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07-17-2008, 11:49 AM
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The Trustees of the American Film Institute have selected Warren Beatty to receive AFI's 36th Life Achievement Award.
A consummate film artist, Warren Beatty has left his distinctive mark on American film during nearly a half-century of acting, producing, directing and writing. In an era that saw the redefinition of the studio system, the rise of independents and the dawning of the digital age, Warren Beatty has created a body of work that transcends trends and remains timeless.
His screen acting career began with a love story. The movie was SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS and Beatty, as tortured high school jock Bud Stamper, made an indelible impression in his film acting debut. "He produced a heat haze atmosphere of erotic frustration," remembers journalist David Thomson. "No film had been so infused with the adolescent's urgency about sex. You came out of it in a stupor of rapture and guilt. With one film, Beatty was established as a male sex symbol." Co-star Natalie Wood may have walked away with an Academy Award nomination for her role as Deanie, but Beatty won the role of movie star at the tender age of 24--a role he has worn with panache ever since.
"He was awkward in a way that was attractive," said director Elia Kazan who took a chance on the actor on the recommendation of writer William Inge. "He was very, very ambitious. He had a lot of hunger, as all the stars do when they are young."
From the beginning, the handsome Virginia-born son of educators had an appetite to master the complexities of making movies. He learned by studying directors like Kazan, Arthur Penn, Alan J. Pakula and Hal Ashby, collaborators on his early films, and by absorbing lessons from legendary producers like Sam Goldwyn, Sam Spiegel and mentor Charles K. Feldman. "Once I had acted in my first movie, and it was successful," explained Beatty on receiving the Producers Guild of America's Career Milestone Award in 2004, "it seemed apparent to me that the enjoyment would be in putting a movie together."
He brought enormous drive and intelligence to the task of putting together that first movie. The result, BONNIE AND CLYDE, is a landmark, marking the advent of an iconoclastic, independent American cinema. Here was a gangster picture that mixed romance, adventure, glamour, comedy and violence in a way never before seen. The critics may not have known what to do with it, but the audiences knew. They went wild. The stories about the making of BONNIE AND CLYDE are Hollywood lore, and the Beatty producing style is legendary. Known for his painstaking attention to detail and tireless work ethic, Beatty bought the rights to the story after Francois Truffaut passed. Beatty directed rewrites, negotiated with Jack Warner, raised the financing, collaborated with director Arthur Penn to select a cast and crew remarkable for its energy and excellence, starred in it and then fought to have the movie re-released.
"They went into the desert and created a masterpiece," summed up Roger Ebert in his 1967 review. Its influence was felt in fashion, music and pop culture around the world--and as a filmmaking phenomenon it is still being analyzed today. Twice it has been honored by AFI among the 100 greatest American films of all time.
The Trustees of the American Film Institute have selected Warren Beatty to receive AFI's 36th Life Achievement Award.
A consummate film artist, Warren Beatty has left his distinctive mark on American film during nearly a half-century of acting, producing, directing and writing. In an era that saw the redefinition of the studio system, the rise of independents and the dawning of the digital age, Warren Beatty has created a body of work that transcends trends and remains timeless.
His screen acting career began with a love story. The movie was SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS and Beatty, as tortured high school jock Bud Stamper, made an indelible impression in his film acting debut. "He produced a heat haze atmosphere of erotic frustration," remembers journalist David Thomson. "No film had been so infused with the adolescent's urgency about sex. You came out of it in a stupor of rapture and guilt. With one film, Beatty was established as a male sex symbol." Co-star Natalie Wood may have walked away with an Academy Award nomination for her role as Deanie, but Beatty won the role of movie star at the tender age of 24--a role he has worn with panache ever since.
"He was awkward in a way that was attractive," said director Elia Kazan who took a chance on the actor on the recommendation of writer William Inge. "He was very, very ambitious. He had a lot of hunger, as all the stars do when they are young."
From the beginning, the handsome Virginia-born son of educators had an appetite to master the complexities of making movies. He learned by studying directors like Kazan, Arthur Penn, Alan J. Pakula and Hal Ashby, collaborators on his early films, and by absorbing lessons from legendary producers like Sam Goldwyn, Sam Spiegel and mentor Charles K. Feldman. "Once I had acted in my first movie, and it was successful," explained Beatty on receiving the Producers Guild of America's Career Milestone Award in 2004, "it seemed apparent to me that the enjoyment would be in putting a movie together."
He brought enormous drive and intelligence to the task of putting together that first movie. The result, BONNIE AND CLYDE, is a landmark, marking the advent of an iconoclastic, independent American cinema. Here was a gangster picture that mixed romance, adventure, glamour, comedy and violence in a way never before seen. The critics may not have known what to do with it, but the audiences knew. They went wild. The stories about the making of BONNIE AND CLYDE are Hollywood lore, and the Beatty producing style is legendary. Known for his painstaking attention to detail and tireless work ethic, Beatty bought the rights to the story after Francois Truffaut passed. Beatty directed rewrites, negotiated with Jack Warner, raised the financing, collaborated with director Arthur Penn to select a cast and crew remarkable for its energy and excellence, starred in it and then fought to have the movie re-released.
"They went into the desert and created a masterpiece," summed up Roger Ebert in his 1967 review. Its influence was felt in fashion, music and pop culture around the world--and as a filmmaking phenomenon it is still being analyzed today. Twice it has been honored by AFI among the 100 greatest American films of all time.