Chicago Film Wins Six Academy Awards

At the 75th Annual Academy Awards in Hollywood last night, the movie version of the Broadway musical Chicago took home six coveted Oscars, including the award for Best Picture of the year. The film had been nominated for 13 awards and won in the following categories:

Best Picture

Costume Design:
Colleen Atwood

Art Direction:
John Myhre (Art Direction), Gordon Sim (Set Decoration)

Actress in a Supporting Role:
Catherine Zeta-Jones

Sound:
Michael Minkler, Dominick Tavella and David Lee

Film Editing:
Martin Walsh

Of the awards for which Chicago was nominated but did not win: John C. Reilly was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as Amos Hart but the Oscar went to Chris Cooper for Adaptation; Queen Latifah was nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category for her role as Matron Mama Morton but the award went to Zeta-Jones; the original song written by John Kander and Fred Ebb for the film, “I Move On,” was beaten by Eminem’s song for 8 Mile; Nicole Kidman’s performance as Virginia Woolf in The Hours won the Best Leading Actress Oscar over Renée Zellweger’s performance as Roxie Hart; the cinematography award went to The Road to Perdition instead of Chicago‘s Dion Beebe; Ronald Harwood won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for his work on The Pianist, the category in which Bill Condon was nominated for his work on the Chicago film; and Roman Polanski took the Best Director award for The Pianist over Chicago‘s Rob Marshall.

The original Broadway production of Chicago, directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse and with music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and book by Ebb and Fosse, opened in 1975. A Broadway revival of the show opened in 1996 and is still running.