Cannes winner Malick joins elite club of US directors

By Andrew McCathie May 23, 2011, 0:39 GMT

Cannes, France - US-born Terrence Malick is only the 15th American director to win the Cannes Film Festival's iconic Palme d'Or since the prize was introduced in 1955.

The 67-year-old Malick was awarded the festival's coveted top prize on Sunday for his film The Tree of Life, which starred Hollywood actor Brad Pitt and Oscar winner Sean Penn as father and son in the story of a Midwestern family in the 1950s.

'We felt that the size, the importance and the intention (of the film) served to fit the prize,' said US actor Robert De Niro, who headed the nine-person jury.

The last US film to win the festival's top prize was Michael Moore's satirical documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 in 2004.

Over the years, something of a love-hate relationship has developed between Hollywood and Cannes.

Malick's movie was the only film from an American director included in the festival's 20-film main competition this year.

Some US studio bosses think that Cannes is often too critical of their films and would like the world's leading film festival to take their movies more seriously.

There is no doubting that US films often do receive something of a rough ride from Cannes' hypercritical festivalgoers.

Still, it is Hollywood that provides much of the glamour at Cannes, with the media spotlight at this year's festival on the red-carpet appearances by leading US actors such as Angelina Jolie, Johnny Depp and Mel Gibson.

Other US films that have won the Palme d'Or since 1970 include Robert Altman's MASH, Joel and Ethan Coen's Barton Fink and Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver. Francis Ford Coppola has twice won the festival's top prize.

De Niro starred in Taxi Driver. The jury also includes Kill Bill star Uma Thurman.

Several Palme d'Or winners such as Roman Polanksi's The Pianist, Mike Leigh's Secrets and Lies, Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction and Jane Campion's The Piano have gone on to be Oscar nominations for best picture.

That said, however, winning a Palme d'Or is by no means a guarantee of commercial success, especially in the giant US cinema market.

Malick has made only five films over his four-decade career. The reclusive Malick is not really part of mainstream Hollywood life.

However, with the world film industry and movie press gathered in Cannes each year for 12 days in May, the festival is a major platform for Hollywood to unveil its summer blockbusters.

This year was no exception, with the US movie industry rolling out the fourth opus of the adventure fantasy film Pirates of the Caribbean, starring Depp, as well as the animated Kung Fu Panda 2, voiced by Jolie and Hollywood star Jack Black.

US actress-turned-director Jodie Foster's quirky film The Beaver, which stars Mel Gibson as a depressed man who communicates through a puppet beaver, was also screened this year in Cannes.

Foster said she hopes the movie might connect better with European audiences after it chalked up a weak box office in North America.

'It is a special film and not for everyone,' she told a press conference marking the movie's Cannes' screening.

US director Woody Allen's new romantic comedy Midnight in Paris, headlined by Hollywood stalwarts such as Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams, also opened this year's festival.

Despite Malick being the sole entry from a US director in the Palme d'Or race, there were several films in the main competition that presented images of America often from the perceptive of European filmmakers.

This included Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive, which was an homage to US crime movies from the 1970s and 1980s.

The movie stars Canadian-born Ryan Gosling as a movie stunt driver and mechanic who works as a getaway driver.

We Need to Talk About Kevin, from Scotland's Lynne Ramsay, tells the tale of a mother facing up to guilt and grief after her teenage son goes on killing spree in suburban America.

In Italian-born Paolo Sorrentino's new movie, This Must be the Place, Oscar-winner Sean Penn donned red lipstick, heavy black eye make-up and a wig to transform himself into an '80s rock star tracking down the Nazi officer who tormented his father. His search for the SS officer takes Penn's character Cheyenne on a road movie-style journey of self-discovery across America.

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