'Shakespeare' Wins Big

The big winner was Shakespeare in Love at the Academy Awards on Sunday. The romantic comedy picked up seven Oscars, including best picture and best actress for Gwyneth Paltrow. Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan captured five Oscars.

Roberto Benigni, as an Italian Jew shielding his son from the horrors of the Holocaust in Life is Beautiful, stunned the audience by becoming the first star of a foreign film to win an award for best performance since Sophia Loren won as best actress for Two Women in 1960. Life is Beautiful, which Benigni also wrote and directed, won additional Academy Awards for foreign film and dramatic score.

"This is a terrible mistake because I used up all my English," he said as he leapt to the stage for the second time.

The split between best picture and director marked the first time since 1989 the prizes had gone to different movies. That year, Driving Miss Daisy won as best picture, while Oliver Stone was named best director for Born on the Fourth of July.

"Am I allowed to say I really wanted this?" Spielberg joked as he accepted his second directing Oscar. His first was for Schindler's List in 1993.

Paltrow, never before nominated, was honored for her role as the object of a young Bard's affections.

"I don't feel very deserving of this in your presence," she said, sobbing as she named her fellow nominees.

Sunday evening's first winner went to veteran actor James Coburn, who picked up the best supporting actor award for his role in Affliction.

"I've been doing this work for like over half my life, and I finally got one right, I guess," said the 70-year-old actor, whose dozens of films include Our Man Flint.

Later, Shakespeare in Love picked up steam on the award count, as Judi Dench was awarded best supporting actress for her role as Queen Elizabeth I.

She joked about being the last master of ceremonies of the century and millennium, saying: "I am the last 20th century fox."

After last year's blowout by Titanic, the movie crowd seemed to welcome a real race this year between Spielberg's unrelenting Saving Private Ryan and the romantic Elizabethan fantasy, Shakespeare in Love.

Controversy also surrounded this year's telecast with a furor over director Elia Kazan's special Oscar award. He's been long criticized by some for his role as an informer in the McCarthy harings in the 1950s.

The lack of a runaway favorite helped make the 71st Academy Awards among the most anticipated in recent history. With two well-received films as the leaders, the campaign for votes was conducted largely in Hollywood trade paper and newspaper ads.

Miramax, which often stages big-money campaigns for its Oscar candidates and succeeded two years ago with a best-picture win for The English Patient, laid out millions for Shakespeare in Love ads.

DreamWorks was forced to counter with an estimated $4 million to promote its Saving Private Ryan.

The battle of the dueling studios prompted calls for restrictions on campaign expenses. But, as in the political arena, no one has proposed how to limit the expenditures.

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