For Terrence Malick, who won the Palme d’Or on Sunday at the Cannes International Flm Festival at the French Riviera, the triumph comes at a price: The painfully shy film-maker will find it hard to avoid the spotlight for a while.
With The Tree of Life the enigmatic 67-year-old – who also writes and produces – scored a second Cannes honour more than three decades after he won best director here for Days of Heaven.
True to form, Mr Malick skipped a press conference after the screening of his movie half-way through the festival’s 12-day run this year, leaving producer Sarah Green to explain to frustrated reporters: “Mr Malick is very shy.”
He was also a no-show on awards night, with co-producer Bill Pohlad accepting the award on behalf
The Tree of Life, which stars Brad Pitt as the tyrannical father of a Texas family in the 1950s, and also features Sean Penn, got mixed plaudits from critics, but clearly won over the Cannes jury chaired by Robert De Niro.
Details of Mr Malick’s personal life are hard to come by, but by all accounts he studied philosophy at Harvard and was a Rhodes scholar to Britain’s Oxford University.
After returning to the US, Mr Malick, whose name comes from his Lebanese immigrant father, worked as a freelance journalist before getting into the film business via writing, including working on Dirty Harry in 1971.
Deciding to direct his own scripts, his first feature was Badlands in 1973 starring Martin Sheen, before he scored a hit with his second movie “Days of Heaven.”
Mr Malick won best director at Cannes in 1979 for Days of Heaven, starring Richard Gere and which was also nominated for best picture. In 1999 he was nominated for two Oscars for The Thin Red Line, as director and writer.
During this year’s Cannes festival Mr Malick’s shyness - he is intensely private, reportedly stipulating in contracts that pictures of him cannot be used to promote his work - caused repeated headaches for organizers.
Festival director Thierry Fremaux, who knows the enigmatic US director well, said that Mr Malick arrived on Sunday but opted to stiraway from the red-carpet premiere as well as the press conference.
“I convinced him to enter the theatre at the conclusion of the gala evening screening by promising him that there would not be press cameras,” Mr Fremaux said.
Spanish actor Javier Bardem, who is in Mr Malick’s latest as-yet-untitled movie, said: “Here’s the great thing about Terry: to my surprise, because I didn’t know him, he is as funny as hell. He has a great, great sense of humour.
“He made me laugh a lot. He is a great man, a philosopher. I’ve always been very grateful for his work, so when he gave me a call I said, yes, of course. It’s like with Woody Allen: He calls you and you go, Where? When?”
List of past Palme d’Or best film winners
The following is a list of the previous winners of the Palme d’Or prize for the best film at the Cannes festival, including Sunday’s victor, Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life.
Once known as the Grand Prix, from 1975 the top award has been the Palme d’Or or Golden Palm. This year was the festival’s 64th edition.
1939: No prize as the festival was halted after 48 hours by Hitler’s invasion of Poland.
1946: 11 films shared the top prize, including:
Open City by Roberto Rossellini
Maria Candelaria by Emilio Fernandez
Brief Encounter by David Lean
The Lost Weekend by Billy Wilder
1947: Six prizes including:
Les Maudits by Rene Clement
Ziegfeld Follies by Vincente Minnelli
Dumbo by Walt Disney
1949: The Third Man by Carol Reed
1951: Miracle in Milan by Vittorio de Sica
Miss Julie by Alf Sjoberg
1952: Othello by Orson Welles
Due Soldi di Speranza by Renato Castellani
1953: The Wages of Fear by Henri-Georges Clouzot
1954: The Gate of Hell (Jigokumon) by Teinosuke Kinugasa
1955: Marty by Delbert Mann
1956: Le Monde du Silence by Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Louis Malle
1957: Friendly Persuasion by William Wyler
1958: The Cranes are Flying by Mikhail Kalatoz
1959: Black Orpheus by Marcel Camus
1960: La Dolce Vita by Federico Fellini
1961: Viridiana by Luis Bunuel
The Long Absence by Henri Colpi
1962: The Given Word by Anselmo Duarte
1963: The Leopard by Luchino Visconti
1964: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg by Jacques Demy
1965: The Knack (...and How to Get It) by Richard Lester
1966: A Man and A Woman by Claude Lelouch
The Birds, the Bees and the Italians by Pietro Germi
1967: Blow-Up by Michelangelo Antonioni
1969: If by Lindsay Anderson
1970: M*A*S*H by Robert Altman
1971: The Go-Between by Joseph Losey
1972: The Working Class Goes to Heaven by Elio Petri
The Mattei Affair by Francesco Rosi
1973: Scarecrow by Jerry Schatzberg
The Hireling by Alan Bridges
1974: The Conversation by Francis Ford Coppola
1975: Chronicle of the Years of Fire by Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina
1976: Taxi Driver by Martin Scorsese
1977: Padre Padrone by Paolo Taviani
1978: The Tree of Wooden Clogs by Ermanno Olmi
1979: Apocalypse Now by Francis Ford Coppola
The Tin Drum by Volker Schloendorff
1980: Kagemusha by Akira Kurosawa
All That Jazz by Bob Fosse
1981: Man of Iron by Andrzej Wajda
1982: Missing by Costa-Gavras
Yol by Yilmaz Guney
1983: The Ballad of Narayama by Shohei Imamura
1984: Paris, Texas by Wim Wenders
1985: When Father Was Away on Business by Emir Kusturica
1986: The Mission by Roland Joffe
1987: Under the Sun of Satan by Maurice Pialat
1988: Pelle the Conqueror by Bille August
1989: Sex, Lies and Videotape by Steven Soderbergh
1990: Wild At Heart by David Lynch
1991: Barton Fink by Joel and Ethan Coen
1992: The Best Intentions by Bille August
1993: Farewell My Concubine by Kaige Chen
The Piano by Jane Campion
1994: Pulp Fiction by Quentin Tarantino
1995: Underground by Emir Kusturica
1996: Secrets & Lies by Mike Leigh
1997: The Eel by Shohei Imamura
Taste of Cherry by Abbas Kiarostami
1998: Eternity and a Day by Theo Angelopoulos
1999: Rosetta by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
2000: Dancer in the Dark by Lars Von Trier
2001: The Son’s Room by Nanni Moretti
2002: The Pianist by Roman Polanski
2003: Elephant by Gus Van Sant
2004: Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore
2005: The Child by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
2006: The Wind That Shakes The Barley by Ken Loach
2007: 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days by Cristian Mungui
2008: The Class by Laurent Cantet
2009: The White Ribbon by Michael Haneke
2010: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives by Apichatpong Weerasethakul
2011: The Tree of Life by Terrence Malick