‘The Artist’ earns top three Oscars, Streep takes best actress honour

Los Angeles: The Artist won five Academy Awards on Sunday including best picture, becoming the first silent film to triumph at Hollywood’s highest honors since the original Oscar ceremony 83 years ago.

Among other prizes for the black-and-white comic melodrama were best actor for Jean Dujardin and director for Michel Hazanavicius.

The other top Oscars went to Meryl Streep as best actress for The Iron Lady, Octavia Spencer as supporting actress for The Help and Christopher Plummer as supporting actor for Beginners.

The Artist is the first silent winner since the World War I saga Wings was named outstanding picture at the first Oscars in 1929 had a silent film earned the top prize.

“I am the happiest director in the world,” Havanavicius said, thanking the cast, crew and canine co-star Uggie. “I also want to thank the financier, the crazy person who put money in the movie.”

The win was Streep’s first Oscar in 29 years, since she won best actress for Sophie’s Choice. She had lost 13 times in a row since then. Streep also has a supporting-actress Oscar for 1979’s Kramer vs. Kramer.

“When they called my name, I had this feeling I could hear half of America go, ‘Oh, no, why her again?’ But whatever,” Streep said, laughing.

“I really understand I’ll never be up here again. I really want to think all my colleagues, my friends. I look out here and I see my life before my eyes, my old friends, my new friends. Really, this is such a great honor but the think that counts the most with me is the friendship and the love and the sheer job we’ve shared making moves together.”

Streep is only the fifth performer to receive three Oscars. Jack Nicholson, Ingrid Bergman and Walter Brennan all earned three, while Katharine Hepburn won four.

The 82-year-old Plummer became the oldest acting winner ever for his role as an elderly widower who comes out as gay in Beginners.

“You’re only two years older than me, darling,” Plummer said, addressing his Oscar statue in this 84th year of the awards. “Where have you been all my life? I have a confession to make. When I first emerged from my mother’s womb, I was already rehearsing my Oscar speech.”

The previous oldest winner was best-actress recipient Jessica Tandy for Driving Miss Daisy, at age 80.

Completing an awards-season blitz that took her from Hollywood bit player to star, Spencer won for her role in The Help as a headstrong black maid whose willful ways continually land her in trouble with white employers in 1960s Mississippi.

Spencer wept throughout her breathless speech, in which she apologised between laughing and crying for running a bit long on her time limit.

“Thank you, academy, for putting me with the hottest guy in the room,” Spencer said, referring to last year’s supporting-actor winner Christian Bale, who presented her Oscar.

Dujardin became the first Frenchman to win an acting Oscar. French actresses have won before, including Marion Cotillard and Juliette Binoche.

“Oh, thank you. Oui. I love your country!” said Dujardin, who plays George Valentin, a silent-film superstar fallen on hard times as the sound era takes over. If George Valentin could speak, Dujardin said, “he’d say … ‘Merci beaucoup, formidable!’”

Claiming Hollywood’s top-filmmaking honour completes Hazanavicius’ sudden rise from popular movie-maker back home in France to internationally celebrated director.

The win is even more impressive given the type of film Hazanavicius made, a black-and-white silent movie that was a throwback to the early decades of cinema. Other than Charles Chaplin, who continued to make silent films into the 1930s, and Mel Brooks, who scored a hit with the 1976 comedy Silent Movie, few people have tried it since talking pictures took over in the late 1920s.

The only other filmmaker from France to win the directing Oscar is The Pianist creator Roman Polanski, who was born in France, moved to Poland as a child and has lived in France since fleeing Hollywood in the 1970s on charges he had sex with a 13-year-old girl.

Martin Scorsese’s Paris adventure Hugo won five Oscars, including the first two prizes of the night, for cinematography and art direction. It also won for visual effects, sound mixing and sound editing.

The visual-effects prize had been the last chance for the Harry Potter franchise to win an Oscar. The finale, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, had been nominated for visual effects and two other Oscars but lost all three. Previous Harry Potter installments had lost on all nine of their nominations.

The teen wizard may never have struck Oscar gold, but he has a consolation prize — $7.7 billion at the box office worldwide, including $1.3 billion from Deathly Hallows: Part 2,” last year’s top-grossing movie.

“And yet they only paid 14 per cent income tax,” Oscar host Billy Crystal joked about the Potter franchise.

Another beloved big-screen bunch, the Muppets, finally got their due at the Oscars. The Muppets earned the best-song award for Man or Muppet,” the sweet comic duet sung by Jason Segel and his Muppet brother in the film, the first big—screen adventure in 12 years for Kermit the frog and company.

Earlier Muppet flicks had been nominated for four music Oscars but lost each time, including the song prize for The Rainbow Connection,” Kermit’s signature tune from 1979’s The Muppet Movie.

“I grew up in New Zealand watching the Muppets on TV. I never dreamed I’d get to work with them,” said Man or Muppet writer Bret McKenzie of the musical comedy duo Flight of the Conchords,” who joked about meeting Kermit for the first time. “Like many stars here tonight, he’s a lot shorter in real life.”

Filmmaker Alexander Payne picked up his second writing Oscar, sharing the adapted-screenplay prize for the Hawaiian family drama The Descendants with co-writers Nat Faxon and Jim Rash. Payne, who also directed The Descendants, previously won the same award for Sideways.

Payne said he brought along his mother from Omaha to the Oscars, and that she had demanded a shout-out if he made it onstage.

“She made me promise that if I ever won another Oscar I had to dedicate it to her just like Javier Bardem did with his Oscar. So mom, this one’s for you. Thank you for letting me skip nursery school so we could go to the movies.”

Woody Allen earned his first Oscar in 25 years, winning for original screenplay for the romantic fantasy Midnight in Paris, his biggest hit in decades. It’s the fourth Oscar for Allen, who won for directing and screenplay on his 1977 best-picture winner Annie Hall and for screenplay on 1986’s Hannah and Her Sisters.

Allen also is the record-holder for writing nominations with 15, and his three writing Oscars ties the record shared by Charles Brackett, Paddy Chayefsky, Francis Ford Coppola and Billy Wilder.

No fan of awards shows, Allen predictably skipped Sunday’s ceremony, where he also was up for best director and Midnight in Paris was competing for best picture.

List of 84th Academy Award winners

1. Best Picture: The Artist

2. Actor: Jean Dujardin, The Artist

3. Actress: Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady

4. Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer, Beginners

5. Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer, The Help

6. Directing: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist

7. Foreign Language Film: A Separation, Iran

8. Adapted Screenplay: Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, The Descendants

9. Original Screenplay: Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris

10. Animated Feature Film: Rango

11. Art Direction: Hugo

12. Cinematography: Hugo

13. Sound Mixing: Hugo

14. Sound Editing: Hugo

15. Original Score: The Artist

16. Original Song: Man or Muppet from The Muppets

17. Costume Design: The Artist

18. Documentary Feature: Undefeated

19. Documentary Short: Saving Face

20. Film Editing: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

21. Makeup: The Iron Lady

22. Animated Short Film: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

23. Live Action Short Film: The Shore

24. Visual Effects: Hugo

Oscar winners previously presented this season:

Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award: Oprah Winfrey

Gordon E. Sawyer Award: Douglas Trumbull

Award of Merit: ARRI cameras