72nd Academy Awards

72nd Academy Awards

Date

Sunday, March 26, 2000

Site

Shrine Auditorium
Los Angeles, California

Pre-show

Tyra Banks
Chris Connelly
Meredith Vieira

Host

Billy Crystal

Producer

Richard Zanuck
Lili Fini Zanuck

Director

Louis J. Horvitz

Highlights

Best Picture

American Beauty

Most awards

American Beauty (5)

Most nominations

American Beauty (8)

TV in the United States

Network

ABC

Duration

4 hours, 4 minutes

Viewership

46.53 million
29.64% (Nielsen ratings)

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The 72nd Academy Awards ceremony (also known as Oscars 2000) took place at Los Angeles' Shrine Auditorium, and was Billy Crystal's seventh time hosting the Awards. The ceremony attracted 46.53 million viewers, an audience 3.7% bigger than the previous ceremony.

The Academy Awards ceremony was dominated by two films. Beginning with American Beauty, which was nominated in 8 categories and won 5 awards, including Best Picture. The other film, The Matrix, which, despite not being nominated for Best Picture, won 4 awards.

Notably, this broadcast was the first Academy Awards ceremony broadcast to receive a TV Parental Guidelines rating of TV-14 (Parents Strongly Cautioned), in part due to the showing of many American Beauty clips featuring scenes of sex, innuendo, and violence. Despite its containing an offensive word, the Oscar-nominated song "Blame Canada" (from South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut) was performed, with performer Robin Williams cleverly "hiding" the word; he also added a line riffing Celine Dion. The first Oscar show to be rated under the TV Parental Guidelines was the 69th Academy Awards, broadcast in 1997, but it was rated TV-PG (Parental Guidance).

It was also the first Academy Awards ceremony—and the first major awards ceremony—to be telecast in high-definition. ABC chose to air the Oscars in 720p format.

1 Awards
2 Multiple nominations and awards
3 In Memoriam
4 Trivia
- 4.1 Presenters
- 4.2 Performers
5 Reference
6 See also

Awards

Winners are listed first and highlighted with boldface^[1]

Best Picture	Best Director
*American Beauty* The Cider House Rules The Green Mile The Insider The Sixth Sense	Sam Mendes – American Beauty Spike Jonze – Being John Malkovich Lasse Hallström – The Cider House Rules Michael Mann – The Insider M. Night Shyamalan – The Sixth Sense
Best Actor	Best Actress
Kevin Spacey – American Beauty Denzel Washington – The Hurricane Russell Crowe – The Insider Richard Farnsworth – The Straight Story Sean Penn – Sweet and Lowdown	Hilary Swank – Boys Don't Cry Annette Bening – American Beauty Julianne Moore – The End of the Affair Meryl Streep – Music of the Heart Janet McTeer – Tumbleweeds
Best Supporting Actor	Best Supporting Actress
Michael Caine – The Cider House Rules Michael Clarke Duncan – The Green Mile Tom Cruise – Magnolia Haley Joel Osment – The Sixth Sense Jude Law – The Talented Mr. Ripley	Angelina Jolie – Girl, Interrupted Catherine Keener – Being John Malkovich Chloë Sevigny – Boys Don't Cry Toni Collette – The Sixth Sense Samantha Morton – Sweet and Lowdown
Best Original Screenplay	Best Adapted Screenplay
American Beauty – Alan Ball Being John Malkovich – Charlie Kaufman Magnolia – Paul Thomas Anderson The Sixth Sense – M. Night Shyamalan Topsy-Turvy – Mike Leigh	The Cider House Rules – John Irving Election – Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor The Green Mile – Frank Darabont The Insider – Michael Mann and Eric Roth The Talented Mr. Ripley – Anthony Minghella
Best Foreign Language Film
All About My Mother (Spain) Caravan (Nepal) East/West (France) Solomon and Gaenor (United Kingdom) Under the Sun (Sweden)
Best Documentary Feature	Best Documentary Short
One Day in September – Arthur Cohn and Kevin Macdonald Buena Vista Social Club – Wim Wenders and Ulrich Felsberg Genghis Blues – Roko Belic and Adrian Belic On the Ropes – Nanette Burstein and Brett Morgen Speaking in Strings – Paola di Florio and Lilibet Foster	King Gimp – Susan Hannah Hadary and William A. Whiteford Eyewitness – Bert Van Bork The Wildest Show in the South: The Angola Prison Rodeo – Simeon Soffer and Jonathan Stack
Best Live Action Short	Best Animated Short
My Mother Dreams the Satan's Disciples in New York – Barbara Schock and Tammy Tiehel Bror, Min Bror – Henrik Ruben Genz and Michael W. Horsten Killing Joe – Mehdi Norowzian and Steve Wax Kleingeld – Marc-Andreas Bochert and Gabriele Lins Major and Minor Miracles – Marcus Olsson	The Old Man and the Sea – Alexander Petrov Humdrum – Peter Peake My Grandmother Ironed the King's Shirts – Torill Kove 3 Misses – Paul Driessen When the Day Breaks – Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis
Best Original Score	Best Original Song
The Red Violin – John Corigliano American Beauty – Thomas Newman Angela's Ashes – John Williams The Cider House Rules – Rachel Portman The Talented Mr. Ripley – Gabriel Yared	*"You'll Be In My Heart" from Tarzan* – Music and Lyric by Phil Collins** "Blame Canada" from South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut – Music and Lyric by Trey Parker and Marc Shaiman "Music of My Heart" from Music of the Heart – Music and Lyric by Diane Warren "Save Me" from Magnolia – Music and Lyric by Aimee Mann "When She Loved Me" from Toy Story 2 – Music and Lyric by Randy Newman
Best Sound Editing	Best Sound Mixing
The Matrix – Dane A. Davis Fight Club – Ren Klyce and Richard Hymns Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace – Ben Burtt and Tom Bellfort	The Matrix – John T. Reitz, Gregg Rudloff, David E. Campbell and David Lee The Green Mile – Robert J. Litt, Elliot Tyson, Michael Herbick and Willie D. Burton The Insider – Andy Nelson, Doug Hemphill and Lee Orloff The Mummy – Leslie Shatz, Chris Carpenter, Rick Kline and Chris Munro Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace – Gary Rydstrom, Tom Johnson, Shawn Murphy and John Midgley
Best Art Direction	Best Cinematography
Sleepy Hollow – Art Direction: Rick Heinrichs; Set Decoration: Peter Young Anna and the King – Art Direction: Luciana Arrighi; Set Decoration: Ian Whittaker The Cider House Rules – Art Direction: David Gropman; Set Decoration: Beth Rubino The Talented Mr. Ripley – Art Direction: Roy Walker; Set Decoration: Bruno Cesari Topsy-Turvy – Art Direction: Eve Stewart; Set Decoration: Eve Stewart and John Bush	American Beauty – Conrad L. Hall The End of the Affair – Roger Pratt The Insider – Dante Spinotti Sleepy Hollow – Emmanuel Lubezki Snow Falling on Cedars – Robert Richardson
Best Makeup	Best Costume Design
Topsy-Turvy – Christine Blundell and Trefor Proud Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me – Michèle Burke and Mike Smithson Bicentennial Man – Greg Cannom Life – Rick Baker	Topsy-Turvy – Lindy Hemming Anna and the King – Jenny Beavan Sleepy Hollow – Colleen Atwood The Talented Mr. Ripley – Gary Jones and Ann Roth Titus – Milena Canonero
Best Film Editing	Best Visual Effects
The Matrix – Zach Staenberg American Beauty – Tariq Anwar The Cider House Rules – Lisa Zeno Churgin The Insider – William Goldenberg , Paul Rubell and David Rosenbloom The Sixth Sense – Andrew Mondshein	The Matrix – John Gaeta, Janek Sirrs, Jon Thum and Steve Courtley Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace – John Knoll, Dennis Muren, Scott Squires and Rob Coleman Stuart Little – John Dykstra, Jerome Chen, Henry F. Anderson III and Eric Allard

Academy Honorary Award

Andrzej Wajda^[2]

Irving G. Thalberg Award

Warren Beatty

Gordon E. Sawyer Award

Dr. Roderick T. Ryan

Multiple nominations and awards

The following seventeen films received multiple nominations:

Eight: American Beauty
Seven: The Cider House Rules and The Insider
Six: The Sixth Sense
Five: The Talented Mr. Ripley
Four: The Green Mile, The Matrix, and Topsy-Turvy
Three: Being John Malkovich, Magnolia, Sleepy Hollow, and Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Two: Anna and the King, Boys Don't Cry, The End of the Affair, Music of the Heart, and Sweet and Lowdown

The following four films received multiple awards:

Five: American Beauty
Four: The Matrix
Two: The Cider House Rules, and Topsy-Turvy

In Memoriam

Presented by Edward Norton. The Academy remembers those persons involved in films that died in the previous year: Sylvia Sidney, Jim Varney, composer Ernest Gold, Ruth Roman, Henry Jones, director Robert Bresson, Desmond Llewelyn, screenwriter Mario Puzo, producer Allan Carr, Rory Calhoun, screenwriter Frank Tarloff, animator Marc Davis, Hedy Lamarr, Victor Mature, screenwriter Garson Kanin, director Roger Vadim, Mabel King, Oliver Reed, special effects expert Albert Whitlock, Ian Bannen, screenwriter Abraham Polonsky, Dirk Bogarde, director Edward Dmytryk, Lila Kedrova, Charles 'Buddy' Rogers, Madeline Kahn and lastly, George C. Scott.

Trivia

This was by far one of the most technically ambitious and expensive Oscar productions ever staged. Conceived by late Production Designer Bob Keene, the stage featured five 40-foot-tall (12 m) video towers each capable of producing imagery independently or one large image when grouped together. This scenic element was used to display images of previous Oscar appearances as presenters took the stage, nomination packages, and even the famous five-box when winners were announced. This show set a precedent for the convergence of video and staging technologies that have become nearly ubiquitous in modern concerts and events. This was the first time the ceremony used High Definition clip masters for nomination packages [1], though the show was not broadcast to the domestic ABC audience in High Definition. The first true HD telecast was in 2002.

This was also one of the longest Oscar productions on record clocking in at just over four hours. Twenty-two cameras covered the event for ABC Television, including six jib arms, two steadicams, one akela crane, and for the first time a rail-cam. There were nearly 200 microphones and over 600 moving light fixtures. The show had nine days of rehearsals.

Billy Crystal's opening film featured him being transported through the history of motion pictures; sitting at a table with Charlie Chaplin, being in the shower during Psycho, claiming to not be Spartacus, being seduced by Mrs. Robinson, riding in the backseat of a taxi with Gene Hackman (and nearly running over Stephen King), being told to 'act like a man' by The Godfather, and finally singing "Tonight" from West Side Story.

His traditional best picture medley [2] featured samples of popular songs such as:
- Green Acres theme song for The Green Mile.
- Barbra Streisand's "People" for The Sixth Sense (In a pun on "I see dead people", Crystal sang, "People / Kids who see dead people / Are the spookiest people in the world.")
- 60 Minutes and Chopin's "Valse" for The Insider
- Theme from Mame for The Cider House Rules (a pun on Caine as in Michael Caine)
- The Lady is a Tramp for American Beauty

Music Directors Don Was, Burt Bacharach and Rob Shrock employed extensive use of sequenced and recorded music to give the show a hip flavor, though a full orchestra was also on hand to perform "Blame Canada" and Billy Crystal's opening nominee medley. Musical performers included Phil Collins, Randy Newman, Sarah MacLachlan, Aimee Mann, Gloria Estefan, *NSYNC, Garth Brooks, Queen Latifah, Ray Charles, Isaac Hayes, Dionne Warwick, Faith Hill and the University of Southern California drumline and cheerleaders.

Kenny Ortega (director of the popular High School Musical) choreographed "Blame Canada", though the show was billed to be the first without a traditional dance number.

The omission of DeForest Kelley from the "In Memoriam" list (see below) led to protests from Star Trek fans. [3]

In recent years the Academy Award for Best Original Score was divided into two for Comedy and Dramatic Scores. They were combined again this ceremony.

It was during rehearsals for this show that the famous Whitney Houston meltdown occurred, leading show producers to replace her at the last minute with Faith Hill, a friend of Oscar producer, Lili Zanuck.

Producer Joel Gallen of MTV was tapped to produce a hipper preshow that was helmed by Chris Connelly, Tyra Banks and Meredith Vieira and transitioned directly to the show proper without a commercial break in between.

This was also the first occurrence of using famous faces to serve as the announcer for the telecast. Actor Peter Coyote handled the duties. Glenn Close and Donald Sutherland would announce the 74th show in 2002.

This was the first time a woman held the title of producer on an Oscar telecast. Producer Laura Ziskin would helm the show in 2002 and 2007.

Had the Award for Best Lead Actress gone to Annette Bening instead of Hilary Swank, then American Beauty would have been the fourth film to win all five major oscars.

South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone attended the ceremony wearing imitations of a pink dress previously worn by Gwyneth Paltrow and a green dress previously worn by Jennifer Lopez. In a 2005 interview, they claimed to have taken acid on the day of the show.^[3]

As of 2011 this is the last Oscars where only 2 of the nominations for Best Picture took home any Oscars.

Presenters

Erykah Badu and Tobey Maguire (Presenters: Best Makeup)
Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz (Presenters: Best Foreign Language Film)
Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, and Lucy Liu (Presenters: Best Costume Design)
Angela Bassett (Presenter: The Sixth Sense Film Clip)
Roberto Benigni (Presenter: Best Actress)
Wes Bentley, Thora Birch, and Mena Suvari (Presenters: Best Documentary Short Subject)
Cate Blanchett and Jude Law (Presenters: Best Live Action Short Film)
Michael Caine (Presenter: Best Animated Short Film)
Cher (Presenter: Best Original Song)
James Coburn (Presenter: Best Supporting Actress)
Russell Crowe and Julianne Moore (Presenters: Best Art Direction)
Judi Dench (Presenter: Best Supporting Actor)
Clint Eastwood (Presenter: Best Picture)
Jane Fonda (Presenter: Honorary Award to Andrzej Wajda)
Morgan Freeman (Presenter: History in the Movies Montage)
Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman (Presenters: Best Documentary Feature)
Mel Gibson (Presenter: Best Original Screenplay)
Heather Graham and Mike Myers (Presenters: Best Sound)
Salma Hayek (Presenter: Scientific & Technical Awards)
Anjelica Huston (Presenter: The Insider Film Clip)
Samuel L. Jackson (Presenter: The Green Mile Film Clip)
Tommy Lee Jones and Ashley Judd (Presenters: Best Film Editing)
Diane Keaton (Presenter: American Beauty Film Clip)
LL Cool J and Vanessa Williams (Presenters: Best Original Song)
Jack Nicholson (Presenter: Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award to Warren Beatty)
Edward Norton (Presenter: In Memoriam Montage)
Haley Joel Osment (Presenter: Child Star Montage)
Gwyneth Paltrow (Presenter: Best Actor)
Brad Pitt (Presenter: Best Cinematography)
Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron (Presenters: Best Original Score)
Winona Ryder (Presenter: The Cider House Rules Film Clip)
Arnold Schwarzenegger (Presenter: Best Visual Effects)
Kevin Spacey (Presenter: Best Adapted Screenplay)
Steven Spielberg (Presenter: Best Director)
Chow Yun-Fat (Presenter: Best Sound Editing)

Performers

Garth Brooks ("Everybody's Talkin'/Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head/When You Wish Upon a Star")
Ray Charles ("Secret Love/I've Got You Under My Skin/All the Way")
Phil Collins ("You'll Be in My Heart" from Tarzan)
Gloria Estefan and 'N Sync ("Music of My Heart" from Music of the Heart)
Isaac Hayes ("Theme from Shaft")
Faith Hill ("Over the Rainbow/The Way We Were")
Queen Latifah ("The Man That Got Away")
Aimee Mann ("Save Me" from Magnolia)
Sarah McLachlan and Randy Newman ("When She Loved Me" from Toy Story 2)
Dionne Warwick ("Alfie")
Robin Williams ("Blame Canada" from South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut)

Reference

^ "The 72nd Academy Awards (2000) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/legacy/ceremony/72nd-winners.html. Retrieved 2011-11-19.
^ Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. "Honorary Award" (Web). Official Academy Awards Database. AMPAS, Oscars.org. Archived from the original on 2008-04-09. http://web.archive.org/web/20080409013646/http://www.oscars.org/aboutacademyawards/awards/honorary01.html. Retrieved 2008-07-29. "The presenter was Jane Fonda." (Page 1 of 2 pages; photo caption).
^ http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/612/612094p4.html