Martin Scorsese was honored with the David O. Selznick Award as part of the 35th Annual Producers Guild Awards ceremony at the Ray Dolby Theater in Los Angeles on Sunday.
The 81-year-old film icon joined a vaunted group of colleagues who have received the honors in the past, which the Producers Guild says it aims to recognize “a producer or production team for extraordinary work on films.”
Previous honorees include Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Kathleen Kennedy, Clint Eastwood, Jerry Bruckheimer and Tom Cruise.
The New York City native mentioned names from Hollywood lore, as he recalled the podium in the room when he first accepted a guild award for his student film It’s Not Just You, Murray! at the age of 22 in 1965.
‘On stage, Alfred Hitchcock, James Stewart, Jack Benny, Samuel Goldwyn, Jack Warner and Norman Lear, Lew Wasserman, Julie Stein, Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, Janet Leigh, Dick Van Dyke, Elke Sommer and David O. Selznick ” Scorsese said, according to Deadline.
Martin Scorsese, 81, was honored with the David O. Selznick Award as part of the 35th Annual Producers Guild Awards ceremony at the Ray Dolby Theater in Los Angeles on Sunday.
Previous honorees include Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Kathleen Kennedy, Clint Eastwood, Jerry Bruckheimer and Tom Cruise.
The Oscar-winning director said the show took place at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on March 8, 1965, when it was called the Milestone Awards Dinner, and was in its 13th year.
‘At the end of the stand I was; I was there until the end,” the director of classics such as Goodfellas, Cape Fear, Casino, Raging Bull and The Departed told the audience. ‘I was receiving the Jesse L. Laskey intercollegiate award for a film I made at New York University, when I was 22 years old.
‘I’m up here with all these people. Cary Grant was very kind to me. Many of the others were friendly too. When Elke Summer gave me the award she didn’t know what to do. I look over my right shoulder and Cary Grant says “Kiss her!” So I did it.
Scorsese added: ‘I must tell you that the Milestone Award that night was presented to Alfred Hitchcock, who stood up to speak after a 34-minute clip. It was a shorter evening, but it lasted 34 minutes!’
Scorsese, nominated for an Oscar for Best Director for his last film, Killers of the Flower Moon, recalled the changing cinematic landscape of that time.
“The word past, it speaks of a bygone era as they used to say, it was really the 13th edition of this event,” Scorsese said. ‘It was another world. Over the hill are Bonnie and Clyde, Easy Rider and Wild Bunch just around the corner.
“So, in a way, we were the ones making the movies. The history in that room, Warner, Goldwyn, Selznick, those incredible actors.
Scorsese spoke about the award’s namesake, saying he was four years old when his beloved late mother Catherine took him to the theater to see the 1946 Western romance Duel in the Sun: “It was condemned by the Catholic church and my mother wanted to see it. She said The boy likes Western movies, I’ll take him.
The filmmaker posed with his Killers of the Flower Moon collaborator Lily Gladstone.
Scorsese is nominated for an Oscar for best direction for Killers of the Flower Moon, while Gladstone is nominated for best performance by an actress in a leading role.
Scorsese posed with fellow Oscar-winning filmmaker Guillermo del Toro at the event
The director of classics such as Goodfellas, Cape Fear, Casino and The Departed was also photographed with PGA presidents Donald De Line and Stephanie Allain.
2024 PGA Winners: AT A GLANCE
MOVIE
Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Best Theatrical Film Producer: Oppenheimer
Outstanding Producer of Animated Theatrical Films Award: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Award for Best Documentary Film Producer: American Symphony
PGA Innovation Award: Body of Mine
Oppenheimer was the big winner of the night, taking home the award for Best Theatrical Motion Picture Producer.
TELEVISION
Norman Felton Award for Best Episodic Television Producer – Drama: Succession
Danny Thomas Award for Best Episodic Television Producer – Comedy: The Bear
David L. Wolper Award for Outstanding Producer of Limited or Anthology Television Series: BEEF
Award for best producer of televised or streamed films: Black Mirror: Beyond the Sea
Outstanding Non-Fiction Television Producer Award: Welcome to Wrexham
Outstanding Game and Competition Television Producer Award: RuPaul’s Drag Race
Award for Outstanding Television Producer of Live Entertainment, Variety, Sketches, Standup and Talk: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
Outstanding Children’s Program Award: Sesame Street
Most Outstanding Short Program Award: Succession: Controlling the Narrative
Outstanding Sports Program Award: Beckham
And he added: ‘It’s the first movie I remember seeing by title. So, for me, the first impact of classic Hollywood cinema begins there.
‘Color carvings, movement, landscapes, dazzling scenes like the dancing in the cantina, the approaching horsemen lined up against the railway, the mysticism of the film mixed with the profane. It takes place on a gigantic screen and stars gigantic actors.
He recalled a moment of dialogue in the film that had a subsequent impact on him decades later.
“At one point Lionel Barrymore says, ‘There’s a strange glow in the sky tonight,'” Scorsese said. ‘Those figures of him in the stroller are silhouetted against a red sky.
“The year was 1946 and I was sure that those figures would end up in my film The Killers of the Flower Moon, the sequence of the meadow on fire at night. He stayed with me all those years.
Scorsese concluded by saying, “Tonight I feel like it’s really extraordinary, like I’m coming full circle.” I was 22 when Cary Grant told me to kiss Ekle Sommer; I’m 81 now and I’m glad I kissed her.
2024 PGA Awards Winners
Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Best Theatrical Film Producer
American fiction
Anatomy of a fall
Barbie
The remains
Flower Moon Killers
Teacher
Oppenheimer – WINNER
Past Lives
poor things
The area of interest
Award for Best Producer of Animated Theatrical Films
The boy and the heron
Elementary
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse – WINNER
The Super Mario Bros. movie
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
Norman Felton Award for Best Episodic Television Producer – Drama
The crown
The diplomat
The last of us
The morning program
Succession – WINNER
Danny Thomas Award for Best Episodic Television Producer – Comedy
Barry
The Bear – WINNER
jury service
Only murders in the building
Ted Lasso
David L. Wolper Award for Outstanding Producer of Limited or Anthology Television Series
All the light we can’t see
BEEF – WINNER
Daisy Jones and the Six
fargo
chemistry lessons
Award for Outstanding Producer of Televised or Streamed Films
Black Mirror: Beyond the Sea – WINNER
The Last Case of Mr. Monk: A Monk Film
quiz lady
Reality
Red, white and royal blue
Award for Best Non-Fiction Television Producer
60 minutes
The 1619 Project
Albert Brooks: defending my life
Being Mary Tyler Moore
Welcome to Wrexham – WINNER
Outstanding Television Producer Award for Live Entertainment, Variety, Sketches, Standup and Talk
Carol Burnett: 90 years of laughter + love
Chris Rock: selective outrage
Dave Chappelle: The Dreamer
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver – WINNER
Saturday night live
Outstanding Gaming and Competition Television Producer Award
The amazing race
RuPaul’s Drag Race – WINNER
The squid game: the challenge
The best chef
The voice
Award for Best Documentary Film Producer
20 days in Mariupol
American Symphony – WINNER
Beyond utopia
The disappearance of Shere Hite
The mother of all lies
Smoke Sauna Brotherhood
Squaring the circle (The history of hypognosis)
Outstanding Sports Program Award
100 foot wave
Beckham – WINNER
Formula 1: Drive to survive
Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the New York Jets
Shaun White: The Last Race
Outstanding Children’s Program Award
Goosebumps
Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai
Sesame Street – WINNER
Star Wars: The Bad Batch
The corduroy rabbit
The Outstanding Short Form Program Award
Karaoke in a shared car: the series
I think you should go with Tim Robinson
The Last of Us: Inside the episode
Only murders in the building: a killer question
Succession: Control the Narrative – WINNER
PGA Innovation Award
My body – WINNER
The eye and me
JFK souvenir
Drancy Letters
MLK: Now is the time
Ocean of Light: VR Dolphins
Our Ocean Our Future
Out of scale, a Kurzgesagt adventure
reinvented
Space Explorers: Blue Marble Trilogy
Wallace and Gromit in The Great Escape
The largest tailgate in the world
Barbie is nominated for the Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Best Theatrical Film Producer