‘Slumdog Millionaire’ Wins Best Picture, Seven Other Oscars

“Slumdog Millionaire,” the feel- good tale of Mumbai orphans who escape poverty, won eight Oscars including best picture.

Honors for “Slumdog” included best director for Danny Boyle and best adapted screenplay for Simon Beaufoy at the 81st Annual Academy Awards in Los Angeles, telecast yesterday by Walt Disney Co.’s ABC.

“Slumdog’s” success mirrors its protagonists’ rags-to- riches story. Made for about $15 million with a cast of unknowns, the movie from Fox Searchlight Pictures prevailed over the bigger budget and star power of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” a $150 million production starring Brad Pitt. The film resonates with audiences facing economic hardships from the deepening U.S. recession, Beaufoy told reporters backstage.

“There are more important things than money,” Beaufoy said. “There’s faith and love and family. In this era, this money thing has been shown to be a false idol.”

Kate Winslet won the best-actress Oscar for her portrayal of a former guard at a Nazi concentration camp in Weinstein Co.’s “The Reader.” Sean Penn won for best actor in a leading role, for his portrayal of Harvey Milk, the gay San Francisco supervisor who was murdered in 1978 by a political rival. “Milk” was released by NBC Universal’s Focus Features.

“It’s a good time for those who voted for the ban on gay marriage to sit and reflect,” Penn said in accepting the statuette, referring to a California ballot measure that passed last year. “We’ve got to have equal rights for everyone.”

Winslet’s Win

Winslet had been nominated five times without winning. In “The Reader,” she plays Hanna Schmitz, a German who has a love affair with a younger man, then disappears. A decade later, she turns up in a courtroom, accused of World War II war crimes.

The late Heath Ledger won the supporting-actor Oscar for his role as the Joker in “The Dark Knight,” becoming the second actor to win the prize posthumously.

Ledger, born in Perth, Australia, died last year of an accidental drug overdose at the age of 28. His diabolical turn as the Joker focused attention on the Batman film, released six months after his death.

“Dark Knight,” the second-highest grossing movie at the U.S. box office after “Titanic” in 1997, has taken in more than $1 billion worldwide for Warner Bros.

‘Quietly Pleased’

“He would have been quietly pleased,” his sister Angela Ledger told reporters backstage. “He would have enjoyed being recognized by his peers in the industry.”

Peter Finch was the first actor to win a posthumous Oscar, capturing the award for “Network” two months after he died in 1977.

Actor Hugh Jackman opened the show with a song-and-dance medley that drew in actress Anne Hathaway from the audience to stand in as Richard Nixon in a spoof of the best picture- nominated “Frost/Nixon.”

Comedian Jerry Lewis received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for his telecasts raising money to improve infants’ health.

Penelope Cruz won the supporting-actress Oscar for her role as a jealous ex-wife in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.”

Disney’s “Wall-E” was recognized as best animated feature, while best animated short went to “La Maison et Petits Cubes,” from Japan’s A Robot Communications. Filmmaker Kunio Kato got an audience laugh by ending his acceptance speech with, “Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto,” a line from the 1980s pop tune by the band Styx.

Oscar for ‘Departures’

Another Japanese movie, “Departures,” won the Oscar for best foreign-language film, beating entries from France, Germany, Austria and Israel.

An Oscar can add millions of dollars to studio coffers from higher box-office and DVD sales. It also brings prestige to studios that back winners, said Bill Mechanic, head of Pandemonium Productions, an independent production company and former chairman of News Corp.’s Fox studios.

“Slumdog” almost didn’t get distributed. Fox Searchlight picked up the movie after Time Warner Inc. closed its small- picture division. The themes in “Slumdog” assumed greater importance as the film’s release in the U.S. coincided with the stock market crash, screenwriter Beaufoy said.

“The world is not in the best of shape,” Mechanic said in an interview. “‘Slumdog’ was one of the films that was most optimistic in the face of great struggles. It’s a picture that lifted people.”