'Pianist' plays surprise

The musical Chicago won the Oscar for best film at yesterday's 75th Academy Awards but it was a pair of stunning upset victories for The Pianist - director Roman Polanski and actor Adrien Brody - that gave the biggest surprises in a ceremony marked by talk of war.

For much of this year's awards season in Hollywood, Chicago had been a front-runner, and coming into the Oscars it was an odds-on favourite in many top categories with 13 nominations, more than any other film.

But its six awards came mostly in minor categories, and when star Renee Zellweger lost the best actress award to a tearful Nicole Kidman for The Hours, the musical about a pair of murdering actresses and the media who made them stars seemed to have lost its steam.

Polanski, a fugitive from the law in the United States - he faces arrest for a 1977 conviction for statutory rape - wasn't present to receive the best director award for his Holocaust film.

But there was a standing ovation for the 69-year-old from fans among the Hollywood elite at the ceremony even though he remains a controversial figure because of his past troubles.

Apart from the best film gong, Chicago had the best supporting actress (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and also earned Oscars in art direction, sound, costume design and film editing.

As it did in its first instalment The Fellowship of the Ring last year, the second part of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Two Towers picked up another win for best visual effects for the four American boffins (Jim Rygiel, Joe Letteri, Randall William Cook and Alex Funke) behind the creation of the semi-digital character Gollum.

It also won a best sound-editing Oscar for sound designers American Ethan Van der Ryn and New Zealander Michael Hopkins.

Said Van der Ryn: "With so much insanity in the world right now, we feel particularly blessed to work with such a tight-knit and talented group of people in Wellington. They've all poured their heart and soul into making this movie and have become a family in that process."

In the major categories, Brody's victory marked perhaps the biggest upset with heavily favoured Daniel Day-Lewis (Gangs of New York) and Jack Nicholson (About Schmidt) among the nominees.

When Brody took the stage his jokes soon turned to tears as he remembered making the film and thought about the war in Iraq. He said his experiences had made him "very aware of the sadness" war causes.

"Let's pray for a peaceful and swift resolution," he said, which brought the audience to its feet.

Kidman, however, was far less a surprise because she and Zellweger had come into the night's ceremony neck-and-neck in the race for best actress.

Through the first part of the show, there was little mention of the fighting in Iraq from the stars and even show host Steve Martin, but when Michael Moore took to the podium as the winner for a best documentary feature, the anti-gun Bowling for Columbine, all that changed.

"We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons. Whether it is the fiction of duct tape or the fiction of orange alerts, we are against this war, Mr Bush. Shame on you, Mr Bush."

His statements set off a round of boos in the audience, which was met with some cheering, then more boos. The din became so loud, Moore could not be heard finishing his speech.

Among the night's surprises, Spanish screenwriter-director Pedro Almodovar was a seemingly unlikely winner for best original screenplay as it was the first time in some years a non-English script had been nominated in the category.

And also showing that academy voters aren't as conservative as they are often pegged, rapper Eminem and the track Lose Yourself from his movie 8 Mile was awarded best song ahead of nominations from Chicago and U2's theme song for Gangs of New York, The Hands That Built America.

Martin Scorsese's Gangs - which had been the subject of heavy studio campaigning to get the veteran director his first Oscar - was the biggest loser on the night, coming away with no wins from 10 nominations.

As expected, the men wore mostly basic black tuxedos, and the women dressed in subdued designer gowns from Prada to Yves St. Laurent.

Several stars, including Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, flashed peace signs as they walked in. Others, like Julianne Moore, displayed pale blue peace sign pins.

Outside the theatre, Hollywood Boulevard was cordoned off for eight blocks or more on either side of the theatre and there was a heavy police presence.

Some of Hollywood's most strident anti-war campaigners, including Barbra Streisand, Sarandon and Richard Gere, prompted surprise by sticking to the official Oscar script.

Kidman answered the question that had been on the minds of dozens of celebrities, and their critics, all week.

"Why do you come to the Academy Awards when the world is in such turmoil? Because art is important, and because you believe in what you do and you want to honour that, and it is a tradition that needs to be upheld,"she said.

"At the same time you say there are a lot of problems in the world, and since September 11 there's been a lot of pain in terms of families losing people, and now with the war, families losing people. And God bless them."

- REUTERS, staff reporters