Editorial: 'Rings' team a shining inspiration

Well, we knew they would do it. Just as we knew Team New Zealand would defend the America's Cup again, and the All Blacks would win the World Cup. The point, of course, is that nothing is certain; nothing on this scale can ever be taken for granted. To win an Academy Award for best picture, best director, best actor or actress, is an achievement to rank with any of the world's prizes in arts, science, scholarship or sports. The Lord of the Rings trilogy was predicted to take a best picture award from the moment the first film was released, and it was always said that the Oscar would probably be given to the concluding picture. But that assumed Peter Jackson and his crew would maintain their impact over three films.

That they did so is a remarkable success. It would have been no surprise if, after the stunning first picture, the second and third had struggled to be more than sequels of diminishing force. But each had a fresh and distinctive appeal to audiences while keeping faith with J.R.R. Tolkien's original story.

Part of the thrill of seeing Peter Jackson - and his team -take a clean sweep of the cinematic awards this year has been the style in which it has been done. In scaling the international peaks of his art, Jackson has maintained a healthy down-to-earth attitude to it all, an attitude we like to regard as characteristic of New Zealand.

Typically, he told the Herald's Russell Baillie on the eve of the ceremony that it felt like "this whole awards thing doesn't have a lot to do with film-making ... If only we could go and have a private dinner and award the Oscar at a restaurant with no TV cameras". There speaks a man with his bare feet on the ground. His craft is hard and mostly unglamorous work in lonely locations and cluttered studios. Every New Zealander working in film and its related industries will draw inspiration from his achievement yesterday afternoon, not just because he has proved it is possible to win the prize with work from this country, but even more for his lack of starry-eyed surprise. His manner says nobody ought to be surprised that the year's best director can be found here and its best picture made here.

His style speaks louder than any speech for the confidence and professionalism of the film industry in this country. It is reflected also in its youngest representative in Hollywood yesterday, 13-year-old Keisha Castle-Hughes. Ever since she was nominated for best actress on the strength of her performance in Whale Rider, she has seemed astonishingly unaffected for one so young. If missing the ultimate award helps to keep her budding career well focused, yesterday's experience will have been a prize in itself.

This year's Academy Awards, like the America's Cup, have reminded a small population that it contains the capacity to excel at anything in the world. With the right skills, application, investment and determination, international activities can succeed from here. It is often pointed out that an outlandish tax favour also played a large part in the financing of The Lord of the Rings. Financiers used to get a 100 per cent write-off on investment in a film to be made here. Now they merely get a rebate of 12.5 per cent of production costs for movies with a budget exceeding $15 million, which is still an incentive offered for few other activities in the economy.

Governments have decided film is to be favoured for the benefits it can bring the wider economy through international exposure. Yesterday, we witnessed the fruits of that belief. Tolkien's classic might have little to do with New Zealand, and computer-enhanced images of the country might have left little that is recognisable. But the cinema world knows where this blockbuster was made.

The task now is to see that The Lord of the Rings was not a flash in the pan. The country that produced the year's best film has the natural and human resources to produce many more.