Introducing Harvey Keitel

Actor Harvey Keitel was presented with the first annual Peter J. Owens Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival, in recognition for his extensive, ingenious (and let's face it increasingly buck naked) body of work. Throughout the proceedings, Keitel showed calm impatience with an ill-chosen film clip and incongruous line of questioning from a film scholar, until audience members began shouting from their seats, "Talk, Harvey, Just Talk!"

Keitel, who is best known for his roles as hard-boiled tough guys and cops in films like "Taxi Driver" and "Bad Lieutenant", delighted audiences by doing just that. Keitel in talking, proved surprisingly sensitive as he waxed philosophically about his early years in the theatre, the importance of independent filmmaking, and the journey he calls, "the biggest journey -- the journey of the soul."

Photo copyright Christina Reilly 1996

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