Overview
- Burstyn received the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement on Monday at the 83rd Venice Film Festival in recognition of a career that includes an Oscar, a Tony and multiple landmark films.
- She premiered two new works at the festival: Maggie Gyllenhaal’s short Flesh Impact, in which Burstyn plays an imagined 100‑year‑old Marilyn Monroe and Dakota Johnson plays the younger Monroe, and the feature Place to Be.
- Flesh Impact was commissioned for Monroe’s centenary and was presented out of competition as a 22-minute piece that stages an audition and intercuts past and present to give the star a new, spoken perspective.
- In press appearances and her acceptance, Burstyn traced industry change since the 1950s, recalled painful memories from The Exorcist that left her with a lasting back injury, and said women are not yet at parity on sets but are close.
- Festival context underscored the wider point she raised: Venice remains a major showcase for premieres and reputations even as programming data show few women directors in competition, a gap that shapes debates about visibility for women and older artists.