” had no trouble adjusting to the head-snapping cultural shift from India to the red carpet.
“I want to see
Johnny Depp, Robert De Niro, and
Jack Nicholson, Robert Downey,” said
Ashutosh Lobo Gajiwala, who played the young Salim in the film. “Seeing any of them would be cool.”
He was surrounded by seven co-stars who played the main characters at various ages. When asked how they felt about their film being among the nominated, they all backed up as if on cue and shouted,
“Jai ho,” which translates roughly as “Victory.”
Another child from India was
Pinki Sonkar, whose cleft palate repair was the story behind
“Smile Pinki,” which won the documentary short film category.
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