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Oscar's 'List': Spielberg's Night

Steven Spielberg said he had never even held an Oscar in his hands before. But before the night was over, his powerful Holocaust drama "Schindler's List" had won seven and Spielberg himself finally won the Oscars long denied him, for Best Director and for Best Picture of the year.

"Oh, wow," Spielberg said, accepting the Best Picture Oscar at last night's 66th annual Academy Awards. "This is the best drink of water after the longest drought in my life." Spielberg, whose other films include "Jaws," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "E.T., The Extra-Terrestrial," is the most commercially successful filmmaker in history, but it was his difficult, disturbing, documentary-style black-and-white film that finally won him the movie industry's highest honor.

The suspense was palpable when the time came for the director's award, especially since presenter Clint Eastwood, on opening the envelope, said mischievously, "This is a big surprise." The big surprise would have been if Spielberg had been snubbed again.

As expected, Holly Hunter won the Best Actress Oscar for playing a mute mail-order bride who travels from Scotland to New Zealand in the perfervid erotic drama "The Piano," and Tom Hanks was named Best Actor for his role in "Philadelphia," portraying an AIDS victim who sues the law firm that fired him.

Hanks gave arguably the most moving, and rambling, acceptance speech of the night, recalling with tears in his eyes the influence of his high school drama teacher and a classmate, "two of the finest gay Americans, two wonderful men that I had the good fortune to be associated with."

Referring to the toll taken by the AIDS epidemic, Hanks told the audience that "the streets of Heaven are too crowded with angels. We know their names; they number a thousand for each of the red ribbons we wear here tonight." He concluded with an emotional, "God bless you all, God have mercy on us all, and God bless America."

Referring to her fellow nominees, Hunter said: "I am so overwhelmed. To be with that group of actresses just slays me." To the director and writer of "The Piano," seated in the audience, she gushed, "Jane Campion, I love you, I love you." She also praised Jan Chapman, the film's producer, for being so "luminous" throughout the making of the film.

The unusual dark solemnity of this year's nominated films -- especially "Schindler's List," which seemed to tower over all its competition in terms of stature and social importance -- imposed a rare austerity and decorum over the Oscar show. If the program, telecast live by ABC from Los Angeles, lacked flash and sizzle, it also regained some of the dignity it had lost in recent years.

Most of the participants appeared to be on their best behavior, and most dressed conservatively, as if for fear of appearing irreverently festive. Nobody made any off-the-wall political speeches, as at last year's ceremony, although emcee Whoopi Goldberg, the first woman to host the show solo, ticked off several facetious political remarks ("save the whales, save the spotted owl") in her opening monologue.

She concluded the list with: "Let Frank Sinatra finish" (a reference to Sinatra's speech being cut off at the recent Grammy Awards), "Lorena Bobbitt, please meet Bob Dole" (which drew more groans than laughs from the crowd), "and somebody stop these damn earthquakes."

Los Angeles was hit by a 5.3-magnitude aftershock on Sunday as participants rehearsed the big show.

In addition to the Best Picture and Best Director Oscars, "Schindler's List" won for its art direction, cinematography, editing, screenplay (by Steven Zaillian), and score (by John Williams). It lost one Oscar, for sound, to another Spielberg film: "Jurassic Park," the dinosaur romp that has become the world's biggest-grossing movie of all time, and which won a total of three Oscars.

Thus when Spielberg's Oscar jinx ended last night, it also capped what could be called the most spectacular year one filmmaker has ever experienced since the invention of the motion picture camera.

Tommy Lee Jones, the odds-on favorite, won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for playing Harrison Ford's relentless persecutor in "The Fugitive," a movie based on the old TV series about a doctor wrongly accused of murder. Jones appeared minus most of his hair, looking more like Robert Duvall than himself.

"The only thing a man can say at a time like this is, I am not really bald," Jones told the crowd as he accepted his Oscar. His head had been shaved for a movie role, he said.

Anna Paquin, the 11-year-old who plays Hunter's malicious daughter in "The Piano," was a surprise winner for Best Supporting Actress. She became the youngest performer to win an acting Oscar since 10-year-old Tatum O'Neal won (and became the youngest competitive winner ever) for "Paper Moon" in 1973.

At first Paquin appeared too overcome to speak, gasping and staring wide-eyed as she stood at the lectern. Then she regained her composure and rattled off the usual thank-yous.

Accepting the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for "Piano," Campion described herself as "really overwhelmed" and "close to tears a few times."

Everyone expects at least one big fat, heartwarming sentimental moment from the Oscar show, and this year's delivered in the first hour with an honorary Oscar for actress Deborah Kerr, who in her long screen career had the dubious honor of being nominated and losing more times (six) than any other actress.

Kerr, 72, appeared genuinely moved and thrilled by the prize and the ovation that went with it. "Thank you, thank you," she said breathlessly. "There should be some more words for 'thank you,' shouldn't there?" She also told the audience, "I've never been so frightened in all my life."

It was a conspicuous display of old-fashioned grace and class, even if a viewer may have felt that some of the scraggly-haired young actors and actresses applauding Kerr didn't really have much of a clue who she was.

There was another such classy interlude later when Tom Cruise presented the Jean M. Hersholt humanitarian award to Paul Newman, a man, said Cruise, of "bottomless compassion" whose various sidelines -- including the sale of packaged salad dressing and popcorn -- have resulted in more than $80 million in donations to charities.

"I think we're reminded too frequently about the things that don't work in this country, and not frequently enough about the things that do," said Newman, still looking more like a movie star than most other movie stars manage to do. He called the United States "the most generous country on the face of the planet" and praised artists for being especially generous.

"Streets of Philadelphia," from the film "Philadelphia," won for Best Song. Songwriter Bruce Springsteen contributed a moving performance late in the program. In his acceptance speech, Springsteen said a work of art like this film "takes the edge off the fear and allows us to recognize each other through our veil of differences."

The winner in the category of Best Documentary Feature was shown not in a theater but on cable TV's HBO. "I Am a Promise: The Children of Stanton Elementary School" was made by the veteran documentary team of Alan and Susan Raymond, who also did the landmark PBS documentary "An American Family," about the Louds, in the '70s.

"Belle Epoque," from Spain, was chosen Best Foreign-Language Film.

Although decorum seemed to be the order of the evening, the program began haltingly, with director Arthur Hiller, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, delivering an awkward speech full of random hand gestures, followed by a janglingly edited film by Chuck Workman about all those little people who work behind the scenes in movies.

For the most part, acceptance speeches were short, sweet and free of excruciating embarrassments -- which may mean that for some viewers, part of the perverse pleasure of Oscar-viewing was absent. Among the most ingratiating accepters were four men cited for the visual effects on "Jurassic Park." They stood behind the lectern shouting out all their thank-yous at once.

Fortunately, no more aftershocks jiggled the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion during the telecast. In her interview special prior to the program, Barbara Walters had referred to this year's Oscars as "aftershock therapy."

On that same program, Walters asked Spielberg whether he would be disappointed if he didn't win the Best Director prize. "I think if the film wins is a lot more important than if I win," Spielberg told her. As it turns out, he had nothing to worry about on either score.