Hans Zimmer had been nominated for an Oscar for many times, still the only time he'd ever win it was for The Lion King in 1995. The year 1999 was going to be a great year for the composer, being nominated in both Best score categories; in Dramatic for The Thin Red Line and in Musical or Comedy for The Prince of Egypt. That was a real extra-ordinary thing to happen. He himself joked about it by saying ''I am a double loser this time''.
Best Dramatic Score nominees were:
Vita � bella, La (1997) Nicola Piovani
Elizabeth (1998) David Hirschfelder
Pleasantville (1998) Randy Newman
Saving Private Ryan (1998) John Williams
Thin Red Line, The (1998) Hans Zimmer
Winner: Nicola Piovani for La Vita � bella.
As much as I fancy a lot of scores by Piovani (De Vliegende Hollander, La Stanza Del Figlio), I really thought Zimmer should have won. By all means it still is his best score he ever wrote. In addition to that all other nominees in other categories lost. But the composer didn't feel that bad about it and to quote him:
''I had a really fun time at the Oscars. It sounds strange, but in a funny way, it is easier not to win because you don't have to get up and make that speech and embarrass yourself in front of billions of people. Afterwards, when I started going to the parties, when everybody was so disappointed that I hadn't won, I
had to prop everybody else up. I finally went to Elton John's party, and Elton, who is an incredible supporter of The Thin Red Line and absolutely adored it, he was so distraught about it that I just went home after that.''
During the Oscars ceremony a bit of score of the TRL was played during the In Memoriam part. |
