Barbra Streisand will receive the annual Chaplin Award at a ceremony in April, the Film Society of Lincoln Center announced today. Among Ms. Streisand’s many accomplishments on screen and stage, the society’s announcement singled out in particular the 1983 “Yentl,†which was the first film to credit a woman as writer, director, producer and star.
“She is an artist whose long career of incomparable achievements is most powerfully expressed by the fact that her acclaimed ‘Yentl’ was such a milestone film,†Ann Tenenbaum, the chairman of the society’s board, said in a statement. “We welcome her to the list of masterful directors who have been prior recipients of the Chaplin Award tribute.â€
“Yentl†earned five Academy Award nominations, though none for Ms. Streisand herself, in what was widely regardedas a snub. Ms. Streisand, now 70, had that year become the first woman to win the Golden Globe for best director, and had previously won the best actress Oscar for her performance as Fanny Brice in “Funny Girl†(1968) and the best original song award for “Evergreen,†from “The Way We Were†(1973). The other two films she directed, “The Prince of Tides†(1991) and “The Mirror Has Two Faces†(1996), received nine Oscar nominations between them, including a best picture nod for “The Prince of Tides,†but again no best director nomination for Ms. Streisand.
The award will be presented at the society’s annual gala on April 22. It is named for Charlie Chaplin, who returned to the United States after 20 years of exile to accept the society’s lifetime achievement honor in 1972. Other recipients have included Alfred Hitchcock, Federico Fellini, Elizabeth Taylor, Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese, Meryl Streep, Sidney Poitier and, last year, Catherine Deneuve.
