Ellen Burstyn Receives Venice Golden Lion, Prays U.S. 'Finds — SkimNews
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- Ellen Burstyn received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Film Festival on Monday, receiving a standing ovation that lasted several minutes and moved her to tears before she could begin her speech.
- Jury President Maggie Gyllenhaal paid tribute by listing Burstyn's iconic roles — Lois Farrow in The Last Picture Show, Alice Hyatt in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Edna Mae in Resurrection, Chris MacNeil in The Exorcist, and Sarah Goldfarb in Requiem for a Dream — calling her 'brilliant and brave.'
- Burstyn became a 'triple crown winner' after winning her first Emmy in 2009 for a guest appearance on Law & Order: SVU, joining her 1975 Academy Award for Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore and her 1975 Tony for Same Time, Next Year on Broadway.
- Burstyn recalled a terrifying night driving scene for Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore with Martin Scorsese, the cinematographer, and a camera operator on her car's hood over a cliff, navigating by the road's white center line so as not to 'kill Martin Scorsese.'
- Burstyn closed her acceptance by praying that her 'own country will, very soon, find its own white line,' repurposing the Scorsese-set driving metaphor into an explicit reflection on the United States' direction.
- Flesh Impact, a short film directed by Gyllenhaal in which Burstyn plays a version of Marilyn Monroe alongside Dakota Johnson, screened before the ceremony; Burstyn also appeared in Venice for Kornél Mundruczó's Place To Be with Taika Waititi and Pamela Anderson.
Why it matters: At 93, Burstyn used a career-crowning honor to make an explicit political statement about America's direction, transforming a Scorsese-set filming story into a public plea that her country 'find its white line' — turning a lifetime-achievement tribute into one of the festival's pointedly political American moments.
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