‘Private Ryan,’ ‘Line’ Win N.Y. Critics Awards

With its stunned membership not knowing whether to blame blond ambition or just the vagaries of the democratic process, the venerable and always unpredictable New York Film Critics Circle gave every indication of being a certifiably split personality at its annual awards vote Wednesday.

For best picture? “Saving Private Ryan,” the much-lauded and very popular World War II drama by prolific one-man-industry Steven Spielberg (which also won the nod of the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. last Saturday). For best director? Terrence Malick, returning after the 20-year hiatus he took after “Badlands” and “Days of Heaven” with “The Thin Red Line,” a cerebral, meditative war film that’s being viewed by many as the dark side of “Ryan.” (The day’s only multiple winner, “Thin Red Line” also took the prize for cinematography.)

Best actor? Nick Nolte, Hollywood veteran and the primal force within Paul Schrader’s dark-as-night character study “Affliction.” For best actress? Ingenue-on-the-ascent Cameron Diaz, for the frat-boy comedy “There’s Something About Mary.”

Besides Nolte and Diaz, the other blond honoree at the Circle’s Jan. 10 banquet will be “Friends” cast member Lisa Kudrow, for her portrayal of an unhappy single woman in “The Opposite of Sex.” Decidedly non-blond Bill Murray was the group’s pick as best supporting actor, for the offbeat Wes Anderson comedy “Rushmore.”

Chosen as best nonfiction film was “The Farm: Angola USA,” a harrowing examination of the infamous Louisiana State Penitentiary by filmmakers Liz Garbus and Jonathan Stack, with prisoner-journalist Wilbert Rideau. Best screenplay was the Tom Stoppard-Marc Norman script for “Shakespeare in Love.” The nod for best first film went to Richard Kwietniowski’s comedy “Love and Death on Long Island.” Danish director Thomas Vinterberg’s “The Celebration,” a darkly comic tale of a familial meltdown at a patriarch’s birthday party, was selected as best foreign film.

In addition, a special award will be given to the team behind the reissued “Touch of Evil.”

Few of the selections were made with anything resembling a consensus; several votes--particularly the best director showdown between Spielberg, Schrader and the eventually victorious Malick--took multiple ballots. There was much of what they call “voting to block”; the selection of Diaz came after a schism developed between those in the Fernanda Montenegro (“Central Station”) camp and those who favored either Judi Dench (“Shakespeare in Love”) or Jane Horrocks (“Little Voice”). The easiest winner was Murray, who won after only two ballots.

The New York Film Critics Circle is composed of reviewers from daily, weekly and national publications and who are, or in some cases were, New York-based.