Robert De Niro and Morgan Freeman never worked with Mel Brooks, and the Oscar winners came to a ceremony in his honor to let him know they resent it.
Brooks received the American Film Institute’s 41st Life Achievement Award Thursday, and Freeman and De Niro were among a galaxy of stars who paid tribute to the man behind “Blazing Saddles,” ”Young Frankenstein” and “The Producers.”
Martin Short opened the program with a song-and-dance routine set to a medley of melodies from Brooks’ films.
“The word genius is used a lot in Hollywood, so I might as well call Mel one,” Short said.
Billy Crystal, Amy Poehler, Sarah Silverman, Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, Cloris Leachman, David Lynch, Larry David and Carl Reiner also honored the 86-year-old filmmaker at a private dinner at the Dolby Theatre that had the energy of a good-natured roast.
“We are going to miss you so much, Mel,” Kimmel said. “You were one of the greats. Rest in peace, my friend.”
David blamed Brooks for his idle years as an aspiring comedian.
“Mel Brooks didn’t get me into comedy, he kept me away from it,” David said, recalling how he was intimidated by Brooks’ talent. “I spent years doing nothing because of him.”
Woody Allen, Clint Eastwood, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Whoopi Goldberg and Gene Wilder were among those lauding Brooks via video.
“I don’t think there’s any man anywhere who’s like you,” Wilder said. “I love you, Mel.”
Silverman and Reiner also pledged their love to Brooks.
“I hail you, king Kaminski,” Reiner said, using Brooks’ real surname.
Past recipients of the AFI honor include Elizabeth Taylor, Kirk Douglas, Eastwood, Spielberg, Lucas and Martin Scorsese, who presented Brooks with his award.
Scorsese put the Oscar- and Tony-winning talent in the same category as the Marx Brothers, Laurel & Hardy and Abbott & Costello.
“Mel has made his own tradition of greatness, and it’s that tradition — drawing from the past, honoring it, toying with it, vamping on it, extending it to places wise men, very funny men previously feared to go — that’s what we’re celebrating here and honoring tonight,” Scorsese said. “Mel has always made his own way, and he brought us all along for the joyride.”
Brooks was almost all comedy as he claimed his prize. He directed an expletive at Kimmel, declaring, “I’m not gonna die.”
But he dropped the funny stuff to thank the institute for recognizing him and to share his lifelong love of film.
“Movies saved my life,” he said. “They rescued my soul. No matter what was bad or wrong, it could be wiped out on Saturday morning.”
TNT will broadcast highlights from the ceremony as a TV special on June 15.
AI-Assisted Works Can Get Copyright With Enough Human Creativity, According To U.S. Copyright Office
Artists can copyright works they made with the help of artificial intelligence, according to a new report by the U.S. Copyright Office that could further clear the way for the use of AI tools in Hollywood, the music industry and other creative fields.
The nation's copyright office, which sits in the Library of Congress and is not part of the executive branch, receives about half a million copyright applications per year covering millions of individual works. It has increasingly been asked to register works that are AI-generated.
And while many of those decisions are made on a case-by-case basis, the report issued Wednesday clarifies the office's approach as one based on what the top U.S. copyright official describes as the "centrality of human creativity" in authoring a work that warrants copyright protections.
"Where that creativity is expressed through the use of AI systems, it continues to enjoy protection," said a statement from Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter, who directs the office.
An AI-assisted work could be copyrightable if an artist's handiwork is perceptible. A human adapting an AI-generated output with "creative arrangements or modifications" could also make it fall under copyright protections.
The report follows a review that began in 2023 and fielded opinions from thousands of people that ranged from AI developers, to actors and country singers.
It shows the copyright office will continue to reject copyright claims for fully machine-generated content. A person simply prompting a chatbot or AI image generator to produce a work doesn't give that person the ability to copyright that work, according to the report. "Extending protection to material whose expressive elements are determined by a machine ...... Read More