The 65-year-old Oscar winner was called a “legend” by actress friend Laura Dern as she presented him with the gong in front of a star-studded audience at the start of the 83rd edition of the festival.
Clooney, accompanied by his lawyer wife Amal, was cheered by hundreds of well-wishers on the red carpet, while Dern read out tributes from past co-stars, including Brad Pitt and Adam Sandler during the ceremony.
“When you start reflecting on the years, you realise you really didn’t have a career as much as a series of happy accidents,” Clooney told the audience.
Earlier at a press conference, the “Ocean’s Eleven” star told journalists that the United States was currently a “kakistocracy, which is a country run by the least qualified people.
“I think maybe we have a kakistocracy right now, but we’ll get through it.”
The issue of women representation in the film industry was also a major topic on day one of the festival after director Alberto Barbera chose only two women-directed films in the 21-strong main competition.
Actor-turned-director Maggie Gyllenhaal, head of the jury this year, openly questioned his choices during a press conference with Barbera earlier in the day.
“There’s a systemic problem,” she said, referring to the difficulties many women face in getting films financed and their preference for different topics to men.
Clooney provided some much-needed American razzle-dazzle, with Hollywood studios largely staying away from the event this year.
Although Venice might lack mass-market blockbusters, there is no shortage of larger-than-life subjects, with films about Elon Musk, Rupert Murdoch and the volatile Gallagher brothers from the British rock band Oasis.
Running through September 12, the festival will also offer a strong lineup of independent films, including the main competition’s only documentary — “Naza” — about the Israeli forces’ killing of civilians in Gaza.
Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor won an Oscar for 2024’s “No Other Land”, which documented Israel’s displacement of a Palestinian community in the occupied West Bank. (AFP)
