Venice honors legends with Lifetime Achievement

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Fifty years after walking "Barefoot in the Park", Robert Redford and Jane Fonda stole the show at Venice Film Festival on Friday.

The two Hollywood legends were honored the Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement with a ceremony held late at the Cinema Palace, followed by the world premiere of their "Our Souls at Night" directed by Indian filmmaker Ritesh Batra.

Based on a Kent Haruf novel, the movie runs out of competition at the 74th edition of Venice Film Festival, and has reunited Redford and Fonda on the screen once more.

For them, it is again a story of love and companionship. Yet, unlike in the 1967's comedy that marked a leap in their international careers, this will be a very mature love.

Jane Fonda and Robert Redford Fall in Love Again in Our Souls At Night /Vanity Fair Photo

To be released by entertainment platform Netflix later this month, "Our Souls at Night" tells indeed the story of two widowed neighbors living in a small town in Colorado, who would develop a surprising and touching relationship in their later life.

At a very-crowed press conference earlier in the day, where both actors were repeatedly met with warm applauses, 81-year-old Redford explained one of the reasons to embark on such project was to satisfy an older audience.

"The second reason was that I feel love stories would always have a life. The third was that I was looking for an opportunity to do another film with Jane, since we have not come together for years... and I wanted to do one more before I died," he added.

Starting with "The Chase" in 1966, "Barefoot in the Park" in 1967, and then with "The Electric Horseman" in 1979, Redford and Fonda indeed shared the scene at their young age.

"We have a long history in film... and I thought this was a chance to make a film that would satisfy our genuine age," Redford told reporters.

Jane Fonda /AFP Photo

Fonda, 79, explained "Our Souls at Night" would send a positive message about sharing intimacy at a later age.

"In Barefoot in the Park, we played that young love just getting married, and now we play old people's love, and old people's sex," she explained, adding that she loved the fact that "these two films bookend our careers."

Explaining the decision to honor the two artists for their lifetime achievements, Venice's artistic director Alberto Barbera stated the award was "a due tribute to the personal commitment and brilliant qualities of an actress, who has brought unforgettable, controversial, and heterogeneous characters to life."

"Few Hollywood legends have shown such determination and courage over the course of their professional career as Jane Fonda," he said.

As for Redford – actor, Academy Award-winning director, and founder of the US Sundance Film Festival – he was recognized the Golden Lion for "almost five decades of compelling filmmaking and advocacy with a combination of rigor, intelligence and grace that is virtually unsurpassed," Barbera acknowledged.

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Source(s): Xinhua News Agency