LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Anne Hathaway won her first Oscar yesterday and harrowing Austrian film Amour was voted Best Foreign Language Film as the movie industry scattered its highest honours across multiple films.
Hathaway, who starved herself and chopped off her long brown locks to play tragic heroine Fantine in Les Miserables, was considered the overwhelming favourite for supporting role in the screen version of the popular stage musical.
“It came true,” she said, looking at the golden statuette.
“Here’s hoping that some day in the not too distant future the misfortunes of Fantine will only be found in stories and not in real life,” Hathaway added.
All the main members of the Les Miserables cast sang a rousing version of “Suddenly” from the film in a telecast that was packed with musical numbers, including a show-stopping performance by Dreamgirls Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson.
Amour, the heart-wrenching tale of an elderly couple coping with the wife’s debilitating stroke, gave Austria the Best Foreign Language film after it had dominated awards shows in Europe and the United States for months.
Amour actress Emmanuelle Riva, 86, emerged as a dark horse in the past few days in the Best Actress race that had been seen as a battle between Zero Dark Thirty actress Jessica Chastain and Jennifer Lawrence of Silver Linings Playbook.
Lawrence won the Oscar.
Presidential drama Lincoln went into Sunday’s three-hour plus ceremony with a leading 12 nominations, including a directing nod for double Oscar winner Steven Spielberg.
But it was Argo, the Iran hostage thriller about a CIA mission 30 years ago, that won the Oscar.
Another Austrian, Christoph Waltz, was the surprise winner of the closest contest going into the ceremony. He took Best Supporting Actor honours for his turn as an eccentric dentist-turned-bounty-hunter in Quentin Tarantino’s slavery revenge fantasy Django Unchained.
Seth MacFarlane, making his debut as Oscars host, turned the telecast into a running joke about whether he would be deemed the worst Oscar host ever by the media today.
“I honestly cannot believe I am here. It’s an honuor that everyone else said ‘no,'” said the creator of provocative edgy animated TV series “Family Guy.”
MacFarlane mixed big music and dance numbers with edgy sketches, and barbs about Hollywood A-listers.
His biggest laugh came in a reference to director Ben Affleck’s snub in the directing race for Argo. “The story was so top secret that the film’s director was unknown to the Academy!,” MacFarlane quipped.
Musical Les Miserables, comedy Silver Linings Playbook, shipwreck tale Life of Pi, Osama bin laden thriller Zero Dark Thirty, slavery Western Django Unchained, indie film Beasts of the Southern Wild, and Amour round out the contenders for the best film of 2012.
Brave, the Pixar movie about a feisty Scottish princess, took home the golden statuette for Best Animated Feature.
After several years of nominating little-seen movies, this year’s nine Best Picture contenders have pulled in more than $2 billion in tickets worldwide.
The Oscar winners were chosen in secret ballots by some 5,800 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
