Another friend and mentor Monte Hellman landed a special career award, and Spanish entry �Balada Triste de Trompeta�, which picked up the director and screenplay prizes for Alex de la Iglesia, was widely panned by critics on the Lido waterfront.
Add to that a best actor award for Vincent Gallo in �Essential Killing�, during which he uttered not a single word, and no prizes for Italian films, and Saturday�s closing ceremony was one of the most unpredictable in years.
�The (jury) presidency of Quentin Tarantino runs the risk of being the most obvious conflict of interest, given that Somewhere and (Hellman�s) Road to Nowhere seemed charming and intriguing but nothing more,� wrote Paolo Mereghetti, veteran film critic for Italian daily Corriere della Sera, on Sunday.
Tarantino was quick to reject suggestions of favouritism.
�I wasn�t going to let anything like that affect me at all,� he told reporters after the awards were announced at the end of the September 1-11 festival. �I was just going to literally respond to the film. There was no me steering any direction.�
�Somewhere�, which won the prestigious Golden Lion best picture award, is an insider�s look at the life of a Hollywood actor who becomes numb to life through drink, drugs and a string of one-night stands, and stars Stephen Dorff as Johnny Marco.
His days are divided between five-star hotels, Ferraris and blonde pin-ups, but also loneliness, tiresome media attention and boredom, and he is finally faced with the question of where a life so enviable on the surface is ultimately heading.
The daughter of director Francis Ford Coppola partly based the film on her own experiences as a young girl following her famous father from one hotel to another.
Coppola�s victory at least guarantees a high-profile end to a festival which many experts feel has been overshadowed this year by up-and-coming rival Toronto, which overlaps with Venice and is attracting many of the industry�s biggest names.
Balada Triste de Trompeta (The Last Circus) was ranked 17th out of 24 competition films in an informal critics� poll published for journalists in Venice.
The ultra-violent horror movie, which doubles as a metaphor for fascist Spain, was described in reviews as �the demented Spanish circus movie� and �loud, tedious and unattractive in every sense�, although it had a handful of avid supporters.
A prize for Gallo�s speechless turn as a suspected Taliban fighter on the run from US troops came as less of a surprise, although it highlighted his bizarre behaviour at the festival.
The actor and director shunned all publicity, arriving in Venice in a balaclava and refusing to hold a press conference for his own competition movie �Promises Written in Water�. He did not take the stage to accept his award.
Some of the competition�s best liked films and performances were overlooked, including that of Natalie Portman, who won praise for her powerful turn as a disturbed dancer in �Black Swan�.
Also popular with critics were �Venus Noire�, the true story of a woman brought from South Africa to Europe in 1810 and turned into a freak show, and Chile�s �Post Mortem�, which looks at the 1973 military coup through the eyes of a morgue employee.
�Potiche�, a 1970s comedy starring Catherine Deneuve and Gerard Depardieu, left empty-handed as well.
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