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Last week Meryl Streep received the Golden Marc’Aurelio Award (the lifetime achievement award) at the Rome Film Festival. Photographer Alberto Pizzoli took this awesome photo of her on the red carpet:

As The New York Times notes, the photo was risky:

[Alberto Pizzoli] gambled that a radical crop … showing hips and hands (and nothing else), a confident posture and subtle folds of fabric, black on black on red, could summon a whole personality. … Since he had his match in the subject, Meryl Streep, Mr. Pizzoli’s gamble paid off.

It also brings to mind a phrase from the pen of Maya Angelou:

It’s in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.

Streep did a Julie and Julia press conference while she was in Rome. Here she is talking about the pressures on young actresses — skip to 1:04 if you don’t speak Italian:

(Part 1 and part 2 are on YouTube — in part 1, she uses the word "encomia." Be still my vocabulary-loving heart!)

Rome certainly does love Meryl. She was lauded and laureled at every turn. She even got a literary award (for what, I’m not quite sure) at the Rome Center for American Studies. Here she is at the Film Fest’s breathtakingly grand venue (the Auditorium Parco della Musica):

But in all the swooning over Meryl (which I completely understand, of course), another honoree has been somewhat overlooked: Helen Mirren won Best Actress for the film The Last Station, in which she plays Leo Tolstoy’s wife.

I’ll look forward to that. I did finally see State of Play, and although I didn’t love the movie overall, I enjoyed Mirren as usual. And her glasses!

I just wish her role had been bigger. Way too much Russell Crowe; not enough Mirren and Rachel McAdams. Mirren plays the frosty, fiery editor in chief of a newspaper. Why can’t I work for someone like her?

Once when I was singing Mirren’s praises, a witty friend teased me about my “old lady fetish.” But what’s not to love about "old ladies" like Mirren and Streep? I’m glad Rome agrees with me.