Barbra Streisand Presents Chaplin Award to Robert Redford at Film Society of Lincoln Center Gala Tonight

The Film Society of Lincoln Center previously announced that Barbra Streisand (recipient of the 40th Chaplin Award) would present the 42nd Chaplin Award to Academy Award-winner Robert Redford, director, actor, producer, environmentalist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival and Institute, honored at Lincoln Center tonight, April 27.

The evening's presenters also include J.C. Chandor, Jane Fonda (recipient of the 28th Chaplin Award), and John Turturro. The event will also be attended by a host of notable guests and will include film clips culminating in the presentation of The Chaplin Award.

Support for the 42nd Chaplin Award Gala is generously provided by Presenting Sponsor Royal Bank of Canada and Major Sponsor Jaeger-LeCoultre.

On the occasion of the Gala, the Film Society also presented a seven-film tribute, The Films of Robert Redford, April 24-27. His contributions on both sides of the camera have been invaluable and were showcased with this selection of highlights from Redford's storied career. Includes Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Candidate, Jeremiah Johnson, Ordinary People, Quiz Show, Three Days of the Condor, and The Way We Were. Visit filmlinc.com for more information.

The Film Society's Annual Gala began in 1972 and honored Charlie Chaplin, who returned to the U.S. from exile to accept the commendation. Since then, the award has been renamed for Chaplin, and has honored many of the film industry's most notable talents, including Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, Laurence Olivier, Federico Fellini, Elizabeth Taylor, Bette Davis, James Stewart, Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese, Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Michael Douglas, Sidney Poitier, Catherine Deneuve, and Barbra Streisand.

SCREENING SCHEDULE FOR TONIGHT, APRIL 27:

Ordinary People
Robert Redford, USA, 1980, 35mm, 124m
In his first foray as a director, Redford adapts Judith Guest's novel with sensitivity and insight. The picture-perfect Jarrett family of Lake Forest, Illinois, is torn apart by the accidental death of their eldest son and the survivor's guilt of younger brother Conrad (Timothy Hutton), who believes that their detached mother, Beth (Mary Tyler Moore), wishes he'd been the one to die. Making his feature debut, Hutton offers a shattering portrait of grief and teenage angst, becoming the youngest male Oscar winner to date, and Moore subverts her sunny TV persona with a brilliant rendering of withheld affection. Donald Sutherland, Judd Hirsch, and newcomer Elizabeth McGovern complete the cast in this delicate character study, which earned Oscars for Best Picture, Screenplay, and Redford's direction. Print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.
Monday, April 27, 7:00pm

Three Days of the Condor
Sydney Pollack, USA, 1975, DCP, 117m
In the wake of Watergate, Sydney Pollack and Redford reunite on this consummately executed and all-too-believable thriller. Redford is Joseph Turner (aka Condor), a reader for the CIA whose low-level job involves entering data into computers to see if secret codes have been leaked. Discovering a plot within the agency that leads to the murder of his colleagues, he must go on the lam like so many Hitchcock heroes before him. With stellar support from Max von Sydow as an assassin, Cliff Robertson and John Houseman as deadly government officials, and Faye Dunaway as a woman Turner abducts and who winds up aiding his escape. (In her memoir Dunaway later wrote, "I'm sorry but the idea of being kidnapped and ravaged by Robert Redford was anything but frightening.")
Monday, April 27, 9:30pm

The Way We Were
Sydney Pollack, USA, 1973, DCP, 118m
With an Oscar-nominated performance in the Best Picture-winning grifter comedy The Sting, and the leading role in one of cinema's most beloved tearjerkers, The Way We Were, 1973 was a watershed year for Redford. In Sydney Pollack's film, Redford plays Hubbell Gardiner, a carefree collegiate WASP who meets coed Marxist firebrand Katie Morosky (Barbra Streisand). She deplores his apathy; his friends find her insufferable. Thus begins a decades-long love affair, spanning World War II and the Red Scare. Marvin Hamlisch won a pair of Oscars for his work on the film-one for his original score, and one for co-writing the immortal theme song, now a Streisand standard.
Monday, April 27, 4:30pm

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER - Founded in 1969 to celebrate American and international cinema, the Film Society of Lincoln Center works to recognize established and emerging filmmakers, support important new work, and to enhance the awareness, accessibility, and understanding of the moving image. The Film Society produces the renowned New York Film Festival, a curated selection of the year's most significant new film work, and presents or collaborates on other annual New York City festivals including Dance on Camera, Film Comment Selects, Human Rights Watch Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, NewFest, New York African Film Festival, New York Asian Film Festival, New York Jewish Film Festival, Open Roads: New Italian Cinema and Rendez-Vous with French Cinema. In addition to publishing the award-winning Film Comment magazine, the Film Society recognizes an artist's unique achievement in film with the prestigious Chaplin Award. The Film Society's state-of-the-art Walter Reade Theater and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, located at Lincoln Center, provide a home for year-round programs and the New York City film community.

Photo by Walter McBride