Kirsten Dunst put in uncomfortable position at Cannes

(CBS) Kirsten Dunst has her work cut out for her.

The 29-year-old actress, best known for playing Mary Jane Watson in the "Spider Man " movies, has to promote a new movie with a whole lot of baggage.

Pictures: Cannes Film Festival 2011

At a press conference to introduce the film "Melancholia," the director Lars von Trier called himself a Nazi and made what sounded like sympathetic comments about Hitler. The furor was instant and incendiary.

The director was banned from the festival, although the movie was not pulled from competition as some had sought.

To know what Dunst, who up until then had been generating headline for her glam appearance, thought about the comments, you need only to look at her face while von Trier was speaking. Her expression tells it all.

"Oh my God, this is terrible," she reportedly said.

Dunst said in an interview later about von Trier, "He likes to run his mouth. I think he dug himself in a deep hole today."

And that leaves her and co-stars Charlotte Gainsbourg and John Hurt left to make audiences care about "Melancholia."