74th Academy Awards

74th Academy Awards
Date	March 24, 2002
Site	Kodak Theatre Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
Host	Whoopi Goldberg[1]
Pre-show	Chris Connelly Leeza Gibbons Ananda Lewis
Producer	Laura Ziskin[2]
Director	Louis J. Horvitz[3]
Highlights
Best Picture	A Beautiful Mind
Most awards	A Beautiful Mind & The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (4)
Most nominations	The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (13)
TV in the United States
Network	ABC
Duration	4 hours, 23 minutes[4]
Ratings	40.54 million 24.13% Nielsen ratings
< 73rd Academy Awards 75th >

The 74th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 2001 and took place March 24, 2002, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles beginning at 5:30 p.m. PST / 8:30 p.m. EST. It was the first ceremony to take place in Hollywood since the 33rd ceremony held in 1960. During the ceremony, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented Academy Awards (commonly referred to as Oscars) in 24 categories. The ceremony was televised in the United States by ABC. Actress Whoopi Goldberg hosted the show for the fourth time, having previously presided over the 66th, 68th, and 71st ceremonies.

A Beautiful Mind won four awards including Best Picture and Best Director for Ron Howard.^[5] The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring also won four awards, all in the technical categories. Other winners included Black Hawk Down and Moulin Rouge! with two awards each, and The Accountant, For the Birds, Gosford Park, Iris, Monster's Ball, Monsters, Inc., Murder on a Sunday Morning, No Man's Land, Pearl Harbor, Shrek, Thoth, Training Day with one. The telecast garned nearly 41 million viewers (in North America).

The film Mulholland Drive, marked the last time as of 2012, that a film received one nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director.

Halle Berry becomes the first African American to win Best Actress.^[6]

And this is the first year the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences does the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature

Winner and nominees

The nominees for the 74th Academy Awards were announced on February 12, 2002, at 5:38 a.m. PST (13:38 UTC) at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, California, by Frank Pierson, president of the Academy, and actress Marcia Gay Harden.^[7][8][9]

Films with the most nominations were The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring with thirteen, followed by A Beautiful Mind with eight. The winners were announced during the awards ceremony on March 24, 2002.^[10]

Awards

Ron Howard, Best Director winner

Denzel Washington, Best Actor winner

Halle Berry, Best Actress winner

Jim Broadbent, Best Supporting Actor winner

Jennifer Connelly, Best Supporting Actress winner

Winners are listed first and highlighted in boldface.^[11]

Multiple nominations and awards

Overview

The 74th Academy Awards ceremony was significant for a number of reasons. It saw the return of the Academy Awards celebrations to Hollywood, after more than forty years away, taking place at the brand new Kodak Theatre. As a result of the new facility, the ceremony was the first to be telecast to domestic audience on ABC in High Definition due to the vast capacity for HDTV equipment that the Kodak Theatre could utilize. Instead of a typical scenery, HD screens were used throughout the ceremony much similar to the technologically ambitious design at the 72nd Academy Awards (that was the first time an HD set was used). The visual graphics and idents were designed by Imaginary Forces (who designed graphics for several TV shows such as Ally McBeal and movies such as Mission Impossible) using a 1080i "gold circles" motif consisting of gold circles that panned through the screen or rotated rapidly. The "gold circles" motif was designed in order for viewers at home to able to watch the ceremony in High Definition.

The Oscar ceremony had several young up and coming actors and actresses to present a few of the awards. Among them included Ryan Phillippe, Reese Witherspoon, Josh Hartnett, Kirsten Dunst and Tobey Maguire.

The ceremony drew its lowest ratings since 1996 with an estimated 40.54 million watching and 24.87 households watching.

Furthermore the tone of this show was quieted by the recent occurrence of the attacks on September 11. Just as the 53rd Primetime Emmy Awards were postponed in 2001, many wondered if the Oscars would be postponed as well. Frank Pierson, then president of the Academy stated that the Oscars would proceed as scheduled, and to postpone would mean that "the terrorists have won". However, the red carpet festivities prior to the awards, though not canceled, were severely curtailed as now the availabity of the bleacher seats were determined by a lottery rather than the first come, first serve basis. Also, there were 26 references to the attacks during the telecast.^[12]

Moulin Rouge! became the first musical to be nominated for best picture since All That Jazz in 1979, a gap of 22 years. It was also the first best picture nominee (and the last as of 2010) produced in Australia since Shine in 1996.

Special events

Woody Allen made his first ever appearance at this year's Oscar ceremony to present a tribute to films shot in New York City compiled by Nora Ephron, in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.^[13]

There was a tribute to the popular scores for motion pictures in the past 74 years, arranged and conducted by Hollywood composer John Williams.

Documentary filmmaker Errol Morris, who would later win Best Documentary at the 76th Academy Awards, made a short film that was shown during the ceremony. The film shows almost 100 people discussing movies. Those featured range from Laura Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev to Iggy Pop and Lou Reed to Kenneth Arrow (1972 Nobel Laureate in Economics) to Morris' son Hamilton. Morris would again make a short film similar to this one except the subject being the 177 nominees of the 79th Academy Awards five years later (also produced by Zinskin).

Entertainment during one segment of the ceremony was provided by Cirque du Soleil. This was the first time a big lavish production was used since the 61st Academy Awards (infamous for its Rob Lowe/Snow White blunder).

Before the start of every commercial break (except the one after the In Memoriam tribute), famous people ranging from famous actors to athletes to politicians discussed their favorite movie moments.

Winners

The ceremony also saw both the Best Actor and Best Actress Oscars awarded to African-American actors for the first time in Academy Award history; this, in addition to Robert Redford and Sidney Poitier winning the Lifetime Achievement awards, led some to dub the ceremony The Bloscars and the "Blackademy Awards". However, some controversy was sparked after Denzel Washington's win, as well as Halle Berry's Best Actress win. Rumor has it that Russell Crowe was the front runner for the award, which would have marked a second consecutive win for Crowe in the Best Actor category, but a violent episode at the BAFTA ceremony several weeks earlier turned the Academy voters against him.

Randy Newman, who at the time had the distinction of most nominations without winning, would finally break his streak and win the Oscar for Best Song for Monsters Inc.'s "If I Didn't Have You". After receiving an enthusiastic standing ovation, a bemused but emotional Newman began his acceptance speech with "I don't want your pity!"

The 74th Academy Awards would be the first year that the award for Best Animated Feature was presented. According to the rules, at least three animated features have to be widely released in a particular year for the award to appear on the ballot. Shrek was the first recipient in this new award category.

Laura Ziskin (Spider-Man producer) was executive producer for the first time making her the first woman to solo produce the telecast. She also produced the 2007 telecast. The telecast, which was shown in the United States on ABC, is currently the longest to date. It is also the very last Oscars to have run for over four hours.

List of presenters and performers

Presenters

Performers

In memoriam

Presented by Kevin Spacey, the memorial montage included Jack Lemmon, Nigel Hawthorne, Beatrice Straight, Eileen Heckart, Jason Miller, Ann Sothern, Harold Russell, Kim Stanley, director Michael Ritchie, director Ted Demme, director Budd Boetticher, director Hiroshi Teshigahara, director Herbert Ross, producer Julia Phillips, composer Jay Livingston, producer William Hanna, animator Chuck Jones, producer Samuel Z. Arkoff, costume designer Danilo Donati, cinematographer Sacha Vierny, cinematographer John A. Alonzo, Carroll O'Connor, Aaliyah, George Harrison and Anthony Quinn.

The families of Peggy Lee and Dorothy McGuire publicly objected to their omissions from this segment.

Pre-Nominations

Several branches gathered to select films that would be eligible for their branches nominations.

Animated Films

The following films were eligible to be nominated for the animated feature award.

• Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
• Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius
• Marco Polo: Return to Xanadu
• Monsters, Inc.
• Osmosis Jones
• The Prince of Light
• Shrek
• The Trumpet of the Swan
• Waking Life

Visual Effects

• A.I. Artificial Intelligence
• Black Hawk Down
• Cats & Dogs
• The Fast and the Furious
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
• Jurassic Park III
• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
• Pearl Harbor

15 minute clips were screened for the Visual Effects Nominating Committee February 6, 2002.

Best Makeup

• A.I. Artificial Intelligence
• A Beautiful Mind
• Hannibal
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
• Moulin Rouge
• Planet of the Apes

Ten-minute clip reels from each of the films were screened for the Makeup Award Nominating Committee on Saturday, February 9, 2002. The members nominated three films but could have given a special award to one film or recommended no award be given.^[14]

Sound Editing

• A.I. Artificial Intelligence
• Amelie
• Black Hawk Down
• The Fast and the Furious
• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
• Monsters, Inc.
• Pearl Harbor

Ten-minute clip reels from each of the seven films were screened for the Sound Editing Award Committee on February 5, 2002. The members than voted on these films for Oscar consideration. The outcome of this vote was two of three possible movies received the required votes for nomination. If only one had received the required votes it would have been recommended to the Board of Governors for a special award. If none had there would have been no award given.^[15]

See also

• 74th Academy Awards nominees and winners
• 59th Golden Globe Awards
• 8th Screen Actors Guild Awards
• 22nd Golden Raspberry Awards
• 2001 in film
• List of Academy Awards ceremonies
• Submissions for the 74th Academy Award for Best Foreign Film
• 44th Grammy Awards
• 53rd Primetime Emmy Awards
• 54th Primetime Emmy Awards
• 55th British Academy Film Awards
• 56th Tony Awards
• Governors Awards

Notes