THE HURT LOCKER AND KATHRYN BIGELOW WIN BIG AT THE OSCARS
The Hurt Locker, a war film, pushed past Avatar and other crowd-pleasers to win the best picture Oscar last night, while its director, Kathryn Bigelow—a graduate of the Whitney Independent Study Program (1971) and the San Francisco Art Institute (1972)—became the first woman to win the directing award. “There’s no other way to describe it, it’s the moment of a lifetime,” said Bigelow in accepting her award. It was presented by Barbra Streisand, who announced it with the words, “Well, the time has come.”
Mark Boal, a producer of The Hurt Locker, said of his modest expectations when the movie was shot back in 2007, “Hopefully, we would find a distributor and somebody might even like the movie.” Michael Cieply and Brooks Barnes report for the New York Times that there was no mention of a last-minute embarrassment in which a fellow producer of the film, Nicolas Chartier, had been banned from the show for violating Oscar rules by urging academy members by e-mail messages to vote against a film, assumed to be Avatar, that had the advantage of a vast budget and enormous popularity.
Among other winners, Christoph Waltz took best supporting actor at the start of a sluggishly paced ceremony for his multilingual performance as a Jew-hunting Nazi officer in Inglourious Basterds. And also, as expected, Mo’Nique won for best supporting actress for her portrait of a terrifying mother in Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire. With no excess of modesty, Mo’Nique thanked the academy’s members for showing that “it can be about the performance, not the politics.” The remark was a reference not just to her considerable talent but to the fact that she had refused to spend time playing the usual Oscar campaign game. Backstage, she blamed the media for trying to stir up a controversy.
Jeff Bridges, a multiple nominee and now first-time winner, took best actor for his gritty portrayal of a broken-down country singer in Crazy Heart. Bridges had been seen as the designated winner almost from the moment Fox Searchlight made a last-minute decision to drop the low-budget movie into the Oscar race. Sandra Bullock, who had been pointed toward an Oscar since winning a bellwether Screen Actors Guild award, won best actress for her performance as a tough and loving contemporary southern mother in The Blind Side.
