President Barack Obama honoured greats from the world of film, music and books last night when he awarded National Medals of Arts and Humanities to George Lucas, Allen Toussaint and Joan Didion. Obama said that artists had the power to open minds and praised Lucas, creator of Star Wars, for transforming movies. Obama, who slipped up in a press conference earlier this year when he confused a Star Wars 'Jedi mind trick' with a Star Trek 'mind meld' said: "I remember when I first sawStar Wars. There's a whole generation that thinks special effects always look like they do today. But it used to be you'd see, like, the string on the little model spaceships." He added that "all the medal winners challenge us to think and to question and to discover, to seek that inward significance". Toussaint, who helped revive his native New Orleans with music after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, described receiving the medal as "a very proud moment in my life". Toussaint's songs have been recorded over the past 40 years by artists including Lee Dorsey, The Rolling Stones, The Neville Brothers, Lowell George, Otis Redding and Elvis Costello. Read more http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/10173041/President-Obama-honours-George-Lucas.html
