After a year when Hollywood strikes stripped festival red carpets of their stars, the 81st Venice Film Festival marked a return to oh so glamorous form Wednesday night with an A-list opening night.
The Venice fans, many of whom spent up to 10 hours in the searing Italian heat for a glimpse, rarely stopped screaming as one star after the other shimmied past the paparazzi and into the Sala Grande for the opening night ceremony, and world premiere of Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
Burton and the starry cast of his long-awaited sequel — including Jenna Ortega, Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, Willem Defoe, Justin Theroux and Monica Belluci — grabbed the lion’s share of attention but there were plenty of whoops and hollers for the other celebrities on offer, including French acting icon Isabelle Huppert, president of this year’s Venice festival jury, and Cate Blanchett, in Venice for the premiere of her AppleTV+ series Disclaimer.
But the biggest star of the night was Sigourney Weaver, who received a lifetime achievement Golden Lion for her career in cinema. After a video clip tribute to her film career — set to Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black” — French actress Camille Cottin, who appeared with Weaver on hit satire series Call my Agent!, sang her praises.
“She’s faced everything from aliens to ghosts to gorillas to extra large soldier pads, to glass ceilings to gender stereotypes,” said Cottin, noting that when she first met Weaver, she was surprised to find her “so soft spoken, so gentle. I was struck that you weren’t an oddly powerful woman but just a woman who doesn’t give a fuck about the male gaze.”
Weaver’s frequent collaborator James Cameron sent a video message to his friend “Sig.” He noted he had the “incredible privilege of working with her multiple times over the years, starting with Aliens in 1985 for which she was nominated for the best actress Oscar. She’s had two more nominations since then, and if you ask me, she’s way overdue for that Oscar, if there’s any justice. So if there’s any Academy members in the audience…”
Earlier in the day, Weaver teared up when she reflected on her pioneering role as a female action hero in the Aliens movies and the impact she has had in inspiring young women. She was similarly emotional at the awards ceremony, reflecting on her career: “I’ve been able to move all over the world and through this industry like a hummingbird darting through space and time and genre.”
