In my 05.27.24 writeup, “Eight Film That Almost Won the Palme d’Or,” I failed to mention one of the more controversial jury decisions, which happened in 2009.
First off, the 2009 competition lineup was very good. It included the likes of Andrea Arnold’s “Fish Tank,” Jacques Audiard’s “A Prophet,” Lars von Trier’s “Antichrist,” Gaspar Noe’s “Enter the Void,” Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds,” Pedro Almodovar’s “Broken Embraces,” and Jane Campion’s “Bright Star.”
Michael Haneke’s “The White Ribbon” ended up winning the Palme d’Or, but it turns out that it was a compromise as part of the jury was split on two other notable films: “Antichrist” and “A Prophet.”
Isabelle Huppert was the Jury president that year, she presided over her fellow jurors which included Nuri Bilge Ceylan, James Gray, Lee Chang-Dog, Robin Wright and Asia Argento.
Behind the scenes, Huppert and Gray “fought bitterly” over which film deserved the Palme d’Or, partly because she loved von Trier’s “Antichrist” (for which Charlotte Gainsbourg won Best Actress) and he loved Audiard’s “A Prophet” (which ended up winning the Grand Prix).
The cultural editor of Le Figaro, Jean-Luc Wachthausen, reported at the time that tensions between both were so high that Gray was rumored to have wanted to quit the jury several days into the festival because of Huppert’s “somewhat dictatorial behavior…”
Huppert’s presidential style was so dictatorial that Gray, allegedly, even went so far as to call her a “fascist bitch” by the end of their voting sessions. (Cannes President) Gilles Jacob leapt to Huppert’s defence amid the scuttlebutt, dismissing much of it as sexist hearsay.
If Huppert was truly a “dictator’ and a “bully” then we would have had “Antichrist” win the Palme d’Or. Regardless, that make it now two times that Von Trier almost the Palme d’Or. In 2011, a majority of the jury members that year wanted “Melancholia” and the only reason they decided against it was due to Von Trier’s infamous press conference where he admitted to understanding why Hitler did what he did.
At least Von Trier has one Palme d’Or to his name, he won the prestigious prize in 2000 for his incredible “Dancer in the Dark.”