Day-Lewis Wins 2nd Best Actor — ‘Old Men’ Named Best Picture; Cotillard Captures Best Actress
By David Germain
LOS ANGELES – Daniel Day-Lewis won his second best-actor Academy Award on Sunday for “There Will Be Blood,” while “No Country for Old Men” was living up to its front-runner status, winning best picture, best director and best adapted screenplay for the Coen brothers, and best supporting actor for Javier Bardem.
“La Vie En Rose” star Marion Cotillard was a surprise winner in the best actress category, riding the spirit of Edith Piaf to Oscar triumph over Julie Christie, who had been expected to win for “Away From Her.”
While quirky American filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen were favored for the top prizes, the Oscars had a strong international flavor, with all four acting prizes going to Europeans: Frenchwoman Cotillard, Spaniard Bardem, and Britons Day-Lewis and Tilda Swinton, the supporting-actress winner for “Michael Clayton.”
As a raging, conniving, acquisitive petroleum pioneer caught up in California’s oil boom of the early 20th century, Day-Lewis won for a part that could scarcely have been more different than his understated role as a writer with severe cerebral palsy in 1989′s “My Left Foot.”
“My deepest thanks to the academy for whacking me with the handsomest bludgeon in town,” Day-Lewis said.
The Coens are mainly known for their original screenplays, having made only two films based on adaptations, “No Country” from Pulitzer winner Cormac McCarthy’s novel, and “O Brother, Where Art Thou?,” loosely inspired by the ancient Greek epic “The Odyssey.”
“I think whatever success we’ve had in this area has been entirely attributable to how selective we are. We’ve only adapted Homer and Cormac McCarthy,” said Joel Coen.
“The Bourne Ultimatum” won the editing Oscar and swept all three categories in which it was nominated, including sound editing and sound mixing.
“No Country” also lost the cinematography prize, which went to “There Will Be Blood.”
Cotillard, the first winner ever for a French-language performance, tearfully thanked her director, Olivier Dahan.
“Maestro Olivier, you rocked my life. You have truly rocked my life,” said Cotillard, a French beauty who is a dynamo as Piaf, playing the warbling chanteuse through three decades, from raw late teens as a singer rising from the gutter through international stardom and her final days in her frail 40s.
Heavies ruled the first acting prizes. Along with Day-Lewis’ greedy oilman, Bardem played an unshakable executioner in “No Country” and Swinton played a malevolent attorney in “Michael Clayton.”
“I have an American agent who is the spitting image of this,” said Swinton, fondly looking at her Oscar statuette.
“Really, truly, the same shape head, and it has to be said, the buttocks. And I’m giving this to him, because there’s no way I’d be in America at all, ever, on a plane if it wasn’t for him,” said Swinton .
Bardem won for his fearsome turn in “No Country,” the first prize of the night for the Coen brothers’ front-running crime saga.
“Thank you to the Coens for being crazy enough to think I could do that and for putting one of the most horrible haircuts in history over my head,” said Bardem, referring to the sinister variation of a page-boy bob his character sported.
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Sunday’s Oscar best
A list of winners at the 80th annual Academy Awards on Sunday night at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles.
Best picture: “No Country for Old Men.”
Best actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, “There Will Be Blood.”
Best actress: Marion Cotillard, “La Vie en Rose.”
Supporting actor: Javier Bardem, “No Country for Old Men.”
Supporting actress: Tilda Swinton, “Michael Clayton.”
Animated feature film: “Ratatouille.”
Best director: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, “No Country for Old Men.”
Original song: “Falling Slowly” from “Once,” len Hansard and Marketa Irglova.
Original score: “Atonement,” Dario Marianelli
Best original screenplay: Diablo Cody, “Juno.”
Adapted screenplay: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, “No Country for Old Men.”
Documentary feature: “Taxi to the Dark Side”
Documentary short subject: “Freeheld”
Foreign language film: “The Counterfeiters” (Austria)
Animated short film: “Peter & the Wolf.”
Live-action short film: “The Mozart of Pickpockets.”
Visual effects: “The Golden Compass.”
Art direction: “Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street.”
Costume: “Elizabeth: The Golden Age.”
Makeup: “La Vie en Rose.”
Cinematography: “There Will Be Blood,” Robert Elswit.
Sound editing: “The Bourne Ultimatum.”
Sound mixing: “The Bourne Ultimatum.”
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Originally published by David Germain Associated Press .
(c) 2008 Commercial Appeal, The. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.