REPORT
Oscars 2016: Leonardo DiCaprio
finally wins Academy Award
L
eonardo DiCaprio has finally won his first Oscar for
survival epic The Revenant, after six nominations.
He was named best actor at the 88th Academy
Awards, with Brie Larson named best actress for Room.
Spotlight took home the best picture Oscar with Mad
Max: Fury Road picking up the most awards of the night,
with six accolades.
Mark Rylance won the best supporting actor Oscar, with
fellow Briton Sam Smith winning best original song.
'Is Hollywood racist?'
The ceremony had been boycotted by some Hollywood
figures protesting about the lack of ethnic diversity
among this year's nominees, as all 20 nominees in the
best acting or supporting acting categories are white.
Host Chris Rock addressed the controversy head on as
he launched the ceremony, and it was a theme that was
returned to several times during the night.
Rock commented he had "counted at least 15 black
people" in the montage that opened the ceremony, before welcoming people to the "white People's Choice
awards".
"You realise if they nominated hosts, I wouldn't even get
this job," he quipped. "Y'all would be watching Neil Patrick Harris right now."
Rock added: "Everyone wants to know is Hollywood racist? You have to go at it the right way. Is it burning-cross
racist? Fetch-me-some-lemonade racist? No.
"It's a different kind of racist. Is Hollywood racist? You're
damn right it's racist but it's sorority racist. It's like: We
like you Rhonda, but you're not a Kappa.''
Among the winners for Mad Max: Fury Road - nominated for 10 Oscars including best director for George
Miller - was British designer Jenny Beavan, for best costume design.
The Revenant won three of the 12 awards for which it
was nominated. Alejandro Inarritu also won best director
and Emmanuel Lubezki won his third Oscar for cinematography in a row, having won in 2015 for Birdman and
2014 for Gravity.
DiCaprio received a standing ovation as he picked up
his award, after five acting nominations and one nomination as producer of best picture nominee Wolf of Wall
Street.
He thanked his director and co-star Tom Hardy for his
"fierce talent on screen" and "friendship off screen" before campaigning for action to combat climate change,
saying making The Revenant was "about man's relationship to the natural world".
"Climate change is real - it is happening right now," said
DiCaprio. "It is the most urgent threat facing our species, and we need to work collectively together and stop
procrastinating."
He asked the audience to "support leaders around the
world who do not speak for the big polluters or the big
corporations but who speak for all of humanity, for the indigenous people of the world, for the billions and billions
of underprivileged people who'll be affected by this".
He added: "Let us not take this planet for granted. I do
20 | BOOM