The Oscars 2007: Dearly Departed

At last Marty has his Oscar! The relief in the auditorium was palpable, and as one the audience rose to salute the American filmmaker who has been at the forefront of his craft for more than 30 years. It must have been a relief for Messrs Spielberg, Coppola and Lucas, too, who presented the award for Best Picture - it would have been a terrible embarrassment if their old friend had been overlooked yet again, at the seventh attempt.

So Marty won Best Director, and then watched from the wings as Best Picture also came his way. (Who knew an Englishman, Graham King, would brandish the final prize, as sole producer of The Departed?) The Academy never discloses the actual tally of votes, so the media's contention that this year was too close to predict cannot be verified, but certainly there are plenty of professional prognosticators who thought Babel, Little Miss Sunshine or Letters from Iwo Jima might just carry the day… and it's precisely this uncertainty that makes Oscar night worth watching.

Unlike so many award shows (especially in the music industry) the Academy doesn't just reward the biggest players year after year. I was glad that last year's biggest moneymaker, Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest won the Oscar for visual effects - deservedly so - but happier still that Ryan Gosling was nominated for Best Actor for Half Nelson, a film that has grossed less than $3 million in the US.

That said, red hot favourites Helen Mirren (The Queen) and Forest Whitaker (The Last King Of Scotland) were duly crowned, and both showed the benefit by delivering well prepared speeches - a study in contrasts between cool British wit (Mirren had a lovely line about how Her Majesty has maintained her dignity, and her hairstyle, for 50 years) and American soul and passion (Whitaker apparently plans to take his Oscar up to the Pearly Gates with him).

Losers? Well, Dreamgirls underperformed again: while Jennifer Hudson was named Best Supporting Actress, Eddie Murphy lost out Best Supporting Actor to Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine, and despite having three of the five nominees, Melissa Etheridge won Best Song for the documentary An Inconvenient Truth (after Scorsese, Al Gore was Oscar's favourite son last night). Peter O'Toole lost again, but he must be used to that (8 times now, and counting). And Babel had to make do with Best Score, though the hispanic contingent had plenty to cheer as Pan's Labyrinth won Oscars for make up, art direction, and cinematography.

I'm tempted to add host Ellen DeGeneris to that list of losers. She made a nervous start - implying that Penelope Cruz hails from Mexico was a major faux pas - and never really hit her stride. Her material was pretty flimsy (recycling Gilligan's Island jokes?) and several times her delivery lacked conviction (she muffed a joke about Judi Dench getting surgery for instance… by the way, I wonder when was the last time a nominated actor stood up the Academy Awards?). Still, she does have a photo of her and Clint Eastwood taken by Steven Spielberg no less, which will doubtless look nice on her mantelpiece.

The show itself was polished but defiantly old school, even to the point of having a dance troupe rendering silhouettes inspired by the nominated films. A backstage camera was a novel idea, but never showed us anything interesting or unexpected. Even the fashion parade was conservative and boringly tasteful, with no glaring embarrassments to liven things up.

The highlights for this viewer anyway were Jack Nicholson showing off his new Britney cut, and Clint Eastwood manfully translating Ennio Morricone's very long, very Italian acceptance speech for his lifetime achievement award. That and Scorsese finally getting his due. The Departed may not be the best film of the year, but who can resist a happy ending?

Tom Charity
Tom.charity@lovefilm.com