Jean-Luc Godard (above), Eli Wallach (right), Kevin Brownlow, and Francis Ford Coppola have been chosen as the recipients of the 2010 special Academy Awards. Godard, Brownlow, and Wallach will receive Honorary Awards; Coppola will be handed the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award.
No Jean Hersholt Award (for "good deeds") will be given out this year.
The Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences reached their decision last night. All four awards will be presented at the Academy’s 2nd Annual Governors Awards dinner on Saturday, November 13, at the Grand Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland Center.
Last year's honorees were actress Lauren Bacall, cinematographer Gordon Willis, producer/director Roger Corman, and Thalberg Award recipient John Calley.
One of the French New Wave founders and most influential auteurs anywhere in the world, in addition to being well-known for both his idiosyncrasies and left-wing views, Jean-Luc Godard, who'll turn 80 next December, has directed and/or written more than 70 features, most notably Breathless (1960), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Weekend (1967), and the highly controversial Je vous salue, Marie / Hail, Mary (1985).
Throughout this 50-year career, Godard has directed the likes of Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg, Anna Karina, Eddie Constantine, Marianne Faithfull, Isabelle Huppert, Mireille Darc, Jane Fonda, Nathalie Baye, Jack Palance, Yves Montand, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Fritz Lang (in Contempt), and many others.
Godard's latest effort, Socialism, was screened at this year's Cannes Film Festival.
Wallach's film debut took place in Elia Kazan’s Baby Doll (1956), starring Carroll Baker and Karl Malden. Since then he has been featured in more than 150 movies and television shows.
On the big screen, Wallach could be spotted in, among dozens of others, John Sturges' The Magnificent Seven (1960), with Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen; John Huston's The Misfits (1961), with Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, and Montgomery Clift; Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), with Clint Eastwood; Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather, Part III (1990), starring Al Pacino and Diane Keaton; and, earlier this year, Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer (2010), with Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, and Kim Cattrall.
Wallach, who'll turn 95 next December, will next be seen in Oliver Stone's Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010), with Michael Douglas, Susan Sarandon, and Shia LaBeouf.
Photos: Eli Wallach (Courtesy of the Margaret Herrick Library); Jean-Luc Godard (Courtesy of Getty Images Entertainment).
I feel the Honorary Oscar Award Winner
should be 'live' on the night of the awards,
just as you did for Deborah Kerr et al.
Thank you.