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Entertainment
Predictable and... surprising
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It's Kidman and Crowe at the top of this year's Golden Globe Awards, which salute the tested and the trendy. ANAND PARTHASARATHY looks at the winners...
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"A Beautiful Mind" walked away with quite a bagful... Russel Crowe and Jennifer Connelly in a scene from the film.
THE GOLDEN Globe awards of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association have a character of their own — distinct from the more high profile Academy Awards that follow. The guests are seated around dinner tables at the Beverly Hilton.
They are allowed certain latitude in dress — and the winners do not have to make their acceptance speeches to the clicking of a stop watch which counts down from 45 seconds.
But ambience apart the Golden Globes — voted by a minuscule 90-member jury consisting of Hollywood's foreign press corps — has an importance that no star or film-maker can afford to overlook. Because they serve as a fairly reliable indicator to which way the wind will blow on Oscar Day, come March.
This year the Globes were particularly sought after — because in a year of few cinematic highlights, it was difficult to locate any sure-fire winner and the winners this week, became obvious front-runners in the award melas to come.
Eventually, the Golden Globe winning list turned out to be a canny mix of the predictable and the unexpected, dividing the goodies almost evenly between a bawdy, high profile product of Hollywood at its masala-best and a brainy intellectual film, saluting one of the 20th century's finest living brains.
``Moulin Rouge'' director Baz Luhrmann's celebration of ``Truth, beauty and freedom'' in the Parisian night club society of the early 1900s, took the Best Film Globe in the Musical/Comedy category.
It also earned an expected Best Actress award in the same genre for Australian Nicole Kidman and another for Craig Armstrong's musical score. The last was ironic since the sound track of the film dredged dozens of anachronistic songs — including Alka Yagnik's version of ``Jumma Chumma.''
For India, the main interest this year's Globes was Mira Nair's ``Monsoon Wedding'', which was a contender in the Foreign Film category. The film, however, lost to ``No Man's Land" from Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The Globe went moderately overboard for one 2001 film. ``A Beautiful Mind'' was a true-story reconstruction of the tortured life of John Forbes Nash Jr., the Princeton University mathematics professor who fought schizophrenia for years before winning the Nobel Prize in 1994 for his ``Game Theory''.
The film , which took the Best Film Globe (Drama), was also a triumph for another Aussie — Russell (``Gladiator'') Crowe who plays Nash — as well as Jennifer Connelly who portrays his supportive wife.
Both took home Golden Globes — for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress (Drama).
Akiva Goldsman took the film's fourth Globe for the compassionate screenplay. More than any other film, ``The Beautiful Mind'' is likely to gain most from the ``global'' triumph by alerting the Oscar voters to its low-key attractions.
It was also veterans' time: Gene Hackman, whose career has never looked back since he established ``The French Connection'', took the Best Actor ( Musical/Comedy) award for his role as the head of a large family which reunites after three decades of betrayal, failure and estrangement, in ``The Royal Tenenbaums''.
The heavy-built Hackman is Hollywood's favourite star in action products that call for a tough and complicated lead star: finally he receives critical recognition.
``Iris'', the film that retraces the life of British novelist Iris Murdoch, did not win an expected Globe for Dame Judi Dench — but it proved lucky for veteran Jim Broadbent who plays the novelist's husband.
A long-ignored veteran for whom this week has been a triumphant comeback is Sissy Spacek who plays a Maine mother who has to call upon hidden strengths to overcome family tragedy centred round her son and his single-mother lover.
``In the Bedroom'' gives her the Best Actress Globe (Drama).
Another ``old reliable" for whom this year's Golden Globes proved an artistic triumph is Robert Altman, one of America's finest film-makers, who gets the Best Director Globe for his ``Gosford Park,'' an evocative 1930s piece set in an English country estate.
Clean sweep by Australia
THE NIGHT (of the Golden Globes) belonged to Australia. Russel Crowe, born in New Zealand but raised in Australia, said the number of awards rebutted those who had not taken the country's artistic community seriously.
"We may be a long way away but we have all the modern technology,'' he said. ``The art form of cinema in Australia is something that is held very dear by the audience.'' Kidman said the past year, which included a divorce from Tom Cruise, was "in a way the best of times and the worst of times together. It's a great balance, and it keeps your feet on the ground."
Other Australians honoured at the ceremony included Judy Davis for her portrayal of Judy Garland in the television movie ``Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows'', and Rachel Griffiths, best known to British audiences for her role in ``Muriel's Wedding'', who won best supporting actress for the HBO series ``Six Feet Under''.
Baz Luhermann, the director of ``Moulin Rouge'', said the Australian contingent "sat together in wonderment" over how many awards they were getting. — The Telegraph
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