A no-show winner on a no-showy night

By PETER CALDER

"The Academy congratulates Roman Polanski and accepts this award on his behalf," Harrison Ford said.

It was an utterance scripted to a formula - the same anodyne tribute was paid to the winner of Best Foreign Film and Best Short Film, whose absence was attributable to everyday reasons, and Ford, judging by his expression, was none too happy to be forced to speak it.

But in this case it was highly charged. Few observers expected the diminutive Polanski, director of the restrained and masterful Holocaust drama The Pianist, to turn up to yesterday's Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles.

He is still wanted for the statutory rape of Samantha Geimer, 13 years old in 1977 when he had sex with her after plying her with champagne and sedatives.

Geimer has subsequently, and controversially, forgiven him but few believed that Polanski, who fled the United States to avoid imprisonment and has never returned, would get the Oscar nod since his no-show was a dead cert.

(Celebrated critic Kenneth Tynan once described him as "the 4ft Pole you wouldn't want to touch with a 10ft pole".)

Yet there it was. Polanski, whose 1974 LA-noir film Chinatown is one of the high-water marks of American cinema, was named Best Director ahead of Rob Marshall, who helmed the night's favourite, Chicago; ahead even of Martin Scorsese, the godfather (forgive me, Mr Coppola) of the lineup, whose Gangs of New York finished the night empty-handed.

Chicago took out Best Film and Best Supporting Actress (Catherine Zeta-Jones) as well as the Oscars for editing, sound, costume and art direction.

For those of us who believe the winners are not always the most deserving, the honour was a gratifying recognition of a film of uncommon mastery. Given the subject matter, it seemed a conciliatory move from an Academy whose chauvinistic urges were perhaps stilled by a distaste for the invasion of Iraq, which cast a shadow over proceedings.

The telecast of the ceremony, one of the high points of America's broadcasting calendar, was curiously muted: the traditional red carpet, the showcase of stars frocks and smiling platitudes, were axed; diamonds were banned and black was big.

But explicit criticism of the war was more muted than viewers expected and organisers feared.

Chris Cooper, a deserving winner of Best Supporting Actor for his role as the orchid thief in Adaptation, wished for peace, but others were more explicit.

Michael Moore, the shambling bear-like director of Best Documentary winner Bowling for Columbine, invited all his co-nominees to share the stage with him to lend weight to his swinging attack on the war on Iraq.

"We like non-fiction, but we live in fictitious times," he said of his fellow film-makers, as a handful of voices howled in outrage.

"We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons."

Adrien Brody, whose performance in The Pianist carried off the Best Actor award, was even more voluble.

"Wait one second. One second, please, one second," he said as the orchestra swelled, primed to drown him out. "Cut it out, cut it out. I get one shot at this.

"This fills me with great joy, but I am also filled with a lot of sadness [because] my experiences of making this film made me very aware of the sadness and the dehumanisation of people at times of war. And the repercussions of war.

"And whatever you believe in, if it's God or Allah, may he watch over you and let's pray for a peaceful and swift resolution."

Local hopefuls may have found the results a bit disappointing, but Michael Hopkins, co-winner of a sound-editing award for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, added a comfortingly Kiwi timbre to the acceptance speeches.

"It's a strange experience for a Picton lad," he told Holmes later. "I'm just very, very proud to be here."

But perhaps the great communicator, Hollywood, needed to use its moment in the global spotlight to talk to the world about peace. And to remember that the best film of the year - as distinct from the Best Film of the Year - was about war, which most of us wish was history, not current affairs.