Hollywood reduced to supporting role at Oscars

By Bob Tourtellotte and Mike Collett-White

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Four European actors and the maverick Coen brothers shared top honors at the Oscars, relegating the traditional Hollywood of big stars and box office hits to a supporting role this year.

Violent drama "No Country For Old Men" was the big winner on Sunday night with four Academy Awards, more than any other film, including best movie, director and adapted screenplay for brothers Joel and Ethan Coen.

The film's fourth award, for best supporting actor, went to Spain's Javier Bardem for playing a creepy killer of few words. It was the first Oscar for a Spanish performer in the 80-year history of the world's premier cinema awards.

As expected, Briton Daniel Day-Lewis won best actor in "There Will Be Blood," in which he stars as a ruthless oil prospector in early 20th century America.

But there were surprises in the actress categories.

Scotland's Tilda Swinton was named best supporting actress in "Michael Clayton" ahead of pre-award favorite Cate Blanchett, while French star Marion Cotillard beat Julie Christie as best actress with her acclaimed performance as troubled chanteuse Edith Piaf in "La Vie En Rose."

Cotillard was the first French woman to win the award since Simone Signoret in 1960.

"Hollywood is built on Europeans," said Swinton. "Go back and look. I'm just really sad I couldn't give my speech in Gaelic. Don't tell everybody. We're everywhere."

The prizes marked the first time since 1964 that all four top acting awards went to artists outside the United States, where the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is based.

The overseas influence reflects the growing importance of box office receipts from abroad to a film's success, but an Oscar ceremony filled with foreign-born stars and few box office hits made for low U.S. television viewership.

The program was the least-watched Academy Awards ever with only 32 million viewers compared to the record 1998 telecast when 55 million people tuned in to see "Titanic," with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, claim the best film award.

"OUR CORNER OF THE SANDBOX"

But in the end, it was the Coen brothers, born and raised in Minnesota, who proved to be the big winners.

Their movie, based on Cormac McCarthy's novel about a drug deal gone wrong in south Texas, explores the theme of moral decline and was among four somber films up for best picture.

The Coens, who won an Oscar for writing the idiosyncratic 1996 crime caper "Fargo," have long worked outside the traditional Hollywood studio system.