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.