The epic journey of a raggedy gang of humans, hobbits, wizards, dwarves and elves hoisted the fantasy genre to Oscar glory as The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won a record-tying 11 Oscars, sweeping every category in which it was nominated, including best picture.
The directing Oscar went to Peter Jackson, overlord of arguably the biggest undertaking in cinema history, the simultaneous filming of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth trilogy: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King.
"I'm so honored and relieved that the academy and the members of the academy that have supported us have seen past the trolls and the wizards and the hobbits in recognizing fantasy this year," said Jackson, who just a few years ago was an obscure New Zealander known mainly for one admired art-house film (Heavenly Creatures), a run-of-the-mill Hollywood horror tale (The Frighteners) and a scattering of cult splatter flicks (Bad Taste, and Meet the Feebles).
PHOTO: AFP
Other top Oscars played out predictably, with front-runners claiming all four acting trophies -- the first for each.
Sean Penn took the best-actor prize as a vengeful father in Mystic River, and South African-born Charlize Theron won for best actress as serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster.
Oscars for supporting performances went to Tim Robbins as a man emotionally hamstrung by childhood trauma in Mystic River and Renee Zellweger as a hardy Confederate survivor in Cold Mountain.
Return of the King matched the record 11 Oscar wins of Titanic and Ben-Hur and became only the third movie to sweep every category in which it was nominated, following Gigi and The Last Emperor, which both went nine-for-nine.
Jackson also shared the adapted-screenplay Oscar with co-writers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens.
The 42-year-old writer-director thanked "our wonderful cast who just got their tongues around this rather awkward text and made it come to life with such devotion and passion and heart."
Return of the King also won for song, musical score, visual effects, editing, makeup, art direction, costume design and sound mixing.
Penn, who skipped the Oscars when previously nominated for Dead Man Walking, Sweet and Lowdown and I Am Sam, showed up and accepted graciously -- although he made a crack about there being no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Dismissive of awards in the past, Penn missed last month's Golden Globes but made a point to attend other Oscar and awards functions.
In Monster, Theron was virtually unrecognizable, packing on 13.5kg and concealing her cover-girl beauty behind false teeth, splotchy makeup and dark contact lenses.
"I know everybody in New Zealand's been thanked, so I'm going to thank everybody in South Africa, my home country," said Theron, who had been generally regarded as a lightweight actress before Monster. Her earlier credits include The Cider House Rules, last summer's heist caper The Italian Job and such flops as Reindeer Games and Sweet November.
Sofia Coppola's Oscar victory for original screenplay for Lost in Translation made her family the second clan of three-generation Oscar winners, joining Walter, John and Anjelica Huston. Her father is five-time Oscar winner Francis Ford Coppola, who was an executive producer on Lost in Translation. Her grandfather, Carmine Coppola, won for musical score on The Godfather Part II.
Only a handful of fantasy films have been nominated for the top Oscar -- The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers among them -- but none had won until now.
At best the genre was viewed as high camp, not the stuff of Oscars, which usually go to grand dramas with their feet firmly planted in recognizable reality.
The people behind The Lord of the Rings changed that, approaching Tolkien's mythical realm with dead seriousness. Jackson sought three-dimensional humanity all around -- compassion, nobility and self-doubt in heroic hobbit Frodo (Elijah Wood), wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and human Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), covetousness and Shakespearean malice in villains Saruman (Christopher Lee) and Gollum (a computer-generated creature voiced by Andy Serkis).
Audiences received Jackson's fantastical creation with equal seriousness, with global ticket sales of US$2.8 billion for the three films. Return of the King has topped US$1 billion alone, the No. 2 box-office draw behind Titanic at US$1.8 billion.
Jackson labored for seven years to adapt Tolkien's trilogy -- first persuading Hollywood bankers to stake him to the tune of US$300 million, then marshaling a cast and crew of 2,000 to shoot the three films and land them in theaters just a year apart.
The result was a 9-and-a-half-hour saga -- more than 11 hours once all three extended home-video versions are available -- that seamlessly blended live action and computer animation. Real actors credibly shared the screen with flying beasts, hulking trolls, and walking, talking "tree shepherds."
Other Return of the King winners included composer Howard Shore, who took his second Oscar for writing Lord of the Rings music, having won two years ago on Part 1 of the saga, The Fellowship of the Ring.
Into the West, the wistful tune of farewell from Return of the King, won the best-song Oscar. The song was written by Fran Walsh, the film's co-screenwriter; Howard Shore, its music composer; and Annie Lennox, who sings the tune.
The Oscars returned to full-glamour mode after two years in which Hollywood's prom night was muted by world events -- the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks in 2002 and the Iraq war in 2003.
Billy Crystal, returning as host for the first time in four years, opened with his usual montage of nominees, having himself inserted into spoofs of key Oscar contenders, including Diane Keaton's screeching nude scene in Something's Gotta Give.
With all the awards for Return of the King, produced in New Zealand, Crystal joked: "It's now official. There is nobody left in New Zealand to thank."
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