The Best Director award was handed out by the "three amigos" of the American film renaissance of the '70s — Francis Coppola, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg — so it would have hardly been right if the Oscar had gone to...Stephen Frears. But it was a cathartic and memorable moment nevertheless when Scorsese made his long-awaited trip to the podium. He was gracious, relatively spontaneous, and more populist than Ellen, as he thanked all those "people in elevators and doctor's offices" who were wishing he'd win too.