1998 Academy Awards® Winners and History
The Thin Red Line (1998)
Actor:
ROBERTO BENIGNI in "Life is Beautiful", Tom Hanks in "Saving                 Private Ryan", Ian McKellen in "Gods and Monsters",                 Nick Nolte in "Affliction", Edward Norton in "American                 History X"
Actress:
GWYNETH PALTROW in "Shakespeare in Love", Cate Blanchett                 in "Elizabeth", Fernanda Montenegro in "Central                 Station", Meryl Streep in "One True Thing", Emily                 Watson in "Hilary and Jackie"
Supporting Actor:
JAMES COBURN in "Affliction", Robert Duvall in "A                 Civil Action", Ed Harris in "The Truman Show", Geoffrey Rush in "Shakespeare                 in Love", Billy Bob Thornton in "A Simple Plan"
Supporting Actress:
JUDI DENCH in "Shakespeare in Love", Kathy Bates in "Primary                 Colors", Brenda Blethyn in "Little Voice", Rachel                 Griffiths in "Hilary and Jackie", Lynn Redgrave in "Gods                 and Monsters"
Director:
STEVEN SPIELBERG for "Saving Private Ryan", Roberto                 Benigni for "Life is Beautiful", John Madden for "Shakespeare                 in Love", Terrence Malick for "The Thin Red Line",                 Peter Weir for "The Truman Show"
There                   were two notable firsts for this year's Oscars awards ceremony                   broadcast on ABC-TV. The 71st annual Academy Awards show was                   held on March 21, 1999 and hosted by Whoopi Goldberg to honor                   1998's films. It marked the first time the ceremony was held                   on a Sunday, and it was the longest ceremony ever held up to                   this point, clocking in at 4 hours and 2 minutes.
The Best Picture nominees for 1998 included                   five films with only two major subjects areas or settings:                   World War II and Elizabethan England.
The Best Picture Oscar winner and over-all Oscar                   champ, in a major darkhorse upset, was the light-hearted,                   factual and fanciful romantic comedy/costume drama Shakespeare                     in Love about the struggling, writing-blocked, and romantically-afflicted                   bard in 16th century London. It told the fanciful background                   story of how the romantic love story, Romeo and Juliet,                   was composed, when the the bard was writing an earlier version                   titled "Romeo and Ethel, the Sea Pirate's Daughter".                   The film was a hybrid blend, but could be considered the first romantic                   comedy to win Best Picture since
Annie                     Hall (1977) . [It was the last comedy film, to date,                   to win Best Picture.]
The film had thirteen nominations and seven Oscars                   (Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay                   (co-written by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard), Best Costume                   Design, Best Art Direction, and Best Original Musical or Comedy                   Score). [It has the most Oscar awards (7) for a film that didn't                   win Best Director.] Shakespeare in Love gave Britisher                   John Madden his first Best Director nomination - his                   previous work consisted of only three little-known feature                   films, one of which was Mrs. Brown (1997). [Only two                   other films in Oscar history have had more nominations: Titanic                     (1997) and All About Eve (1950) -                   each with 14.] Two of the film's three performance nominations                   were awarded Oscars - only Geoffrey Rush failed to win his                   bid.
The second runner-up in Oscar awards and nominations                   was Best Director-winning Steven Spielberg's realistic war                   epic Saving Private Ryan with eleven nominations and                   five awards - mostly in technical categories (Best Director,                   Best Cinematography (Janusz Kaminski), Best Film Editing (Michael                   Kahn), Best Sound, and Best Sound Effects). (Five-time Oscar                   winner John Williams received a nomination for Best Score -                   his 36th nomination. He had already won the Oscar for Best                   Score three times for previous Spielberg films -
Schindler's                   List (1993) .)
Saving Private Ryan was a harrowing tale                   of eight WWII soldiers sent into enemy territory to rescue                   the sole surviving son of a family. Its vivid opening sequence                   of the blood-bath attack on Omaha Beach on D-Day was cinema                     verite at its finest, based on actual veterans' accounts                   of their experiences. [Spielberg had bounced back, after misfiring                   with the contrived sequel The                     Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) and the uneven slavery                   saga Amistad (1997). He had returned a fourth time to                   the war film genre, after three previous attempts at war films: 1941                     (1979), Empire of the Sun (1987), and
Schindler's                   List (1993) .]
The remaining three Best Picture films tied with seven nominations                   each, and the first two earned only one Oscar between them:
writer/director Terrence Malick's poetic,                     ethereal, and meditative work The Thin Red Line (with                     no wins) from James Jones' 1962 novel documented the Pacific's                     WW II Battle of Guadalcanal; this unusual war film was Malick's                     first film after a twenty-year gap and it suffered in the                     wake of Spielberg's more Oscar-friendly war film
Indian director Shekhar Kapur's big-budget                     historical costume drama Elizabeth (with only one                     Oscar, Best Makeup)
the wildly successful, bittersweet, comedy-drama                     Italian Holocaust fable Life is Beautiful (with seven                     nominations and three wins), the first film since Z                       (1969) to be nominated for both Best Picture and Best                     Foreign Language Film (it won the latter awards distinction,                     as did Z (1969)). [In awards history, this was the sixth non-English                     language film to be nominated for Best Picture.]
The Italian film Life is Beautiful, which                   won three Oscars (Best Actor, Best Foreign Language Film, and                   Best Dramatic Score), was the 12th Italian film to win for                   Best Foreign Language Film. It was the second film in                   Academy history to be nominated both as Best Picture and Best                   Foreign Language Film in the same year. It opened as the comedic story of Benigni as a clownish, accident-prone Jewish waiter                   and bookshop owner named Guido and his eager, clumsy courtship                   of upper-class Dora (Benigni's real-life wife Nicoletta Braschi),                   a Catholic schoolteacher. After their marriage, they were deported                   with their five-year-old son Giosue to a WWII concentration                   camp, where the inspired, Chaplin-esque Guido disguised the                   fear of the horrors of the extermination camp and bravely shielded                   his son with an inventive game of hide-and-seek with the Nazis,                   by promising a tank for the winner.
[Life is Beautiful was the first foreign                   language film to receive seven nominations - the most-honored foreign-language                   film in Oscar history up to that time (until surpassed by Crouching                     Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) with 10 nominations). Previously, Das                       Boot (1982) and Fanny and Alexander (1983) had received                   six nominations. Z (1969), director Costa-Gavras' French                   political thriller, was the first film nominated as                   Best Foreign Language Film that also received a nomination                   for Best Picture. It also won the Foreign Film Award, but not                   the Best Picture Oscar.] Life is Beautiful was only                   the third sub-titled film in Oscar history to be nominated                   for Best Picture. [The previous two subtitled, Best Picture-nominated                   films were Z (1969) and Il Postino (1995).]
Miramax backed both Life is Beautiful (as                     distributor) and Shakespeare in Love (as producer) with millions of dollars in an expensive publicity blitz                     before Oscar time, and their aggressive efforts paid off                     handsomely - with a total of 20 nominations between them                     (and 10 wins).
With his fifth Best Director nomination (and                   sixth career nomination), Steven Spielberg won the Best Director                   award for the second time for Saving Private Ryan (his                   first directorial Oscar was for another war epic -
Schindler's                     List (1993) and previous nominations were for Close                       Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) , Raiders                         of the Lost Ark (1981) , and E.T.:                           The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) ). Spielberg's win marked                   the first time in nine years that the Best Picture Oscar                   was awarded to a film whose director was not also honored.                   (In 1989, director Bruce Beresford's Driving Miss Daisy                     (1989) won Best Picture when Oliver Stone was named Best                   Director for Born on the Fourth of July (1989).)
Curiously, of the five Best Picture nominees,                   only Elizabeth's director was not nominated as Best                   Director. Although Australian film-maker Peter Weir (who had                   previously been nominated as Best Director for Witness (1985) and Dead                     Poets Society (1989)) was nominated as Best Director (his                   third nomination) for the big-budget satire on celebrity, The Truman Show, his film was not nominated for Best Picture.                   [His fourth Oscar nomination was a Best Screenplay nomination                   for Green Card (1990).] Terrence Malick, who had previously                   directed the lovers-on-the-run film Badlands                     (1973) and the cinematically-gorgeous Days                       of Heaven (1978) received a Best Director nomination                   (his first career Oscar nomination) for The Thin Red Line.                   It marked his return to film-making after two decades. (Malick                   was also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay for the same                   film.)
Roberto Benigni's Best Actor Oscar win (his first                   nomination) was only the second time a nominee won an                   acting Oscar for a Foreign Language film role. His win made                   him the first male actor in Oscar history to win for                   a foreign language film role. (He was also the first Italian                   (foreign-born) to win an Oscar for Best Actor.) [The first occurrence                   of an acting Oscar for a Foreign Language-film role was Sophia                   Loren's Best Actress win for Two Women (1961) - thirty-seven                   years earlier. Italian actress Anna Magnani also won the Best                   Actress Oscar for The Rose Tattoo (1955), in an English-speaking                   role.] Benigni was also the first director in 50 years                   (since Laurence Olivier for Hamlet (1948)) to win a                   Best Actor Oscar under his own direction - in other words,                   he was the second performer-actor to direct his own                   Oscar-winning performance.
Double-Oscar winner Roberto Benigni was a three-time                   nominee in 1998 as co-author, star, director - and husband!,                   and officially nominated as Best Director, Best Actor, and                   Best Screenplay (co-written directly for the screen with Vincenzo                   Cerami) for Life is Beautiful. [Benigni's triple-nomination                   was a rare achievement - only Orson Welles (in 1941 for Citizen                     Kane ), Woody Allen (in 1977 for Annie                       Hall ) and Warren Beatty (in 1981 for Reds) have                   also received simultaneous nominations as actor, director,                   and writer.]
The other Best Actor nominees were:
Ian McKellen (with his first nomination) as                     the tormented, homosexual, Universal Studios horror film                     director of the 30s James Whale - in the low-budget independent                     film and biopic Gods and Monsters
Nick Nolte (with his second nomination after The                     Prince of Tides (1991)) as the abused, mentally-ill                     small-town cop Wade Whitehouse in Affliction
Edward Norton (with his second nomination                     after a Best Supporting nomination for his role as a psychopathic                     choirboy in Primal Fear (1996)) as the violent, racist,                     Neo-Nazi L.A. skinhead Derek Vinyard in American History                       X
Tom Hanks, already a two-time Oscar winner                     (for Philadelphia (1993) and Forrest Gump (1994))                     received his fourth Oscar nomination for his role                     as the restrained Captain John Miller in Saving Private                       Ryan
In 1998, it was the first time that two                   nominees in the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress categories                   were chosen for playing the same character in the                     same year but not in the same film: England's monarch Queen                   Elizabeth I - at two different stages of her life. (In 1997,                   both Kate Winslet and Gloria Stuart were nominated for playing                   the role of Rose (as a 17 year old and as a 101-year old survivor) in                     the same year and in the same film! -- Titanic                       (1997). This would also reoccur in 2001 when Judi Dench                   and Kate Winslet were both nominated for playing Iris in Iris                   (2001).):
Australian actress Cate Blanchett (with her                     first nomination), nominated as Best Actress for her performance                     as the coming-of-age, coltish, feminist-minded Queen Elizabeth                     I in Elizabeth
English actress Judi Dench (with her second                     nomination and first Oscar win) won the Best Supporting                     Actress Oscar for her eight-minute on-screen performance                     as the regal, mischievous, authoritative, ornately-costumed                     Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love. (Dench's                     first nomination was for her portrayal of Queen Victoria                     a year earlier in Mrs. Brown (1997), also directed                     by John Madden)
Gwyneth Paltrow (with her first nomination) won                   the Best Actress Oscar for her role as the struggling bard                   Shakespeare's irresistible love-interest Viola De Lesseps,                   who hid her real gender as Thomas Kent through female-to-male                   cross-dressing, in Shakespeare in Love.
[Note: Reportedly, she said a record 23 "Thank yous" during                 her acceptance speech.]
The other three Best Actress nominees included:
Emily Watson, who received her second nomination                     for her role as the title character in Hilary and Jackie -                     the late Jacqueline du Pre, an acclaimed classical cellist/musician                     afflicted with multiple sclerosis (after her Best Actress                     nomination two years earlier for her big-screen debut in Breaking                       the Waves (1996))
famed Brazilian actress Fernanda Montenegro                     (with her first nomination) as ex-schoolteacher Dora in director                     Walter Salles' Central Station
two-time Oscar winner Meryl Streep (for Kramer                     vs. Kramer (1979) and Sophie's Choice (1982)),                     with her eleventh career nomination for her role                     as mother figure Kate Gulden in an adaptation of Anna Quindlen's                     1994 novel, One True Thing.
[This was Streep's 9th Best Actress nomination. Streep's                       nomination pushed her past 10-time nominee Bette Davis, and edged                   her closer to Katharine Hepburn's record of 12 nominations.]
In the Best Supporting Actor category, James                   Coburn with a long acting career, the only first-time                   nominee was the winner (his first career Oscar win!) - for                   his role as Nick Nolte's tyrannical, abusive and alcoholic                   father Glen "Pop" Whitehouse in the poignant film Affliction.
Three of the actors in the Best Supporting Actor                   category (Geoffrey Rush, Billy Bob Thornton, and Ed Harris)                   were second-time nominees:
Australian actor Geoffrey Rush for his role                     as the buffoonish, debt-ridden Elizabethan theater owner                     and impresario Philip Henslowe in Shakespeare in Love. (Rush                     won the Best Actor Oscar in 1996 for his role as piano savant                     David Helfgott in Shine (1996), defeating Billy Bob                     Thornton who was also nominated as Best Actor for his role                     as Karl Childers in Sling Blade (1996) in the same                     year.)
Billy Bob Thornton for his portrayal as the                     dim-witted Jacob Mitchell in director Sam Raimi's tale of                     crime A Simple Plan. (Rush and Thornton were facing                     each other again as they did in 1996.)
Ed Harris for his role as the omnipotent,                     beret-wearing Christof, the creator of The Truman Show.                     (Harris was previously nominated three years earlier as Best                     Supporting Actor for Apollo 13 (1995).)
The final nominee in the Best Supporting Actor                   category was one-time Oscar-winner Robert Duvall (his sixth                   career nomination after previous nominations in 1972, 1979,                   1980, 1983 and 1997) as Bostonian corporate defense attorney                   Jerome Facher opposed to John Travolta's crusade in A Civil                     Action. [Duvall won the Best Actor Oscar sixteen years                   earlier for Tender Mercies (1983).]
Four of the five Best Supporting Actress nominees                   were experiencing their second nomination:
Judi Dench (see above)
Australian actress Rachel Griffiths, the only                     first-time nominee, for her role as the less-gifted, eclipsed                     older sister Hilary in Hilary and Jackie
Kathy Bates for her role as Southern political                     veteran Libby Holden in Primary Colors. (She won the                     Best Actress Oscar for her role as a psycho-fan in Misery                       (1990))
British theatrical actress Brenda Blethyn                     for her portrayal of the drunk and widowed mother Mari in Little                       Voice (She was nominated as Best Actress two years earlier                     for her third film Secrets and Lies (1996))
British actress Lynn Redgrave, for her role                     as James Whale's devoted Hungarian housekeeper Hanna in Gods                       and Monsters (She had been nominated thirty-two years                     earlier for Georgy Girl (1966))
This was the controversial year that Elia Kazan, who 'named names' during the McCarthy hearings for the HUAC,                   was given an Honorary Oscar award "in recognition of his                   indelible contributions to the art of motion picture direction." In                   his career, he had been nominated as Best Director five times                   with two wins: Gentleman's Agreement (1947) (win),
On                       the Waterfront (1954) (win), East                         of Eden (1955) , and America, America (1963).                   He also had one unsuccessful nomination for Best Original Story                   and Screenplay for America, America (1963).
Oscar Snubs and Omissions:
Jim Carrey was denied a nomination as Best Actor                   for his central role as unwitting TV show star Truman Burbank                   in Peter Weir's The Truman Show (a film also denied                   a Best Picture nomination), and Bill Murray for Best Supporting                   Actor as eccentric business millionaire in love with first-grade                   school teacher Miss Cross (Olivia Williams) in Wes Anderson's                   off-beat comedy Rushmore. [Bill Murray was also solid                   as a lawyer in the trashy film Wild Things.]
And Joseph Fiennes was denied a nomination in                   the title role as Will Shakespeare in the Best Picture winner Shakespeare                     in Love. Lisa Kudrow was un-nominated for her role as uptight                   school teacher Lucia DeLury, and Christina Ricci was also unrecognized                   for her role as bitchy, manipulative, and cunning teenager                   Dede Truitt in writer/director Don Roos' black comedy and independent                   film The Opposite of Sex (with no nominations). James                   Urbaniak was ignored for his performance as a janitor named                   Simon Grim who discovers his gifted talent for writing in Henry                   Fool.
Jane Adams was not nominated for her role as                   eternally-optimistic Joy Jordan, and Dylan Baker was also snubbed                   for his courageous performance as the disturbed and sick pedophile                   and psychologist Dr. Bill Maplewood - who was obsessed with                   his 11-year-old son Billy's classmate Johnny Grasso (Evan Silverberg),                   in writer/director Todd Solondz's controversial study of sexual                   humiliation titled Happiness.
None of the ensemble cast members of Malick's The                   Thin Red Line were nominated for acting awards: Sean                   Penn, Nick Nolte, Elias Koteas, Ben Chaplin, or Jim Caviezel. American                     History X (with one Best Actor nomination) had other                   notable, unnominated performances by Beverly D'Angelo and                   Edward Furlong. Bill Condon's Gods and Monsters (with                   three nominations: Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, and                   a win for Condon's Best Adapted Screenplay) ignored Brendan                   Fraser's performance as hunky gardener Clayton Boone. And                   the great actress Meryl Streep was ignored for her role in                   the Irish drama Dancing at Lughnasa, as the oldest                   of five spinster sisters, a schoolteacher named Kate, awaiting a missionary brother's return from Africa in the mid-30s.
And there was no nomination for The Celebration as                   Best Foreign Language Film, or for the following: the Coen                   Brothers' The Big Lebowski, Darren Aronofsky's directorial                   debut feature film Pi, Alex Troyas' tech noir thriller Dark                     City, or Alfonso Cuaron's modern-day retelling of Charles                   Dickens' Great Expectations featuring Robert                   De Niro's supporting performance as Magwitch-like crook Lustig.
A nomination for Best Score (Harry Gregson-Williams                   and John Powell engaged an 85-piece orchestra and 25-member                   chorus to perform the lively music) for Antz was displaced                   by the Best Musical or Comedy Score nomination (for Randy Newman)                   given to another insect-related score, A Bug's Life.