If you followed the gossip from the recent Cannes Film Circus, you will have heard that there were two incidents of scandalous behavior by directors who had films in competition. One of them involved Lars von Trier, who felt so alienated during the press carnival for his film "Melancholia" that he tried to inject some provocative humor into the proceedings and wound up making Nazi jokes that didn't go over at all well. As he later told Dennis Lim in the New York Times: "I got carried away. I feel this obligation, which is completely stupid and very unprofessional, to kind of entertain the crowd a little bit."
Von Trier's actions got him declared "persona non grata" by the authoritarian Board of Directors, while the other filmmaker, Terrence Malick, got the Palme d'Or by behaving even more shockingly (if some of the press reports were to be believed): He didn't walk the red carpet or attend press conflagrations for his movie, "The Tree of Life"! Strange as it may seem, some people -- even movie directors -- don't crave the attention. Brad Pitt, the extremely famous movie star who did a fine job fielding mostly inane and redundant questions from the keyboard paparazzi after the press screening, noted, as did others, that Malick prefers not to be hailed as a demigod in a festival atmosphere. Imagine that.
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