2011’s Cannes Film Festival saw Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” taking the top prize of the Palme d’Or, not a major surprise considering amongst critics it was also recognised as one of the best movies of the year.
However it now turns out another critical favorite of that year was all lined up to take the award, but ended up missing out due to a public relations disaster. That film? Lars von Trier’s “Melancholia”.
Speaking to French outlet Liberation (via The Film Stage), several jury members have spoken about films they have awarded in the past.
One such member is “Clouds of Sils Maria” and “Personal Shopper” director Olivier Assayas who participated in 2011’s competition jury alongside the likes of Robert De Niro, Jude Law, Uma Thurman, producer Nansun Shi, writer Linn Ullmann, and filmmakers Mahamat-Saleh Haroun and Johnnie To.
According to Assayas, the jury was all in for “Melancholia”. Then von Trier changed the game when he gave an infamous press conference in which he joked about sympathising with Hitler. Assayas says:
“The other scandal was the press conference where Lars von Trier made an anti-Semitic joke. Everyone got on their high horse. My position was to say that I was not engaged as a morality judge, and that ‘Melancholia’ was magnificent. There were consequences on the record, as he was a serious contender for the [Palme d’Or].
At first, there were only two of us, Jude Law and I, who thought that Terrence Malick’s ‘The Tree of Life’ could also claim the highest prize. The reason other members joined our cause was because they had lost their favorite.”
After the distasteful joke, von Trier was declared ‘persona non grata’ by Cannes organizers for years, returning only last year out of competition with “The House That Jack Built”.
