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1999 Academy Awards |
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| Award | Winner(s) | Movie |
| Best Picture | David Parfitt, Donna Gigliotti, Harvey Weinstein, Edward Zwick, Marc Norman | Shakespeare in Love |
| Best Actor | Roberto Benigni | La Vita e' Bella |
| Best Actress | Gwyneth Paltrow | Shakespeare in Love |
| Best Supporting Actor | James Coburn | Affliction |
| Best Supporting Actress | Judi Dench | Shakespeare in Love |
| Best Director | Steven Spielberg | Saving Private Ryan |
| Best Original Screenplay | Marc Norman, Tom Stoppard | Shakespeare in Love |
| Best Adapted Screenplay | Bill Condon | Gods and Monsters |
| Best Cinematography | Janusz Kaminski | Saving Private Ryan |
| Best Art Direction | Martin Childs, Jill Quertier | Shakespeare in Love |
| Best Costume Design | Sandy Powell | Shakespeare in Love |
| Best Sound | Gary Rydstrom, Gary Summers, Andy Nelson, Ron Judkins | Saving Private Ryan |
| Best Film Editing | Michael Kahn | Saving Private Ryan |
| Best Visual Effects | Joel Hynek, Nicholas Brooks, Stuart Robertson, Kevin Scott Mack | What Dreams May Come |
| Best Song | Stephen Schwartz (song "When You Believe") |
The Prince of Egypt |
| Best Foreign Language Film | Roberto Benigni | La Vita e' Bella |
Although I liked Shakespeare in Love, I'd have rather voted either La Vita e' Bella or Saving Private Ryan for the Best Picture award while I fully agree with the Best Actress award for the good performance of Gwyneth Paltrow and also the Best Art Direction prize. Since I haven't seen the other nominees, I can't comment on the choice of Best Costume Design and Best Supporting Actress although I expected the former but not the latter (Judi Dench did a very small, albeit important, role).
I've been disappointed by the fact that a good movie such as The Truman Show has been almost completely ignored. I haven't seen Affliction so I can't comment on James Coburn's performance but Ed Harris did a terrific job as Truman's 'God' and he really deserved the Best Supporting Actor award. The competition was very strong in the other two nominations it got, so I am not surprised to see it didn't win the Best Director and Best Original Screenplay awards, although for the latter I would have choose La Vita e' Bella rather than Shakespeare in Love.
On the other hand, I've been pleased to see that The Thin Red Line didn't win any of the (too many) categories in which it has been nominated. I found it absolutely awful, too boring and too philosophical for a war movie, so I am even more satisfied by the triumph of Steven Spielberg as the Best Director for Saving Private Ryan, a realistic and crude movie about the atrocities of war. I admit I expected The Thin Red Line to win the Best Cinematography award with its idyllic and documentaristic view of the Pacific Islands but, again, the realism of Saving Private Ryan won.
Amongst the 'minor' awards, the awful Armageddon didn't even win any of the music/sound awards that sensibly went to Saving Private Ryan nor it won the Best Visual Effects award that went to What Dreams May Come which really deserved it for the suggestive 'heaven' made of oil colors and dream-like settings.
Overall, I have been fairly satisfied by the choice of the movies (apart from the exclusion of The Truman Show that deserved at least an award and some more nominations than the 3 it got) although I would have liked to see a different distribution of the awards. Incidentally, I have been quite surprised by the good choice of the awards, albeit some of them were obvious (such as Best Director to Spielberg), especially considering that the choice of some nominations seemed to be so bad (I really cannot understand the 7 nominations to The Thin Red Line!).
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| Updated: 27 Jun 1999 | ||
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