Ridley Scott receives BFI Fellowship
The BFI announced yesterday that Ridley Scott became the 62nd recipient of a BFI Fellowship, joining other distinguished names in cinema history such as David Lean, Clint Eastwood, Bernardo Bertolucci and Bette Davis, and Sir Denis Forman, Verity Lambert and Lord Bernstein from the world of television. Created in 1983, the BFI Fellowship is the highest accolade the BFI can bestow and is given in recognition of the outstanding achievement of those who have helped shape film and television culture in the UK.
Director of Thelma & Louise (1991), Gladiator (2000), and American Gangster (2007), Ridley Scott’s first film Boy and Bicycle (1965) was made with the help of the BFI Experimental Film Fund. His career began in television in the mid-1960s, when he worked as a set designer, then director, on series such as Z-Cars and The Informer. He later moved into commercial advertising where he was renowned for his technical prowess and dazzling visuals. His debut feature film was The Duellists in 1977, which went on to win the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival; two years later he received universal acclaim with Alien (1979), which has since become a classic in the sci-fi genre.
Following an on-stage discussion and celebration of his career to date at the BFI Southbank, the BFI Fellowship was presented by acclaimed director and former BFI Governor Stephen Frears. There was also a screening of Ridley Scott’s magnificent sci-fi thriller Blade Runner (1982) which took first place in the BFI’s recent 75th birthday poll Visions for the Future. The poll asked people to vote for one of 75 nominated films that they’d wish to preserve for future audiences.
Greg Dyke, Chair of the BFI Governors said:
“Ridley Scott is one of the foremost directors of his generation. For me, Thelma and Louise is among the most outstanding films of my lifetime. The scope and sweep of Ridley Scott’s ambition, the astonishing detail in his portrayal of different worlds and different eras, is remarkable and unforgettable. Nearly all his films have become classics as his story-telling never fails to engage a huge range of audiences. But it is for his whole body of work that we celebrate with this BFI Fellowship.”