Iconic American filmmaker Martin Scorsese finally scrapped his way from a birthplace in Queens to the top of Hollywood on Sunday night, taking home the best director and best picture Oscars for “The Departed” after five previous nominations and decades of frustration.
Scorsese, 64, had long ago joined the pantheon of great American directors judged by artistic merit. Now he can match the hardware collections of Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola, winning top honors at the 79th Academy Awards to visible relief.
“Could you double-check the envelope?” Scorsese jokingly asked presenters Spielberg, Coppola and George Lucas.
The late big wins for “The Departed” finally gave emotional heft and a rich story line to a TV broadcast that had seemed as directionless as the awards themselves. With no dominant favorite, Oscars earlier in the evening were distributed among “The Queen,” “Dreamgirls,” “Little Miss Sunshine” and others.
Jennifer Hudson, 25, completed her own crazy version of the American dream by winning best supporting actress for her powerful turn in “Dreamgirls.” Hudson was a popular finalist on “American Idol” in 2004 but was booted as a sixth runner-up, during a hotly disputed contest charged with questions of race and rigid beauty standards.
Hudson then auditioned alongside more than 750 others for a “Dreamgirls” role she’d already lived – the girl with the best voice in the house who is jilted and fired for breaking the mold.
Helen Mirren, 61, surprised no one by taking the stage for the best actress award. She praised Britain’s Elizabeth II, whom Mirren re-created for “The Queen,” for maintaining “her dignity, her sense of duty and her hairstyle” in the face of relentless media scrutiny.
The award for best actor was no shocker either, with Forest Whitaker, 45, winning for his dynamic, haunting representation of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in “The Last King of Scotland.”
In the first upset of the evening, Alan Arkin won the supporting actor award for his role in the populist favorite “Little Miss Sunshine.” That quirky, light family movie was building momentum throughout the winter awards season, but Eddie Murphy had long been expected to win for portraying a James Brown-style pop singer in “Dreamgirls.”
Arkin, 72, previously nominated for best actor in 1966 and 1968, put his finger on why Americans seem to love “Little Miss Sunshine.” He praised the movie’s sense of “innocence, growth and connection.”
The yellow Volkswagen bus that could also drove away with best original screenplay, for writer Michael Arndt.
William Monahan won best adapted screenplay in an early sign of support for “The Departed.” Monahan penned Scor sese’s remake of a Hong Kong crime thriller from 2002, “Infernal Affairs.”
The telecast, usually the second-biggest TV program of the year (after the Super Bowl), largely steered away from politics or controversy. Al Gore took the stage twice, the second time to accept the best documentary award with director Davis Guggenheim for his filmed global-warming lecture, “An Inconvenient Truth.”
The former vice president used banter with Leonardo DiCaprio to tease the audience about another presidential run. Gore also has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to educate the world on global warming, and some political observers think he might respond to a draft movement for another Democratic run at the White House.
“I’m just here for the movies,” Gore finally said. While holding his Oscar, he exhorted the massive global audience to see that warming “is not a political issue; it’s a moral issue.”
“An Inconvenient Truth” rewarded stars from all walks of public life, handing the Oscar for best song to rocker Melissa Etheridge.
“The Lives of Others” won the Oscar for best foreign language film. The German entry put a spotlight on the hundreds of thousands of East Germans recruited to spy on their friends and neighbors before the fall of the Iron Curtain. “Pan’s Labyrinth,” another foreign film nominee, landed three awards from six nominations, in art direction, cinematography and makeup.
Crammed in at the end of the long night, best director and best picture nevertheless carved out their own drama. Handicappers leaned toward “The Departed” as a slight favorite in the most wide-open race in years. Others felt momentum building for the crowd-pleasing “Little Miss Sunshine.”
Scorsese had been nominated as best director six times, losing his five previous times, for movies such as “Raging Bull,” “The Last Temptation of Christ” and “The Aviator,” all considered a cut above “The Departed.”
Scorsese’s greatest films have never before taken home a best picture statue either, a tough streak of circumstance and surprises that began with nominee “Taxi Driver” in 1976.
Staff writer Michael Booth can be reached at 303-954-1686 or mbooth@denverpost.com.
