For 14 years, the Santa Barbara International Film Festival has had
as a pre-festival teaser and fundraiser (for its educational arm) the Kirk Douglas
Award for Excellence in Film evening.
But what made Thursday’s gala event at the Bacara something special
had to do with timing and legendary status. The recipient: Martin Scorsese, reasonably
called “America’s greatest living director” and one of the greatest filmmakers of
all time. His film-of-the-moment: the soon-to-be-released and strong contender for
Oscars and Top 10 lists The Irishman, a grand, visceral yet also elegiac
epic, starring his frequent muse, “Bob” De Niro, Al Pacino (remarkably, in his first
Scorsese project), and Joe Pesci.
As SBIFF head Roger Durling noted in his glowing introduction, “At
age 76, he has taken on one of his most ambitious films to date. … You are cinema,
Martin Scorsese. Long live you.”