‘Slumdog Millionaire’ nabs 8 Oscars

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It was a night for all the “Slumdogs” out there at the 81st annual Academy Awards, as the British-Indian flick cleaned up at the Oscars and helped underscore the movie industry’s increasingly international flavor.

“Slumdog Millionaire” took home the awards for best picture, best directing for Danny Boyle and best adapted screenplay for Simon Beaufoy. In total, the Dickensian tale of Indian poverty and love in the slums nabbed eight statues by cleaning up in the technical and musical categories.

It’s only the eighth best picture winner in the last 75 years to not nab a single acting nomination.

LIST OF WINNERS:Click here.

Hopping up to the stage in “the spirit of Tigger,” as he once promised his children that he would should he take home this prize, Mr. Boyle was his usual energetic self.

Corrected: “You have been so generous to us this evening,” he said of the academy, and then made sure to thank Mumbai. “All of you who helped us make the film, and all of you who didn’t, thank you so much. You dwarf even this guy,” he said while lifting his newly-won stauette.

Several “Slumdog” winners were Indians and one, sound mixer Resul Pookutty, called his trophy “history being handed over to me” and a validation of the whole country and its prolific “Bollywood” film industry, by some measures the biggest in the world.

Composer A.R. Rahman, one of the biggest names in Bollywood, made brief allusion when accepting the second of his two awards, for the song “Jai Ho,” to “all the people of Mumbai.” Mr. Rahman, a Muslim whose initials stand for Allah Rakha, said that “all my life I have had the choice of hate and love. And I chose love and I’m here.”

He closed his acceptance speech for the best score award by saying in his native Tamil, “God is great.”

The most emotional moment in the show came during Heath Ledger’s win for supporting actor, one of only two wins for the $1 billion worldwide grossing blockbuster, “The Dark Knight.”

In one of the star-studded presentations, Christopher Walken, Cuba Gooding Jr., Alan Arkin, Kevin Kline and Joel Grey - all of whom had previously won the award - presented the trophy to the father, mother and sister of Mr. Ledger, who died of an overdose last year. Mr. Ledger became the second person, after Peter Finch for “Network,” to win a posthumous acting prize.

“This award tonight would have humbly validated Heath’s quiet determination to be truly accepted by you all here, his peers, within an industry he so loved,” said his father, Kim Ledger, in the trio’s acceptance speech, during which such glitterati as Brad Pitt and Adrien Brody fought back tears.

“Heath Ledger as the Joker in ‘The Dark Knight’ kept us all on edge, anxious to see what act of appalling mischief he might commit next. With this bravura performance … Heath Ledger has left us an original and enduring legacy,” presenter Mr. Kline said.

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