A Ribbon on Fifth Avenue, France Honors Scorsese and De Niro
A New York director and a New York actor, both 83, receive the Legion of Honor in a Gilded Age mansion across from Central Park
The address is 972 Fifth Avenue. The house faces Central Park from Museum Mile, a Gilded Age mansion that Stanford White designed for the Whitney family on a commission that dates to 1902. On Tuesday night, September 22, it hosted two men who have spent more than half a century making New York look like itself on screen.
Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro received the Legion of Honor from French President Emmanuel Macron, who was in New York for the United Nations General Assembly. The ceremony took place at the Villa Albertine, the French cultural institution based in the old Payne Whitney mansion, franceinfo reported.
Both men are 83. Their shared honor, according to a guest quoted by franceinfo, was for their commitment to cinema and to its preservation. This time they were recognized side by side, in a house that looks straight out at the park.
Two Ranks, One Evening
The honors were not identical. Scorsese received the insignia of Grand Officer, which TIME France describes as the second highest rank in the order. Franceinfo tied it to his decades of work restoring the world's film heritage and keeping independent movie theaters alive. De Niro received the insignia of Officer, for what the French reports call his commitment to image education and to independent audiovisual creation.
Neither man is new to the order. According to TIME France and the French magazine Gala, Scorsese was first made a knight at Cannes in 1998 and promoted to officer in Paris in 2005. De Niro was made a knight in 1997, also at Cannes. TIME France notes that Scorsese founded The Film Foundation in 1990 to rescue old films, and that De Niro co-founded the Tribeca Festival after the September 11 attacks.
Two men who have spent more than half a century making New York look like itself on screen.
Leonardo DiCaprio was among the guests, franceinfo and 20 Minutes reported. DiCaprio made The Departed and The Wolf of Wall Street with Scorsese.
The evening came two weeks after the Lumière summit, a September 7 gathering in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, in the south of France, on supporting cinema at a time when it faces pressure from artificial intelligence and streaming platforms. Franceinfo reported that Scorsese had written in support of the meeting before it took place.
The Room Itself
The Villa Albertine is worth the trip on its own. Created in 2021, the institution works as a network across several American cities, from Atlanta to San Francisco, according to Gala, and sends artists, writers, researchers and film professionals on residencies around the country. The Fifth Avenue house also holds the Cultural Services of the French Embassy.
The Venetian Room is the showpiece. The Villa Albertine describes it as Stanford White's take on a hall of mirrors, set in gilded rococo frames, with porcelain flowers woven into a metal lattice and eighteenth century European furniture. It was taken apart in 1948 and stayed in storage until 1997, when the Hay Whitney family gave the pieces to the French Embassy. It was restored and reopened to the public in 2018. Upstairs, the Ballroom's oversized windows look out on Fifth Avenue and the park.
Inside is Albertine, the French and English bookstore that Gala says has been in the mansion since 2014. It stocks more than 14,000 titles from 30 French speaking countries, according to the Villa Albertine. Its hand painted ceiling, designed by Jacques Garcia, is covered in planets, stars and constellations. It is a night sky you can stand under indoors.
Half a Century of New York Nights
The partnership is one of the longest in American film. Franceinfo counts ten major features together, a run that began with Mean Streets in 1973. It includes Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas and Killers of the Flower Moon.
Those films taught the rest of the world what New York looks like after dark. A cab moving through the rain. Neon on a wet street. A nightclub where the right name gets you through the kitchen door. Few artists have done as much to shape the city's nighttime image.
The New York Film Festival is underway across the park at Lincoln Center, and we covered its opening night on celluloid this month. It is a fitting week for the honor. Two of the city's most famous sons stood in a mansion on Fifth Avenue and were thanked, by another country, for a lifetime of devotion to the movies.
