They’re on the Short List

James Coburn kissed his wife. Roberto Benigni jumped up and down. Emily Watson drank enough champagne to pronounce herself in “a haze,” while her co-star Rachel Griffiths screamed so loud she “woke up every old lady on my block.” Ed Harris tried to maintain his perspective by “trying to look at it through the eyes of [my] dog.” And Gwyneth Paltrow? Determined to be well-rested for the first day of shooting on her next film, “Duet,” the 26-year-old actress tried--unsuccessfully--to go back to sleep.

“My thought was, ‘It’s 5:30 a.m. and I have to report to work at 8:30 a.m. I better just try to keep it together and not ruin my first day of work,’ ” said the first-time nominee, whose best actress nod was among 13 nominations received by the romantic romp “Shakespeare in Love.” “I didn’t believe it. I still don’t.”

Such were the range of reactions Tuesday when the 71st annual Academy Award nominations were announced. Films depicting two turbulent periods of history--the reign of England’s Elizabeth I and World War II--dominated the race. Miramax’s ode to William Shakespeare was nominated for best picture along with “Elizabeth,” “Saving Private Ryan,” “The Thin Red Line” and “Life Is Beautiful”--the Italian comedy about a father trying to shield his son from the horrors of the Holocaust.

DreamWorks SKG and Paramount’s “Saving Private Ryan,” which vividly took moviegoers to the beaches of Normandy, garnered 11 Oscar nominations overall, while the other three films received seven nominations apiece.

Both big-budget films and smaller, independent fare were recognized by the academy voters, whose final choices will be announced on March 21 in a live telecast from the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion that will be beamed around the world. And veterans like Coburn shared the spotlight with newcomers like Cate Blanchett, the star of Gramercy Pictures’ “Elizabeth.”

“After about 85 films, you feel, ‘Well, I finally got one right,’ ” said Coburn, 70, whose best supporting actor nomination (his first one) for his role as an abusive father in “Affliction” caps a four-decade career. “You don’t make movies in order to get an award response. But when it happens for the first time, it’s very gratifying.”

In the best director category, Steven Spielberg received his fifth Oscar nomination, for “Saving Private Ryan,” while Peter Weir received his third nomination, for “The Truman Show.” Also named were first-time nominees Terrence Malick for “The Thin Red Line,” John Madden for “Shakespeare in Love” and Benigni for “Life Is Beautiful.”

It was a big day for Benigni, Italy’s favorite comedian, who is only the fourth filmmaker ever to be simultaneously nominated for best actor, best director and best screenplay. (The others were Woody Allen for “Annie Hall,” Orson Welles for “Citizen Kane” and Warren Beatty for “Reds.”) Benigni’s film, a Miramax release, was also the first since “Z” in 1969 to be nominated in both best picture and foreign language categories.

Other best actor nominees included Tom Hanks as an earnest American soldier in “Saving Private Ryan”; Ian McKellen as a gay Hollywood director in “Gods and Monsters”; Nick Nolte as an angry, self-hating loser in “Affliction”; and Edward Norton as a hate-mongering neo-Nazi in “American History X.”

Best actress nominations went to Blanchett as the steely Virgin Queen in “Elizabeth”; Paltrow as the passionate, strong-willed muse of the Bard in “Shakespeare in Love”; Fernanda Montenegro as a retired schoolteacher in “Central Station”; Watson as the late cellist Jacqueline du Pre in “Hilary and Jackie”; and Meryl Streep as a mother dying of cancer in “One True Thing.”

Streep’s nomination brings her career total to 11, a tally matched only by Jack Nicholson. Katharine Hepburn is the actor who holds the record, with 12 nominations.

Best supporting actor nominees included two former best actor winners--Robert Duvall for “A Civil Action” and Geoffrey Rush for “Shakespeare in Love.” Also nominated were Coburn for “Affliction,” Billy Bob Thornton in “A Simple Plan” and Harris for “The Truman Show.” Harris, who was nominated in the same category in 1996 for “Apollo 13,” said the recognition prompted “conflicting emotions.”

“What I do is about working with others trying to get to some truth. It’s the antithesis of competition. All of a sudden [the Oscars] thrust you into this realm, and you can’t avoid wanting to win the darn thing,” he said, adding that he is preparing for the ceremony by “picking a name out that’s not mine and practicing hearing it so I won’t be disappointed.”

Best supporting actress nominees included former best actress winner Kathy Bates for “Primary Colors,” Brenda Blethyn for “Little Voice,” Judi Dench for “Shakespeare in Love,” Griffiths for “Hilary and Jackie” and Lynn Redgrave for “Gods and Monsters.”

Blethyn said she was so convinced she wasn’t going to be recognized for her role as an overbearing mother in “Little Voice” that she spent the afternoon at a performance at the London drama school she attended 25 years ago.

“When I went in, I was feeling a little down in the mouth knowing I wouldn’t be nominated,” she said. “When I emerged at 2:30, I was greeted . . . with the news, and I soared into the air. . . . I went straight back in and told the principal, and he made an announcement that one of his ex-students had been nominated, and I got a huge cheer from all the students.”

As is true every year, there were intriguing subplots to Tuesday’s nominations. For example, there was the return of Malick, whose adaptation of the James Jones novel marked his first film in more than 20 years.

Another theme was the predominance of the monarchy, with the unusual situation of two women being nominated for depicting the same person: Blanchett and Dench each played Elizabeth I, who has been dead for almost 400 years. Rush, meanwhile, appeared in both films.

“Given that ‘Shakespeare in Love’ is about people who make art, today is for me, privately, a celebration of artists and audiences,” Rush said. “On the other hand, ‘Elizabeth’ is about how nasty the world can be. There’s a bit of yin and yang there.”

For DreamWorks, the day marked the young studio’s first best picture nomination, and Spielberg said he was pleased to “feel like I made my two partners proud.”

Reached in Germany, where he was attending the Berlin Film Festival, Spielberg said he found it interesting that three nominated films dealt with WWII. Stylistically, “each film is worlds apart,” he said, but all three were “an interesting coming to terms with that period both for older veterans feeling they were not forgotten and for young people who have never taken the time to look back.”

Coburn and Nolte, whose physical resemblance added credibility to their portrayals as an embattled father and son in “Affliction,” said they were hopeful that their nominations mean more people will see the film.

“When you’re doing a little $6-million picture, it’s all about loving the material. The reason they’re not made in Hollywood is they don’t make much money. And you don’t anticipate that it’s going to get any recognition,” Nolte said.

For “Gods and Monsters,” Lions Gate Films’ drama about noted horror director James Whale, the three nods were just the capper in a process that one of the film’s producers called “validation by degrees.” The $3-million film had been difficult to finance and to sell in part because its main character is gay. The filmmakers said the obstacles made McKellen’s best actor nomination especially sweet.

“Before it got picked up by a distributor, I showed it to a major publicist who will remain unnamed,” recalled writer-director Bill Condon, who received a best adapted screenplay nomination. “She said, ‘The problem is [McKellen] will never be nominated because gay actors don’t get nominated for playing gay roles--only straight actors.’ The next day, the academy nominated Greg Kinnear [for last year’s “As Good as It Gets”] and not Rupert Everett [for “My Best Friend’s Wedding”] and I thought, ‘My God, she knows what she’s talking about.’ ”

McKellen, a first-time nominee, said he was surprised and elated.

“I think the world is beginning to grow up, and, at last, gays are at the center of films and being treated as perfectly ordinary people,” said the 59-year-old Brit, speaking by phone from England’s Yorkshire Playhouse, where he was opening in “The Tempest.” “And I think three nominations for a $3-million movie is pretty good going.”

Times staff writer Susan King and wire service reports contributed to this article.