Terrence Malick is 18th American to Win at Cannes Film Festival

What country has the most film directors to win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival? With American Director Terrence Malick taking the grand prize for "The Tree of Life" at Cannes 2011, the U.S. has the most at 18. With the Cannes Film Festival held annually in the South of France since 1939, who says the French hate Americans?

Actually, the Jury for International Competition at Cannes is typically a melting pot of nationalities. For instance the 2011 Jury president was Robert De Niro, but included British actor Jude Law, Chinese producer Nansun Shi, Norwegian author Linn Ullmann, French filmmaker Olivier Assayas, director Mahamat Saleh Haroun from Chad, Hong Kong filmmaker Johnnie To, Argentine actress Martina Gusman and American Actress Uma Thurman.

Terrence Malick is already an enigmatic legend of American cinema having only directed 5 feature films since his 1973 debut, "Badlands." "The Tree of Life" puts Malick in the company of American Palme d'Or winners such as Cecil B. DeMille, Billy Wilder, Orson Welles, Robert Altman, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Steven Soderbergh, David Lynch, The Coen Brothers, Quentin Tarantino, Gus Van Sant and Michael Moore. The grand prize of International Competition at Cannes has carried a variety of names, but has gone by the Palme d'Or since 1975.

"The Tree of Life" navigates themes typical to Cannes's favorites with dramatic surrealism and existential profundity. The film, starring Brad Pitt and Sean Penn, interlaces a character's personal reflection set against life's metaphysical mysteries. Audience reaction to the film at Cannes was notably polarized, as is often the case with winners of the Palme d'Or.

Malick is a director who works at the pace of a Chinese Emperor; building grand cinematic schemes that require indentured passions. "The Tree of Life" has been in the works for Malick since 2005 and films that carry such grandiose baggage often fall into development hell and release limbo. What eventually emerges into the world can either be an unexpected masterpiece or an epic fail in lofty expectations.

Whatever opinions evolve around the film, Malick has shown that American Directors can still provoke and mystify the film world. In the eyes of Cannes, these winners are still the premiere choice of European film culture and anointed at the most prestigious film festival in the world. While several countries have displayed movements of stellar cinematic contributions, American Directors have proved to be fixtures of virtuosity.