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The Def Oscar Jam
The 77th annual Academy Awards have come and gone but the event will live in the memory as a night when black stars shone brightly on the Oscar stage.
With a host of black music stars in the audience, one could have been forgiven for thinking it was the Grammy Awards. Two of the biggest Hip-Hop stars in the world were present. One was Jay Z, boyfriend to R'n'B superstar Beyonce; P. Diddy was the other. The former Puff Daddy is trying to be taken seriously as an actor these days (he played Halle Berry's executed husband in Monster's Ball), so he had the good sense to come to the Oscars simply as Sean Combs. It went smoothly, somewhat. Combs was either reading the autocue wrong, or looking into the wrong camera, because he never quite caught our eye. It's not easy making the transition from rapper to serious actor, but with the successes of Will Smith and Queen Latifah, more and more Hip-Hoppers are giving it a go.
Black music gods, living and dead, also came out to play. The 'Artist-formerly-known-as-Prince', now back to being just Prince, was in attendance. Tupac: Resurrection, a film about the most iconic rapper either side of heaven, was nominated for Best Documentary feature. And the late Ray Charles came down for a triumphant bow, when Jamie Foxx picked up the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of the music legend in the film, Ray. Foxx, once better known as a stand-up comedian, became only the third black man to win a Best Actor statuette - in the footsteps of Sidney Poitier and Denzel Washington.
Another stand-up-comic-turned actor, Chris Rock, was the Academy's risquZ
As for Rock himself, the fears were unfounded. He did just fine, even if the jokes pushed the boundaries a little too far for some. Black films, he quipped, "don't have real names, they have names like Barbershop. That's not a name, that's a location." He continued: "They like to say there's over 100 stars out tonight. No there's not. There's only four real stars. The rest are just popular people." One of the 'merely popular' people, apparently, was British actor Jude Law, at whose expense Chris Rock cracked some very cutting jokes. Some might have felt uncomfortable laughing, and last year's Best Actor winner, Sean Penn, was one of them. Presenting the Best Actress Oscar, Penn defended Law, saying: "Forgive my compromised humour, but I wanted to answer our host's question - about who Jude Law is... He is one of our finest actors."
And so to the Oscar race, in which Jamie Foxx had the company of three other black performers. Morgan Freeman was in the running, with his nomination for Million Dollar Baby, a film that would go on to have a million dollar night, trumping Martin Scorsese's widely tipped Aviator in the major categories. Don Cheadle and British-Nigerian actress Sophie Okonedo were also nominated for Best Actor and Best Actress respectively, for Hotel Rwanda. "We have four black nominees," announced Chris Rock. "It's kinda like Def Oscar Jam tonight."
Walking down the red carpet at Hollywood's Kodak Theatre earlier, the stars put on their best for the entertainment industry's biggest night of the year. Hilary Swank was the million dollar babe, looking statuesque in a blue couture gown. Very appropriate, for a woman nominated for the second time, for her role in Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby.
Prior to her first nomination, for Boys Don't Cry, Swank was known more for her role in the unremarkable Karate Kid III. Up against a heavily pregnant Annette Bening in that year's Oscar race, Hilary Swank walked off with the statuette, and was catapulted to fame. Five years on, Bening - respected actress and wife to Warren Beatty - found herself nominated in the Best Actress category again, with Swank as the main obstacle in the way. In future, Bening will be praying she doesn't find herself in an Oscar 'rematch' with a woman who has played a 'karate kid', a girl who lived as a boy, and lately, a boxer. Faced with the unstoppable, turbo-charged talent of Hilary Swank, Bening stood no chance. By the time Sean Penn opened the envelope to announce the winner, Swank, a 30-year-old from Nebraska, had won the second Oscar of her short career. "I'm just a girl from a trailer-park who had a dream," she said on accepting her award. Warren Beatty could be seen placing a consoling arm round his wife's shoulder.
Earlier on, Cate Blanchett had won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, for her role as Katharine Hepburn in Aviator. The highly respected Morgan Freeman was also declared the Best Supporting Actor, after four nominations. His role in Million Dollar Baby saw him team up again with Clint Eastwood, next to whom he had appeared in the modern classic, Unforgiven. Eastwood was recognised by the Academy for that earlier film, as he was again last weekend for his latest, but the Oscar eluded Freeman - until now. Considered more of a spirit than an actor, Freeman got a standing ovation as he walked onstage to receive his Oscar. Back in the audience later on, the actor was seen holding his statuette close; it had been a long time coming.
Highlights of the show included a tribute to the late talk-show host, Johnny Carson, who presented the Oscar show five times. Al Pacino made an appearance onstage to present an honorary Oscar to director Sidney Lumet. In one particularly touching footage, Lumet is shown hugging the late River Phoenix on the set of the film, Running On Empty. Phoenix, a brilliant and blazing young star who appeared destined for greatness, was 'running on empty', it turned out - and died of a drug overdose a few years after the film.
Even more affecting, was the traditional Oscar segment in which the industry pays tribute to performers who have passed away in the last year. To the strains of a requiem, their images flashed before us. Ronald Reagan, American President and middle-of-the-road actor; Fay Wray, who appeared in the original King Kong film during the 1930s; Jerry Orbach, a wonderful character actor of whose death this writer had been unaware; Janet Leigh, from the iconic and homicidal shower-scene in Alfred Hitchcock's classic, Psycho; and Christopher Reeve, a superman in life as well as on film. Others included the black actor Paul Winfield, who once played Martin Luther King; and Ossie Davis, who died only 23 days before at the age of 87, and for whom an audible sigh mingled with cheer, went off in the Kodak Theatre. The last candle was held out for the man hailed as the best there ever was, Marlon Brando. With images from his greatest roles flashing on the screen, his voice was heard lamenting once more in death: "I coulda been a contender, I coulda been somebody."
Beyonce Knowles made another bid for world domination, performing three of the five nominated songs. She pulled out all the stops, especially in a dramatic appearance with Phantom of the Opera composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, which made one wonder whether Beyonce had ever looked more beautiful. But her bid remained only a bid, because the Latin world had a lot to say - or sing - about it. A dynamite Latin duo, Spanish Penelope Cruz and Mexican Salma Hayek, brought onto the stage, beauty, a lot of body - and accented English - as joint presenters. Afterwards, Hayek, alone onstage and visibly moved, introduced the first song in Spanish ever nominated for an Oscar - performed by another dynamite duo, Carlos Santana and Antonio Banderas. With Santana on the guitar, Banderas sang Al Otro Lado Del Rio, from The Motorcycle Diaries, a film about the revolutionary icon, Che Guevara. It was a gutsy performance, with enough Latin passion to stop Beyonce in her tracks - and it did, winning the Best Song Oscar.
Prince, a past Oscar winner himself, walked onstage wearing purple and white, to present the songwriter, Jorge Drexler, with the statuette. Accepting the award, Drexler bowed deeply to 'His Royal Purpleness', and fittingly so. During the 1980s, it was natural to debate who was the greater musical genius, Prince or Michael Jackson. It may never be settled. But on the morning after the Oscars, Jackson's child abuse trial was going to begin in California. Prince, on the other hand, has been making a steady comeback, and was the highest earning music star in the US last year. Seeing a serene Prince on the Oscar stage, it was plain to see, that he has survived the ravages of time, tide and celebrity, better than 'The Gloved One'.
Clint Eastwood, 74, who missed out on the big prizes last year for his splendid Mystic River, made up for the disappointment this time round, winning Best Director and Best Film, for Million Dollar Baby. He thanked his 96-year-old mother - sitting in the audience as she did when he won in 1993 for Unforgiven - "for her genes".
But this was the Def Oscar Jam, and the night belonged to Best Actor Jamie Foxx, who won, as widely predicted. Wearing a blue suit, he led the audience in a brief sing-a-long, then thanked the late Ray Charles, "for living." Foxx dedicated his award to his late grandmother. "She'd tell me, 'stand like you got some sense. Stand like you've been somewhere... then she'd whup me, then she'd talk to me about why she whupped me."
Foxx, who is now hot property in Hollywood, said of his Oscar win: "In our music, in our everyday life, there are so many negative things. Why not have something positive and stamp it with blackness?" Well, he did just that on Oscar night, as did the host Chris Rock, who closed the show by saying 'homie' style: "Goodnight Brooklyn. Yo!" And so ended the Def Oscar jam.
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