BAFTA Awards 2006 Winners
by Andre Soares
Kimberly French / Focus Films
Brokeback Mountain was the big winner at the Orange British Academy of Film 2006 Awards. This tale of the doomed love affair between two Wyoming ranch hands won a total of four awards: Best Picture, Best Director (Ang Lee), Best Adapted Screenplay (Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana), and surprisingly Best Supporting Actor for Jake Gyllenhaal. (While accepting the Best Film award, producer James Schamus jokingly complained that his film has been unfairly labeled “the gay cowboy movie,” when it actually is a “universal love story about two gay shepherds.”)
Two actors portraying real-life characters came out on top. Philip Seymour Hoffman won the Best Actor award for Capote, in which he plays the flamboyant writer Truman Capote, while Reese Witherspoon won as Best Actress for her performance as Johnny Cash’s companion and later wife, June Carter, in Walk the Line.
Hoffman and Witherspoon defeated two British favorites, The Constant Gardener stars Ralph Fiennes (who has been unjustly neglected on this side of the Atlantic) and Rachel Weisz (who, also on this side of the Atlantic, has been unjustly getting “best supporting” wins and nominations for what amounts to a lead role). In fact, the solid political romance/thriller won only one award out of its ten nominations - for Best Editing (Claire Simpson). The Constant Gardener even lost out the Best British Film award, which went to Nick Park and Steve Box’s animated feature Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
Another big loser was American actor-director-producer George Clooney, who received more nominations - four in all - than most films, but who came away empty-handed. As a consolation prize, David Puttnam, winner of the British Academy’s Fellowship Award, thanked all the filmmakers of this year’s nominated films - Clooney in particular - for proving him wrong. The veteran producer acknowledged that, contrary to what he had said in the past, movies that both inform and entertain can still get made.
(For the record, Jake Gyllenhaal was guilty of stealing Clooney’s thunder by unexpectedly winning in the supporting category. Clooney had been nominated for two performances, in Syriana and in Good Night, and Good Luck. For the latter, he also received nods in the Best Director and Best Film - as one of the producers - categories. Adding insult to injury, Gyllenhaal won for what actually is a lead role.)
De battre mon coeur s’est arreté / The Beat That My Heart Skipped was a surprise winner in the Best Foreign-Language Film category. Directed by Jacques Audiard, the psychological crime drama stars Romain Duris as a thug who is unsure if he should stick by his scummy father, or attempt a new life as a concert pianist.
The overblown and manipulative Crash won two awards, Best Original Screenplay for Paul Haggis (who also directed) and Bobby Moresco, and Best Supporting Actress to British-Zimbabwean performer Thandie Newton.
Full list of winners and nominees at the 2006 Orange British Academy of Film Awards
List of the British Academy of Film 2006 nominees
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