Oscar’s In Love . . . With ‘Shakespeare’ and Benigni

In the pitched rivalry between the challenges of battle and the passions of romance, love won Sunday night, with “Shakespeare in Love” upsetting “Saving Private Ryan” to win best picture and six other Oscars, including best actress, supporting actress and original screenplay.

“This was a movie about life and art, and art and life combining. . . . It’s called magic,” said an exultant Harvey Weinstein, Miramax co-chairman and one of the film’s producers. “For me, this was a great experience, a passion for five years.” The best picture award clinched an amazing night for Miramax; the studio won 10 Oscars in all, including three for Roberto Benigni’s “Life is Beautiful.”

Steven Spielberg won best director for “Saving Private Ryan”--the first time since 1989 that different films won the best picture and best director awards. That film also won for cinematography, editing, sound and sound effects editing.

The 71st annual Academy Awards ceremony was a night of surprises highlighted by the hilariously effusive Benigni, who co-wrote, directed and starred in “Life is Beautiful,” an Italian comic fable about a father trying to shelter his son from the horrors of a German concentration camp.

Benigni, who won for best actor and foreign language film, was a bouncing ball of unselfconscious energy, climbing over chairs and bunny-hopping up the stairs to the stage. Quickly using up all his English, he resorted to curious child-like phrases that nevertheless communicated his joy--and became a running gag of the evening.

“I am not able to express all my gratitude because now my body is in tumult,” Benigni said at one point. “I would like to be Jupiter and kidnap everybody right now in the firmament, making love to everybody.”

“Shakespeare in Love,” the romantic romp about the famous bard and his radiant muse, won a best actress award for Gwyneth Paltrow, as well as for best original screenplay, supporting actress, costume design, original musical or comedy score and art direction.

Paltrow gave an emotional acceptance speech in which she thanked everyone from co-star Joseph Fiennes and director John Madden, to her ex-beau Ben Affleck. She broke into tears when thanking her parents, actress Blythe Danner and director Bruce Paltrow, her brother, Jake, and her ailing grandfather, Buster.

Two of the night’s other big winners were acting veterans; British stage actress Judi Dench won for best supporting actress for “Shakespeare in Love,” and Hollywood favorite James Coburn won for best supporting actor in “Affliction.”

While the focal point of the evening had been expected to be the contentious battle over awarding director Elia Kazan an honorary Oscar, Benigni--whose film also won for best dramatic score--stole the record four-hour-plus show at the downtown Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Kazan’s award drew noisy protests outside, but the actual presentation was curiously low-key. “I think I can just slip away,” Kazan told the crowd.

The triumph of “Shakespeare in Love” came after a pitched marketing battle for the best picture award, with Miramax spending millions on pre-Oscar advertising. DreamWorks SKG, which made “Saving Private Ryan” with Paramount, cried foul in the press but nevertheless upped its spending as well. As Whoopi Goldberg, the evening’s irreverent host, said: “Those boys [studio execs] fought World War III over World War II.”

This is the second Oscar that Spielberg has won for directing a World War II-related movie; he won best director for 1993’s “‘Schindler’s List.”

“‘Am I allowed to say I really wanted this?” Spielberg said, calling his win “fantastic” and dedicating his Oscar to his father, a World War II veteran. Spielberg then turned to those who had lost loved ones in the war. “I’d like to just thank very, very sincerely the families who lost sons in WW II. . . . All the families who incurred these tremendous losses.”

Benigni is the second actor-director in history to direct himself to a best actor award. The first was 40 years ago, when Laurence Olivier in “Hamlet” (1948). Benigni is also only the second person in history to win an acting award for a foreign language film. Sophia Loren won best actress for 1961’s “Two Women.”

It was Loren who presented Benigni his first Oscar of the night, for foreign language film. Upon hearing Loren call his name, he jumped up and climbed up on the back of his chair, then walked gingerly on the backs of other people’s seats, at one point getting a steadying hand from Spielberg.

“Sophia, I leave here with the Oscar, but I want you!” he yelped as the audience rose to its feet and applauded.

He then threatened to kiss everyone for what he called “a rainstorm of kindness.”

Thanking his parents for giving him “the biggest gift: poverty,” Benigni also dedicated the award to the victims of the Holocaust, “who gave their lives in order that we could say life is beautiful.”

Benigni’s victory marks only the second time that a movie has been nominated for both best film and best foreign language film. The first time was Costa Gavras’ “Z,” which was the best foreign film of 1969.

Coburn won the best supporting actor award for his terrifying depiction of Nick Nolte’s alcoholic father in the dark, low-budget “Affliction.” Coburn came to fame in the 1960s in films like “Our Man Flint” and “The Magnificent Seven,” and the 70-year-old actor looked grateful as he took the stage.

“I’ve been doing this for over half my life,” said Coburn. “I finally got one right, I guess.”

Dench, one of British theater’s most revered stars, won the best supporting actress award for her stern portrayal of Queen Elizabeth in “‘Shakespeare in Love.” It was Dench’s second nomination in as many years--she was up for best actress in 1997 for playing another Queen--Victoria in “Mrs. Brown,” which was also directed by Madden.

Glancing down at the statuette in her hand, she said modestly, “I feel for eight minutes on the screen I should only get a bit of him.”

Goldberg proved an often raunchy host, with much of her material reading like something out of “There’s Something About Mary.” She began her third turn as emcee by strutting on stage in white-face, dressed elaborately as Queen Elizabeth.

“Good evening, loyal subjects, I am the African queen,” she said, her jeweled headdress quivering. “‘Some of you may know me as the Virgin Queen, but I can’t imagine who.”

But that was just the beginning. Her references to Bill Clinton’s indiscretions paled by comparison to her bawdy language, and to her crude remarks about female body parts. Even Goldberg herself predicted she would never be asked to host again.

“You think this is easy? I haven’t had to take my dress off this many times since my first audition,” she told the audience after she’d changed costumes numerous times. She then turned to Spielberg: “Steven, you remember. . . .”

Another moment of levity in an otherwise lugubrious show came when Val Kilmer, on hand to introduce a tribute to cowboy heroes of yesteryear, was upstaged by a descendant of Roy Rogers’ horse Trigger. The horse refused to stand still and kept Kilmer circling out of camera range as he made his introduction.

Director-producer Norman Jewison won the Irving G. Thalberg Award for lifetime achievement. Several of his films have been nominated for best film: “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming” (1966), “In the Heat of the Night” (which won in 1967), “Fiddler on the Roof” (1971), “A Soldier’s Story” (1984) and “‘Moonstruck” (1987).

Jewison danced on stage to the strains of “If I Were a Rich Man,” then assessed his own footwork: “Not bad for a goy.” He implored aspiring filmmakers to seek out good stories and worry less about profits.

Benigni’s bubbly enthusiasm became the running gag of the evening. Jim Carrey, who presented an award but was not nominated for his performance in “The Truman Show,” made fun of himself mooning over being overlooked by saying, “I have been beaten by Roberto Benigni. He has jumped into my ocean!”

Goldberg, meanwhile, warned Benigni--who seemed poised to jump onto his feet whenever heard his name--to sit tight.

“Don’t do it baby!” she barked. “Don’t get up!”

*

Times staff writer Patrick Goldstein contributed to this story.