Xixax Film Forum

The Director's Chair => The Director's Chair => Topic started by: Adam0199 on March 19, 2003, 10:41:39 PM

Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Adam0199 on March 19, 2003, 10:41:39 PM
I think Lars Von Trier deserves his own category here. He is one of the most unique filmmakers working today. His work is very dense and intriguing and deserves close scrutiny and discussion. Emily Watson in Punch Drunk vs. Breaking the Waves? PT Anderson has agreed that it was the film, her debut, where he first took notice. Nothing is wasted in his films, everything is important and everything crucial.

How original was The Idiots?

Interested in your comments.

Peace,
Adam
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Rudie Obias on March 19, 2003, 11:20:10 PM
that's agreed.  i loved DANCER IN THE DARK.  in fact i just bought the dvd the other day, i'm letting my buddy borrow it cuz he's never seen it.  good film.  rock!
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Gold Trumpet on March 20, 2003, 07:04:15 AM
Of course Breaking the Waves would be the first movie PTA took notice of her, because it was her first film.

I've only seen his last two films, but I wish he would get away from the Dogme 95 influence and understand that it is doing him no good at all. Realism and emotion can be shown in a much better way than just have a shaky camera and bad lighting all the time. Dogme 95 has no understanding at all of how to show realistic emotion in a movie.

~rougerum
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: New Feeling on March 20, 2003, 11:20:49 AM
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet
I've only seen his last two films, but I wish he would get away from the Dogme 95 influence and understand that it is doing him no good at all. Realism and emotion can be shown in a much better way than just have a shaky camera and bad lighting all the time. Dogme 95 has no understanding at all of how to show realistic emotion in a movie.

~rougerum

There are many people who find these films to be among the most devitstating works of art they have ever experienced.  Maybe you should learn to realize that just because you can't accept something doesn't mean it's not working...

(btw, I'm not a big fan of either of these movies, but there is no denying their effectiveness)
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Gold Trumpet on March 20, 2003, 11:39:18 AM
hah, my opinion.  This is a discussion board, right? i didn't  say anyone who likes the movie is terribe, just that they don't work. Should I say "in my opinon" before everything I say or tell you to understand the obvious?

~rougerum
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Rudie Obias on March 20, 2003, 11:49:27 AM
Quote from: The Gold Trumpetthe Dogme 95 influence


can someone explain this to me?
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: phil marlowe on March 20, 2003, 12:05:54 PM
Quote from: The Gold Trumpethah, my opinion.  This is a discussion board, right? i didn't  say anyone who likes the movie is terribe, just that they don't work. Should I say "in my opinon" before everything I say or tell you to understand the obvious?

I believe we have had this discussion before so please don't bring it up. It's boring and pointless.

Quote from: rudieob
Quote from: The Gold Trumpetthe Dogme 95 influence


can someone explain this to me?

I believe Trier shot on DV long before the dogme concept was born. And wasn't it Trier who gave birth to the dogme ideals? Trier Influenced dogme 95. Not the other way around.

I agree that Dancer didn't work completely at times though. To me, it tended  to get a little bit boring.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Sigur Rós on March 20, 2003, 12:14:23 PM
Quote from: Adam0199I think Lars Von Trier deserves his own category here.

I agree. Trier is brilliant :-D
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: MacGuffin on March 20, 2003, 12:51:16 PM
Quote from: rudieob
Quote from: The Gold Trumpetthe Dogme 95 influence
can someone explain this to me?

The Vow Of Chastity

"I swear to submit to the following set of rules drawn up and confirmed by DOGME 95:

1. Shooting must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in (if a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found).

2. The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. (Music must not be used unless it occurs where the scene is being shot).

3. The camera must be hand-held. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted. (The film must not take place where the camera is standing; shooting must take place where the film takes place).

4. The film must be in colour. Special lighting is not acceptable. (If there is too little light for exposure the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera).

5. Optical work and filters are forbidden.

6. The film must not contain superficial action. (Murders, weapons, etc. must not occur.)

7. Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden. (That is to say that the film takes place here and now.)

8. Genre movies are not acceptable.

9. The film format must be Academy 35 mm.

10. The director must not be credited.

Furthermore I swear as a director to refrain from personal taste! I am no longer an artist. I swear to refrain from creating a "work", as I regard the instant as more important than the whole. My supreme goal is to force the truth out of my characters and settings. I swear to do so by all the means available and at the cost of any good taste and any aesthetic considerations.
Thus I make my VOW OF CHASTITY."

Copenhagen, Monday 13 March 1995

Lar Van Trier
Thomas Vinterberg
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Rudie Obias on March 20, 2003, 12:54:10 PM
Quote from: Phil Marlowe

Quote from: rudieob
Quote from: The Gold Trumpetthe Dogme 95 influence


can someone explain this to me?

I believe Trier shot on DV long before the dogme concept was born. And wasn't it Trier who gave birth to the dogme ideals? Trier Influenced dogme 95. Not the other way around.

I agree that Dancer didn't work completely at times though. To me, it tended  to get a little bit boring.

ummm...  i don't think you've answered my question.  what is dogme 95?
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Rudie Obias on March 20, 2003, 12:54:50 PM
Quote from: rudieob
Quote from: Phil Marlowe

Quote from: rudieob
Quote from: The Gold Trumpetthe Dogme 95 influence


can someone explain this to me?

I believe Trier shot on DV long before the dogme concept was born. And wasn't it Trier who gave birth to the dogme ideals? Trier Influenced dogme 95. Not the other way around.

I agree that Dancer didn't work completely at times though. To me, it tended  to get a little bit boring.

ummm...  i don't think you've answered my question.  what is dogme 95?

nevermind.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Cecil on March 20, 2003, 10:35:02 PM
i find the dogme 95 rules interesting, and respect the reason for its existence. but again, i feel that in filmmaking there are no rules. i would like to make a film some day breaking all of the dogme rules. i dont think the result would be a more "mainstream" film, au contraire
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: RegularKarate on March 21, 2003, 03:26:52 PM
Quote from: cecil b. dementedi find the dogme 95 rules interesting, and respect the reason for its existence. but again, i feel that in filmmaking there are no rules. i would like to make a film some day breaking all of the dogme rules. i dont think the result would be a more "mainstream" film, au contraire

Most films break all the dogme rules and I believe the rules that were set were supposed to be ironic.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Cecil on March 21, 2003, 03:35:08 PM
Quote from: RegularKarate
Most films break all the dogme rules

i meant to purposefully break the rules. for example, the hand held rule. well the camera would be on a tripod, but the viewer would be aware that a tripod is being used (the scene is happening as the camera is being screwed on, during the scene the cameraman picks up the tripod, takes a few steps closer to the actors, sets it back down).
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: RegularKarate on March 21, 2003, 03:51:15 PM
Quote from: cecil b. demented
Quote from: RegularKarate
Most films break all the dogme rules

i meant to purposefully break the rules. for example, the hand held rule. well the camera would be on a tripod, but the viewer would be aware that a tripod is being used (the scene is happening as the camera is being screwed on, during the scene the cameraman picks up the tripod, takes a few steps closer to the actors, sets it back down).

That would be hilarious.

Especially if they pulled the macho, tripod over the shoulder move with the cam going.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: rustinglass on March 23, 2003, 03:16:39 AM
Personnaly I think that the dogme thing was a joke that got out of hand. I only saw 2 dogme films and I didn't like them, i just thought that they didn't work: the acting was bad, the camera was annoying some times...
On the other hand, I think that the lars von trier films do work. It's so good how he directs the actors and handles the camera, the editing, every thing down to the music in them (my favourite trier thing are the chapter titles in breaking the waves, what's that all about? it's fuckin excelent!). I just think that trier is a brilliant director, whatever rules he breaks or follows, he makes excellent films, thats what filmaking is all about (duh!....) and that's what this thread should be about. thumbs up for a lars von trier's own category!
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Ghostboy on April 24, 2003, 11:53:50 AM
Time to resurrect this thread. Von Trier's new film is premiering at Cannes, and the trailer just got released.

http://www.tvropa.com/Dogville/index.html

It's pretty nifty. Gives nothing away about the movie, but is very striking and intriguing. Although if you don't like Von Trier, you'll probably like him even less after seeing this.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Gold Trumpet on April 24, 2003, 12:04:07 PM
Is this movie going to be Dogme influenced like his last two movies?

~rougerum
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: phil marlowe on April 24, 2003, 12:16:44 PM
ive been looking forward for this trailer for a long time and now it wont fucking work for me. all it does is play a short audio loop, appearantly from the movie.

but actually i dont care, cause im going to se it a long time before any of you guys. and that because im a cool dane.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: SoNowThen on April 24, 2003, 12:32:26 PM
I would just like to say that I LOVE Element Of Crime. Whoooo!!!
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Gold Trumpet on April 24, 2003, 12:41:34 PM
Here's what I found from another forum in which someone spoke about what Dogville may be like:

I don't think Dogville will be even close to Dogme. It's done in filmed-theater style (von Trier has cited the old Royal Shakespeare Company production of Nicolas Nickleby as an example). He's not using sets either -- the entire thing is supposed to be in an empty studio, with chalk outlines on the floor representing locations. (I heard von Trier wanted the actors to mime all the props as well, but supposedly he was talked out of this.) I read an interview with Peter Aalbaek Jensen where he says that von Trier has decided to completely switch styles again (much like the transition between Europa and The Kingdom), so there shouldn't be much more than a trace of Dogme here.

~rougerum
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: modage on June 20, 2003, 10:19:29 PM
just saw my first Von Trier film "Dancer In The Dark" and now i want to kill myself.   :cry: are all his movies this uplifting?
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: BonBon85 on June 20, 2003, 11:13:13 PM
Quote from: themodernage02just saw my first Von Trier film "Dancer In The Dark" and now i want to kill myself.   :cry: are all his movies this uplifting?

I think Dancer's the saddest, but Breaking the Waves is close behind
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: MrBurgerKing on June 20, 2003, 11:45:04 PM
Don't read this if you haven't seen Breaking the Waves, but it has one of my favorite last scenes ever. Von Trier made a real powerful closing scene, totally unexpected.

I don't know, I can't equate it to cheeseburgers this time. Anyone else want to jump in?
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: modage on June 21, 2003, 12:20:57 AM
Quote from: MrBurgerKingI don't know, I can't equate it to cheeseburgers this time. Anyone else want to jump in?

jump into a cheeseburger?  mmm........ i wish.  would i still get burned? and would i have to eat my way out?
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: MrBurgerKing on June 21, 2003, 12:41:27 AM
Quote from: themodernage02
Quote from: MrBurgerKingI don't know, I can't equate it to cheeseburgers this time. Anyone else want to jump in?

jump into a cheeseburger?  mmm........ i wish.  would i still get burned? and would i have to eat my way out?

Well, if you jump into a Burger King cheeseburger, you would get burnt. Did you hear the new logo? "Come on over, the fire's ready." I could be mistaken, but I never saw them cooking my burgers over an open fire. I just see them pop it in the microwave with a look of contempt on their faces. Those fast food employees truly despise life and humanity, just like Mr. Von Trier. Or perhaps they are scared of life?
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: modage on June 21, 2003, 12:55:45 AM
the pieces are beginning to fall into place...

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sensesofcinema.com%2Fimages%2Fdirectors%2F02%2F22%2Ftrier.jpg&hash=12824bc61f6514d1d145bacce983e716cb8614cb)

+

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.inminds.co.uk%2Fburger-king-maaleh-adumin.jpg&hash=8c4c829de584c01f617c4b8402138df3927a1e4b)

=

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dancerinthedark.de%2Fditd.jpg&hash=0a7f024eac87edf118c0a79aa60d4415e040347a)
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: jonas on July 13, 2003, 09:57:59 PM
Quote from: SoNowThenI would just like to say that I LOVE Element Of Crime. Whoooo!!!

WOW, i just rented this. It was great.

Part mystery, part sci-fi, part surreal fantasy.

Very good cinematography and a great story.

I recommend it. The DVD (criterion) includes a 50 minute documentary about von Trier as well.

:-D
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: rustinglass on July 14, 2003, 04:06:54 AM
I saw this one a little while ago too. It's very good.

I really like those tarkovsky looking shots of the rusting decadent landscape.
That splitting headache Fisher has while he is driving looks almost exactly like the end of lost highway.

Still, I prefer Blade Runner.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Gold Trumpet on July 14, 2003, 10:49:56 AM
Given the fact that Dogville feels like a stage production acting as a movie, I can't wait to read what Stanley Kauffmann says about Dogville considering he may be the only critic who has as much chops on theatre reviewing as he does for film reviewing.

~rougerum
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: ono on July 30, 2003, 01:18:46 PM
I've seen both Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark.  Dancer in the Dark is a masterpiece, really.  So surreal, so beautiful and tragic.  Can't wait for Dogville, or the chance to see some of his older stuff.

What I'm curious about, though, is stuff I've read about his ego.  I've seen one quote where Trier says that he is the best working filmmaker.  I don't know if there's any truth to him saying it, but I'd love to see any articles where he's allowed to chance to talk about/like that in any capacity.
Title: dogma95
Post by: abbey road on August 02, 2003, 07:07:24 PM
on the dogma 95, i think now-a-days theres so many crappy movies that have no ideas or creativity but still have cool camera work and lighting that poeple confuse genuine art and posing crap. i think its cool to see people like lars von trier throwing away the old definetion of whats cool and arty and proving that u dont need fake astetics to make a truly good movie (like breaking the waves or dogville). i dont think the dogma thing is right for all movies, but i think nowadays people force a certain style just to fit in, and thats what the dogmas trying to stop. buti do agreethat there ar no rules to film, andthat every fil one makes should be looked at seperate from every other- but the all hand held all natural lghting thingreally appeals to me- its very gritty and real- theyre not compared alot but its just the same as th look of traffic or amores perros. no one should be self proclaimed anything, but at leaste von trier has the goods to partially back it up.
thanx
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Gold Trumpet on August 02, 2003, 08:29:33 PM
Abbey Road,
Being critical of current trends in stylistic filmmaking and accepting of the dogme esque approach just replacing one color coding for another? You admit there are no rules to cinema, but still favor that one approach. Isn't it just mere replacement of how you make films? I see no gurantees of talent in any of them and I've been especially critical of Von Triers work in the late 90s that went for dogme.

~rougerum
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Teen Wolf on August 04, 2003, 04:30:59 PM
Von Trier called Roman Polanski a "midget" in front of everybody at Cannes one year because the jury of which Polanski was a part didn't award his film the highest honor.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: rustinglass on August 05, 2003, 05:50:12 AM
I kinda agree with that. Don't get me wrong, I love Barton Fink, but still... Europa is so so good... I was really blown away when I saw it. I think it deserved the Palme D'or that year.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Gold Trumpet on August 05, 2003, 12:17:09 PM
You may think Europa is better, but to stand up there and call Polanski a midget because you disagree with him is another thing. I'm fine with criticizing/bashing his films, but too much speculation on how arrogant/genius he is to say anything personal about the guy. That incident was just stupid though.

~rougerum
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: MacGuffin on October 07, 2003, 02:26:11 AM
Casting Notes Out for a New Grace in Von Trier's "Manderlay"  

After gradually downgrading her involvement in the next chapter of director Lars Von Trier's "USA– Land of Opportunities" trilogy over the course of 5 months, Nicole Kidman is officially out of "Manderlay." To no Variety reader's surprise, the second part of the trilogy (the first was "Dogville," which was nominated for a Palm D'or at Cannes) is now looking for a new actress to play Grace, the role that Kidman originated in the first film, according to casting notices that FilmJerk.com has obtained.

In May at Cannes, Kidman said during a press conference there was no doubt she would star in his next picture, saying, "Lars, I'm going to star in your pictures, no matter what it will cost." In September, it was a slightly different tune, as she was quoted as saying "I would love to do it, but I need some time off first and he wants to film it during that time." Less than two weeks later, word came that she officially ankled the project and Von Trier saying that he is willing to use a different actress in the role for each of the two next films. And now comes the point of no return (we think), as auditions are currently being scheduled for the role with both A-listers and unknowns in the running.

Grace is described in the casting notes, which are sent to agents of actresses, as "vulnerable, lovely, strong, innocent (on the sexual level) and having a twinkle in her eye." The charismatic role is listed as being between the age of 25 and 35, with no hint that they are looking for someone who resembles Kidman.

Filming in Copenhagen, Denmark, the production will start filming at the beginning of March for a ten-week shoot.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: chinaski40 on October 07, 2003, 02:32:34 PM
I guess when Ingmar Bergman calls you a genius and the greatest filmmaker of his generation, then you tend to get a big head.
Maybe he's just trying to get attention to his films and to get people to actually start watching them, although, it's probably the wrong way.  And there are worse names he could have called Polanski than a midget.  I won't name them, because we all know his past.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Gold Trumpet on October 07, 2003, 09:03:14 PM
I always found it weird that Ingmar Bergman gave Von Trier such praise because in an article I posted here sometime ago, Bergman was criticizing the entire Dogme 95 movement as a gimmick only. Now I know Von Trier wasn't specifically making Dogme films for his last two films, but he was using much of the same basis and practice that the only way to distinguish would be to bring in an expert and ask for all the fine print. To me, they feel very much Dogme 95.

~rougerum
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: pookiethecat on October 07, 2003, 10:57:38 PM
best dogme 95 movie: mifune.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: rustinglass on October 08, 2003, 06:32:02 AM
Quote from: pookiethecatbest dogme 95 movie: mifune.

Didn't see that one, but I'd say Festen.
As for the worst dogme film I saw: fuckland
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Cecil on October 08, 2003, 07:01:15 AM
Quote from: rustinglassfuckland

population?
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: rustinglass on October 08, 2003, 09:21:26 AM
Sometimes there is a bad film and I think that the idea was good but the result was bad because the director is an asshole or because he's good but had no working conditions. I kind of think the opposit about fuckland: It's such a bad premise that kubrick wouldn't make a good film out of it if he had all the money in the world.

Anyway... an argentino man goes to the falkland islands with a small camera to perform his patriotic duty and have sex with an english woman so that argentina can get the islands back by blood.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Sanjuro on October 08, 2003, 10:31:21 AM
i thought dogville was good but not great
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Weak2ndAct on October 09, 2003, 01:23:32 AM
I just read the script for 'Dear Wendy,' which is shooting now.  It stars Jaime Bell and some chick I've never heard of (Alison Pill I believe is her name?).  LVT wrote it, but turned over directing duties to Thomas Vinterberg to he could finish the USA trilogy.
Basically-- Dear Wendy is LVT's 'love letter' to the US regarding gun control, and kids shooting adults.  It's pretty absurd... and strangely wonderful.  Basic premise: a 17 year old w/ no family falls in love w/ a gun, becomes empowered by it, then encourages the other outsiders in his small town to join him.  They all pack heat and create a child-like club-- built on studying guns and the damage they inflict.  They make a pact to never use their guns.  And once a new member enters the group, everything changes...
The whole thing is scored to music by The Zombies, and has an incredibly shocking climax.  This guy knows how to provoke audiences.  People will be talking about this one in a year or two.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on October 09, 2003, 08:28:30 AM
Quote from: Weak2ndActI just read the script for 'Dear Wendy,' which is shooting now.  It stars Jaime Bell and some chick I've never heard of (Alison Pill I believe is her name?).  LVT wrote it, but turned over directing duties to Thomas Vinterberg to he could finish the USA trilogy.
Basically-- Dear Wendy is LVT's 'love letter' to the US regarding gun control, and kids shooting adults.  It's pretty absurd... and strangely wonderful.  Basic premise: a 17 year old w/ no family falls in love w/ a gun, becomes empowered by it, then encourages the other outsiders in his small town to join him.  They all pack heat and create a child-like club-- built on studying guns and the damage they inflict.  They make a pact to never use their guns.  And once a new member enters the group, everything changes...
The whole thing is scored to music by The Zombies, and has an incredibly shocking climax.  This guy knows how to provoke audiences.  People will be talking about this one in a year or two.

:onfire:
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Weak2ndAct on October 09, 2003, 03:29:06 PM
Quote from: Jeremy Blackman:onfire:
So what exactly does this mean?
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: ***beady*** on October 09, 2003, 03:47:48 PM
Hot bouncy thing?
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on October 09, 2003, 05:57:19 PM
I guess it means something close to this:

:multi:
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Weak2ndAct on October 10, 2003, 10:44:24 PM
Quote from: Jeremy BlackmanI guess it means something close to this:

:multi:

Glad we cleared that up.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: rustinglass on November 11, 2003, 03:54:26 PM
Since friday I have seen two von trier films that I had never seen before:

Medea- This is a visually beautiful film. I felt that I was watching a dogme-film made by tarkovsky. Note that this is pre-pre dogme, however has some of the movement's elements. It tells the greek myth of Medea in a scandinavian setting, based on a carl t. dreyer script that never got made, and with a fantastic performance by udo kier. Once again I could count on lars to shock me and make all my limbs numb as the raw dramatic climax took place. Those of you who liked breaking the waves and the element of crime should watch this. I believe there is a new dvd edition out.

Epidemic- von Trier's horror documentary comedy drama film-within-a-film. A very interesting experiment in story-telling. We follow lars and niels vorsel as they try to write a film about a disease that is wiping out all of europe. I think of it basically as a prequel of the kindom (which I believe is the hospital that lars visits in epidemic). It has some very funny parts, as they were thinking of how to make the blister effects and their vision of a america based on pen-pals they had when they were 14. Also some very dramatic and scary moments. also highly recommended
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: classical gas on November 12, 2003, 05:25:50 AM
i must be lost or something, but when is 'dogville' coming to theaters, or did i completely miss it, i've heard it's being moved back and so on.  does anyone know the truth?  i'm lost in the dark.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Ghostboy on November 12, 2003, 07:43:12 AM
I think sometime in the spring -- I think I heard March mentioned somewhere, but  I don't remember where.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: MacGuffin on December 02, 2003, 12:52:29 PM
Howard Heads to 'Manderlay' with Von Trier

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Stepping into a role that had originally been earmarked for Nicole Kidman, Bryce Dallas Howard is in negotiations to play the lead character in "Manderlay," Lars von Trier's newest film, sources said.

Howard, oldest daughter of director Ron Howard, is making her feature film debut in M. Night Shyamalan's "The Village" (formerly known as "The Woods"), which is scheduled for release in August.

"Manderlay" is the second installment in a trilogy that began with "Dogville," which stars Kidman and Paul Bettany and is scheduled for release next year via Lions Gate. It is expected to pick up thematically where "Dogville" leaves off, telling a story of slavery in the American South.

Shooting is scheduled to begin in March in Denmark. Von Trier will direct from his own script.

At this year's Cannes Film Festival, von Trier publicly offered the role to Kidman at the "Dogville" news conference, and she appeared to accept. But she declined the role two months later because of scheduling conflicts.

Before "The Village," Howard had compiled a theater resume, including Manhattan Theater Club's "House/Garden," the Roundabout Theater's "Tartuffe" and the Public Theater's "As You Like It."
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: The Silver Bullet on December 02, 2003, 08:48:04 PM
Quote from: classical gasi must be lost or something, but when is 'dogville' coming to theaters, or did i completely miss it, i've heard it's being moved back and so on. does anyone know the truth? i'm lost in the dark.
December 26, 2003 in Australia.
March 19, 2004 in the US.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pubrick on December 02, 2003, 11:30:40 PM
Quote from: MacGuffinHoward Heads to 'Manderlay' with Von Trier

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Stepping into a role that had originally been earmarked for Nicole Kidman, Bryce Dallas Howard is in negotiations to play the lead character in "Manderlay," Lars von Trier's newest film, sources said.
i see, von trier is finally going to address the issue of ugly chicks.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Gold Trumpet on December 02, 2003, 11:53:24 PM
Quote from: MacGuffinHoward Heads to 'Manderlay' with Von Trier

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Stepping into a role that had originally been earmarked for Nicole Kidman, Bryce Dallas Howard is in negotiations to play the lead character in "Manderlay," Lars von Trier's newest film, sources said.

Does that even make sense? Isn't Howard like 19 and Kidman 30 something? Howard will be playing Kidman's role from 'Dogville', right?
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Ghostboy on December 03, 2003, 01:29:11 AM
It'll make sense.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: The Silver Bullet on December 03, 2003, 07:38:23 AM
I was under the impression that the three films of the trilogy would be connected only by von Trier's commentary on the country and nothing else...
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: godardian on January 02, 2004, 05:50:13 PM
I've always been dying to see The Kingdom miniseries he made for Danish TV (I believe there were two separate miniseries...?). I wonder if anyone has seen them, and if there's any chance of a DVD release someday? MacG?

Watching Kieslowski's Decalogue made me think of it.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: rustinglass on January 03, 2004, 05:41:02 AM
I saw it some years ago, it's great. It sits up there with the best when it comes to horror films. There are many dvd editions out there, both regions, you just have to look.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: cron on January 05, 2004, 06:01:13 AM
Dogville Confessions.

if anyone has the chance to see this documentary,  see it right away. Not only it's brilliantly shot and edited , but it gives you a decent insight to what working with Lars Trier might be, without gloryfing him. There is a bit, where Ben Gazara (probably the most pissed-off actor in the set) is in the confession booth and  he mimmicks a traditional Catholic confession and then says something like "Blessed me father , for I have sinned. I haven't had a confession since 5 years  but I promise this is the last time I'll work with an insane director".
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: SoNowThen on January 05, 2004, 09:57:25 AM
Anybody know if/when Epidemic and Zentropa will be on dvd?
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Ghostboy on January 05, 2004, 11:20:27 AM
Quote from: chuckhimselfoDogville Confessions.


Man, this sounds great! Is it an extra on the DVD? I didn't have a chance to watch anything but the movie when I rented it, and the menus were all in a different language, so I couldn't tell what anything was. I need to learn a new language or to. But anyway, this is a making-of doc that I MUST see. What's the interaction with Nicole like?
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: molly on January 05, 2004, 12:30:28 PM
Quote from: SoNowThenAnybody know if/when Epidemic and Zentropa will be on dvd?

for a while i thought Zentropa is a horror. It had such dark atmosphere and so suggestive. With von Trier's films i have love/hate relationship - i love them because they are so good, but i hate them because they are so depressing.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: rustinglass on January 05, 2004, 03:36:47 PM
Quote from: SoNowThenAnybody know if/when Epidemic and Zentropa will be on dvd?

Epidemic region1: http://www.5minutesonline.com/1D/EPIDEMIC.htm
Europa region1: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00008978H/102-6673013-5858557?v=glance#product-details
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: SoNowThen on January 05, 2004, 03:39:22 PM
good show


but it looks as though Zentropa/Europa is out of print...
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: rustinglass on January 05, 2004, 03:45:07 PM
Well I know this british store...
europa region0 http://www.blackstar.co.uk/video/item/7000000071507
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: SoNowThen on January 05, 2004, 03:53:12 PM
fucking rock!!!

thanks, man.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: phil marlowe on January 05, 2004, 04:36:35 PM
i recently bought the dogville dvd(wich is KICKASS by the way - over three hours of extras) and i'm now convinced that this movie is a masterpiece.

element of crime will most likely be next dvd i'll buy, i love it so much.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: cron on January 05, 2004, 05:16:37 PM
Quote from: phil marlowei recently bought the dogville dvd(wich is KICKASS by the way - over three hours of extras) and i'm now convinced that this movie is a masterpiece.

element of crime will most likely be next dvd i'll buy, i love it so much.


agreed.  the special french version of Dogville is one of the most perfect DVD's ever.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Stefen on January 06, 2004, 06:32:39 PM
is the element of crime criterion dvd very bare bones aside from the transfer? I love this movie and was thinking about getting it, but I already have a worn out vhs copy that suits me fine if the dvd release is just the movie with a great transfer.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: kotte on January 06, 2004, 06:41:17 PM
Do you know how he write? Maybe from an article or something.

Does he write in danish and get translated or does he write in english?

He never travels so I guess his english isn't the best.


I'm not very Von Tried literate...
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Ghostboy on January 06, 2004, 06:48:07 PM
Nah, he speaks perfect English.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: kotte on January 06, 2004, 06:56:26 PM
Quote from: GhostboyNah, he speaks perfect English.

Okay...

know how? English speaking parents? A studied like a motherfucker?

I'm curious since we two things in common: Scandinavians and wanting to script in english.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: cron on January 12, 2004, 03:58:11 AM
Quote from: kotteDo you know how he write? Maybe from an article or something.

Does he write in danish and get translated or does he write in english?

He never travels so I guess his english isn't the best.


I'm not very Von Tried literate...

he writes in danish and hires a translator.  


also, check this out lads,  but be warned, THERE MAY BE SPOILERS:


'It was like a nursery - but 20 times worse'

Lars von Trier on the highs and lows of making Dogville

Monday January 12, 2004

Stig Bjorkman There are elements in Dogville that are reminiscent of classic Anglo-Saxon literature, from Fielding to Dickens, with the omniscient narrator's voice and the division into chapters, where the chapter headings give an idea of what is about to happen.

Lars von Trier That's true, but it's more likely I had a book like Winnie the Pooh in mind when I was writing the screenplay. There, at the beginning of each chapter, you read things like, "In which Pooh and Piglet go hunting and nearly catch a Woozle", for instance. Things like that, which really get your imagination going. One of my favourite films is Barry Lyndon, which is also divided into chapters, although I don't remember if there are any clues as to what the chapters are going to contain. The screenplay of Dogville is divided into scenes. It might say, "The scene where this or that happens ..." "Scene" is a word with a lot of meanings, and I chose it on purpose. But later on we switched to calling the scenes "chapters", partly because of the word's literary associations.

SB If we look at the parallels with the theatre, Dogville is very reminiscent of Brecht and instructional works of his like The Good Woman of Setzuan or Mother Courage.

LVT The film was certainly inspired by Brecht. I would prefer to call it second-hand inspiration, though. My mother was really keen on Brecht. She left home when her father broke her Kurt Weill records, old 78s. She was only 16 then, but Weill was her great musical passion and she couldn't bear what her father had done. Brecht was something of a domestic god when I was growing up, whereas my generation has tended to view him as a rather old-fashioned genius. Fashions and tastes are constantly changing, of course.

But Dogville is inspired by Brecht. One of the starting points was actually Pirate Jenny's song in The Threepenny Opera. I listened to that a lot and was really seduced by the great revenge motif in the song: "And they asked me which heads should fall, and the harbour fell quiet as I answered 'All'."

SB Can you say a bit more about how you got the idea of Dogville, apart from Pirate Jenny's song?

LVT I think the idea came about one day when I was in a car with Jens Albinus, the actor who played the lead in The Idiots. We happened to be listening to that song, and I said I could see myself making a film about revenge. I thought the most interesting thing would be to come up with a story where you build up everything leading to the act of vengeance. And, of course, these days I've got this notion that I can only make films that are set in the US, maybe because I was criticised when Dancer in the Dark came out for making a film about a country I've never been to. I can't really understand that sort of criticism. (But one reason for it might be that I criticised the American justice system in the film.) And I daresay I know more about America from various media than the Americans did about Morocco when they made Casablanca. They never went there either. Humphrey Bogart never set foot in the town.

SB Did you get the idea for the form of Dogville at the same time as the plot?

LVT No, when I wrote the screenplay I saw it as a conventionally formed film. But it felt boring. Then I went on a fishing trip to Sweden, and wasn't having any luck! Suddenly I had the idea that you could see the whole of Dogville as though laid out on a map. That the whole story could be told on an unfolded map. I'm pretty fascinated by the limitations that unity of space can give you. Another source of inspiration was one of the best things I've seen on television: Trevor Nunn's adaptation of Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby with the Royal Shakespeare Company. It looked like the actors were allowed to improvise from the text. It was a magnificent production.

You can do almost anything on film now. With the help of computers, I can insert a herd of elephants into a scene, or create an earthquake. But that doesn't interest me. I'd rather draw the shape of a dog on the studio floor to mark that there is a dog there, or put a crate of beer in a corner to indicate a bar.

SB The plot of Dogville is largely driven forward by a narrator's voice, rather in the style of old English novels. Was this the intention when you first got the idea for the film?

LVT It was there right from the start. As usual I wrote the screenplay very quickly. It was a fairly large script, about 150 pages, but once I have the idea for a story and start writing it down, the words fall over each other and the writing process itself is quickly done. I haven't read much classic English literature. But I've read Wodehouse, for instance, who uses the same sort of subtle, knowing tone that I've tried to get across in the text. After one screening, the artist Per Kirkeby (with whom I'd worked on Breaking the Waves) said it reminded him of Dickens's Great Expectations. I've seen the film, and it too has a rather ironic narrator's commentary that reveals some of the characters' underlying motivations.

It was an incredibly tiring shoot. Dogville was filmed in about six weeks. That's fast. Unnecessarily fast. I could have taken longer, but at some point before we got started I recklessly declared that I'd have the job done in no time. It was tough work as well. I was running about all day long with that bloody camera on my shoulder. It might strike some people as a confusing way of using the camera, but this is how I want it. I can't defend the technique apart from saying that I think it's the best way to shoot my films.

SB What did all these American Hollywood stars with whom you've adorned your film make of it? It must seem very strange to them.

LVT I don't know about that. I'm sure they've had a lot of opinions about my way of working, but I think they've been pretty happy, in spite of everything. I know Nicole [Kidman] was completely in tune with what I was doing. I was asking her to do things in front of the camera that were pretty demanding, and she just did them. She evidently realised that a lot of thought had gone into this way of working, and that there was a point to doing it this way.

SB When did Kidman become involved in the project?

LVT She was there right from the start, because I wrote the screenplay with her in mind as the female lead. I had seen her in Far and Away, which wasn't a particularly good film, and I had read an interview where she said she would like to work with me. So I thought, "OK, I'll write a film for her." I hadn't met her at that point. I didn't have any idea that she was as tall as she is. She's gorgeous.

SB And the other actors? Did you choose them all, or were they suggested by your casting director?

LVT It varied. I knew some of them from before, of course, like Stellan Skarsgard. And I'd dreamed of working with Ben Gazzara for a long time. The same with Philip Baker Hall, whom I'd seen in Magnolia. Some of them got in touch asking to be involved, like Jeremy Davies and Chloe Sevigny. That was great, because they're both really good. We've been lucky. But what a bunch to try and keep in check. It's like a children's nursery, only 20 times worse!

We lost quite a few days when Katrin Cartlidge had to leave the set. I had to record all her scenes again with Patricia Clarkson, who took over the role at four days' notice and made something very different but also very personal out of it. And now Katrin is dead. I miss her terribly.

SB At the beginning of Dogville the narrator says of the male lead, Tom: "Although he did not blast his way through the rock, Tom tunnelled through what could be even harder, namely the human soul, deep into where it glittered." Is this what you want to say with the film?

LVT In that case you could say that Tom is a sort of self-portrait. As the Danish author Klaus Rifbjerg once put it: "I chop myself up into a number of smaller pieces, and there I have the characters in my story." I think that applies to me, too. At any rate, it's true of Grace and Tom. I can argue from both their points of view.

Do you know the child's game where you have to adopt a point of view and argue purely from that opinion? It was a good game, and it was best when you had to argue in support of a point of view that was completely opposed to what you yourself thought. Arguing for inappropriate and wrong points of view. That's why it was such fun writing the speech given by Grace's father (James Caan) at the end of the film, where he expounds the shortcomings of humanism. I was just trying to persuade myself of the opposite of what I personally stand for. It was great fun! I'm very happy with the exchange between Grace and her father, where he says people are like dogs, and she replies that dogs act according to their nature and that we must understand and forgive them. And her father replies: "Dogs can be taught a lot of good things, but not if we forgive them every time they follow their nature."

SB Tom is a remarkable mixture of idealism and calculation.

LVT Yes, he's thoroughly cynical. But then so am I. My very first film, the short film The Orchid Gardener, opened with a caption stating that the film was dedicated to a girl who had died of leukaemia, giving the dates of her birth and death. That was entirely fabricated. A complete lie. And manipulative and cynical, because I realised that if you started a film like that, then the audience would take it a lot more seriously. Obviously. Death and sickness are things we have great respect for.

SB You're also planning a sequel to Dogville.

LVT I am. One of my problems is that I would really like to start a new experiment in form with each new film. But now I want to complete this experiment in a trilogy. Making three three-hour films in this style, that would be pretty monumental.

Naturally there are problems involved in making three films in exactly the same way stylistically. But the idea is to develop Grace's story. I've written the next part, called Manderlay, which is set in the southern states, and I've got it in mind to set the last part in a big city, Washington or somewhere like that. The trilogy could be described as a depiction of a woman's development to maturity. Nicole has indicated that she would be interested in us continuing to work together and playing the part again. It's possible that she'll change her mind when she's read the next script, but I hope she won't. It would be nice to do three films that connect directly to one another. The next part starts two days after the end of Dogville, so all three films will be set in the great depression of the 1930s.

I like these long stories. It's like reading a good book and leafing ahead and realising that you've got lots and lots of pages left to read ...

· This is an edited extract from Trier on von Trier edited by Stig Bjorkman, translated by Neil Smith
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: kotte on January 12, 2004, 06:22:09 AM
That's great. Thanks!
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: MacGuffin on February 05, 2004, 12:58:48 AM
Koch Lorber will take von Trier's 'Five'

NEW YORK -- Indie distributor Koch Lorber Films has acquired North American rights to indie auteur Lars von Trier and Jorgen Leth's 2003 experimental docu feature "The Five Obstructions." Koch Lorber said the film will continue to run on the festival circuit -- it has screened at Toronto, Sundance and Venice -- and will open nationally in the second quarter. Koch Lorber will then release the film on DVD in the fall. The collaboration between the two filmmakers has its roots in 1967, when Leth made a 12-minute short called "The Perfect Human," which von Trier saw more than 20 times. Four years ago, von Trier challenged Leth to create five different remakes of "Perfect Human" with a different conceptual "obstruction" impeding each version. "Five Obstructions" follows a filmmaker not only revisiting but also re-creating one of his first films. The project was acquired from Trust Films of Denmark, with Rikke Ennis negotiating on the part of Trust and Richard Lorber on behalf of Koch Lorber.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: phil marlowe on February 05, 2004, 07:25:30 AM
i can't wait to see the the five obstructions. i missed while it was in the theaters here but all of my friends who saw it, all loved it, and it sounds like just the right kind of dry sarcasm mixed with a very interesting story.

lars von trier and jørgen leth will be perfect together.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pastor Parsley on February 05, 2004, 02:54:19 PM
Quote from: Stefenis the element of crime criterion dvd very bare bones aside from the transfer? I love this movie and was thinking about getting it, but I already have a worn out vhs copy that suits me fine if the dvd release is just the movie with a great transfer.

I just got Element...It's fairly bare bones...there is a documentary on Lars which was very interesting, but aside from that there isn't much more.

I picked up this magazine I'd never heard of before called Black Book.  It featured conversations between celebrities.  One was between Lars and PTA.  I like Lars' stuff but I couldn't believe what he said:

LVT: (he's talking about Nicole Kidman's character in Dogville)..... the mixture with Nicole and Grace was a very good one, and I liked that, and then I suddenly saw that I had an obligation to carry on with Grace, to carry on this way of filmmaking, because it's very, very easy to invent new things all the time, but it's not very mature, I feel. So if I really meant something with this film, they I felt I should underline it by going on. Because there are, as I see it, two kinds of directors: there are the ones that, every time, set a new standard, like Kubrick. And then there are the directors that keep on doing the same stuff over and over, again and again. Of course, there are mixtures between these types, but somehow, the mature one is the one that does the same, again and again and again.

I couldn't believe that he would rather be a director that does the same thing over and over again, and he believes that's what a mature director does.  All the while insinuating that Kubrick isn't a mature director because he 'every time, sets a new standard'.  As an artist how can you even hope to grow without trying new things and experimenting?
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: SoNowThen on February 05, 2004, 03:32:48 PM
Quote from: Pastor Parsley
Quote from: Stefenis the element of crime criterion dvd very bare bones aside from the transfer? I love this movie and was thinking about getting it, but I already have a worn out vhs copy that suits me fine if the dvd release is just the movie with a great transfer.

I just got Element...It's fairly bare bones...there is a documentary on Lars which was very interesting, but aside from that there isn't much more.


It's a great dvd. Go buy it NOW!!! The doc is great, and pretty long. And they have a top-dog trailer included.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: godardian on February 05, 2004, 04:00:34 PM
Yes, Element DVD is great. I enjoyed seeing young/sexy von Trier, too. :)

A friend from Portland visited me and brought along the DVD of Dogville, and we watched it. It's an all-region DVD of best quality, from Korea; I'm seriously considering buying it. I'll probably go to the film's American theatrical release, too, if it ever gets one. :(  It's definitely something to behold.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: cron on February 05, 2004, 04:04:21 PM
Quote from: godardianYes, Element DVD is great. I enjoyed seeing young/sexy von Trier, too. :)

A friend from Portland visited me and brought along the DVD of Dogville, and we watched it. It's an all-region DVD of best quality, from Korea; I'm seriously considering buying it. I'll probably go to the film's American theatrical release, too, if it ever gets one. :(  It's definitely something to behold.

buy the french special edition! ....oops, is out of print!   :twisted:  :twisted:  :twisted:  :twisted:  :twisted:  :twisted:
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pwaybloe on February 06, 2004, 02:14:30 PM
Yeah, I know.  And that's why I eat "Freedom" Fries!  Take that!
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: analogzombie on February 12, 2004, 01:26:48 AM
Quote from: Pastor Parsley
LVT: (he's talking about Nicole Kidman's character in Dogville)..... the mixture with Nicole and Grace was a very good one, and I liked that, and then I suddenly saw that I had an obligation to carry on with Grace, to carry on this way of filmmaking, because it's very, very easy to invent new things all the time, but it's not very mature, I feel. So if I really meant something with this film, they I felt I should underline it by going on. Because there are, as I see it, two kinds of directors: there are the ones that, every time, set a new standard, like Kubrick. And then there are the directors that keep on doing the same stuff over and over, again and again. Of course, there are mixtures between these types, but somehow, the mature one is the one that does the same, again and again and again.

I couldn't believe that he would rather be a director that does the same thing over and over again, and he believes that's what a mature director does.  All the while insinuating that Kubrick isn't a mature director because he 'every time, sets a new standard'.  As an artist how can you even hope to grow without trying new things and experimenting?


I love his films, but the more I hear him talk the less i like him. His whole thing about how actors are the obstacle to making a good film and how he feels he is knowledgable about what America should be, even though he's never actually been there, he just sounds like an ass. I really liked the interview when Anderson was telling Von Trier that he might not know how to talk to his actors. It put him on the spot.

I mean Dogville, may be a great film, and part of filmmaking is stirring the pot and creating controversy to illuminate what you see as problems in society, but for Von Trier to make such an indictment on American society with having little to know personal experience with it, just makes his statement hollow to me. It would be like McG making a movie about what he feels is wrong with Saudi Arabian culture. Maybe Dogville is a commentary based on the image of what our entertainment and political culture portrays America to be, and thats fine. But I think Von Trier, as smart as he is, ought to know the difference between reality and media portrayls.

I think he just relished the minor clamour that ensued with Dancer in the Dark and its, rather unfounded, alleged anti-american slant. So he set out to up the ante and make a name for himself, perhaps. At any rate I love his films, but I think he's a cock.Then again I'm just going on how he comes off in interviews. But I think he is feeding into his own hype, and we see what that did to Spike Lee.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: phil marlowe on February 12, 2004, 06:46:45 AM
"but [dogville] is not about america. i wrote it to be in america, but that doesn't mean it's about america."

- lars von trier, empire march 2004
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: You Never Got Me Down Ray on February 12, 2004, 08:48:08 AM
Quote from: analogzombieI love his films, but the more I hear him talk the less i like him. His whole thing about how actors are the obstacle to making a good film and how he feels he is knowledgable about what America should be, even though he's never actually been there, he just sounds like an ass. I really liked the interview when Anderson was telling Von Trier that he might not know how to talk to his actors. It put him on the spot.

I agree with you 100%, except that whole thing about loving his films. I really don't get the hype.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: SoNowThen on February 12, 2004, 09:22:16 AM
Quote from: You Never Got Me Down Ray
Quote from: analogzombieI love his films, but the more I hear him talk the less i like him. His whole thing about how actors are the obstacle to making a good film and how he feels he is knowledgable about what America should be, even though he's never actually been there, he just sounds like an ass. I really liked the interview when Anderson was telling Von Trier that he might not know how to talk to his actors. It put him on the spot.

I agree with you 100%, except that whole thing about loving his films. I really don't get the hype.

Most times, actors ARE an obstacle. Just like producers usually are, and lazy, apathetic crew memebers, and by-the-book editors, and studio PR men, and pretty much every person a director has to hold off and manipulate and corral into making a good movie.

I like Von Trier. I may not see eye to eye with him politically, but of his films that I've seen, they've all been great, and I like how he doesn't feel the need to sugar-coat his process.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: cron on February 12, 2004, 10:21:10 AM
I don't know about youse guys but I kinda dig his attitude.  If you're going to make a movie, try to have a  big experience.  Get your actors locked in a hangar, act weird towards them,  et cetera. You can't deny that Lars Trier movies have terrific performances.  Wait till you see Dogville.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: modage on February 13, 2004, 09:54:49 PM
Quote from: The Gold TrumpetI've only seen his last two films, but I wish he would get away from the Dogme 95 influence and understand that it is doing him no good at all. Realism and emotion can be shown in a much better way than just have a shaky camera and bad lighting all the time. Dogme 95 has no understanding at all of how to show realistic emotion in a movie.
yeah i have to agree with GT.  i really just dont like this guy at all.  just watched Breaking the Waves, (had previously only seen DiD), and i'm really just not interested in what he's doing.  his idiot female leads are just agonizing to watch for 2 1/2 hours.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: You Never Got Me Down Ray on February 14, 2004, 02:24:58 AM
Quote from: themodernage02
Quote from: The Gold TrumpetI've only seen his last two films, but I wish he would get away from the Dogme 95 influence and understand that it is doing him no good at all. Realism and emotion can be shown in a much better way than just have a shaky camera and bad lighting all the time. Dogme 95 has no understanding at all of how to show realistic emotion in a movie.
yeah i have to agree with GT.  i really just dont like this guy at all.  just watched Breaking the Waves, (had previously only seen DiD), and i'm really just not interested in what he's doing.  his idiot female leads are just agonizing to watch for 2 1/2 hours.

I agree with both of you, except that the Dogme 95 influence IS helping him because a lot of people find something great in his films that we just don't get. His style just seems so sloppy, not that it isn't supposed to be to some extent because he tries to portray "real" life, but it just seems like lazy filmmaking to me. I know it's not really, with the 100 cameras and all that, but if the final product looks lazy, well then you might as well make it that way because the audience (or at least me) doesn't know the fucking difference if you have 100 angles of one take or those same 100 angles on 100 different takes. The editing also kills me at times. If it looks like shit, and it sounds like shit, then it must be shit! And to be honest I've only seen DItD and parts of BTW.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pubrick on February 14, 2004, 02:47:32 AM
i think he's a bit of an asshole, but his films are awesome.

breaking the waves in particular, is among the best things that ever happened to me.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: rustinglass on February 14, 2004, 03:28:16 AM
You should all go see europa.
Personally, I think he never made a bad film, and I've seen all his features. Some are masterpieces.
I understand why people hate him and I do admit that he is an asshole sometimes (but who isn't?). He is crazy, he does have some serious mental issues.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: The Perineum Falcon on February 14, 2004, 02:22:32 PM
I recently rented Dancer in the Dark since I had heard some good things about it (read: PTA liked it!), but I never finished it. It was just so goddamn depressing. Maybe that was a mistake on my part, and it's rare for me to never finish a movie (I think that might've been the first one, in a long while at least).
Even though I never finished DiD, I still want to give his other movies a shot whether I can finish them or not.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Weak2ndAct on February 14, 2004, 03:06:18 PM
Personally, I like the influence Dogma 95 has had on his career, though you could really trace that style back to 'The Kingdom,' where it really all started.

Lars got his start making very technical, cold films (Element and Europa are anything but free-wheeling).  Once he got around around to Breaking the Waves, all that shit went right out the window, and thank God he did.  Lars discovered his characters and kept the camera focused straight on them.  I honestly don't care if the camera's shaky or there's mad jump-cuts, just as long as I'm wrapped up in the story and the people.  I think once the process shots and cranes were gone, LVT has done his best work.  He's gotten more to the heart of his stories (or lack thereof I suppose).   There's an argument that the screenplays are contrived, whether the lambs are being led to the slaughter for shock's sake and manipulation, or there's a conscious, overt attack on the archetypes and structure of moviemaking.  I guess I'm of the mentality that 99% of screenplays are contrived anyway, so I don't mind.  

I personally enjoy the 'women-bashing' films, if you can call them that (Dogville certainly mixes up the trend).  Does LVT hate women?  I dunno, but if you were in his shoes, would you rather spend 3 months working on a film w/ Michael Elphick and Jean-Marc Barr, or 3 months w/ Emily Watson, Bjork, and Nicole Kidman :wink:
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: SoNowThen on February 15, 2004, 07:35:07 PM
Quote from: Weak2ndActI dunno, but if you were in his shoes, would you rather spend 3 months working on a film w/ Michael Elphick and Jean-Marc Barr, or 3 months w/ Emily Watson, Bjork, and Nicole Kidman :wink:

Well, since Watson and Bjork look worse than most men, I can't really make an easy choice...


Good post, though, w2a (about the screenplay stuff).
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pubrick on February 15, 2004, 07:55:30 PM
Quote from: SoNowThenWell, since Watson and Bjork look worse than most men,.
hahah...... this is coming from a she-male lover, folks.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: SoNowThen on February 15, 2004, 07:59:09 PM
Line up Swank, and the above two, and tell me you honestly think she's not waaaaaaay hotter.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pubrick on February 15, 2004, 10:57:38 PM
Quote from: SoNowThenLine up Swank, and the above two, and tell me you honestly think she's not waaaaaaay hotter.

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Femilywatson.8m.com%2Femily38.jpg&hash=8163bedf360c345903b61d41c54c4e6bedec015b)   (https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.google.com.au%2Fimages%3Fq%3Dtbn%3AL7rdBciuOCYJ%3Awww.celebrity-scans.com%2Factresses%2Fjen%2Fswank_07.jpg&hash=e376d84128056f6c444ce42cf29d4c16953abc89)
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vik.gs.bu.no%2F6b_europa%2F6_klasse%2FIsland%2Fbjork.jpg&hash=ea077a0177cfd30c482e88751e9dcba809d490c5)

honestly.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: SoNowThen on February 16, 2004, 01:40:52 AM
Exactly. My point proven.


Swank looks like a runway model.
Watson looks like a muppet who hasn't slept in days.
Bjork can't decide if she wants to be asian, nordic, or an elf.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pubrick on February 16, 2004, 02:34:39 AM
i see..

well i'm done, good luck with ur life/wife.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: analogzombie on February 16, 2004, 05:19:42 AM
Quote from: phlmrlwe"but [dogville] is not about america. i wrote it to be in america, but that doesn't mean it's about america."

- lars von trier, empire march 2004


"I am an American. I am already there taking part in American life... I spoke to Thomas Winterberg [about dogville], and we were talking about concentration camps, and then it became America straight away."
- lars von trier, Blackbook winter 2004

so in short LVT can go phuck himself with his outlandish and ridiculous philosophies. he makes amazing movies which i love but i take what he says with a grain of salt. He started out to break down the conventions of cinema, but in doing so he became very rigid. Perhaps too rigid, now, to effectively tell a story w/o infusing it with too much jibber jabber and beating you over the head with his 'message'. Subtlety is an art. Paul Thomas Anderson turns cliche melodrama into real life, Von Trier does the opposite, and it's wearing a bit thin on me.

Quote from: SoNowThen
Bjork can't decide if she wants to be asian, nordic, or an elf.
you sir, are out opf your freaking mind.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: phil marlowe on February 16, 2004, 09:25:34 AM
i think alot of what von trier says in interview is for the sake of provocation only and that it amuses him to see how the americans react to such.

the bowie song during the credits is pretty much the only indication that dogville should be about usa, and again i say that it's just a joke. he's crazy like that, he just is.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Chest Rockwell on February 16, 2004, 11:39:24 AM
Quote from: SoNowThenExactly. My point proven.


Swank looks like a runway model.
Watson looks like a muppet who hasn't slept in days.
Bjork can't decide if she wants to be asian, nordic, or an elf.

Watson is much cuter than either of the other two. Hilary Swank is not hot because she could honestly kick my ass. Bjork is just wierd.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: molly on February 16, 2004, 12:43:56 PM
SoNowThen is under influence of gay fashion designers
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: SoNowThen on February 16, 2004, 05:44:18 PM
SoNowThen is apparently not allowed to have his own opinion on what he finds attractive in the opposite sex.


And as to LVT, he makes good movies, none of you know him in real life, so who cares if he's an asshole or not? You can't tell from a few interviews how someone conducts their personal life, nor should you care.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: godardian on February 16, 2004, 05:51:50 PM
Quote from: SoNowThenSoNowThen is apparently not allowed to have his own opinion on what he finds attractive in the opposite sex.

Of course he is allowed that (who has the capacity/power to "disallow" it??)... but he's also encouraged to know when it's just not relevant. I personally think it's tiresome to have things devolve into "who's hot/hotter/hottest or not?" contests, particularly here; it's cool to say, "Oh that person's really attractive," but why do you have to rag on what other people find hot, merely because you don't happen to? Isn't that a TV show with pathetic Lorenzo Lamas? Isn't it like, the dregs of all popular culture? It's really the lowest form of discourse- it's proof you're keeping your brain between your legs.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: SoNowThen on February 16, 2004, 06:09:15 PM
Glancing at recent history, one would see that I simply said HS looked good in a picture, and then was promptly labelled a "she-male lover" and being "under the influence of gay fashion designers". Both funny comments, yes, but don't make me out to be the Bad Guy here, when all I did was offer a simple opinion.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pubrick on February 16, 2004, 09:02:10 PM
what bad guy, don't join the cry-me-a-river bandwagon now..

did i not just end this amicably on the previous page? yeah let's all ignore that then.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Stefen on March 02, 2004, 06:57:24 PM
Just watched Dancer In The Dark again. I think this movie has one of the most perfect "sounding" openings ever. That overture is just spectacular. Still looking for an element of crime dvd, but I can never find it and end up buying something else. Oh well.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: grand theft sparrow on March 03, 2004, 06:53:30 PM
Did I miss the thread for Kingdom Hospital?

Has Lars spoken of this at all?  Is he happy with the results?  How's he taking the ads that say "From the mind of Stephen King"?
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Stefen on March 03, 2004, 07:02:01 PM
Quote from: hacksparrowDid I miss the thread for Kingdom Hospital?

Has Lars spoken of this at all?  Is he happy with the results?  How's he taking the ads that say "From the mind of Stephen King"?

Who knows. I think hes gets a characters created by credit though.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: grand theft sparrow on March 03, 2004, 08:04:23 PM
Aw, man!  Kingdom Hospital's theme song isn't as cool as the original's.  And the opening credit sequence was pilfered from "Six Feet Under" big time!
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Ghostboy on March 03, 2004, 09:18:36 PM
The ads, which looked only somewhat cool, suggested that this new version is very far removed from the original. I take it from Hacksparrow's comment that it's already started, so I'll probably miss it--but I'm curious as to how it is.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: grand theft sparrow on March 03, 2004, 09:54:39 PM
Quote from: GhostboyThe ads, which looked only somewhat cool, suggested that this new version is very far removed from the original. I take it from Hacksparrow's comment that it's already started, so I'll probably miss it--but I'm curious as to how it is.

Not very good.

I'm a fan of Stephen King but two things are bringing this down: 1) the director is showing creepy things but managing to not make it scary; and 2) King is trying too hard to out-weird Lars and it's just not working.

Stick to the original miniseries.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: bonanzataz on March 03, 2004, 11:09:35 PM
yeah, stephen king miniseries usually suck anyways.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: moonshiner on March 04, 2004, 10:47:10 PM
Quote from: hacksparrowHas Lars spoken of this at all? Is he happy with the results? How's he taking the ads that say "From the mind of Stephen King"?

Lars, as you so fondly refer to him as, is the executive producer...
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Fernando on March 05, 2004, 11:40:32 AM
Danny Glover Joins Lars von Trier's Manderlay
Source: Intertain Film
Friday, March 5, 2004

Danish filmsite Intertain Film reports today that "Lethal Weapon" series star Danny Glover has joined the cast for international acclaimed director Lars von Triers next film, Manderlay, produced by Zentropa.

Already aboard Manderlay - which is the second film in von Triers "USA" - trilogy starting with last years Nicole Kidman starrer Dogville (opens in the US later this month) - is Bryce Howard Dallas and African actor Isaach De Bankolé in the leads, while Dogville - veterans Jeremy Davies, Stellan Skarsgård, Lauren Bacall, Chloë Sevigny, Jean-Marc Barr and Udo Kier also will appear in the film.

Lars Von Trier will start shooting Manderlay on a soundstage in Trollhättan, Sweden, on Monday. Expected world premiere is sometime in 2005, pressumably at the Cannes Film Festival.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: grand theft sparrow on March 05, 2004, 12:30:40 PM
Quote from: FernandoLars Von Trier will start shooting Manderlay on a soundstage in Trollhättan, Sweden, on Monday.

And if Danny Glover thought he had a hard time catching a cab in New York...
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: kotte on March 05, 2004, 07:20:01 PM
John C. Reilly joins the cast of Manderlay

+ tons of british soap actors...
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: mogwai on March 06, 2004, 02:40:22 AM
Quote from: kotteJohn C. Reilly joins the cast of Manderlay
looking forward to see him in the confession booth.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: phil marlowe on March 06, 2004, 04:23:56 AM
wooo
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Just Withnail on March 07, 2004, 07:36:21 AM
No shit? Reilly in a Von Trier? Mighty interesting casting.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pubrick on March 07, 2004, 09:46:40 AM
PSH for the third film. u see what he's doing..
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Just Withnail on March 07, 2004, 05:03:15 PM
If this is PTA and LVTs little actor exchange thing, then here's to Stellan Skarsgård for Paul's next.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: kotte on March 09, 2004, 04:02:07 AM
Quote from: kotteDoes he write in danish and get translated or does he write in english?

Now I know...he writes in danish and get translated. :)
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: kotte on March 11, 2004, 01:29:49 PM
heard about his ongoing project he'll finish in 2024 or something? He shoots 3 minutes every year...it's a whodunnit story. Sounds pretty cool... :)
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: mogwai on March 11, 2004, 01:42:12 PM
Quote from: kotteheard about his ongoing project he'll finish in 2024 or something? He shoots 3 minutes every year...it's a whodunnit story. Sounds pretty cool... :)
yes, it'll even premiere if udo kier makes it 'til 2024. we'll wait and see.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: rustinglass on March 11, 2004, 02:34:59 PM
if udo doesn't make it, lets hope for CG-Udo feasability. I just want to see the movie.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pubrick on March 12, 2004, 05:48:47 AM
the butler did it.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: kotte on March 12, 2004, 06:06:34 AM
Quote from: Pthe butler did it.

I'm telling you, it's always the butler!
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Stefen on March 15, 2004, 12:35:00 AM
This has probably been asked in another thread, but im tired of looking. I don't think ill be seeing dogville anytime soon so I think I will just buy one of the dvd's Kotte and others have been recommending. Anyone know a site that will ship the region 2 or any other region dogville dvd to the united states? Preferably one with the good features.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: rustinglass on March 15, 2004, 01:28:48 PM
You can find it on laserdisken.dk, I think they ship to the US. Only problem is that the site is in danish.

meanwhile take a look at this very kick-ass UK poster.
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi16.ebayimg.com%2F01%2Fi%2F01%2F6c%2F96%2Fd9_1_b.JPG&hash=4f41b9d8dc6a674d912ca3479f07e3630a9940cd)
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: MacGuffin on April 08, 2004, 02:42:11 AM
Willem Dafoe Aboard Trier's Manderlay
Source: The Hollywood Reporter

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Willem Dafoe has joined the cast of Manderlay, the second installment in Lars von Trier's "USA -- Land of Opportunities" trilogy.

Dafoe will play the father of Grace, the central character played by Nicole Kidman in the series' first film, Dogville, and played by Bryce Dallas Howard in Manderlay.

Dafoe joins Lauren Bacall, Jean-Marc Barr, Jeremy Davies, Isaach De Bankole, Danny Glover, Udo Kier, John C. Reilly and Chloe Sevigny in the new production, which is set in the American South during the 1930s and explores the repression of blacks.

Like Dogville, Manderlay will be shot entirely on a stage.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: kotte on April 08, 2004, 03:13:56 AM
That's awesome...Dafoe is a great actor, he will do wonders on that stage.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Stefen on April 08, 2004, 03:43:10 AM
This is just pissing me off. The sequel is shaping up and I haven't even seen Dogville yet. The US sucks.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: kotte on April 08, 2004, 04:02:52 AM
you have something great to look forward to.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: molly on April 10, 2004, 03:26:38 AM
Quote from: kotte
Quote from: GhostboyNah, he speaks perfect English.

Okay...

know how? English speaking parents? A studied like a motherfucker?

I'm curious since we two things in common: Scandinavians and wanting to script in english.

Scandinavians are good in english.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pedro on April 10, 2004, 12:30:45 PM
wait, what was the third in his naive women taken advantage of trilogy?
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pubrick on April 10, 2004, 12:37:07 PM
Quote from: Pedro the Wombatwait, what was the third in his naive women taken advantage of trilogy?
it's more like naive women sacrificing themselves.

breaking the waves
the idiots
dancer in the dark

the idiots is the second, the character of Karen screws herself over pretty good.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pedro on April 10, 2004, 02:44:45 PM
Quote from: Pubrick
Quote from: Pedro the Wombatwait, what was the third in his naive women taken advantage of trilogy?
it's more like naive women sacrificing themselves.

breaking the waves
the idiots
dancer in the dark

the idiots is the second, the character of Karen screws herself over pretty good.
is the idiots worth watching?
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: rustinglass on April 10, 2004, 04:07:18 PM
only if you like great cinema
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: samsong on April 10, 2004, 04:24:04 PM
Quote from: Pedro the Wombatis the idiots worth watching?

personally, i think it's von Trier's best film.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: rustinglass on April 10, 2004, 04:43:17 PM
The trailer is available at www.dancerinthedark.com (but with no subtitles).
You can also see there a videoclip of "Lars von Trier and the Idiot All-Stars" , a very underrated pop band.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Stefen on April 10, 2004, 11:45:23 PM
whats up with the idiots? im blind buying it but every site I go to only has full frame. Is that all there is?
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pubrick on April 11, 2004, 02:08:37 AM
Quote from: Stefenwhats up with the idiots? im blind buying it but every site I go to only has full frame. Is that all there is?
it was shot on video, and it's a dogme film, on video, shot on full frame. so yeah.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: MacGuffin on April 16, 2004, 10:52:36 PM
Mel Gibson's Worst Nightmare
EW talks to the unconventional director, Lars von Trier - The Dogville director makes no aplogies for his quirks, criticisms or contempt

Lars von Trier, the most audacious director in the world, is also among the most phobic. He fears crowds, fires, hospitals, shellfish, and the specter of death. Most famously, he dreads almost every form of modern transport and so scoots about Europe in a camper van. A March Saturday finds the camper in the Swedish countryside, parked in front of a four-star hotel. Looking the part of an intellectual guerrilla -- olive cargo pants, black T-shirt, Trotskyite eyeglasses -- von Trier shows off its spare interior with pride.

''I've driven Nicole Kidman in this camper,'' he says puckishly. He's also driven Nicole Kidman to tears, but...how is she as a passenger? ''She believes in my driving. She trusts it.'' Then, for kicks, he adds, ''Couldn't we find some porno in here?'' We'd been chatting earlier about his first meeting with Kidman when she was signing onto his latest film, Dogville (see review, page 41). She asked if his reputation for being mean to his female actors was warranted. Von Trier assured her it was not; inwardly he was chuckling about an X-rated tape he had near at hand, titled The Lady and the Whip.

Von Trier's notoriety among actors and film cognoscenti as a sadist is inseparable from his track record of edgy brilliance. It must be the brilliance that gets Hollywood actors eagerly trekking up here, to a soundstage 175 miles north of Copenhagen, the director's home base. They come to experiment and push their boundaries and bask in the von Trier glower. Patricia Clarkson jetted to the Dogville set on four days' notice solely on the basis of Breaking the Waves, which earned Emily Watson an Oscar nomination for her turn as a woman who, in devotion to God and husband, whores herself out. The movie was harrowing enough to establish von Trier as the art house's prime polarizer when it opened in 1996. ''That's when I thought, 'My God, I hope I get to work with this man,''' Kidman says. ''I crawled out of the theater, literally just went home and got into bed for two days.... I know it was seen as misogynistic, but I really didn't see it that way.'' One British reviewer who disagrees wrote that he'd be happy to see it ''banned on purely ideological grounds.''

That controversy was nothing compared to the one surrounding Dancer in the Dark, the 2000 musical melodrama starring the singer Bjork as an immigrant betrayed by her neighbors and the U.S. justice system alike. When the credits rolled at its Cannes premiere, cheers mingled with boos. Some detractors thought the movie anti-American; others concurred with its lead actress, who called it ''emotional pornography.'' There was more booing yet when it won the Palme d'Or.

Thus provoked, von Trier embarked on USA -- land of opportunities, a formally daring trilogy exploring a country the director, who of course does not fly, has never seen. In Dogville, its first installment, Kidman's Grace, fleeing gangsters, turns up in a 1930s mining town where she's first sheltered and then subjugated, an ordeal that culminates in sexual slavery. The end credits juxtapose images of abject poverty with David Bowie's ''Young Americans.'' The movie is as inflammatory as anything von Trier's done in his 20-year career, and that's just the way he likes it. ''We do a lot of test screening,'' says Vibeke Windeløv, a producing partner. ''Lars is very eager to know that the public understands what he's saying. But if they don't like what he says, he doesn't care. That he probably thrives on.''

"Skal!'' Von Trier toasts, and tips back the aquavit that will incline him to be philosophical over lunch -- to share, for example, his equation for keeping everyone in line and thus achieving happiness: ''Be 30 percent more unkind to women than you would like to be. With actors, 37 percent...I tested it.'' The formula for films is simpler yet: ''I'm just working to do the opposite of all the things I've been told.'' In the case of Dogville, that meant drawing inspiration from Bertolt Brecht's ''Pirate Jenny,'' a song about a barmaid settling a score with a town that mocked her. The approving treatment of vengeance contravened the moral teachings of his parents, who saw revenge as ''the one feeling not needed anymore for human beings.''

Lars Trier was born in Copenhagen 47 years ago, the only child of communists with an absurdly antiauthoritarian view of parenting. By age 13 or so -- von Trier is sloppy with dates -- Lars had had his fill of playground bullyings and was allowed to drop out of school. He began passing the days with his standard-8 camera. By the time he graduated from film school in 1983, he had already, in the grandiose tradition of Sternberg and Stroheim, adopted his pompous von. Soon earning notice for the virtuosity of the thrillers The Element of Crime (1984) and Epidemic (1987), he was also putting in long hours as an enfant terrible.

''Nobody in the state of Denmark wanted to have anything to do with Lars,'' says Peter Aalbak Jensen, co-owner of von Trier's production company, Zentropa Productions. ''He was arrogant, crazy. He dressed up in black leather, looked like a skinhead, and insulted everyone around him. The only comforting element was that he was so tiny he was not physically threatening in the least.'' When his post-Holocaust drama Zentropa won what he considered mere consolation prizes at Cannes in 1991, he tossed his Technical Grand Prize to his technicians and his Jury Prize into the Mediterranean. He thanked the jury president, Roman Polanski, by calling him a midget.

Since then, helped by his second wife and his antidepressants, he has relaxed, though issues linger. In the '80s, he says, his mother died of cancer. ''She told me on her deathbed that my father was not my father.'' She'd had an affair. Lars was the evidence. He then went to her house and smashed her most treasured possessions.

The wielding -- and, conversely, perversely, the surrendering -- of control is what makes von Trier run. For starters, it's unlikely he would be able to make a movie as alienating as Dogville if he weren't running the company. Zentropa has developed into a Nordic sensation -- producing commercials, TV shows, and, yes, smut. (Its Puzzy Power division, since spun off, recycled the jailhouse set of Dancer in the Dark for its 1999 film Pink Prison.) When he was the ringleader of Dogma 95, a ''rescue action'' composed of directors out to save moviemaking from artifice, he signed a ''vow of chastity'' (cameras must be handheld, shooting must be done on location...) and persuaded brash young filmmakers to follow suit. Then he wriggled free of its constraints after one film, 2000's The Idiots.

He is unnaturally exacting. Dogville costar Paul Bettany has written that von Trier is ''Woody Allen mixed with a dominatrix.'' Bjork has said his cruelty amounts to ''soul robbery.'' Von Trier counters: ''I have a pretty good relationship with actors. [But]if the actors want to have control over their characters, that is something that does not exist.'' He is unwilling to mince words. ''He's honest,'' Kidman says. ''At times that can be incredibly painful.'' And yet, she says they're still close: ''I keep e-mailing him saying I wish I was there.'' She had her chance: At a Cannes press conference, von Trier asked her to publicly commit to the full USA trilogy. She saved her demurral for later. The part's been taken up by one Bryce Dallas Howard, age 23. ''We found out,'' von Trier says, ''that she's also the daughter of an American director and, mostly, the main character on Happy Days.'' Jensen confirms that von Trier was ignorant, while watching casting tapes, of Bryce's being the daughter of Ron: ''We couldn't even remember her name, so we called her Hot Lips.''

Part 2, Manderlay, will pick up some months after the events of Dogville. ''Grace,'' von Trier says, ''is going to Alabama, you know'' -- crooning Brecht/Weill -- ''mooon of Alabaaama, and she is going to a place where they still have slavery, and she's gonna free this place, and America in general, from slavery.'' One week into shooting, he and Howard are getting along famously; she acquitted herself well in the masturbation scene. But he's got something else on his mind: ''I would like to say one thing: I like myself very much. I hate myself as a person, but I like myself as a director.'' He's laughing now. ''That's why I cling to the profession. One of these days, we had a lot of stress on the set and, you know, there's a hundred people running around -- raahh-aahh-aahhh. And I had no anxiety in the whole wide world. I was completely calm. Because it's my game'' -- more panting laughter -- ''it's my game we're playing, and nobody will ever be able to come and say, 'You didn't do this right. You should have done this.' No, because I set the rules, it's my game -- and that might sound unbearable as a person, but I think it can get some results.''
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: rustinglass on April 17, 2004, 06:13:59 AM
that makes him look like a monster...
what does it have to do with mel gibson? for a second I thought they were insulting each other.

one correction: the idiots was made in 1998, not 2000
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: modage on April 17, 2004, 12:44:11 PM
Quote from: rustinglassthat makes him look like a monster...
bingo!
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Ordet on May 21, 2004, 01:07:55 PM
anyone know what PTA thinks about the whole JCReilly-donkey-Manderlay incident? Reilly is his best friend and Von Trier is one of his heros.

:yabbse-cry:  like having your to best buddies in the whole wold not get along
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: kotte on May 21, 2004, 01:19:05 PM
Hehe...

Lovely.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: godardian on May 26, 2004, 01:06:02 AM
I just saw von Trier's collaboration with Jorgen Leth, The Five Obstructions; von Trier has Leth remake his 1967 short, The Perfect Human, with all these impossible guidelines, and we see their conversations about it and the resultant films.

Some slightly more detailed thoughts on my blog (http://www.trappings.blogspot.com).
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Ordet on May 26, 2004, 02:57:06 PM
I really want to see this Godardian. Will I ever?

great web page by the way.

Borges' quote... :infinity:
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: godardian on May 26, 2004, 03:00:44 PM
Quote from: Roman CibelesI really want to see this Godardian. Will I ever?

great web page by the way.

Borges' quote... :infinity:

Thanks.  :)  I'm sure the film will get an art-house circuit release sometime soon.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pubrick on May 27, 2004, 12:20:47 AM
so was it good, or what
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: The Silver Bullet on May 27, 2004, 02:27:33 AM
Quote from: Pubrickso was it good, or what
Go to the blog and see for yourself. Or would you like someone to hold your hand?
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Just Withnail on May 27, 2004, 04:57:32 AM
It sounds pretty good from godardian's review, but is there any way to get hold of the original short?
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: phil marlowe on May 27, 2004, 07:06:51 AM
Quote from: WithnailIt sounds pretty good from godardian's review, but is there any way to get hold of the original short?
all i know is that they are selling a vhs compilation of three jørgen leth shorts on the danish film institutes website -- the perfect human should be among them but it's quite expensive and i doubt it's subtitled.

www.dfi.dk
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pubrick on May 27, 2004, 09:28:37 AM
Quote from: The Silver BulletGo to the blog and see for yourself. Or would you like someone to hold your hand?
that wasn't necessary.

i asked because he could have easily said "i liked it," and then offered more explanation at his blog. my only obligation, when i click on xixax.com, is to read what's on xixax.com. if he wants to partake in conversation at xixax, he could at least hav offered part of his opinion here, all we got was a synopsis and that was the simple request i was making. this is a reasonable request considering Godardian's trademark (long interesting posts i don't hav to go to another site to read).
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: The Silver Bullet on May 27, 2004, 09:32:39 AM
You know I love you, P.

[I'd put an emoticon here, but...well, you know...]
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Just Withnail on May 27, 2004, 11:29:44 AM
Quote from: the real phil
Quote from: WithnailIt sounds pretty good from godardian's review, but is there any way to get hold of the original short?
all i know is that they are selling a vhs compilation of three jørgen leth shorts on the danish film institutes website -- the perfect human should be among them but it's quite expensive and i doubt it's subtitled.

www.dfi.dk

Well, I'm norwegian so there isn't really a great language barrier. And thanks a bunch for the site. Not only do they have the VHS, but I just noticed you can buy a fucking DVD with "The Five Obstructions" that contains the original short! Greeat. And it's not even that expensive.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: MacGuffin on June 06, 2004, 06:14:33 PM
Danish director drops Ring movie
Source: Associated Press

Danish filmmaker Lars Von Trier has dropped plans to direct a production of the Ring der Nibelungen cycle at the Richard Wagner Festival in Bayreuth, the festival said Friday. The "Dogville" director said he realized his vision for the production, scheduled for 2006, "would clearly exceed his powers" and fall short of the festival's high standards, festival organizers said in a statement. The festival said it was sorry about the decision because preparations had been going on with some success since 2001. No replacement has been named. "It was not easy for him to accept the growing knowledge that he apparently would not be able to reach his goal," festival organizers said of Von Trier.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: ono on June 06, 2004, 06:30:25 PM
Von Trier + humility = ???

Very interesting.  A first.  A shame, too.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: rustinglass on October 24, 2004, 07:43:09 AM
An upcoming project, already mentioned by kotte in this thread:
http://www.xixax.com/viewtopic.php?t=6841

Quote from: Empire OnlineThe film, to be called Antikrist, is not yet written but the plot involves an American biologist coming to believe that nature is a place of evil, causing him to seek therapy (well, you would, wouldn't you?) and thus allowing for a discussion of von Trier's rather out-there hypothesis.

I really don't understand why that kotte thread was locked, btw. This is news and speculation on the world of film.
Title: Pastor Von Parsley
Post by: Pastor Parsley on February 03, 2005, 02:05:59 PM
I still can't begin to imagine the ego that it would take to even consider, let alone actually going through with, adding "Von" to your own last name.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: rustinglass on February 03, 2005, 02:32:49 PM
It sounds way way cooler. And if you think that makes him egocentric....

Quote from: Lars von TrierMy very first film, the short film The Orchid Gardener, opened with a caption stating that the film was dedicated to a girl who had died of leukaemia, giving the dates of her birth and death. That was entirely fabricated. A complete lie. And manipulative and cynical, because I realised that if you started a film like that, then the audience would take it a lot more seriously.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: ono on February 03, 2005, 02:43:13 PM
That's not egocentric, that's really quite perceptive and creative.  Reminds me of some of the Coens' antics.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: rustinglass on February 03, 2005, 02:48:14 PM
Of course. But one thing doesn't rule out the other.
I think that, however a horrible person he may be, he is one of the most intelligent and creative people in the business.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: modage on February 03, 2005, 02:49:59 PM
Quote from: rustinglassOf course. But one thing doesn't rule out the other.
I think that, however a horrible person he may be, he is one of the most intelligent and creative people in the business.
and that would be the business of lying about sicknesses.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pastor Parsley on February 04, 2005, 10:15:21 AM
Quote from: rustinglassOf course. But one thing doesn't rule out the other.

I agree it's a little immature to judge a piece of art by judging the artist.

Thankfully I have yet to lose a loved one to cancer.  But I have known others who have, and to watch someone's life crumble after losing someone they loved to such a disease is unbelievable.  I think for Lars to pull such a stunt is awful and really disrespectful.  Creativity and skill, done with integrity is how you get an audience to take your work seriously.  If you have to resort to cheap stunts to do so, you're no better than Tarantino.  

I've never been too impressed by most of his films with the exception of Dancer in the Dark which is absolutely incredible.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Alethia on February 04, 2005, 11:56:41 AM
Quote from: Pastor ParsleyI've never been too impressed by most of his films with the exception of Dancer in the Dark which is absolutely incredible.

see The Idiots right now.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pubrick on February 04, 2005, 12:00:05 PM
Quote from: Pastor Parsley
Quote from: rustinglassOf course. But one thing doesn't rule out the other.

I agree it's a little immature to judge a piece of art by judging the artist.

Thankfully I have yet to lose a loved one to cancer.  But I have known others who have, and to watch someone's life crumble after losing someone they loved to such a disease is unbelievable.  I think for Lars to pull such a stunt is awful and really disrespectful.  Creativity and skill, done with integrity is how you get an audience to take your work seriously.  If you have to resort to cheap stunts to do so, you're no better than Tarantino.  

I've never been too impressed by most of his films with the exception of Dancer in the Dark which is absolutely incredible.
it was his first film. a short film that no one will ever see or care about except as a curio.

who cares, sheesh.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: pete on February 04, 2005, 12:27:43 PM
Quote from: rustinglassOf course. But one thing doesn't rule out the other.
I think that, however a horrible person he may be, he is one of the most intelligent and creative people in the business.

I don't think von trier is in "the business."
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: ono on February 04, 2005, 04:22:23 PM
He's not in the business of making films?  Then OMG, what the hell have I been watching?  :(
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: MacGuffin on February 25, 2005, 12:07:15 AM
Wellspring loading 'Wendy' for U.S.

Wellspring, a division of American Vantage Media Corp., has acquired U.S. rights to "Dear Wendy," a film collaboration between Dogme 95 comrades Thomas Vinterberg and Lars von Trier. "Wendy," described as an acerbic commentary on American gun culture, appeared at this year's Sundance Film Festival and stars Jaime Bell, Bill Pullman and Mark Webber. It was directed by Vinterberg and written by von Trier. Nimbus Film and Zentropa produced.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Finn on February 25, 2005, 07:12:25 AM
Poster image:

http://www.impawards.com/2005/dear_wendy.html
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: analogzombie on February 25, 2005, 10:17:32 AM
Quote from: MacGuffinWellspring loading 'Wendy' for U.S.

Wellspring, a division of American Vantage Media Corp., has acquired U.S. rights to "Dear Wendy," a film collaboration between Dogme 95 comrades Thomas Vinterberg and Lars von Trier. "Wendy," described as an acerbic commentary on American gun culture,

I still find it interesting that Von Trier comments on a society he has never actually visisted.

what it really is, is a comment on his perception of America's gun culture, a perception that he has developed from exposure to American entertainment and news
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: kotte on February 25, 2005, 10:51:45 AM
Quote from: analogzombie
Quote from: MacGuffinWellspring loading 'Wendy' for U.S.

Wellspring, a division of American Vantage Media Corp., has acquired U.S. rights to "Dear Wendy," a film collaboration between Dogme 95 comrades Thomas Vinterberg and Lars von Trier. "Wendy," described as an acerbic commentary on American gun culture,

I still find it interesting that Von Trier comments on a society he has never actually visisted.

what it really is, is a comment on his perception of America's gun culture, a perception that he has developed from exposure to American entertainment and news

But I think it's true that, to an extent, everyone knows America.
It's not just about the entertainment and news. It's about everything, it's about a culture that is, well I wouldn't go as far as to say America force their culture on the world, but close and the world embraces it as something godsent. It's easy to hate America, it's an easy target but it's old now. Why can't people take responsibility for their own life and live it their own way. Drink Coke, hate McDonalds...whatever. It doesn't matter.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: cron on February 27, 2005, 04:41:59 PM
http://www.dearwendy.dk/
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: The Perineum Falcon on May 11, 2005, 06:56:04 PM
From Twitch Film (http://www.twitchfilm.net/archives/001935.html)

Von Trier Delaying Completion of America Trilogy To Shoot New Dogme Film

Some interesting news out of Cannes today from Screen Daily ... Danish auteur Lars Von Trier is reported stalling Wasington - the third film in his America trilogy - until 2007 so that he can shoot a new Dogme-style film in February titled Direktoren For Det Hele, which translates roughly to Managing Director Of It All. From the sounds of things it will be a film about people in the film industry, a topic Von Trier knows plenty about considering his production companies have a finger in just about every major production to come out of Scandanavia.

In other Von Trier news, the word on the street is that his Antichrist horror project is dead, though I can't find solid confirmation of that. It's sad if true ... his Kingdom mini-series is one of the strangest and most compelling horror entries of the past few years ...
Title: www.larsvontrier.net
Post by: joaquimhock on June 04, 2005, 02:05:58 PM
Hi,

there's a new place to speak about the works of LVT :

www.larsvontrier.net

In english, spanish, french, etc...


Joaquim
http://homeusers.brutele.be/joaquimhock
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Brazoliange on June 04, 2005, 05:03:01 PM
thanks, and welcome to Xixax
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pubrick on June 28, 2005, 11:12:17 AM
so is anyone getting this: http://www.compare.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReviews14/von-trier-boxset.htm

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.compare.dvdbeaver.com%2Ffilm%2FDVDReviews14%2Fa%2520von%2520trier%2520box%2FE-box.jpg&hash=01b9ed821b35584f8ab09ee9c42c0dabfec55ca0)

One of the most awaited DVD releases of 2005, Lars von Triers Europe Trilogy ("The Element of Crime", "Epidemic" and "Europa"), now comes in a 4-disc Hypnotic Edition from Electric Parc, as part of their "The Lars von Trier Collection".

This is the Danish edition. Because of copyright, the box will (possibly) later be released in other countries thru other companies. First in Germany (June 27) thru Legend, then later in Australia (Accent Film Entertainment), France and Holland (A-Film), Romania (IMV) and the UK (Tartan). So far only Germany is announced. All releases will be 100% identical, but may vary in subtitles. Depending on what language you chose on this DVD, you will get the above mentioned for each country respectable company logo.

Due to copyright being held by different companies, the box will not be released in the US or Canada.

NOTE:

For special collectors, 10 numbered collectors limited editions has been produced. Each will come in a wood replica of the Zentropa sleepwagon from "Europa", with posters and stills from the three films, the press booklet from "Epidemic" and the interviewbook by Stig Björkman, and of course the box itself. All elements are signed by Lars von Trier.

Five of these boxes will be sold to highest bidder thru an auction on Lauritz (http://www.lauritz.com/), beginning July 8th and ending July 18th.
Title: Lars Von Trier
Post by: SiliasRuby on June 28, 2005, 10:44:56 PM
Quote from: Pubrickso is anyone getting this: http://www.compare.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReviews14/von-trier-boxset.htm
Now I am! Kickass! Thanks P.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: bluejaytwist on December 29, 2005, 02:56:18 AM
i have no idea where to post this. i have just watched dancer in the dark for the first time this evening.
there are not enough words in my vocabulary to describe what it did to my perception of what i thought filmmaking was, and how it has turned nearly twelve years of a certain thought process completely upside down in just over two hours. there is nothing else to say, because i will cheapen what i am currently feeling. out.



Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Anonymous Joe on December 29, 2005, 03:36:33 AM
I'm regretting not finishing Dancer in the Dark, I watched about half in my community college library. It was getting late so I peaced out. Did I make a mistake?
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pubrick on December 29, 2005, 03:40:48 AM
Quote from: Anarchist Lawyer on December 29, 2005, 03:36:33 AM
I'm regretting not finishing Dancer in the Dark, I watched about half in my community collage library. ... Did I make a mistake?
not only did u make a mistake, it might be indicative of a bigger mistake your community college also made in teaching you how to spell itself.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: tpfkabi on December 29, 2005, 05:57:09 PM
i finally saw Dogville on HBO.
i don't know where he comes up with these stories.
afterwards you can't help but stare into space for a while.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pozer on December 29, 2005, 06:44:31 PM
True...  I'll never forget, I first saw Dancer in the Dark with a girl who despised it, so we left within the first hour.  I went back probably a week later alone and had one of the best cinematic experiences ever.  I tried to show it to another girl last summer and she wanted nothing to do it with either.  This just furthers my theory that women are no goddamn good.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pubrick on December 29, 2005, 06:49:56 PM
Quote from: pozer on December 29, 2005, 06:44:31 PM
This just furthers my theory that women are no goddamn good.
i saw it with a chick for the first time and she loved it. but there was a dude in the back of theatre who kept laughing at all the dramatic moments, like to show he was better than the movie or sumthing. it just furthered my theory that abortion is OK.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: polkablues on December 29, 2005, 07:12:35 PM
Quote from: Pubrick on December 29, 2005, 06:49:56 PM
it just furthered my theory that abortion is OK.

Even post-natal in some cases.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: bluejaytwist on December 30, 2005, 03:14:22 AM
it was the most impact something has had on me in many years
i felt different after magnolia, this was a different feeling cant explain it

the only thing that sucked was having to listen to pancake-house sing the bitz thom yorke normally does on 'seen it all' -- because i have loved that song for ages, long before seeing the film...

does anyone have thoughts on the commentary track.
i do not want to ruin the film by listening to bunk shits
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: hedwig on December 30, 2005, 03:25:21 AM
i can't remember the commentary track at all. the two documentaries are good though, especially "100 Cameras: Capturing Lars Von Trier's Vision."
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: cron on December 30, 2005, 11:06:56 AM
anyone else gets mad when someone says 'dancing in the dark' ?
also, to jump to the bandwagon i want to say that the day i saw it i had a nervous breakdown and tried to kill my mother. for reals.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Garam on January 03, 2006, 02:11:05 PM
After I saw it, I was singing 'I don't mind it at all...if you're having a balllll...' in my mind for weeks. Drove me crazy.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: modage on January 09, 2006, 08:18:42 PM
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ifccenter.com%2Fimages%2Fseries%2Flarsvontrier_series.jpg&hash=3c5efc86d3a1977a71acd53586523ac219c095f3)

heads up, new yawkahs.

www.ifccenter.com
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: grand theft sparrow on January 10, 2006, 10:55:12 AM
Quote from: modage on January 09, 2006, 08:18:42 PM
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ifccenter.com%2Fimages%2Fseries%2Flarsvontrier_series.jpg&hash=3c5efc86d3a1977a71acd53586523ac219c095f3)

heads up, new yawkahs.

www.ifccenter.com

Why the hell don't they have show times already?  The Film Forum and every other theatre worth its salt in this goddamn city is programmed months in advance.  IFC Center acts like they almost won't get the films.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: bonanzataz on January 17, 2006, 01:33:22 AM
showtimes are up.

FRIDAY
Dancer in the Dark - 12:45, 3:35, 6:25, 9:15
100 Eyes (the dancer in the dark documentary) - midnight

SATURDAY
Breaking the Waves - 5:30, 8:40
The Kingdom - Noon
100 Eyes - midnight

SUNDAY
The Kingdom Part II - noon
Zentropa - 5:30, 7:50, 10:30

MONDAY
The Five Obstructions - noon, 3:35, 7:10, 10:45
Liberation Pictures (Befrielsesbilleder (precursor to "the element of crime")) - 2:00, 5:35, 9:10

TUESDAY
Element of Crime - 12:45, 5:15, 9:45
Epidemic - 3:00, 7:30

WEDNESDAY
The Humiliated (documentary about "the idiots") - 1:55, 10:30
The Idiots - 11:30, 3:45, 8:00
Medea - 6:15

THURSDAY
Dogville - 11:10, 2:35, 9:30
The Humiliated - 7:45
Medea - 6:00
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: rustinglass on January 17, 2006, 06:22:31 AM
I wish i had that channel, I 've never seen liberation pictures.
The humiliated is probably the best behind-the-scenes documentary i've ever seen, better than dogville confessions and that moment.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: modage on January 17, 2006, 10:31:13 AM
they're playing at the theatre, not the channel.  :yabbse-grin:
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: grand theft sparrow on January 17, 2006, 11:37:23 AM
Quote from: bonanzataz on January 17, 2006, 01:33:22 AM
SUNDAY
The Kingdom Part II - noon

I've never been so happy my girlfriend was going to be at work on Sunday.  I'll actually be able to see this!
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: squints on January 17, 2006, 12:41:46 PM
Quote from: rustinglass on January 17, 2006, 06:22:31 AM
The humiliated is probably the best behind-the-scenes documentary i've ever seen, better than dogville confessions and that moment.

you should see burden of dreams
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pozer on January 17, 2006, 03:19:50 PM
Quote from: hacksparrow on January 17, 2006, 11:37:23 AM
Quote from: bonanzataz on January 17, 2006, 01:33:22 AM
SUNDAY
The Kingdom Part II - noon

I've never been so happy my girlfriend was going to be at work on Sunday.  I'll actually be able to see this!
Thanks for letting us know you have a girlfriend
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: modage on January 17, 2006, 04:12:33 PM
i have one too, and we're going to be watching Manderlay tomorrow.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: grand theft sparrow on January 17, 2006, 06:59:18 PM
Quote from: pozer on January 17, 2006, 03:19:50 PM
Quote from: hacksparrow on January 17, 2006, 11:37:23 AM
Quote from: bonanzataz on January 17, 2006, 01:33:22 AM
SUNDAY
The Kingdom Part II - noon

I've never been so happy my girlfriend was going to be at work on Sunday.  I'll actually be able to see this!
Thanks for letting us know you have a girlfriend

Yeah, but she doesn't want to see The Kingdom II so clearly I'm not bragging...

Quote from: modage on January 17, 2006, 04:12:33 PM
i have one too, and we're going to be watching Manderlay tomorrow.

...like modage.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: killafilm on January 17, 2006, 11:36:07 PM
Mod, I thought you both really disliked Dogville.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: modage on January 18, 2006, 12:04:34 AM
we did!  but we liked it better than breaking or dancer, so we're down for another round!
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: hedwig on January 18, 2006, 03:49:52 PM
it's no Cinderella.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: bonanzataz on January 18, 2006, 06:20:18 PM
Quote from: Hedwig on January 18, 2006, 03:49:52 PM
it's no Cinderella.

oh hedwig. that's low.



get it?
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: jigzaw on February 18, 2006, 03:19:36 PM
Have any of the Dogme directors actually followed the rule about not crediting the director??  Because I'm pretty sure Von Trier's name is on his films.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pubrick on February 18, 2006, 09:14:58 PM
Quote from: jigzaw on February 18, 2006, 03:19:36 PM
Because I'm pretty sure Von Trier's name is on his films.
he's only credited as writer on the idiots, not director, and that's the only dogme film he's made.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: godardian on February 19, 2006, 09:32:21 AM
Quote from: Pubrick on February 18, 2006, 09:14:58 PM
Quote from: jigzaw on February 18, 2006, 03:19:36 PM
Because I'm pretty sure Von Trier's name is on his films.
he's only credited as writer on the idiots, not director, and that's the only dogme film he's made.

I'm not a Dogme expert, but wasn't one of the stipulations that no director credit whatsoever was to be given under any circumstances? And then who broke it...was it Harmony Korine?

Yeah, von Trier always gets heavily associated with the Dogme movement, but he was more of a ringleader than a participant, from what I've read/seen.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: JG on February 25, 2006, 02:43:37 PM
From the of Roger Ebert's  Manderlay review:

QuoteFootnote: Just in time to be tacked onto the end of this review, Von Trier has issued a "statement of revitality" to Variety. Ray Pride of Movie City News quotes him in part: "...I intend to reschedule my professional activities in order to rediscover my original enthusiasm for film. Over the last few years I have felt increasingly burdened by barren habits and expectations (my own and other people's) and I feel the urge to tidy up. In regards to product development this will mean more time on freer terms; i.e. projects will be allowed to undergo true development and not merely be required to meet preconceived demands. This is partly to liberate me from routine, and in particular from scriptural structures inherited from film to film ..."

The most delightful element of this statement is his assumption that his films are "required to meet preconceived demands."
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Myxo on October 01, 2006, 03:47:50 PM
This is a pretty fabulous essay on the allegorical connections between "Breaking the Waves" and the bible's book "Song of Songs". I just saw this film last night for the first time and it's really lingering with me. I don't really have anything to say until I see it again, after reading this work.

http://www.unomaha.edu/jrf/endofdes.htm
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: MacGuffin on December 07, 2006, 11:15:01 AM
Von Trier unveils 'Lookey'
Director invites audiences to play mind games
Source: Variety

STOCKHOLM -- Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier has unleashed his latest bit of mischief: the Lookey.

His concept is to invite the audience to play a more active role in the cinemagoing experience. Lookey is described by the helmer as a basic mind game. The movie is the board on which the game is played. The Lookey is described as a "visual disturbance," which is placed out of context in the movie.

The first Lookeys can be found in von Trier's office farce "The Boss of it All."

The first Danish moviegoer to find all the Lookeys in the pic will be rewarded with $5,360 and the opportunity to be an extra in von Trier's next film, English-language horror pic "Anti-Christ."

"Film as media has one great flaw — it's a one-way media with a passive audience. As much as I love to dictate the storyline and control the experience I still wish that the audience could take an active part," von Trier explained.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: grand theft sparrow on December 07, 2006, 12:23:48 PM
Awww... he's getting old.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: MacGuffin on May 12, 2007, 11:33:38 AM
Depression lays Danish director low

The Danish director Lars Von Trier said a period of depression has left him unable to work and he has doubts about when he will return to filmmaking.

In an interview published Saturday in the Politiken newspaper, Von Trier said the aftermath of his depression has left him "like a blank sheet of paper."

"It's very strange for me, because I've always had at least three projects in my head at one time," he said.

The filmmaker was admitted to a Danish hospital around the beginning of the year to be treated for depression. Since then, he said, he has lost focus and takes no pleasure in his work.

"You can't make a film and be depressed at the same time," he was quoted as saying. "They say that it can take a couple of years to recover after a depression. But let us see."

Von Trier, who has worked alongside actors such as Emily Watson in "Breaking the Waves" and Icelandic singer Bjork in "Dancer in the Dark," said his best and most original movie is "Dogville," which stars Academy Award-winning actress Nicole Kidman.

Von Trier is also known for a set of filmmaking principles known as Dogma that he conceived in the mid-1990s. Meant to strip away the artifice of filmmaking by forbidding props and lighting, the Dogma rules also forbade sound editing and any equipment other than hand-held cameras.

Von Trier said he is unsure whether he will be able to begin work on a horror movie called "Antichrist" that he planned to start filming toward the middle of this year. The movie depicts Satan, rather than God, as the world's creator.

"I assume that 'Antichrist' will be my next movie. But right now I don't know," he said.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: joaquimhock on May 20, 2007, 03:32:46 AM
Not more depressed than when he was 7 years old, according to the co-owner of Zentropa :-) Here ans article on ScreenDaily saying that he will make more films :

http://www.screendaily.com/ScreenDailyArticle.aspx?intStoryID=32637&Category=

Zentropa expands beyond  Danish homeland
Geoffrey Macnab in Cannes
19 May 2007 04:26

 

Denmark's flagship film company Zentropa is cutting many ties to its homeland with founder Lars Von Trier in talks to shift his next film abroad.

In Cannes, company boss Peter Aalbeck Jensen told Screen that the company he and Von Trier founded it will be opening further facilities in Sweden where it has long been supported by regional fund Film I Vast.

Zentropa is also in advanced negotiations with a regional fund to set up Von Trier's planned English-language horror film Antichrist in Germany.

"The financing systems in Sweden and Germany are much better. There is no reason for us to be with so much activity in Denmark," Aalbeck Jensen commented.

The Zentropa boss acknowledged that the Danish Government provides strong support of the Danish film industry. "But it is not geared to a company like us. It is geared to a smaller two or three person company."

Trust Film Sales will remain at Zentropa's base at Filmbyen in Copenhagen.

Danish Film Institute chief executive Henning Camre was striking a phlegmatic note about Zentropa's plans to leave Denmark. "They are pretty European in their thinking,' he said. "I don't see it as a problem. It is a more healthy way to attract co-productions."

Meanwhile, Jensen dismissed recent reports in the Danish press that Von Trier has been left unable to work by depression.

"He (Von Trier) has been depressed since he was seven years old. He is always depressed between two films. I was having a dinner with him Saturday where I promise you he was alive and kicking."

The Zentropa boss suggested that Von Trier was unlikely to complete the trilogy begun with Dogville and Manderlay. However, he predicted that Antichrist will be as provocative as any of Von Trier's films and that "it will probably make a riot down here in the Croisette, like always."

Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: last days of gerry the elephant on May 23, 2007, 09:32:12 PM
LARS VON TRIER, THE BOSS OF IT ALL

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffilmmakermagazine.com%2Fdirectorinterviews%2Fuploaded_images%2FThe_Boss_of_It_All-712261.jpg&hash=0a8fe378ce7492b062ebbd3265709661ee0d3b59)

Lars von Trier, the enfant terrible of world cinema, is always looking for the next thing to surprise or wrongfoot audiences. He made only three features in the first decade of his career, and though The Element of Crime (1984), Epidemic (1987), and Zentropa (1991) were all critical successes that ably demonstrated von Trier's cinematic gifts, it is since then that he has truly excelled. In this period, not only has he founded the revolutionary Dogme 95 movement, but completed the Gold Hearted trilogy – made up of Breaking the Waves (1996), The Idiots (1998) and Dancer in the Dancer (2000) – and made the first two parts of his American trilogy, Dogville (2003) and Manderlay (2005). All of these have been provocative, emotionally intense and technically innovative movies, cinema which has challenged the norm and polarized opinion. Though hailed as one of the saviors of modern cinema, von Trier often seems more comfortable in his self-assigned role as villain, and reports of brutal, bullying treatment of his leading ladies (Björk and Nicole Kidman, in particular) have only compounded this image.

All of this makes The Boss of It All, his latest film, all the more surprising. Though flashes were visible in The Idiots, this is the first time we see von Trier's subversive, almost zany, sense of humor really come to the fore. Ravn (Peter Ganzler), the head of an IT firm, has always told his staff that there was a mysterious, absent boss so that when difficult decisions needed to be made, he could put the blame on someone else. However when he wants to sell the company, he is required to get this shadowy CEO to appear and sign away the firm, and must get an unemployed actor, Stoffer (Jens Albinus), to play what becomes the role of a lifetime. The film deals with sex, power, and manipulation – all trademark von Trier themes – and is shot with Automavision, an innovation in which the camera angles, movements, etc. are selected by a computer, yet The Boss of It All is first and foremost a playful, affectionate and riotously funny film about office politics.

Filmmaker (Magazine) spoke to von Trier about the recent reports of depression crippling his creativity, classic Hollywood comedies, and killing film critics with a hammer.

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LARS VON TRIER ON THE SET OF THE BOSS OF IT ALL. COURTESY IFC FIRST TAKE.


Filmmaker: A story broke about 10 days ago that you were suffering from depression.

von Trier: I have had a depression for the first time in my life, which was kind of strange, but I'm coming out now. I'm on my way, but it seems it takes some time before you're really back into [it]. I've always done 10 things at the same time, but now it takes some time to get the fascination back for a project. It will come, and it is coming, but slowly.

Filmmaker: So is your next project, Antichrist, still going to happen?

von Trier: Oh, yes, Antichrist, I'm working on it. It just takes, instead of one day, two days to get a good idea. But I think I have to accept that as part of life.

Filmmaker: It's like working at a normal pace, rather than your usual pace.

von Trier: I'm trying to be a normal person. I'm working on it. I feel good, but I just need more time to write a script. I think I wrote the script for The Idiots in four days, so now it will be four months.

Filmmaker: How did you react to this story about your depression blowing up into something so big?

von Trier: I think that my problem is that whenever I talk to a journalist it's difficult for me to have an agenda, and also if he asks me, "How are you?", then I have to tell him, "Well, I had this depression..." This is what I'd tell any person. I've done that with my anxieties too, I've talked about them, which of course must be tiresome for a reader or a journalist, but that's the way I deal with things. I tell people how things really are. I think maybe the fact that I allow myself to tell anybody that I had a depression is maybe what causes the mistake that the story will always be blown up. I'm not especially interested that anybody should write about how I am, but doing an interview is like talking to a person, and then I tell [them] how things are. It's difficult for me not to do that, but maybe stupid. I don't know.

Filmmaker: It seems ironic that your depression came just after you'd finished The Boss of It All, which is probably the happiest and most upbeat film you've ever made.

von Trier: Yeah, you don't know why these things happen. I have a theory that at a certain point, when you're fainting, that is when the body has enough. You faint, and then you kind of have a time out for the body to readjust. I think that it's maybe a little bit the same with the anxiety, when it comes to a point where it's too much. I think the depression comes in and kind of claims a couple of months. You know, what I found out is that you can't be depressed and have anxiety at the same time, it's either or. I talked to a lot of people after this who have had depression, and they all agreed that it takes some time, even if you're out of it and you're much happier – and I'm happy for many things – for the focus to come back. They actually say it takes about double the time of the depression. I had three months of depression, so it will take six months. Well, I can enjoy my freedom for another month!

Filmmaker: I think people are surprised by The Boss of It All, because it's not what they expect from a Lars von Trier film. But do you feel like it's radically different from your previous films?

von Trier: I think it's quite close to some of the stuff we worked with in The Kingdom [von Trier's surreal 90s hospital TV show], but my aim for this film was to do The Shop Around the Corner. Or something like that, a light thing that should be very simple in the structure but hopefully should still have some of the qualities that The Shop Around the Corner has. I'm not talking about sentimentality so much, I'm talking about a certain kind of comedy mood that you will find also in The Philadelphia Story, or films like that.

Filmmaker: It's the most traditional film you've ever made.

von Trier: Yeah, yeah, but that's because it is some kind of a homage to these films. Especially the ones that are not sort of corny, so you say "Ha, ha, ha!" all the time, but just is carried by a story and a mood, which I like very much. Also Bringing Up Baby I remember, and The Odd Couple was also fantastic - but that was maybe more ha-ha. There are actually some of these films that are kind of moody, but still funny so you laugh all the time.

Filmmaker: I don't think those would be films that people would expect you to like.

von Trier: But it is films like that that I will see again and again. It's like hearing pop music. We were taught in film school that The Shop Around the Corner was the best film in the world. So, I listened a little!

Filmmaker: You have Jean-Marc Barr and Fridrik Thor Fridriksson, both of whom are directors, acting in this film, and you gave Jørgen Leth filmmaking tasks for The Five Obstructions. Do you particularly like directing directors?

von Trier: [laughs] Jean-Marc was there because he's always there, only to come up and say hello. He's the godfather of my two boys. Fridrik is just a crazy guy that everybody when they read the script said he [the grim Icelandic businessman] should look like him. I don't think he really has acted before, not very much. I think he's very Icelandic, very authentic. It's actually very far from his own personality to shout, because he's always very funny and most of the time very drunk at festivals. But he actually had to work a lot to find out how to yell. I don't think he'd ever tried it.

Filmmaker: You've said before that "A film should be like a rock in the shoe", but this doesn't really feel like that.

von Trier: No. So maybe it's not a film. It's a tiny rock, if it is. But I still tried with the images to destroy somehow for everybody.

Filmmaker: Where did the idea for Automavision come from, and how easy was it to implement?

von Trier: Earlier in my career, I worked with a lot of very complicated tracking and craning, and at a certain point I had enough of that. If you are a perfectionist, which we all are at some point, then you have go on and do this better and better and better, but you can never control it. You can get 70% of your idea, you can get 80, you can get close to 100, but you can't really say "This is it." So I was so happy when the trend said it should be handheld camera, because that suited me very well. Here the only principle I use, especially when I film myself, is that I just point the camera in the direction of where something interesting is happening. After doing all this framing, I was very anti-framing for a long time. And then I found out that this computer system could help me not to frame, even though I had a fixed camera.

Filmmaker: I think you stop noticing the odd framing very early on, and it just becomes part of the film.

von Trier: I think what surprises me in a positive way is that you actually see the film differently because you have to look for the [characters]. In a normal film, you will know exactly where the next person would be in the frame because you know all these framing rules. Here you actually have to look around; it might take a split second, but you still have to work a little harder.

Filmmaker: It's a little like your set in Dogville, where the viewer has to imagine the town. You seem to like pushing the viewer that bit further.

von Trier: Yeah, but not just to push somebody. I think that there's potential in the viewer that we very often do not challenge or do not use at all. I think that there could be people that see wonderful mountains in Dogville, much more wonderful than I could ever produce. I'm not saying that's something that happened in Dogville, but the technique of using the spectator's mind much, much more is something in films that we are doing very, very little of today.

Filmmaker: What do you think of the state of America at the moment? You say you're 60% American, so does this mean you might finally go there?

von Trier: [laughs] I can't do that because I don't fly, or sail, but I would love to go to America. There are a lot of places that I'd love to visit. Isn't there somewhere where you can go over the ice, from Asia or something like that?

Filmmaker: Maybe you could make a Werner Herzog-style documentary about taking that journey!

von Trier: Oh, yes, Werner Herzog. But he's not afraid of flying. I talked to him a couple of times, and he wants to be in [one of my films]. So maybe I can have another director to direct. I was a big fan of his, especially his earlier films that he made in Germany. They were really very inspiring to me.

Filmmaker: Can you tell me about your contribution to the film Chacun Son Cinéma, which is commemorating the 60 years of the Cannes film festival?

von Trier: It's just a little joke. It's the opening of Manderlay in Cannes, and I'm sitting next to this guy who's writing for a tiny fictitious French paper called 'On the Sunny Side,' and he's writing a review on the film, and he's obviously bored. Then he tells me about all the cars he owns, and how rich he is, and all these things. It's called Occupations, the film. So, at a certain point, he says, "So what do you do?" Then I take out this very strange hammer we have in the Danish building business, and I say, "I kill." And then I kill him. It is as stupid as it sounds.

Filmmaker: If you could travel back in time and be able to make movies in a time and place of your choice, where and when would it be?

von Trier: It would probably be in the Soviet Union, back in the time when Tarkovsky made films. That is for me a very romantic period, even though I know it was painful for the people there. Somehow when I see The Mirror by Tarkovsky, I dream of the studios and the colors and the depression.

Filmmaker: When was the last time you burst into tears on set?

von Trier: Bryce Dallas Howard [in Manderlay] was incredible at crying, she had a fantastic technique to cry. You could start her crying and stop her crying. That was not me crying, but it was incredible. I've never seen anything like it. I've actually worked with a lot of actresses who are good at crying, but this was so fantastic. She was really a cryer. But I probably cried from anger with Björk, I'm sure. Yeah, I remember that I cried one time – I just gave up completely. I said to her, "You win." I don't know what that meant, but probably that the film would be off.

Filmmaker: Finally, who's the most famous person in your cell phone?

von Trier: I believe it's Nicole [Kidman], actually.

Filmmaker: Do you speak a lot?

von Trier: No, but I write her some emails sometimes. It's probably not her phone number anymore, and she doesn't appear as "Nicole Kidman."

Filmmaker: So if it's stolen, it'd still be OK.

von Trier: Yeah, I think so. Or else I think I would get a hell of time explaining to her!

Source: http://filmmakermagazine.com/directorinterviews/2007/05/lars-von-trier-boss-of-it-all.php (http://filmmakermagazine.com/directorinterviews/2007/05/lars-von-trier-boss-of-it-all.php)
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: MacGuffin on May 24, 2007, 10:40:19 AM
New Opera to Be Based on Von Trier Film

Denmark's Royal Theater has commissioned a new opera based on Lars von Trier's 2000 film, "Dancer in the Dark."

Poul Ruders, a leading Danish composer, will write the music for the work, while the libretto, in English, will be written by Henrik Engelbrecht, head of dramaturgy at the theater.

Swedish soprano Ylva Kihlberg is set to sing the role of leading character Selma when the opera premieres during the 2010-2011 season, the theater announced Thursday.

Von Trier's movie, which won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival, starred Bjork and Catherine Deneuve.

Bjork played the role of a Czech immigrant factory worker in the United States who becomes blind because of a congenital disease and tries to save money for an operation to avoid the same fate for her 12-year-old son.

Von Trier also directed "Breaking the Waves" and "Dogville."

He said in a recent interview that a period of depression had left him unable to work, and he expressed doubts about when he will return to filmmaking.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: SiliasRuby on January 20, 2009, 10:03:29 PM
Spoils

I just saw Europa and its fantastic. The color sequences intercut with the black and white makes it surprising and quite a dazzling film. A film that I will have to buy. I'm not sure if this is part of a trilogy or not but if it is I want to see the other two. The only other Von trier films I've seen are 'breaking the waves', 'dogville' and 'dancer in the dark' even though I own 'manderlay' and still need to see it.

Anyway, back to Europa. This film takes place right after the second world war and a atheistic pacifist from america decides to make a difference by wanting to spread peace throughout Germany. He works as a railroad train worker and is getting paid for it. He got the job from his uncle who-in a shot of kindness (the uncle is a real bastard)-he decides to help out his nephew. The uncle is also a railroad train worker and when this young man decides to help out and get involved with a family that owns the company that owns the railroad it back fires when a group takes advantage of his good natured aura about him. Needless to say, over time, he sees the manipulation, by the renagade group that are taking a stand against the allied forces and by a woman who is the daughter (which he falls in love with) of the big company. Well, I don't want to spoil anymore but the story ends badly for the american.

See it!!! Or not, I don't care.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: john on January 21, 2009, 01:18:34 AM
Yeah, Europa has always been my favorite of his films. This was reaffirmed by Criterion's release last month - exceptional disc for an exceptional film. I love that it's such a seductive film, immersing you into it's rhythm and wholly unique cinematic rhythm - only to then deconstruct it.

Like most of von Trier's films, it loves the language of film, and is indebited to it, while still being completely antagonistic to it. That's kind of a vague declaration, but I'm too tired to expound on it. In that regard, I really think it is his most successful effort.


Quote from: SiliasRuby on January 20, 2009, 10:03:29 PM
I'm not sure if this is part of a trilogy or not

It is - in a way. See: Epidemic and Element of Crime
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: SiliasRuby on January 21, 2009, 05:46:00 AM
Quote from: john on January 21, 2009, 01:18:34 AM

Quote from: SiliasRuby on January 20, 2009, 10:03:29 PM
I'm not sure if this is part of a trilogy or not

It is - in a way. See: Epidemic and Element of Crime
Thought it was those two...see ya soon for more reviews.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: SiliasRuby on January 24, 2009, 06:56:53 PM
Epidemic is possibly one of the scariest films I have seen in my life. Perhaps because of the subject matter or perhaps it was all in black and white. I got chills throughout the whole film. This is the first time in a long while that I was freaked out by a film.

Spoilers
The two film makers seemed really mean when it came to the subject of the teenagers from atlantic city....

The above taken out of context could sound a little strange.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: MacGuffin on October 09, 2009, 11:03:56 AM
Lars von Trier goes from gore to Sci-Fi
Danish director to shoot "Planet Melancholia"
Source: Hollywood Reporter

COLOGNE, Germany -- After "Antichrist," his art house mash up of the slasher horror genre, Danish director Lars von Trier is moving into Roland Emmerich territory with his next project -- a psychological disaster film titled "Planet Melancholia."

Lars von Trier will write and direct the €5 million ($7.4 million) English-language feature. Shooting and post-production will take place next summer in Germany and Sweden. Von Trier's Zentropa will produce "Planet Melancholia" with the director's regular financial partners, which include Filmstiftung NRW, the Swiss and Danish film institutes and European broadcasters Arte, Canal Plus, SVT and DR expected to pony up financing.

TrustNordisk will be pre-selling the title at the European Film Market in Berlin in February.

Producers are Zentropa's Meta Louise Foldager ("Antichrist") and Louise Vesth, a line producer on von Trier's "Manderlay" (2005). The company is targeting a release for Cannes 2011.

Von Trier and business partner Peter Aalbaek Jensen of Zentropa were typically coy in revealing the plot of the new film.

"No more happy endings!" was von Trier's only comment, a description that would fit all of his work.

Jensen has promised a mix of spectacular, cinematic imagery with Dogme-style handheld camerawork -- a combination seen in "Antichrist." Referring to a cringe-inducing scene in that film, Jensen, however, said he hoped no genitals would be cut off in "Planet Melancholia."

Instead, Jensen said the new film would be "romantic, in a Lord Byron sort of way."
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Stefen on October 09, 2009, 06:06:55 PM
Von Trier is bat shit crazy and that's what makes him one of the most exciting filmmakers in the game. What a genius piece of shit freak he is.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: modage on February 23, 2010, 12:10:07 PM
Quote from: Stefen on October 09, 2009, 06:06:55 PM
Von Trier is bat shit crazy and that's what makes him one of the most exciting filmmakers in the game. What a genius piece of shit freak he is.

http://theplaylist.blogspot.com/2010/02/lars-von-triers-tourist-ads-for-denmark.html
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: MacGuffin on April 15, 2010, 07:38:01 PM
Lars Von Trier Taps Dunst For `Melancholia'
By MIKE FLEMING; Deadline Hollywood

The end of the Spider-Man franchise has created new opportunities for Kirsten Dunst. She's just been set by Lars von Trier to play the lead role in Melancholia that Penelope Cruz was negotiating before she jumped to Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Melancholia is a sci-fi disaster film that will shoot July through September in Southern Sweden, with Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland, Charlotte Rampling, Alexander Skarsgaard, Stellan Skarsgaard and Udo Kier also attached to roles. Dunst is currently starring with Jim Sturgess in Upside Down. Bastard, the short film she directed and co-wrote, will premiere at the Tribeca Film Fest and was just accepted into Cannes.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Stefen on April 15, 2010, 08:26:45 PM
Her face is a disaster. She belongs in this movie.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: MacGuffin on May 18, 2010, 10:24:17 AM
John Hurt joins Lars von Trier's 'Melancholia'
Kirsten Dunst, Kiefer Sutherland also cast in disaster movie
Source: Hollywood Reporter

CANNES -- Lars von Trier has completed casting on his new disaster movie "Melancholia," adding John Hurt to a cast that includes Kirsten Dunst, Kiefer Sutherland, Charlotte Rampling and Charlotte Gainsbourg, who won the best actress prize in Cannes last year with von Trier's shocker "Antichrist."

Father and son Stellan and Alexander Skarsgard as well as von Trier regular Udo Kier complete the cast of the $7.5 million production, which starts shooting July 19 in Trollhattan, Sweden.

A 2011 Cannes Competition slot is all but guaranteed for "Melancholia," though von Trier will have a hard time topping the scandal he set off with "Antichrist" in 2009.
   
Peter A. Jensen, head of von Trier's production firm, Zentropa, and an executive producer on the project, described "Melancholia" as a "beautiful film about the end of the world," but was cagey about disclosing any plot points. He would only hint that the story hinged on a "large object from outer space approaching Earth" that affects the planet's inhabitants.

Zentropa Denmark is producing Melancholia together with Slot Machine in France, Zentropa International in Cologne, Sweden's Memfis Film and Trollhattan Film. Meta Louise Foldager, who produced "Antichrist," and Louise Vesth ("Zoomers") will produce. TrustNordisk is handling sales.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: MacGuffin on March 24, 2011, 05:03:34 PM
Lars Von Trier Plots 'The Nymphomaniac' For His Next Film
Source: The Playlist

While Lars von Trier's harshest critics deride his treatment of women in his films, the director—or rather his business partners—know that controversy keeps the lights on, and with that in mind it's no surprise to hear what his next film is. Screen Daily recently caught up with the director who revealed his next film will once again put women front and center. "I'm thinking of making a film about a woman's erotic birth, a woman who discovers her eroticism. The working title is 'The Nymphomaniac,'" von Trier said. He goes to explain that he actually had another film he was considering but was advised that, for funding purposes, this one was the easier sell. "I had two titles that I put to my business partner Peter Aalbæk Jensen. One was 'The Nymphomaniac,' the other was 'Dirt in Bedsores.' I asked him which one he thought was the most commercial. He said that with a title like 'The Nymphomaniac,' the film would already be financed," he said. And while we're still recovering from how awesome "Dirt In Bedsores" as a title alone is (it also sounds like something Harmony Korine would dream up), it should be said, this is still in early stages. There's no actress lined up for the part and von Trier admits that it might be difficult given the subject matter, but we can't imagine it's any more challenging than cutting off your own clitoris, stabbing a dude in the dick and jerking him off until he ejaculates blood. Just saying. But for now, von Trier is likely priming "Melancholia" for the Croisette in May. Starring Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland, Charlotte Rampling, John Hurt, Alexander Skarsgård, Stellan Skarsgård and Udo Kier, the film centers on two sisters and their differing reactions to the impending doom of the planet Earth. As von Trier elaborated last fall, the film will open with the Earth getting crushed and then presumably flash back to how it happened. Dunst and Alexander Skarsgård will play a married couple who slowly come apart as Dunst accepts the fate of the upcoming end of the world, pulling away from both her work and relationship, and settling into a slower pace of life. On the other hand, her sister, played by Gainsbourg, panicking with the looming end of civilization and eager to protect the fears of her 6-year-old nephew, will try and shield him from their fate. If you can't make it to Cannes, Magnolia has already snatched up the U.S. rights to the film and will release it later this year. And oh yeah, von Trier is still selling his mobile home on eBay—but the reserve hasn't been met yet. Melancholia indeed.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: MacGuffin on May 18, 2011, 09:01:23 AM
Lars von Trier Admits to Being a Nazi, Understanding Hitler (Cannes 2011)
Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg look on in disbelief as the "Melancholia" director shocks at Cannes press conference.
Source: THR

CANNES –Danish director Lars von Trier pulled a Mel Gibson in Cannes Wednesday, giving a shocking and hilarious press conference for his new film Melancholia in which he admitted to being a Nazi, to understanding Hitler and speculated that his next movie could be The Final Solution. Von Trier has never been very P.C. and his Cannes press conferences always play like a dark stand-up routine, but at the Melancholia press conference he took it to another level, tossing a grenade into any sense of public decorum. In response to a question about his Germanic roots, Von Trier set off on a long and twisted answer that, if this were America, not Cannes, would have meant career suicide. "For a long time I thought I was a Jew and I was happy to be a Jew," he began, "then I met (Danish and Jewish director) Susanne Bier and I wasn't so happy. But then I found out I was actually a Nazi. My family were German. And that also gave me some pleasure. What can I say? I understand Hitler...I sympathize with him a bit." Von Trier qualified that "I don't mean I'm in favor of World War II and I'm not against Jews, not even Susanne Bier" before digging himself deeper. "In fact I'm very much in favor of them. All Jews. Well, Israel is a pain in the ass but..." As Melancholia stars Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg, sitting on either side of Von Trier, stared at him agog, the director paused. "Now how can I get out of this sentence? Ok. I'm a Nazi." It was a grandiose performance by European cinema's premiere enfant terrible as Von Trier managed to shock just about everyone in the room. And also made them laugh with the sort of chuckle that gets caught in the throat. The Nazi comments came at the end of a sprawling routine in which Von Trier said his new movie "may be crap...there's quite a big possibility that it might not be worth seeing" and mused that his next project with Dunst and Gainsbourg would be a 3 to 4 hour porn film "with lots of uncomfortable sex." Von Trier's deadpan delivery and cheerful cherub-like smile hinted to the audience that everything was one big joke. Certainly no one took the director seriously when, asked if he would like to do a film on a larger scale, answered: "Yes. We Nazis like to do things on a big scale. Maybe I could do The Final Solution." During Cannes, it was also announced that von Trier and Martin Scorsese are teaming up for a remake of The Five Obstructions, von Trier's 2003 documentary deconstructing the film making process.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on May 18, 2011, 11:35:29 AM
If you're going to joke about being a Nazi, it has to be funny.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Stefen on May 18, 2011, 12:15:37 PM
That's disgusting.  :yabbse-angry:
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: New Feeling on May 18, 2011, 12:20:45 PM
very interesting that the article neglects to include he stated his next movie would be The Final Solution with Journalists.  Lars was definitely reaching here, and it was unfortunate that that was the very end of the press conference so there was no rebound, but this article by THR simply justifies Von Trier's disdain for the press
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Stefen on May 18, 2011, 12:25:17 PM
But like JB said, if you're going to be that tasteless when being playful, you have to be funny. You can get away with anything if you're funny, but LVT isn't funny. He's just shocking. He's an idiot.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: New Feeling on May 18, 2011, 12:28:28 PM
nah Lars is a pretty funny guy usually and even this bit had a few moments
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pas on May 18, 2011, 12:30:19 PM
Quote from: Stefen on October 09, 2009, 06:06:55 PM
What a genius piece of shit freak he is.

Quote from: Stefen on May 18, 2011, 12:25:17 PM
He's an idiot.

Oh how thin the line is between the two, isn't it?
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on May 18, 2011, 12:32:56 PM
I don't think it was particularly funny, but I do think it's funny that people think he's had some kind of anti-semitic awakening and really does sympathize with Hitler. It's obviously a stunt (though perhaps a spontaneous one), and the press is sort of proving his point. Headlines like Lars von Trier Admits to Being a Nazi, Understanding Hitler make it sound like he was serious, and that this is some sort of journalistic discovery of his actual real Nazism, which has no relation to reality.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: socketlevel on May 18, 2011, 12:34:00 PM
the reporting of the story is more ignorant than the joke. people need to relax a bit.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on May 18, 2011, 12:39:36 PM
This article (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/adl-speaks-lars-von-triers-189815) with the ADL's perspective is definitely more ignorant than the joke, to the point of hilarity. It pretty much suggests that the pressures of filmmaking must be causing his life to fall apart in some kind downward spiral that is specifically anti-Semitic in nature.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: modage on May 18, 2011, 12:57:01 PM
The real story here is that the movie kinda sucks:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/archives/cannes_review_lars_von_trier_confronts_depression_head_on_in_grim_melanchol/
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on May 18, 2011, 01:00:17 PM
Meh, that article just says that it's not provocative. I'm okay with that.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Robyn on May 18, 2011, 01:03:37 PM
Quote from: modage on May 18, 2011, 12:57:01 PM
The real story here is that the movie kinda sucks:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/archives/cannes_review_lars_von_trier_confronts_depression_head_on_in_grim_melanchol/

The real story here is that the movie is a masterpice.

http://thefilmstage.com/2011/05/18/cannes-review-melancholia/?utm_source=wordtwit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=wordtwit 
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: matt35mm on May 18, 2011, 01:08:32 PM
Oh, right, yeah, the movie!
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: modage on May 18, 2011, 01:12:41 PM
Quote from: KarlJan on May 18, 2011, 01:03:37 PM
Quote from: modage on May 18, 2011, 12:57:01 PM
The real story here is that the movie kinda sucks:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/archives/cannes_review_lars_von_trier_confronts_depression_head_on_in_grim_melanchol/

The real story here is that the movie is a masterpice.

http://thefilmstage.com/2011/05/18/cannes-review-melancholia/?utm_source=wordtwit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=wordtwit 

Ha, I'll wait for Haneke's movie.  LVT did apologize (http://www.movieline.com/2011/05/lars-von-trier-apologizes-confirms-he-is-not-a-nazi.php) btw.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Mr. Merrill Lehrl on May 18, 2011, 01:17:56 PM
Quote from: modage on May 18, 2011, 01:12:41 PM
Ha, I'll wait for Haneke's movie.

How is this a response to KarlJan's linked review and what is it supposed to mean?  How is Haneke's movie related to Von Trier's movie?
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Stefen on May 18, 2011, 01:29:10 PM
LVT's flicks are always polarizing. Didn't Antichrist get the first anti-award from Cannes?

But now it's considered a masterpiece.

Or an affront to all that is decent in cinema.

I really can't tell.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: modage on May 18, 2011, 01:34:43 PM
Quote from: Merrill Errol Lehrl on May 18, 2011, 01:17:56 PM
Quote from: modage on May 18, 2011, 01:12:41 PM
Ha, I'll wait for Haneke's movie.

How is this a response to KarlJan's linked review and what is it supposed to mean?  How is Haneke's movie related to Von Trier's movie?

It's a response because I don't trust the "A" grade. And I think that Haneke has a little more going for him as a provacateur than Von Trier.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: children with angels on May 18, 2011, 01:57:31 PM
Has everyone seen the video of the press conference? http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/mediaPlayer/11391.html

It's so clear that he was just trying to make a very dark and provocative point (of questionable merit) about sympathising with evil, realised he was making a hash of it, then tried to diffuse it with a joke about how he knew his words would be spun ("Okay, fine, yes: I'm a Nazi - that's how you're all going to write it up anyway..."). If you haven't already, it's worth checking out the video for Dunst's hilarious awkward reactions alone. The question that kicks it off comes at 34:30.

While the mics are still running after the the conference has ended you hear Dunst saying "Oh, Lars... That was intense." To which he replies, "Oh, come ooon..." I concur.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on May 18, 2011, 03:19:52 PM
I'm definitely watching this when I get home.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: for petes sake on May 18, 2011, 04:23:36 PM
Does he have "FUCK" tattooed on his knuckles?
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Mr. Merrill Lehrl on May 18, 2011, 05:51:05 PM
Quote from: modage on May 18, 2011, 01:34:43 PM
Quote from: Merrill Errol Lehrl on May 18, 2011, 01:17:56 PM
Quote from: modage on May 18, 2011, 01:12:41 PM
Ha, I'll wait for Haneke's movie.

How is this a response to KarlJan's linked review and what is it supposed to mean?  How is Haneke's movie related to Von Trier's movie?

It's a response because I don't trust the "A" grade. And I think that Haneke has a little more going for him as a provacateur than Von Trier.

So, are you more concerned about which will be the better movie and receive a better grade, or what your personal experience will be while watching the movies?  Like with Malick, I find curious the investments you make in other people's receptions and opinions, especially when expressed with surrogate authority.  That's the mindset of studio bigwigs, isn't it?  Relying on response cards.  Are you excited about what people will say about the movie, or what you yourself will think and feel while watching the movie?
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pas on May 18, 2011, 06:06:32 PM
Quote from: for petes sake on May 18, 2011, 04:23:36 PM
Does he have "FUCK" tattooed on his knuckles?

I thought it was ajoke and then it was true, he does.

BTW after having seeing it, NOT SO sure it's as big of a ''joke'' we thought it was. I mean the ''Im nazi'' part and so forth was a joke but not the initial part.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Mr. Merrill Lehrl on May 18, 2011, 06:58:46 PM
http://www.filmlinc.com/blog/entry/cannes-podcast-karina-kohn-talk-about-the-fest

Two critics/nerds talk about Cannes for the Film Society of Lincoln Center.  The beginning is all about Melancholia and Tree of Life.

BTW both critics say fuck is 'written' on LVT's hand.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pubrick on May 18, 2011, 07:20:46 PM
ok this got out of hand pretty much instantly.

firstly, JB's and stefen's initial reactions are as reactionary and tone deaf as the journalists who are writing he's a nazi. i laughed when he said nazis like to do things in a big scale, that was funny. i also understand the beginning of his response which i don't think is that scandalous, at least not in any way that exceeds what we've come to expect from him, after all we've had our very own hitler-sympathizer in the form of kotte.. and i DON'T even think he was saying he sympathizes with hitler in the outrageous sense of hating jews, he was just goading the press since they asked about his germanic roots and kind of went too far in name dropping something that everyone loves to go crazy over. point proven. and susanne bier.. who knows, maybe she's a jackass.

secondly, i'm liking how sundown (is) all over mod's nuts.. that was always an eternal rivalry waiting to happen, they will NEVER understand each other's perspective on cinema. if you want to know if a movie is entertaining, you read modage reviews.. if you want to know if the movie has any substance and is worth thinking about, you read sundowns. you guys should totally host a show together.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Mr. Merrill Lehrl on May 18, 2011, 07:32:12 PM
I sometimes really like what the guy has to say.  LVT yes, but I mean modage.  It's because I respect him I sometimes disagree with him.  His "let's get real" Malick scale was for me what this Von Trier Nazi thing was for others.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on May 18, 2011, 10:20:32 PM
Quote from: Pubrick on May 18, 2011, 07:20:46 PMfirstly, JB's and stefen's initial reactions are as reactionary and tone deaf as the journalists who are writing he's a nazi.

Jeez, all I said is that I didn't think it was funny. I guess that's "reactionary."

After having watched it, though, I agree with your reaction completely...

It seems like he was just lazily playing around with the press (and the press conference format itself). Nothing more than that. All the Nazi stuff is so obviously insincere and sort of gently over the top... I have to believe the only thing fueling the hysteria is dishonest sensationalism, because I don't understand how any reporter could interpret this as something that genuinely deserves concerned attention. It's also interesting that none of the articles mention how many times he says "I'm sorry" and "I'm only joking" as he's delivering the lines.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: MacGuffin on May 18, 2011, 10:58:49 PM
CANNES: Lars Von Trier's Nazi Outburst Prompts Party Cancellation
BY MIKE FLEMING |Deadline

I flew home today from Cannes and am playing catch-up to Lars Von Trier's Nazi and pro-Hitler outburst at a press conference for his film Melancholia, which was capably chronicled by my colleague Pete Hammond. I'm told that a post-premiere party for Melancholia was canceled, which is probably appropriate because the provocateur left nobody in a mood for revelry and put a blot on what has been a fine festival so far. After watching yesterday's press conference with Jodie Foster, and the way she thoughtfully answered every question both in English and in French about her film The Beaver, I find it shocking that an experienced director like von Trier could be so graceless in his opportunity to introduce his film on a worldwide platform. It's inexcusable to be making flip comments about being a sympathizer of the Nazis and Hitler, seemingly oblivious to the memory of genocide that is the first thing most rational, decent people think of when those words are brought up. If there was a festival prize for Biggest Douchebag, von Trier wins, hands down. Despite a tepid apology issued through the festival that he "let himself be egged on by a provocation" (what the hell does that mean, anyway?), von Trier deserves all the lumps that will be coming to him.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: MacGuffin on May 18, 2011, 11:08:05 PM
Lars von Trier Apologizes For Controversial "Melancholia" Press Conference Comments
by Peter Kneg, indieWire

After this morning's press conference for "Melancholia" quickly caused a spread of controversy on the Croisette and across the internet, Lars von Trier has offered a brief apology via an official Cannes press release. The release notes that the festival was "disturbed" by Trier's comments, which included the following: "I thought I was a Jew for a long time and was happy being a Jew, Then later I found out that I wasn't a Jew. I really wanted to be, but found out I was really a Nazi because my family was German. I understand Hitler, but I definitely see some wrong things. I just think I understand the man. He's not what I call a good guy. I'm not for the Second World War. I'm for Jews, well maybe except for the Israelis -sometimes they're a problem..." Check out a complete rundown of the press conference here, and the full press release below, which simply states that Trier felt "he let himself be egged on by a provocation.":

The Festival de Cannes was disturbed about the statements made by Lars von Trier in his press conference this morning in Cannes. Therefore the Festival asked him to provide an explanation for his comments. The director states that he let himself be egged on by a provocation. He presents his apology. The direction of the Festival acknowledges this and is passing on Lars von Trier's apology. The Festival is adamant that it would never allow the event to become the forum for such pronouncements on such subjects.

UPDATE: U.S. distributor Magnolia Pictures also sent around a release, which included an extended statement from von Trier: In connection to the Melancholia conference this morning, Lars von Trier has the following statement: "If I have hurt someone this morning by the words I said at the press conference, I sincerely apologize. I am not antisemitic or racially prejudiced in any way, nor am I a nazi." -Lars von Trier.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: modage on May 18, 2011, 11:20:16 PM
Quote from: Merrill Errol Lehrl on May 18, 2011, 05:51:05 PM
So, are you more concerned about which will be the better movie and receive a better grade, or what your personal experience will be while watching the movies?  Like with Malick, I find curious the investments you make in other people's receptions and opinions, especially when expressed with surrogate authority.  That's the mindset of studio bigwigs, isn't it?  Relying on response cards.  Are you excited about what people will say about the movie, or what you yourself will think and feel while watching the movie?

I'm gauging the reactions of people I mostly trust and getting a general feel for what to expect when I see it. (Everybody does this, no?) These opinions wont end up affecting how I feel about it but can just help guide my expectations going in (as I'm sure like most people, I lowered them when reading/skimming the reviews). The only thing that really matters is how I feel watching it (duh). But judging from my past history with either director, I have a pretty good idea of where these films will probably fall. But again, we'll see.

Yes, the Malick scale was a little provocative but that was my personal preference and if you want to argue it, go ahead. Nobody else did.

Quote from: Merrill Errol Lehrl on May 18, 2011, 07:32:12 PM
His "let's get real" Malick scale was for me what this Von Trier Nazi thing was for others.

But that makes no sense.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Mr. Merrill Lehrl on May 19, 2011, 12:50:35 AM
Quote from: modage on May 18, 2011, 11:20:16 PM
Quote from: Merrill Errol Lehrl on May 18, 2011, 05:51:05 PM
So, are you more concerned about which will be the better movie and receive a better grade, or what your personal experience will be while watching the movies?  Like with Malick, I find curious the investments you make in other people's receptions and opinions, especially when expressed with surrogate authority.  That's the mindset of studio bigwigs, isn't it?  Relying on response cards.  Are you excited about what people will say about the movie, or what you yourself will think and feel while watching the movie?

I'm gauging the reactions of people I mostly trust and getting a general feel for what to expect when I see it. (Everybody does this, no?) These opinions wont end up affecting how I feel about it but can just help guide my expectations going in (as I'm sure like most people, I lowered them when reading/skimming the reviews). The only thing that really matters is how I feel watching it (duh). But judging from my past history with either director, I have a pretty good idea of where these films will probably fall. But again, we'll see.

I'm sorry that I was unable to decode all of this from your earlier post of:

Quote from: modage on May 18, 2011, 12:57:01 PM
The real story here is that the movie kinda sucks:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/archives/cannes_review_lars_von_trier_confronts_depression_head_on_in_grim_melanchol/

It's not outrageous that I thought you were saying the movie kinda sucks because one guy at The Playlist gave it a c.  There was also the "Ha, I'll wait for Haneke's movie" comment in reply to KarlJan's linked review, which I kind of thought was arrogant, and that your arrogance solely came from having read The Playlist review.  Lots of people are saying nice things about the movie, but I guess not your people, or something.

Quote from: modage on May 18, 2011, 11:20:16 PM
Quote from: Merrill Errol Lehrl on May 18, 2011, 07:32:12 PM
His "let's get real" Malick scale was for me what this Von Trier Nazi thing was for others.

But that makes no sense.

'Cause I thought you were nuts.  I don't think this was confusing.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Stefen on May 19, 2011, 01:39:45 AM
Quote from: Merrill Errol Lehrl on May 19, 2011, 12:50:35 AM
I'm sorry that I was unable to decode all of this from your earlier post of:

Quote from: modage on May 18, 2011, 12:57:01 PM
The real story here is that the movie kinda sucks:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/archives/cannes_review_lars_von_trier_confronts_depression_head_on_in_grim_melanchol/

It's not outrageous that I thought you were saying the movie kinda sucks because one guy at The Playlist gave it a c.  There was also the "Ha, I'll wait for Haneke's movie" comment in reply to KarlJan's linked review, which I kind of thought was arrogant, and that your arrogance solely came from having read The Playlist review.  Lots of people are saying nice things about the movie, but I guess not your people, or something

Quote from: Pubrick on April 26, 2011, 08:16:40 PM
Quote from: Stefen on March 12, 2011, 06:37:14 PM
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi368.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Foo130%2FDj-essen%2Fpopcorn.gif&hash=fdc04119b3a977e6e318da9b697fc49395e0c2f8)
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: P Heat on May 19, 2011, 02:30:00 AM
you can view the FULL video interview if you want of Lars in the cannes website. I just skipped to his REALLY odd remarks. LOL at kirsten Dunst and the others reactions.

I've only seen anti-christ  and dancer in the dark. I didn't really like neither. Why is this guy so high regarded apparently?
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: MacGuffin on May 19, 2011, 07:31:37 AM
CANNES: Lars Von Trier Declared 'Persona Non Grata' By Fest Organizers
BY MIKE FLEMING | Deadline

BREAKING: The Cannes Film Festival organizers are taking very seriously the comments made yesterday by director Lars Von Trier during the press conference to introduce his film Melancholia. While Deadline termed him Biggest Douchebag after he made a tepid apology and a party for the film was canceled, the festival, has gone further and labeled him "persona non grata" because of his inflammatory comments about the Nazis and Hitler. Meaning even provocateurs should watch the potentially hurtful things that come out of their mouths. Here's the festival announcement:

The Festival de Cannes provides artists from around the world with an exceptional forum to present their works and defend freedom of expression and creation. The Festival's Board of Directors, which held an extraordinary meeting this Thursday 19 May 2011, profoundly regrets that this forum has been used by Lars Von Trier to express comments that are unacceptable, intolerable, and contrary to the ideals of humanity and generosity that preside over the very existence of the Festival. The Board of Directors firmly condemns these comments and declares Lars Von Trier a persona non grata at the Festival de Cannes, with effect immediately.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: children with angels on May 19, 2011, 07:36:12 AM
Oh for fuck's sake...
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pwaybloe on May 19, 2011, 09:21:59 AM
Yeah, I read about this elsewhere.  If you read Trier's press conference, he's obviously kidding around. 
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: The Perineum Falcon on May 19, 2011, 09:32:04 AM
Painfully obvious he was joking the entire conference. This is my favorite response of his (and it doesn't involve Nazis!)

from Vulture (http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/05/the_10_most_controversial_thin.html):
On what he has coming up next: "I would like to talk about my next film, which is, Kirsten insisted, going to be a porn film. And we made this famous beaver shot [Admittedly, he could have said "River." We couldn't tell because of the accent] in the film where Kirsten was naked, and I said, 'It doesn't really fit the film,' and she said, 'I feel strongly for this.' And I said, 'Yeah, it's pretty good.' And now she wants more. And Charlotte is behind this. They want a really, really hard-core film. And I'm doing my best. I said, 'But then let's make a lot of talking in between. There should be a lot of dialogue.' And they said, 'We don't give a shit about dialogue. We just want to have a lot of very, very unpleasant sex.' And that's what I'm working on. And it's going to be about three or four hours long, and the only reason for that is that this press conference will be a little later."

I wonder how many people now believe he's working on an anti-semitic porno with Gainsbourg and Dunst??
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: wilder on May 19, 2011, 09:34:32 AM
The festival's reaction is retarded, and the hoopla building up around this is absurd and making me feel insane.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pubrick on May 19, 2011, 10:13:28 AM
Quote from: MacGuffin on May 18, 2011, 11:08:05 PM
Lars von Trier Apologizes For Controversial "Melancholia" Press Conference Comments
by Peter Kneg, indieWire

"... I'm for Jews, well maybe except for the Israelis -sometimes they're a problem..."

i just want to point out this blatant misquote and add it to the pile along with what JB highlighted (and i acknowledge you weren't been that reactionary in the same way as stefen, it just felt like your reaction was not entirely "getting it", as if to say you thought the joke was not funny and therefore since his defense was not very good he deserved more than just having no one laugh..).

why is NO ONE in the press talking sense? at the very least to point out their colleagues' inaccuracies. this idiot above changed Israel the political state to Israelis the people, and then MADE UP "they're a problem".. Von Trier NEVER SAID THAT. obviously the effect of the change is to hammer on the idea that he is indeed a nazi and hates Jews. this is more infuriating and offensive than anything von trier said!

no one of course is talking about his only sincere statement in his response, that he actually does admire Albert Speer.. the nazi architect, because this relates to the question he was asked and is all he should have said, and because the dude apologised at nuremberg and is kind of ok to like. speer seems to have got off easier than Von Trier after this ridiculous debacle.

edit: woohoo, top of the page twice in a row!
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pas on May 19, 2011, 10:25:12 AM
This incident makes me realize something.

We have heard the man and we have seen the quotes and they are two completely different things. I mean what Pubrick just exposed is scandalous.

How many times do you guess this happens? How many times are we told X guy said Y things when really it was Z.

Scary times we live in.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Sleepless on May 19, 2011, 10:55:05 AM
Remember when film journalists at film festivals used to write about films?
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Mr. Merrill Lehrl on May 19, 2011, 12:53:41 PM
I didn't know this and was surprised:

QuoteTwo films by young directors premiered in Un Certain Regard today: "Oslo, August 31st" by Joachim Trier (son of Lars von Trier), and "Loverboy" by Catalin Mitulescu
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: matt35mm on May 19, 2011, 01:35:09 PM
Joachim Trier and Lars von Trier are distant cousins, according to what I've read--not son and father.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Mr. Merrill Lehrl on May 19, 2011, 01:43:22 PM
Quote from: matt35mm on May 19, 2011, 01:35:09 PM
Joachim Trier and Lars von Trier are distant cousins, according to what I've read--not son and father.

According to Joachim himself in this interview:  http://www.phase9.tv/moviefeatures/repriseq&a-joachimtrier1.shtml

Thanks for spotting that.  I got it from here:  http://blogs.suntimes.com/scharres/2011/05/_another_much-anticipated_film_by.html#more
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: MacGuffin on May 19, 2011, 04:01:59 PM
Lars von Trier: 'I'm a Little Proud' of Cannes Ban (Cannes 2011)
After being ousted by the festival for remarks about Hitler and Nazis, the "Melancholia" director tells THR he's "no Mel Gibson."
Source: THR

CANNES –Lars von Trier has accepted his ban by the Cannes Film Festival but said he's no Mel Gibson. The Danish director was named persona non grata by the Cannes Festival after provocative remarks in a press conference for his Competition title Melancholia in which he called himself a Nazi and said he "sympathized a bit" with Hitler.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Von Trier said he was sorry for any damage his comments, which he says were meant as a joke and misunderstood, have done to the Cannes Festival's reputation. "It's a pity because (Jewish festival head) Gilles Jacob is a close personal friend of mine," Von Trier said. "What I said was completely stupid but I am absolutely no Mel Gibson ... What I meant was I could imagine what it was like for Hitler in the bunker, making plans. Not that I would do what Hitler did. But it's a pity if it means I will lose contact with Cannes." Von Trier pointed to his own background -his stepfather is Jewish and he grew up thinking he had Jewish roots –to indicate how ridiculous it would be to call him an anti-Semite. But Lars Von Trier wouldn't be the enfant terrible of the European cinema scene if he didn't spice his mea culpa with another zinger. "I have to say I'm a little proud of being named a persona non grata. I think my family would be proud," he quipped. "I have a French order. Now they will likely tear it off my chest." It is still unclear what Cannes ban, the first applied to a director in living memory, will mean for Von Trier. The director said he would not be allowed "within 100 meters" of the Festival Palais and red carpet, meaning he will not attend the Cannes awards ceremony on Sunday, but was not certain if his films would also be banned. "I hope not," Von Trier commented. "Because even if I was Hitler –and I must now state for the record I am not Hitler –but even if I was Hitler and I made a great film, Cannes should select it." It seems unlikely that Cannes will ban Von Trier's films. The Festival has kept Melancholia in Competition even as it has banned the controversial Danish director. But his comments, and the reaction to them, are certain to have long-lasting effects, both on the reception of Melancholia and Von Trier's career. Already the Argentine distributor of the film, citing Von Trier's comments, said it would not release Melancholia. The director himself admitted he may now have trouble "raising money or getting certain actors to work with me" because of the incident. Von Trier however played down the reaction of Melancholia stars Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg, who were sitting to either side of him at the press conference and seemed shocked by what he was saying. "I think Kirsten sees me as very European and crazy," he said. "But I don't think Charlotte was shocked. Her father (singer/songwriter Serge Gainsbourg) was known for being provocative. She said to me 'My father would have been proud of you.'" Von Trier said he has not yet talked to Martin Scorsese, with whom he is planning a collaborative documentary: The Five Obstructions: Scorsese vs Trier. Von Trier said he is confident the project, which Magnolia pre-bought for North America just hours before the controversial Melancholia press conference, will go ahead. "I haven't spoken to him yet but Martin is very open minded," Von Trier said. Trying to explain his press conference comments, Von Trier admitted that, in part, he was playing his old role as Cannes' agent provocateur. "It sounds strange but I don't like conflict. When I went into the press conference I felt like I should entertain people there," he said. "Everyone comes to see what crazy thing Lars is going to say. And then I started a sentence which I couldn't get out of. At the time I didn't think much about it. Everyone seemed to understand and they was laughter. It's only afterwards, when you read it: 'I sympathize with Hitler' that I thought 'oh boy.'"
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: wilder on May 19, 2011, 05:37:19 PM
Other filmmakers aren't going to take this shit seriously, but I don't think anyone wants to come to his aid at the moment for fear of becoming part of Kafka's Trial.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pas on May 19, 2011, 05:50:16 PM
Quote from: wilderesque on May 19, 2011, 05:37:19 PM
Other filmmakers aren't going to take this shit seriously, but I don't think anyone wants to come to his aid at the moment for fear of becoming part of Kafka's Trial.

very well put
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pubrick on May 19, 2011, 06:10:30 PM
Yeah especially after they already wasted their credibility defending Polanski.

Quote from: MacGuffin on May 19, 2011, 04:01:59 PMAlready the Argentine distributor of the film, citing Von Trier's comments, said it would not release Melancholia.

Come on kal, don't be like that!
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pas on May 19, 2011, 10:51:27 PM
Hqhahhaha it might be true! If it's Kal I flip
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: wilder on May 20, 2011, 12:42:25 PM
Beef Watch: Nicolas Winding Refn 'Repulsed' By Lars Von Trier! Von Trier Says 'Fuck Him'! Porno!
via The Playlist

Another day, another right turn to the ridiculously stupid fall-out from Lars Von Trier's "nazi" statements. Good old humorless reporters at Cannes loved raking noted provocateur Lars Von Trier over the coals for his joking "pro-Nazi" stance before the organization dubbed him persona non grata. The next step, of course, is the reaction from other filmmakers. This should be fun.

Reportedly, Nicolas Winding Refn, who debuted "Drive" on the Riviera recently, was "repulsed" by Von Trier's comments. What that means, we don't know. Maybe Refn actually said the words, "how repulsive." Maybe he shook his head and verbally denounced Von Trier in a more specific manner. Maybe he simply made a "repulsed" facial expression, which could suggest someone misinterpreted how the "Bronson" filmmaker holds in a fart. Whatever the case, Von Trier, who apparently goes way back with Refn, thinks very little of the guy's opinion.

When informed of Refn's repulsion in an interview, Von Trier told IndieWIRE, "I've known him since he was a kid! Fuck him." Refn is the son of Anders Refn, who edited "Breaking The Waves" and "Antichrist," so there's definitely a relationship there. While we wouldn't be surprised if Von Trier has made several professional enemies, we also wouldn't be surprised to one day see LVT and fellow Dane Refn arm in arm. In case you weren't aware of this, Von Trier says things off the cuff, and in Hollywood, people keep their friends close, but keep total fucking assholes closer.

It's a fascinating interview, which should be expected from Von Trier. Along with another prolonged, dry mea culpa for his Hitler comments (peppered with the sentiment that everyone reacted inappropriately - which is true), he reveals that Paul Thomas Anderson suggested Kirsten Dunst for "Melancholia," that his next film, "The Nymphomaniac," would be only a "softcore" pornographic affair (wimp!), and that he was deterred from adapting Wagner's "The Ring" because of Wagner's associations with... wait for it... Hitler. Oy vey!
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: socketlevel on May 20, 2011, 12:43:42 PM
Did i miss the link to the video? i can't find it, can someone help a brotha out?
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on May 20, 2011, 01:04:57 PM
See below:

Quote from: children with angels on May 18, 2011, 01:57:31 PM
Has everyone seen the video of the press conference? http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/mediaPlayer/11391.html

It's so clear that he was just trying to make a very dark and provocative point (of questionable merit) about sympathising with evil, realised he was making a hash of it, then tried to diffuse it with a joke about how he knew his words would be spun ("Okay, fine, yes: I'm a Nazi - that's how you're all going to write it up anyway..."). If you haven't already, it's worth checking out the video for Dunst's hilarious awkward reactions alone. The question that kicks it off comes at 34:30.

While the mics are still running after the the conference has ended you hear Dunst saying "Oh, Lars... That was intense." To which he replies, "Oh, come ooon..." I concur.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on May 20, 2011, 01:08:26 PM
Quote from: wilderesque on May 20, 2011, 12:42:25 PMWhen informed of Refn's repulsion in an interview, Von Trier told IndieWIRE, "I've known him since he was a kid! Fuck him."

Now that was funny.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Stefen on May 20, 2011, 01:16:06 PM
Quote from: wilderesque on May 20, 2011, 12:42:25 PM
Beef Watch: Nicolas Winding Refn 'Repulsed' By Lars Von Trier! Von Trier Says 'Fuck Him'! Porno!
via The Playlist

This whole article reads like something TMZ would do. Gross.  :doh:

This whole LVT thing has been blown way out of proportion. He basically bombed on stage and then got banned from everything for it. Just throw some tomatoes at his face, call him an idiot and move on.  :splat: :splat: :splat:
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: socketlevel on May 20, 2011, 02:16:58 PM
He clearly starting fucking with the reporter's stupid questions early, and he just got on a roll; sadly it seems to be something he doesn't know how to stop. Kind of like that kid that doesn't get too much attention, but then gets it and doesn't know when to end the joke because he's been longing for other people's attention and laughter. He needs attention because he needs love and acceptance.

It first started with the porn film he was talking about and poking fun at Christianity. This is something that could have been attacked as well, yet it's less sensitive a topic. There is an over protective attitude, which reinforces an age old taboo, when Jews are brought up in most conversations. It's this need to polarize that issue that he is attacking. Scattered in his joke about the Nazis you can see him bring up points of contention regarding Jewish history.  He's saying it in a way, intentionally, to try and get out of the answer by giving examples of how various Jewish people or governments have done bad things and doesn't make it all cut and dry.

It's like he goes "hey I'm a Nazi, oh wait no I'm not. I'm not because of... (insert topic). oh wait that's not a good reason to say I'm not a Nazi. it's actually because of this... (insert second topic). that's not good either!"

I found it hilarious and poignant. Evil people exist on all sides. Nazis were horrible, but some others could take advantage of sympathies that followed the 2nd world war to push their own hatred under the guise of other people's guilt. America did this many many times in the 60s riding the ethical superiority from the 2nd world war. the second time in Iraq was the implementation of a similar sentiment and tactic because of a contemporary tragedy.

In the same way it would not be appropriate to call contemporary German people Nazis, it's just as equally inappropriate to look over Israel's actions (more specifically some people in their government) because a stigma of innocence from what happened 70 years ago.  

I thought it was great, he's obviously fucking around. The reaction that followed is everything that's wrong with reporting and mob mentality.  Journalists looking to push agendas for the sake of a story. He's clearly not a Nazi, he just doesn't like how a journalist was baiting him because he might like some Nazi aesthetics. Aesthetics have nothing to do with hatred, they are rather the methods of conveying said hatred.  people need to separate those kind of things.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on May 20, 2011, 02:39:09 PM
I'm not sure the reporter was actually baiting him (didn't she say "Germanic?") and I don't think he was too upset. Otherwise, I agree with what you're saying. He did just kind of get lost in the whole thing, and although there's some undeniable cleverness in his performance, it would be a mistake to think this was a significantly purposeful statement. He was just playing around.

The lies and misrepresentation about this incident are beyond absurd. Don't journalists go to journalism school anymore? Did they actually watch the source material?

Possibly more disgraceful are the artists who have reached out to throw him under the bus. I doubt they've watched the video either.

And you're absolutely right about the Israel/Jewish issue. It's the most annoying political issue in the United States. The Israeli lobby (in lobbying for its own political/military ends, not for Jews) has made it seem like anti-Semitism is one of the most pressing issues in the world and that a new holocaust could be right around the corner. I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous, and it needs to stop.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pas on May 20, 2011, 02:53:46 PM
Quote from: Jeremy Blackman on May 20, 2011, 02:39:09 PM
a new holocaust could be right around the corner. I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous, and it needs to stop.

I will make a thousand ennemies here but...

It's not ridiculous at all, it's true. Put a H-Bomb/WMD in the hands of Syria/Hamas and wave Israel goodbye.

They have sworn this a thousand times.

People who hate Israel are anti-semitic and would likely (not 100%) be Nazis if we were in 1935. Especially since anti-isreal folks are often left-wing just like Hitler and Nazis (please don't say Hitler was a right-wing guy, there is not a single element in his politics supporting that lie. Because right-wing americans are often racists doesn't mean it's linked. That's like saying orange juice causes divorce because people who get divorced drink it.)

It's the only way to explain taking the side of ''tyrants who stone to death rape victims for being whores'' vs ''people who have democratic values like us''

I mean it takes a serious amount of self-righteousness to take the side of sharia lovers and then complain about woman equality in america. In the sharia you can divorce at will, you can beat the shit out of your wife, pour boiling oil on her face if you like.

Jews are so mean..........................
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on May 20, 2011, 02:58:50 PM
Wow...

Should we go down this rabbit hole?
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Stefen on May 20, 2011, 03:04:14 PM
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi634.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fuu67%2FJCampbell72%2FOwenStarskyHutchSignatureDoIt.jpg&hash=331bad58843713175807aab3c1a6cddd1812d014)

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.strangecosmos.com%2Fimages%2Fcontent%2F167278.gif&hash=9ac882eaf53fcac1372140e50e542bb285d6ce70)

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1219.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fdd426%2FDj_Y2k_Malone%2Fgeorge-eating-popcorn.gif&hash=be56cedfc8770fd04d079e01ff62e1dd2316e1b9)

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gifsoup.com%2Fwebroot%2Fanimatedgifs%2F926495_o.gif&hash=a6620e6aedd4c855af67ba4d6a79a0c71c95b7a1)

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sowal.com%2Fbb%2Fimages%2Fsmilies%2Fmichael-jackson-eating-popcorn.gif&hash=72cde7a304d0d9ace45910dea0779be94ef495fb)

Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pas on May 20, 2011, 03:05:41 PM
Quote from: Jeremy Blackman on May 20, 2011, 02:58:50 PM
Wow...

Should we go down this rabbit hole?

Haha throw it all at me ;)

I edited my earlier post a little btw... 17% more inflamatory now!
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: socketlevel on May 20, 2011, 03:36:04 PM
Quote from: Jeremy Blackman on May 20, 2011, 02:58:50 PM
Wow...

Should we go down this rabbit hole?

Nope cuz it's the opposite end of the spectrum we both agreed on. Pas you're just polarizing it the other way.

JB i think you might be right about the baiting issue, but maybe not. She did say Nazi near the end of her question. It's only baiting to me because it had nothing to do with the rest of the press conference. My guess is she asked that question to see how crazy his answer would be, especially considering his cannes press conference for ANTICHRIST. the TIFF conference was interesting as well, so i have a feeling all the journalists know this and it takes very little to get something good.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on May 20, 2011, 04:52:53 PM
Quote from: Pas on May 20, 2011, 02:53:46 PMpeople who have democratic values like us

I would recommend reevaluating Israel's "values." They hold democratic elections? Great, let's give them an award. So has Palestine, and so do many, many other countries in the world. And last time I checked, Sweden for example was not building settlements in Norway to try to expand its borders.

Quote from: Pas on May 20, 2011, 02:53:46 PMPeople who hate Israel are anti-semitic and would likely (not 100%) be Nazis if we were in 1935.

Haha, nice edit there, but honestly you really should have scrapped the sentence completely. You're sort of insulting the intelligence of anyone who reads that. I don't think it warrants a response (even after the edit), but I see what you're trying to do, so I'll bite.

"Jew" and "Israeli" are not synonymous, nor are "Jews" and "Israelis," nor are anti-Semitism and disagreeing with what Israel (the state) does. I sincerely hope the absurdity of what you've tried to do here is clear to you. If it's not, please log off for a day or two and come back when you're ready to have a rational conversation.

In review: you're comparing (A) people who might disagree with a country's political/military policies with (B) genocidal/muderous/racist Nazis. No. Just no.

Quote from: Pas on May 20, 2011, 02:53:46 PMplease don't say Hitler was a right-wing guy, there is not a single element in his politics supporting that lie

- Authoritarianism
- Imperialism
- Legitimacy through religion
- Militarism
- Eugenics
- Racism, Homophobia, etc.
- Racial segregation
- Social Darwinism
- Anti-Egalitarianism
- Corporatism
- Anti-Intellectualism

Quote from: Pas on May 20, 2011, 02:53:46 PMIt's not ridiculous at all, it's true. Put a H-Bomb/WMD in the hands of Syria/Hamas and wave Israel goodbye.

They have sworn this a thousand times.

Yes, I'm sure Hamas wants to detonate a nuclear weapon in their own backyard, in the country they want to inhabit. That makes sense.

Have you looked at what Hamas actually said at their most extreme? "We will not betray promises we made to God to continue the path of Jihad and resistance until the liberation of Palestine, all of Palestine." Liberation does not mean "blow the whole thing up." It means take the country for Palestine. Crazy? Yes. Holocaust? No.

Hamas and other groups are certainly political or military enemies of Israel. (Israel, making enemies? But how?) However, the connecting line between this and holocaust just doesn't exist.

The most important point here is that, again, you're trying to turn a political matter into a specifically racial one. Do you really think Palestinians are upset with Jews because of, what, how they look, or any number of stereotypes? Do Palestinians believe they are the Master Race? Does the Palestinian agenda involve seeking out Jews in other countries, just to kill them because they are racially Jewish?

Of course not. Your argument is complete garbage. Palestinians have a very specific territorial grievance, and bringing the holocaust anywhere near that is probably more offensive than anything the press thinks Lars Von Trier said.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pas on May 20, 2011, 05:58:12 PM
The ''likely to be Nazis'' was a semi-joke jab on my part, hehe. But what you write is also full of holes... I added examples beside each of your points to show it's left wing as much as right wing

Quote from: Jeremy Blackman on May 20, 2011, 04:52:53 PM
- Authoritarianism (Stalin? Pol Pot? Fidel Castro?)
- Imperialism (the Soviets did none of that of course...)
- Legitimacy through religion (Atheism is a form of religion in the way the soviets preached it)
- Militarism (Soviets?!!!)
- Eugenics (SOVIETS! Oh my good the Olympics back in the days)
- Racism, Homophobia, etc. (Pol Pot)
- Racial segregation (Pol Pot)
- Social Darwinism (Pol Pot, Soviets)
- Anti-Egalitarianism (''Everyone is equal but some are more equal than others'' soviet type thing)
- Corporatism (All corporations in Nazi Germany were puppets and/or completely dependant of the central state. All White Germany industrialists went broke if they didn't side with the State)
- Anti-Intellectualism (Hitler loved intellectuals and was arguably one himself)

What you listed are traits of craziness and anti-freedom type of personalities. They are found left and right. (mostly left but whatever)

Quote from: Jeremy Blackman on May 20, 2011, 04:52:53 PM
Yes, I'm sure Hamas wants to detonate a nuclear weapon in their own backyard, in the country they want to inhabit. That makes sense. Have you looked at what Hamas actually said at their most extreme? "We will not betray promises we made to God to continue the path of Jihad and resistance until the liberation of Palestine, all of Palestine." Liberation does not mean "blow the whole thing up." It means take the country for Palestine. Crazy? Yes. Holocaust? No. Hamas and other groups are certainly political or military enemies of Israel. (Israel, making enemies? But how?) However, the connecting line between this and holocaust just doesn't exist. The most important point here is that, again, you're trying to turn a political matter into a specifically racial one. Do you really think Palestinians are upset with Jews because of, what, how they look, or any number of stereotypes? Do Palestinians believe they are the Master Race? Does the Palestinian agenda involve seeking out Jews in other countries, just to kill them because they are racially Jewish?

Who uses their civilians as human shields and bait to make the enemy look bad? Which side promotes the beating and humiliation of women?

Palestine always play nice in front of occidentals and then in their local speeches they pledge the annihilation of Israel. This is not propaganda. To separate themselves from Hitler, they stopped calling Jews Jews and now call them Zionists. That is such a wonderful play on their part, bravo.

Their LAUGHABLE claim to that territory is also stupid. The territory was given to Israel, but before the first world war that territory was Ottoman Empire. If any side has any legitimate ancestral claim to that land it's the Jews, both I could agree that none of them have.

Basically I can't defend any country/nation/culture that promotes SHARIA law and that encourages people to beat their wife to a pulp when she speaks out of order.

Edit: I'm sure you're not like : ''well I for one love my women degraded! go Palestine go!'' but it's just a side fact that occidentals choose to ignore about Sharia followers.
edit2: I don't think you're a nazi i was kidding
edit3: I think you're good even if I don't agree with you (Putdown Pas!)
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on May 20, 2011, 06:52:49 PM
Quote from: Pas on May 20, 2011, 05:58:12 PMBut what you write is also full of holes... I added examples beside each of your points to show it's left wing as much as right wing

You know, I almost didn't respond to this part because I thought you might be baiting me into a completely unrelated semantic debate (which seems to be the case), and I'm truly not that interested in nailing anything down as "right" or "left," because of the very exceptions you named.

But notice that now you're responding to an argument I never made.

Your argument was "Nazis were not right-wing." My response was a list of traits most commonly associated with the right, which the Nazis shared. All your follow-up response does is show that some authoritarians who had left-wing economic policies were right-wing in every other regard. It's not even close to being black and white, left and right. The whole thing is pretty much pointless, and I have no idea why I played along.

Quote from: Pas on May 20, 2011, 05:58:12 PM- Corporatism (All corporations in Nazi Germany were puppets and/or completely dependant of the central state. All White Germany industrialists went broke if they didn't side with the State)

Yes, that is Corporatism.

Quote from: Pas on May 20, 2011, 05:58:12 PMTo separate themselves from Hitler, they stopped calling Jews Jews and now call them Zionists. That is such a wonderful play on their part, bravo.

"Zionist" is also a word. And it can be used, accurately, to describe people with a certain agenda. If anything, it's more accurate/respectful and stripped of racial implications. Really not sure what your point is there.

Quote from: Pas on May 20, 2011, 05:58:12 PMBasically I can't defend any country/nation/culture that promotes SHARIA law

So this is your logic?

1. [Group of people] has laws with which I disagree.
2. Whatever is happening to [group of people] is therefore acceptable, I dunno, in some cosmic way. They're savages; might as well treat them savagely.
3. [Group of people] may also be Nazis.

Quote from: Pas on May 20, 2011, 05:58:12 PMTheir LAUGHABLE claim to that territory is also stupid. The territory was given to Israel, but before the first world war that territory was Ottoman Empire. If any side has any legitimate ancestral claim to that land it's the Jews, both I could agree that none of them have.

The Ottoman Empire ruled Israel, but its occupants were mostly Arabs. It wasn't an empty country. And I'm not sure who had any right to "give" it to anyone other than its actual occupants. Right, so because we want our own state, let's suddenly correct a historical wrong from 1,379 years ago with another wrong? That makes sense.

It's 2011... what are we doing talking about "ancestral claims?" Do you know how many ancestral claims could be made? Should Native Americans, for example, lay claim to North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana, and drive out all the whites? Why not? That wasn't even close to 1,379 years ago; that land belonged to them much more recently. We could re-draw borders throughout most of the world. If ancestral claims are of this much importance, let's get to work.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pas on May 20, 2011, 09:14:14 PM
Sadly for stefen's popcorn eaters this can't be a good debate because we look at the same thing and see two completely different things. Corporatism is a great example of this as we both agree as to what it is, both think it's a great ennemy AND yet we can never fight it TOGETHER because what I think causes it you think cures it and vice versa.

Freaky yeah?
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: picolas on May 21, 2011, 12:31:52 AM
WHERE WERE ALL THESE REPORTERS WHEN THIS (http://youtu.be/yx-Q8aC9Zlg?t=20s) HAPPENED???? oh right, LAUGHING OUT OF SHEER TERROR. THEY DON'T HAVE THE GUTS TO REPORT THE REAL MONSTER OF CANNES. MORE LIKE BAN PITT.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: polkablues on May 21, 2011, 01:17:20 AM
More like Adolph Pittler, am I right?
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Sleepless on May 21, 2011, 11:24:38 AM
Bradolf Pittler. And his initials are BP. Maybe it is the end of the world.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: MacGuffin on May 24, 2011, 03:23:32 PM
Lars von Trier Responds to Iranian Culture Minister's Criticism of Cannes
by Peter Knegt: indieWIRE

Lars von Trier has released a response to a letter the Iranian Deputy Culture Minister for Cinematic Affairs Javad Shamaqdari released to Persian media outlets Monday that criticized the Cannes Film Festival's decision to declare the director "persona non grata", after his controversial press conference comments. "Surely you remember that the Cannes festival was established with the aim of struggling against fascists," Shamaqdari wrote in the letter. "After 64 years, it is sad to see the traces of fascist behavior in the Cannes organizers' decision to expel one of the acclaimed European filmmakers... Perhaps it is necessary to provide a new definition of freedom of speech for encyclopedias. Otherwise, the behavior Cannes exhibited toward Von Trier by forcing him to apologize several times causes everybody to recall the churches' medieval treatment of Galileo." Shamaqdari continued by noting that the Cannes Film Festival has "left a dark stain on its history." After issuing a brief apology during the festival, Shamaqdari's letter has resulted in a more extensive statement from von Trier, which was released to the media Tuesday:

In connection with the Iranian Vice Minister of Culture Javad Shamaqdari's letter to the Cannes Film Festival regarding the "Persona non grata" stamping of my personality, I feel called to make the following comment:

In my opinion, freedom of speech, in all its shapes, is part of the basic human rights. However, my comments during the festival's press conference were unintelligent, ambiguous and needlessly hurtful. My intended point was that the potential for extreme cruelty, or the opposite, lies within every human being, whatever nationality, ethnicity, rank or religion. If we only explain historical disasters with the cruelty of individuals we destroy the possibility of understanding the human mechanisms, which in turn are necessary in order to avoid any future crimes against humanity.

Lars von Trier
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Sleepless on May 24, 2011, 03:56:05 PM
oh for fuck's sake
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: socketlevel on May 24, 2011, 04:41:52 PM
that's a great response.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pas on May 24, 2011, 04:56:15 PM
Quote from: MacGuffin on May 24, 2011, 03:23:32 PM
My intended point was that the potential for extreme cruelty, or the opposite, lies within every human being

I guess I missed that fucking retarded point. I thought he was just speaking for him but now I reckon he was speaking for all of us. We're all nazis... I mean POTENTIAL nazis.

There is no potential inside of me that could make me throw children in microwave ovens or throw stones in people's face because I ''can''. Anyone who tries to impose that potential on me is probably trying to justify something in his mind... Anyone who makes the claim ''You don't understand! Everyone has the potential to do it'' well how the fuck do you know that?

In fact, history has proven time after time after time that there is a fringe of crazy people who sometimes are joined in craziness by otherwise less crazy people but in all cases there were others who stood up against atrocities. It would appear these people didn't have the ''potential for extreme cruelty''
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on May 24, 2011, 05:23:00 PM
I think the potential for cruelty is in everyone, but you're right that it's not so black and white that everyone is capable of murder.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: polkablues on May 24, 2011, 08:54:34 PM
Kirsten Dunst's reaction during the infamous remarks:
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi35.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fd179%2Fpolkablues%2FKirsten-dunst-cringe-gif.gif&hash=2c9d24f021601e457926d119fcdc89e8a824c2ca)

This strikes me as potentially a very useful gif.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Stefen on May 24, 2011, 08:59:40 PM
^oh that will soon become a xixax staple.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Mr. Merrill Lehrl on May 24, 2011, 09:22:45 PM
I like it when Hollywood actresses make ugly faces.  I mean I don't buy tabloids showcasing actresses in ugly moments, I'm just saying it's nice to see an unplanned and naturally imperfect reaction from someone usually so purposely perfected.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: 72teeth on May 25, 2011, 02:42:14 AM
RE: GIF-STEN DUNST

"Douche Chill..."             

That so is great! The range of emotions she shows within those 2 seconds completely justifies PTA's suggestion...

Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: RegularKarate on May 25, 2011, 10:50:06 AM
Can someone put that next to an animated gif of Mike Meyers when Kanye said "George Bush doesn't care about black people"?
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: socketlevel on May 25, 2011, 11:53:53 AM
Quote from: Pas on May 24, 2011, 04:56:15 PM
Quote from: MacGuffin on May 24, 2011, 03:23:32 PM
My intended point was that the potential for extreme cruelty, or the opposite, lies within every human being

I guess I missed that fucking retarded point. I thought he was just speaking for him but now I reckon he was speaking for all of us. We're all nazis... I mean POTENTIAL nazis.

There is no potential inside of me that could make me throw children in microwave ovens or throw stones in people's face because I ''can''. Anyone who tries to impose that potential on me is probably trying to justify something in his mind... Anyone who makes the claim ''You don't understand! Everyone has the potential to do it'' well how the fuck do you know that?

In fact, history has proven time after time after time that there is a fringe of crazy people who sometimes are joined in craziness by otherwise less crazy people but in all cases there were others who stood up against atrocities. It would appear these people didn't have the ''potential for extreme cruelty''

Pas I love you man, but in this thread you've been the most extreme out of anyone. I find this comment kind of ironic. weren't you the one talking about nukes?
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pas on May 25, 2011, 12:26:34 PM
I definitely have been the most extreme out of anyone at defending basic safety rights of women against the invasion of radical islam (sharia)  :ponder: I did talk about nukes: about being afraid Israel could be nuked!

Anyway, ask the coptic christians of egypt how it's like living with radical islamists as a minority (what most palestine-lovers wish israeli jews would do). Coptics are being slaughtered while the world praise the glorious arab spring.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: New Feeling on May 25, 2011, 12:51:55 PM
I'm no "palestine lover" but I do wish the Jews would've found a better place to settle like a nice empty south pacific island or something instead of the godforsaken middle-east, and I'm pretty sure they could afford to relocate any time. 
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: MacGuffin on September 08, 2011, 12:27:27 AM
Lars Von Trier Can't Stop Talking About Nazis; Isn't Sure 'The Five Obstructions' Will Happen
Source: Playlist

Before Lars Von Trier left Cannes this spring, banned from ever attending again due to his unfortunate comments during the "Melancholia" press conference, the director made waves for a much more positive reason. It was announced that he was teaming with Martin Scorsese to do another version of "The Five Obstructions" with reports indicating it would shoot in early 2012.

The 2003 original involved Von Trier challenging his mentor, filmmaker Jørgen Leth, to remake his 1967 picture "The Perfect Human," a favorite of the younger director, five times, with different conditions, or "obstructions" each time: in Cuba, with no shot lasting more than 12 frames' in "the worst place in the world" but without showing that place; in any way he chooses (as a punishment); as a cartoon; and in something of a twist, a version already made by Von Trier himself, but with narration from Leth. While there was no word what film Von Trier was going to pick out of Scorsese's extensive catalog the pairing alone caused cinephiles worldwide to go wild. However, in the wake of Von Trier's Nazi comments many speculated that Scorsese would balk at working with him and word around the project grew quiet. Well, Von Trier is now casting doubt on the film, noting that Scorsese is still involved but both their busy calendars could keep them from tackling "The Five Obstructions."

"Marty is busy and so am I, and I don't know if it will happen –I sincerely hope it will," Trier said at a Q&A during a retrospective of his films at Kino Babylon in Berlin (via THR). Bummer. But we'll keep our fingers crossed because we'd love to see Scorsese mix it up with Von Trier—it's a creative exercise that we think Marty would thrive on. But while Von Trier wants for that to play out, he's prepping his arthouse porno thingy "The Nymphomaniac" and seems to be getting off on the research.

"Nymphomaniac –I'm writing, and I'm having such a great time," he said. "I'm talking to all the ladies I knew when I was young, who are now 50 and 60, and if you take a woman of 50 or 60 who has been sexually active, they will talk for hours. And this is fantastic, it's a pleasure and I smile all the way, and that's why I want to extend the research time. You have no idea how dirty the female mind is!" Details still remain scant on the project, other than he's approach Stellan Skarsgard and Willem Dafoe for roles and that it will center on "the erotic life of a woman from the age of zero to the age of 50."

But being in Berlin didn't stop Lars from once again making some Nazi comments. "Some German journalists interviewed me, and I told them the French are the real Nazis, and they really liked that," he said. Sigh. But wait there's more. "There was a point to this whole thing. I think history shows that we are all Nazis somewhere, and there are a lot of things that can be suddenly set free, and the mechanics behind this setting-free is something we really should really investigate, and the way we do not investigate it is to make it a taboo to talk about it."

Von Trier needs to hire some handlers or something because he's just continually digging his own grave and mostly sounds like some pretentious college kid who thinks their post-modern, ironic cynicism allows them to get away with outlandish and/or infantile comments. We love you Lars, but enough.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pubrick on September 08, 2011, 04:42:15 AM
Quote from: MacGuffin on September 08, 2011, 12:27:27 AM
Von Trier needs to hire some handlers or something because he's just continually digging his own grave and mostly sounds like some pretentious college kid who thinks their post-modern, ironic cynicism allows them to get away with outlandish and/or infantile comments. We love you Lars, but enough.

Right back atcha, playlist.

Also, old man Scorsese wanting nothing to do with Von Trier by saying he has other things scheduled is like when Barry Lyndon beats up Bullingdon and then old man oldmate wants nothing to do with him and keeps saying he has other plans..

Stellan Skarsgard is Lady Lyndon and Willem Defoe is Barry's mother. The playlist is who the narrator refers to when he says "a legend arose about Barry's cruelty to his son".. they're the gossiping she-dogs of the time.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Stefen on September 08, 2011, 04:48:44 AM
Lars Von Trier probably wants to dress like Barry Lyndon.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: MacGuffin on September 21, 2011, 06:46:44 PM
Lars von Trier Takes Back Apology for Nazi Statements
The "Melancholia" director says he is "not sorry" after all for his comments made earlier this year at a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival.
Source: THR

Director Lars von Trier came under fire earlier this year when he made remarks sympathizing with Adolf Hitler during a Melancholia press conference at the Cannes Film Festival. Von Trier apologized shortly after he made the statements, but was eventually banned from the festival.

The director is now taking back his apology, by saying he was "not sorry" about the statements after all.

The Danish director believes there is no such thing as the "right or wrong thing to say." "I think that anything can be said. That is very much me. The same with film --anything can be done in a film. If it can be thought in the human mind, then it could be said and it could be seen on a film," he told GQ. "Of course you get troubles for it afterwards, that's for sure, but that doesn't make it wrong. To say I'm sorry for what I said is to say I'm sorry for what kind of a person I am, I'm sorry for my morals and that would destroy me as a person."

He continued, "It's not true. I'm not sorry. I am not sorry for what I said. I'm sorry that it didn't come out more clearly. I'm not sorry that I made a joke, but I'm sorry that I didn't make it clear that it was a joke. But I can't be sorry for what I said --it's against my nature."

Von Trier noted in the GQ interview that there was one exception to the rule. "I'm sorry when I was a child I had a little bird that I fed, and I was so young I forgot it when I was on holiday, and then it was dead when I came home. That I was sorry for," he said.

In May, von Trier admitted to being a Naxi and understanding Hitler. "For a long time I thought I was a Jew and I was happy to be a Jew," he began, "then I met (Danish and Jewish director) Susanne Bier and I wasn't so happy. But then I found out I was actually a Nazi. My family were German. And that also gave me some pleasure. What can I say? I understand Hitler...I sympathize with him a bit." He also said, "Now how can I get out of this sentence? Ok. I'm a Nazi."

The festival officially declared von Trier a persona non grata after the director made those remarks. He apologized for the remarks, claiming that he was provoked by journalists.

Von Trier issued a statement following his ban and in response to a letter that was written to the film festival saying that Cannes "had smirched its history by expelling the director." Von Trier said, "In my opinion, freedom of speech, in all its shapes, is part of the basic human rights. However, my comments during the festival's press conference were unintelligent, ambiguous and needlessly hurtful."
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on September 21, 2011, 07:50:01 PM
This makes me happy, actually.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: MacGuffin on October 05, 2011, 09:14:26 PM
Lars Von Trier Questioned by Police Over Cannes Statements
The Danish filmmaker announced that he will refrain from doing any future interviews.

Danish filmmaker Lars Von Trier announced that he had been questioned by the police in Denmark over the controversial comments he made during Cannes 2011.

"Today at 2 p.m. I was questioned by the Police of North Zealand in connection with charges made by the prosecution of Grasse in France from August 2011 regarding a possible violation of prohibition in French law against justification of war crimes," he wrote in a statement.

"Due to these serious accusations I have realized that I do not possess the skills to express myself unequivocally and I have therefore decided from this day forth to refrain from all public statements and interviews," the Melancholia filmmaker continued.

At the Melancholia press conference at Cannes, Von Trier made a shocking statement when asked about his Germanic roots.

"For a long time I thought I was a Jew and I was happy to be a Jew," he began, "then I met (Danish and Jewish director) Susanne Bier and I wasn't so happy. But then I found out I was actually a Nazi. My family were German. And that also gave me some pleasure. What can I say? I understand Hitler...I sympathize with him a bit."

Von Trier qualified that "I don't mean I'm in favor of World War II and I'm not against Jews, not even Susanne Bier" before digging himself deeper. "In fact I'm very much in favor of them. All Jews. Well, Israel is a pain in the ass but..."

Von Trier apologized shortly after he made the statements, but was eventually banned from the festival. He later took back his apology.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on October 05, 2011, 09:37:35 PM
Seriously?
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pubrick on October 06, 2011, 01:59:36 AM
this is why all the greatest directors stayed away from the blood sucking media.

pta will probably face this bullshit when the master comes out and they keep going on about scientology.

you heard it here first.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: ©brad on October 06, 2011, 09:27:21 AM
Am I the only one who found his comments kind of hysterical? 
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Robyn on October 23, 2011, 05:21:55 AM
Have anyone here listen to the audio commentary for his films? Is it worth it?

Also, my favorite Von Trier films (because I'm a nerd and Trier is one of my new favorite directors):

1. Dancer in the Dark
2. Antichrist
3. Dogville
4. Breaking the Waves
5. The Kingdom
6. Manderlay
7. Europa
8. The Element of Crime

He needs a Xixax subforum :(
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: MacGuffin on October 23, 2011, 08:50:55 AM
Quote from: KarlJan on October 23, 2011, 05:21:55 AM
He needs a Xixax subforum :(

We tried that. It got less views than The Playboy Club.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: analogzombie on November 05, 2011, 07:23:03 AM
What's funny about the Cannes "Nazi" comment is when you watch the interview it is totally clear that he is joking. He says something so absurd that he assumes no one is taking it seriously, but in the middle of it he seems to think better of it. There is a similar exchange between him and a reporter from the Daily Mail UK at the Cannes press conference for Antichrist that can be seen on the Criterion DVD. The reporter asks him to justify the making of the film to which Von Trier says he doesn't have to and is then lambasted about how this is Cannes and he absolutely does have to.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on March 29, 2012, 10:27:31 PM
I split NYMPH()MANIAC into its own thread:

http://xixax.com/index.php?topic=12134
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Robyn on August 01, 2012, 08:01:37 AM
Okay, fuck it. Is there anyone here that have ANY Lars von Trier script to send me? I mean, any script at all. It feels like I've tried everything. I even called Zentropa and asked if I could read any of his script somewhere. Their response was that you could buy some of his script (I think that they released Breaking the Waves and you can get the Dancer in the Dark script if you buy some expensive korean Dancer in the Dark box) and in some cases, read them on internet "If some fucker have uploaded it". But where the hell should I look? I have realized that it is really difficult to find any of his scripts and it's starting to annoy me! I want to read any of his script soooo bad.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: MacGuffin on August 13, 2012, 02:57:10 PM
Lars Von Trier Wants You! Invites World To Submit Films Inspired By Albert Speer, Sammy Davis Jr.
By Movieline

Leave it to Lars von Trier to find a connection between Nazi architect Albert Speer and Rat Pack singer Sammy Davis Jr.  The controversy-courting Danish filmmaker has invited the public to reintrepret one or more of six great works of art for a community film project that will be unveiled at the Copenhagen Art Festival.

The project is being called Gesamt, which translates to "coming together" or "a joint piece of work," said director Jenle Hallund, who has the nerve-wracking challenge of creating a cohesive film from fragments of the submissions under some very tight time constraints.  The deadline for submissions is Sept. 6, and the finished film is slated to debuty Oct.12, 2012 at Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen.

Hallund, who was a script supervisor on Von Trier's Melancholia as well as the co-director Limboland  (2010)  told us Gesamt has the potential to "be a testimony to the health and the soul of civilization. It should show how ordinary people appreciate and interpret big art," she says.

Make that big art that stirs the soul of Von Trier. Participants must base their submissions one or more of six different works of art, and Hallund said that the chosen few "are all pieces of art that [Von Trier] likes."

According to the announcement of the project — which was modestly titled "Lars Von Trier Challenges The People" — by the Danish Agency for Culture, prospective entrants must use as their muse(s):  James Joyce's Ulysses, "which once was banned in the United States because it was seen as obscene and lewd"; August Strindberg's play The Father, "which still stands as a striking example of a dysfunctional family"; Paul Gaugin's painting Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? French composer César Franck's improvisations; or the music of the late Sammy Davis Jr., "who stepped himself into the hearts of people through song."

Also included among is the Zeppelin Field grandstand in Nuremberg, Germany that Hitler's main architect Albert Speer created.

The choice is sure to generate debate given comments Von Trier made during a press conference at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, when he said: "I understand Hitler, but I think he did some wrong things, yes, absolutely. ... He's not what you would call a good guy, but I understand much about him, and I sympathize with him a little bit. But come on, I'm not for the Second World War, and I'm not against Jews."

When I asked Hallund if Von Trier, who likes to stir the pot, was referencing the Cannes controversy by including Speer, she replied: "I can't speak on his behalf, but if you look at some of Speers' art, it is phenomenal, and I would say that it is possible to appreciate his art independent of the ideology" to which it was attached during the reign of Hitler.

"All art can be used toward elitism and propaganda," Hallund continued, adding, "a lot of religious art has been used for that. Some people will say that the Bible and the Koran are works of art, but they have also been used toward mass murder and genocide and repression on the planet."

"We can't just close our eyes and say we can never talk about Albert Speers or Nazism," Hallund concluded. "We make ourselves more prone to repeat the past by ignoring it.

Gesamt producer Nadia Claudi told me that six submissions have already been received. One arrived from Germany, she said, and the rest are from Denmark. All but one of the submissions are filmed, and Speers right now is leading the subject matter by a thin margin: Two submissions are based on his work at Zeppelin Field; one deals with Joyce, and another, with Gaugin. She said that one entry takes on all six subjects, while the content of another submission is a bit inconclusive.

The deadline for entries is Sept. 6.  Everything you need to know about submitting your work can be found at this link. (http://www.gesamt.org/uk/?section=submit-your-film)

"I just hope that  people will be very free in their interpretations of this and show us what they have in their hearts," Hallund said.  "And I would love to hear from Americans."
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Pubrick on August 13, 2012, 09:14:09 PM
Only six submissions?

Quick someone send him a severed hand curled into a fist but with the middle finger missing.

Has that been done? I'm sure that would win.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: 72teeth on August 14, 2012, 12:21:50 PM
easy there Luka...

i sent him feces
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Cloudy on March 16, 2013, 12:28:16 AM
Has anyone read a Von Trier script? Is there any way I can get my hands on one? Searched with no avail.
(*Edit: found Breaking the Waves screenplay on amazon, still looking for Antichrist/Melancholia)

Found this through my digging, it shows IN DETAIL the plannings/iterations of the prologue to Melancholia:

Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: wilder on May 13, 2014, 12:38:11 PM
Lars Von Trier Writing Detroit-Set Horror Movie Plus Watch 7-Minute Featurette About Restoration Of His Early Films
via The Playlist

According to Danish filmmaker Kristian Levring (whose "The Salvation" starring Mads Mikkelsen is premiering at Cannes), who worked as a script consultant on "Antichrist," von Trier is going horror. "I've always thought that Lars would be able to do a fantastic horror movie," he told Soundvenue (via Indiewire). "And I've told him so many times throughout the years, and in the end he said: 'I want you to stop talking about it, so I'll write it for you instead.' "

"It takes place in Detroit, and then there is the wordplay between Detroit and 'destroyed,' " Levring added, noting that von Trier has started writing the script. "It's about a man fighting his inner demons. That doesn't tell that much, but that's because we haven't gotten any further so far." He added "....it's real horror. Of course, there is a psychological aspect, but it's a real horror movie. That's what we're aiming for, at least."

So yes, that sounds pretty promising even if it's all in very early stages (the working title is "Detroit" which is likely to change). Of course, von Trier has gone down the path of the supernatural before, most notably with the Danish series "The Kingdom." But don't get too excited about von Trier shooting the movie in America. Even though he has set previous films like "Dogville" and "Manderlay" between U.S. borders, the director's fear of flying will likely find him using a workaround for whatever he's cooking up (though if there's anyone we'd love anyone to shoot the decaying city on location, it would be von Trier).

And speaking of "The Kingdom," it's one of a handful of early works by von Trier that are getting digitally restored. Production company Zentropa has released a seven-minute featurette diving into the lengthy process of scanning the original film strips and re-editing the movies from scratch in order to preserve the director's projects (trivia: "The Kingdom" was recorded on DigiBeta, a now defunct format). Check out the video below and pray those folks doing the work get upgraded to an office with windows.

Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: MacGuffin on May 19, 2014, 02:32:27 PM
Lars von Trier to Direct an Action Film?
Source: IndieWire

With Danish director Kristian Levering stating last week that fellow Dane Lars von Trier is writing a Detroit-set horror film for Levering to direct, more and more hints are being dropped about the filmmaker's other upcoming projects. After a brief, non-speaking appearance at the Berlin Film Festival's "Nymphomaniac" press conference, its director von Trier has vowed not to discuss his plans with the media, and has actually stuck with his word.

Veteran producer Peter Aalbaek Jensen recently told Screen Daily that von Trier is planning on moving into yet another genre: action. With brief flashes of action in his horror and disaster in previous efforts such as "The Kingdom," "Antichrist" and "Melancholia," it seems somehow fitting that the famed auteur would move full throttle into the action genre.

Lars von Trier's films have always flirted on the fringes or morphed genre, most clearly in "Melancholia," which actually divides itself into two parts to justify the jump from melodrama to apocalypse. Jensen said of the director's intentions, "He is talking about making a Trier version of an action movie." At this point, it can only be speculated about what exactly he would do with a "Trier version of an action movie," but be prepared, as always, for his distinctive flavor.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Axolotl on September 01, 2014, 09:36:58 AM
Doing tv again (http://deadline.com/2014/09/venice-lars-von-trier-to-make-english-language-tv-series-827453/).
English language, shooting in 2016.

Called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=This_Is_the_House_That_Jack_Built#Lyrics">The House that Jack Built</a>
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: jenkins on November 29, 2014, 02:03:25 PM
Sober von Trier fears he's finished
After three years of silence, Lars von Trier has finally decided to go back on record to say that almost all of his films have been written on a high of alcohol and drugs. Now sober, the director doubts that he can create anything of value.
...
The manuscript for his 'Dogville' film was written during a 12-day high. His latest film 'Nymphomaniac' is the only one that has been written while sober – and it took him 18 months.

http://politiken.dk/kultur/filmogtv/ECE2469149/sober-von-trier-fears-hes-finished/
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Tictacbk on November 30, 2014, 01:28:14 PM
Lars Von Trier says a lot of stupid shit.  This falls into that category.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: jenkins on November 30, 2014, 01:43:29 PM
his tendency to be self-critical in an exaggerated way is similar to this clickhole article (http://www.clickhole.com/blogpost/and-if-self-effacing-blog-post-highlights-my-appea-1470) and i continue to relate to him as a human being on a quest of like personal understanding thinger
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Robyn on September 29, 2017, 03:56:49 PM



This is my favorite youtube clip so I thought i'd translate it:
"This installation stands here and reminds me of Bergman and his cock. His cock was a big problem to him because he was always horny like hell. And he was aging as well. So we can only assume that this very old Bergman sat somewhere and jerked off like a lunatic... at Fårö, in his monastery, in his amazing library and in his damn cinema. In the midst of the Swedish cultural heritage, with all his power, this old idiot sat somewhere and masturbated like crazy. He said it himself, that it was hard to get old and still be as horny. Then I cannot imagine that he didn't jerked off. It is completely impossible to imagine... But maybe we shouldn't emphasize this on a television program about Bergman. But Bergman himself thought it was important. Maybe he had a very small seminal vesicle, which meant that he had to wait several days to get enough sperm to get a ejaculation that was noticeable, the poor old man...
*Silence*
...but he meant a lot to me, the dumb idiot."

Quote from: Tictacbk on November 30, 2014, 01:28:14 PM
Lars Von Trier says a lot of stupid shit.  This falls into that category.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on October 17, 2017, 11:56:35 AM
Quote from: Björki am inspired by the women everywhere who are speaking up online to tell about my experience with a danish director . because i come from a country that is one of the worlds place closest to equality between the sexes and at the time i came from position of strength in the music world with hard earned independence , it was extremely clear to me when i walked into the actresses profession that my humiliation and role as a lesser sexually harassed being was the norm and set in stone with the director and a staff of dozens who enabled it and encouraged it . i became aware of that it is a universal thing that a director can touch and harass his actresses at will and the institution of film allows it . when i turned the director down repeatedly he sulked and punished me and created for his team an impressive net of illusion where i was framed as the difficult one . because of my strength , my great team and because i had nothing to loose having no ambitions in the acting world , i walked away from it and recovered in a years time . i am worried though that other actresses working with the same man did not . the director was fully aware of this game and i am sure of that the film he made after was based on his experiences with me . because i was the first one that stood up to him and didn't let him get away with it

and in my opinion he had a more fair and meaningful relationship with his actresses after my confrontation so there is hope

let's hope this statement supports the actresses and actors all over

let's stop this

there is a wave of change in the world

kindness

björk



Jeremy Blackman [15|Oct 01:24 PM]:   "Björk also states that she's 'sure' that the film that the director made next 'was based on his experiences with me'"
Jeremy Blackman [15|Oct 01:24 PM]:   That would be Dogville
Jeremy Blackman [15|Oct 01:25 PM]:   Which *spoiler* includes a lot of sexual harassment and assault

Drenk [15|Oct 02:29 PM]:   I think it will change a little bit for the better.
Drenk [15|Oct 02:30 PM]:   Less impunity.
Drenk [15|Oct 02:32 PM]:   Then men in power think they can do everything they want. And misoginy won't go.
Reelist [15|Oct 02:33 PM]:   Before things get better, Woody Allen needs to die
Drenk [15|Oct 02:38 PM]:   The thing is, having read articles about it, I know he hasn't been judged seriously, but I can't say I absolutely believed he raped his step-daughter.
Drenk [15|Oct 02:39 PM]:   I know Dylan Farrow says so. But adults thinking they have been raped in their childhood, fabricating the memory, is a thing.
Drenk [15|Oct 02:40 PM]:   I'm not defending Allen. I just don't know.
Drenk [15|Oct 02:42 PM]:   I don't even think it's about believing everyone. Victims should feel free to talk and should be taken seriously. But they can't talk because they risk their work/aren't taken seriously.
Reelist [15|Oct 06:42 PM]:   That's the real shift that's been happening, because Harvey Weinstein's victims were such high profile people
Drenk [15|Oct 06:45 PM]:   Yes, but Harvey Weinstein was such an extreme version of what is happening almost everywhere...and even *that* lasted for years...Even if victims will feel like people are on their side now, I think it won't cause a seismic change.
Drenk [15|Oct 06:46 PM]:   About it, I read a lot about the "crisis in masculinity". It's a real issue. I mean, Trump hasn't only been elected because people are racist.
Drenk [15|Oct 07:05 PM]:   Of course, it's not surprising that Donald Trump was very happy to brag about sexual harassment. On tape.
Drenk [15|Oct 07:06 PM]:   I remember watching him a few days before the election. He looked exhausted. And I thought: "Yeah. What's the point. It's the end. He's lost."
Drenk [15|Oct 07:06 PM]:   Well. He didn't.
Drenk [15|Oct 07:07 PM]:   It's still hard to believe that it happened. Something that I thought could definitely not happened.
Drenk [15|Oct 07:07 PM]:   Something insane.
Drenk [15|Oct 07:07 PM]:   It probably will never make sense.
Lottery [15|Oct 08:22 PM]:   That shit will puzzle me forever. Says more about his voters than anything, really. So perhaps it's not that puzzling, they're just shit people.

KJ [15|Oct 09:29 PM]:   that björk post freaks me out. trier is my favorite director after pta, and I have idolized him and watched his films over and over. so it definitely feels weird and unexpected to read that post. I don't know how to react.
KJ [15|Oct 10:47 PM]:   I will follow the news about it, because it should become a huge deal here in sweden and danmark. it's just so fucking weird. I always thought he seemed like a nice guy beneath the media act.
KJ [15|Oct 10:51 PM]:   I understand why björk didn't continued acting after that experience. she has always been framed to be the one that was hard to work with in documentaries and articles about the filming. that must have been horrible.

Drenk [16|Oct 09:27 AM]:   I'm not surprised by LVT. An alcoholic in a position of power...

Drenk [17|Oct 08:49 AM]:   Bjork details what LVT did in a new fb post


Quote from: Björkin the spirit of #metoo i would like to lend women around the world a hand with a more detailed description of my experience with a danish director . it feels extremely difficult to come out with something of this nature into the public , especially when immediately ridiculed by offenders . i fully sympathise with everyone who hesitates , even for years . but i feel it is the right time especially now when it could make a change . here comes a list of the encounters that i think count as sexual harassment :

1 after each take the director ran up to me and wrapped his arms around me for a long time in front of all crew or alone and stroked me sometimes for minutes against my wishes

2 when after 2 months of this i said he had to stop the touching , he exploded and broke a chair in front of everyone on set . like someone who has always been allowed to fondle his actresses . then we all got sent home .

3 during the whole filming process there were constant awkward paralysing unwanted whispered sexual offers from him with graphic descriptions , sometimes with his wife standing next to us .

4 while filming in sweden , he threatened to climb from his room´s balcony over to mine in the middle of the night with a clear sexual intention , while his wife was in the room next door . i escaped to my friends room . this was what finally woke me up to the severity of all this and made me stand my ground

5 fabricated stories in the press about me being difficult by his producer . this matches beautifully the weinstein methods and bullying . i have never eaten a shirt . not sure that is even possible .

6 i didnt comply or agree on being sexually harassed . that was then portrayed as me being difficult . if being difficult is standing up to being treated like that , i´ll own it .

hope

let´s break this curse

warmth

björk
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on October 17, 2017, 12:28:54 PM
^ See above.

I guess I'm not totally surprised that Lars is/was such a creep. That doesn't make this less sad and disturbing, though. It feels especially horrible that Björk was his target. She and her work has meant a lot to me over the years, nearly as much as LVT's.

At the risk of viewing this through rose-colored glasses, I'm thinking about this part:

Quotethe director was fully aware of this game and i am sure of that the film he made after [Dogville] was based on his experiences with me . because i was the first one that stood up to him and didn't let him get away with it

and in my opinion he had a more fair and meaningful relationship with his actresses after my confrontation so there is hope

Dogville is the most hard-hitting, nuanced, empathy-producing film about sexual harassment and assault that I've ever seen. Is it possible that Lars was wrestling with his own horribleness and ended up self-loathing his way through that film?

It's like he wanted to view himself as Tom Edison, who had desires but believed he was noble. But Lars was actually more like Jack (the blind man). And of course Dogville is ultimately just as stinging in its indictment of Tom Edison. Dogville, by the end, is absolutely full of terrifying predatory men. That's basically the whole point of the movie.

I'm also reminded of Stellan Skarsgard in Nymphomaniac. That character seems like a caretaker but turns out to be a predator, which is such an ultimate betrayal. In the same way, a film director is supposed to take care of you and make you feel comfortable. When they turn out to be a predator, I can only imagine how that would feel seeing your safety net disappear, and you're in the hands of someone who just wants to use you.

Dogville and Antichrist are deeply feminist movies. Even Melancholia is feminist. (The men in that film are entitled, whiny, and completely useless.) And I keep thinking back to Bjork describing how strongly she pushed back against Lars and how she confronted him. I genuinely wonder how responsible she is for the creative trajectory of his career.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Robyn on May 01, 2018, 07:47:25 PM
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Alethia on May 09, 2018, 10:06:12 PM
https://www.screendaily.com/news/lars-von-triers-the-house-that-jack-built-heading-to-spain-new-image-revealed-exclusive/5128999.article (https://www.screendaily.com/news/lars-von-triers-the-house-that-jack-built-heading-to-spain-new-image-revealed-exclusive/5128999.article)
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Alethia on May 15, 2018, 09:45:33 PM
Lars von Trier's Library of Pleasurable Things

https://uniavisen.dk/en/lars-von-triers-library-of-pleasurable-things/
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Alethia on December 03, 2018, 12:42:11 PM
Lars von Trier on filmmaking and fear: 'Sometimes, alcohol is the only thing that will help'

His new film, the typically shocking The House That Jack Built, is supposed to be the director's big comeback. But his demons seem to have the upper hand

Lars von Trier has a new film coming out and, no surprise, it is a full-blown assault on the senses. The House That Jack Built casts Matt Dillon, that 80s beefcake, as a smirking psychopath who views his killings as performance art and his grisly trophies as stand-alone installations. Jack kills without remorse, and seemingly without consequence, merrily bouncing from one atrocity to the next. There is a mass shooting in a sunlit meadow, sexual violence inside a cramped apartment and a scene in which a small boy cuts the legs off a duck. Von Trier's story is intentionally brutal; it dares you to stick with it. But the shock of watching the film is nothing compared with the shock of meeting its maker.

It is perhaps the fate of all enfants terribles to eventually slip up and be trampled – either by their own demons or by the weight of public opinion. But Von Trier has fallen harder than most and been steamrollered more thoroughly. For years, like his character Jack, the Danish director rolled the dice and rode his luck. He was the impish scourge of bourgeois sensibilities, a gleeful chronicler of so much human cruelty. Now he is physically spent and emotionally shot. His tussle with alcohol and depression has taken its toll. He believes his ill-starred 13th feature will be his movie swan song. "When I saw it on screen, I felt that very strongly," he says. "It looked to me like some kind of last testament."

We speak in May at a big, rented property in the suburbs of Cannes, Von Trier's gated retreat from the festival fray. On the face of it, the place offers a serene haven. The director's production staff are quietly tucking into their breakfast; David Bowie's Heroes is playing at a discreet volume. But outside, the swimming pool pump has become detached from its moorings. It rears its head, like a snake, to spray water at the windows. The publicist thinks the machine has probably eaten some leaves and is puking them up. She shouts: "Keep away from the pool! The pump's gone insane!"

The director is sitting at a table behind a door marked "Private", specs perched on his nose. The word "FUCK" is tattooed across his knuckles. His hands are shaking and his speech is laboured; he keeps losing his thread. Von Trier explains that the tremors are caused by antidepressants, although they may also be caused by alcohol withdrawal. He is largely sober these days, but recently fell off the wagon. "It's hard to be in Cannes and not drink," he says.

Cannes, for better or worse, runs clean through the director, like lettering through a stick of rock. It has been the scene of his greatest victories and his worst defeat; his Agincourt and his Waterloo. He won the Palme d'Or for Dancer in the Dark, and sent the festival into uproar with the scandalous Antichrist. Then, in 2011, came an infamous press conference in which he airily joked about sympathising with Hitler. He was expelled by the organisers and subsequently investigated by the Danish police. Many saw this humiliation as the man's just deserts. "The thing about Lars is that he always plays this game of teasing the grownups, pushing the boundaries," his friend and fellow director Thomas Vinterberg told me afterwards. "And nobody ever said no to him until that day. He found his wall and it was right in front of him in Cannes, which I thought was beautiful. You couldn't have written it better."

Von Trier begs to differ. The furore was horrible; it marks him to this day. "It was really tough," he says. "Because I was persona non grata for seven years, and I was also threatened with five years in jail in Marseille, which, I think, neither you nor I would benefit very much from."

He didn't seriously believe he was going to prison, did he? "Well, I'm easily scared. I'm sure that if two officers from your local police force turned up at your door, telling you how you were going to be handcuffed and taken to a cell, then you'd be scared, too. So it was a really hard punishment." He gives a mirthless laugh. "I mean I never thought they would have me killed. But, yeah, it was painful."

The House That Jack Built is meant to be his triumphant Cannes comeback, heralding the return of the prodigal son. Instead, it becomes more akin to a public flogging. I think the film is tremendous: a baroque provocation, ironised and stylised in every aspect apart from its violence, which it shows as gut-wrenching and horrific, resolutely unglamorised. But most others disagree. Von Trier's picture is described as vile, vomitous and vacuous. It prompts more than 100 walkouts at the morning screening. The director insists that the official premiere was better. He says: "The audience was kind to me, which was touching. When you get older, you get more touched by these things."

He gropes for his water glass as if lifting heavy furniture. His hands shake, and the water slops. The whole endeavour is almost too agonising to watch. Von Trier is only 62, but he carries himself like a man in his 80s.

His health, he admits, remains a work-in-progress. "I'm working on my alcoholism, which is good. I had an eight-month period where I didn't drink, and I'll get back to that again soon. But I have this alcohol 'tool' that I use when I have to. And, if I have a really big anxiety attack, it's the only thing that will help."

I am now wondering to what extent alcohol has influenced his career. Has he ever been drunk when directing his films? "Hmm," he says. "Well, it depends on the form of the day. I mean, it's not a spur to work; it's only self-medication. But when you feel that level of anxiety you'll do anything to push it away. So, sometimes it helps. It gives you the room to come out with what you already had in mind."

Von Trier likes to say that everything in life scares him except the content of his films. Directing, therefore, has been a means of harnessing his demons, of shedding light on dark corners. His greatest pictures (Dogville, Antichrist, The Idiots) amount to flayed human epics with all the nerve endings exposed. The danger is that the demons and darkness have a habit of spilling over into real life. Helena Bonham Carter turned down the lead role in Breaking the Waves because she decided the director was "a bit of a weirdo". Paul Bettany had such a terrible time making Dogville that he refuses to watch the film. Von Trier, Bettany felt, was a control freak and an autocrat. "He's a precociously brilliant director," he says. "But he has no interest in what the actors think."

Off set, too, there have been other problems. Recently, the Danish authorities were called to investigate claims of sexual harassment at his film company, Zentropa. The organisation's co-founder, Peter Aalbæk Jensen, reportedly groped the breasts of young interns and ordered them to strip at the office Christmas party. Jensen's subsequent apology hardly did him any favours. He said he had always liked "slapping asses" and felt rather sad that he now had to stop.

I suggest that what Zentropa bosses may have regarded as a culture of sexual liberation was a clear case of systemic abuse. But Von Trier, alarmingly, remains reluctant to condemn it.

"Well, you know Peter," he says. "He's crazy. I'm crazy. Zentropa is crazy, to some degree. But when I look at the corporation – in this house, for instance – the young people are all having a good time." He pauses. "I don't even know what Peter is meant to have done."

"Slapped asses," I tell him.

"Slapped asses," he says. "Yeah. But that's what we all want to do. He's living his dream. Yeah, it's not OK. Nobody should be forced to do something they don't want to do. That's a very important rule. But I wouldn't necessarily say that something wrong was done."

It would be helpful to cast Von Trier as an innocent bystander here. But the evidence suggests this may not be entirely true. Last year, Björk hinted, without naming names, that he had harassed her during the making of Dancer in the Dark. Specifically, the singer said that she received "unwanted whispered sexual offers ... with graphic descriptions". Von Trier denied any wrongdoing. I have also heard a story that he once stripped naked in front of Nicole Kidman.

The director blinks. "I did what?"

Stripped naked in front of Nicole Kidman. This would have been on the set of Dogville.

Von Trier snorts. "Well, again, as with Peter, it sounds likely. But Nicole was ready to come back and do more films with me, so it can't have shocked her very much." Another snort. "But, yeah, it's a crazy business. And it was a little bit our lives, as well. That's where the films came from – that sense of freedom." All of which may well be true. But freedom for whom and at the expense of who else? Dogville, incredibly, just turned a shade or two darker.

Today, he accepts that the culture has changed. He can't make his films in the way he once did, although he feels that this is more down to his own frailty than to a wider corrective in the world at large. He explains that he has obsessive-compulsive disorder; that he is not physically fit to be on set any more. In the future, he thinks he might make some short films. A few days here and there, nothing very taxing. Shooting a feature is too exhausting, too stressful. The House That Jack Built finally convinced him of that.

I can't quite believe this has always been the case. Von Trier's best work is such an exuberant dance, so obviously fuelled by abandon and risk, it is hard to accept it was all born out of torment. There must have been one film that was pure pleasure to make.

Von Trier mulls this over and recalls Melancholia. This was his acclaimed apocalypse drama from 2011, the film that indirectly landed him in all that hot water at Cannes. "Melancholia was the one where we had the most fun," he says. "We were so drunk. It was a fantastic experience. We were all so drunk."

This is his problem in a nutshell. He associates the source of all pleasure with the very thing that may kill him. "Well, yeah," he says, as though I have just remarked that the sea is blue. "But it was a very important part of that particular film."

He admits that his characters are alter egos of sorts. He was raging Charlotte Gainsbourg in Antichrist, depressive Kirsten Dunst in Melancholia, victimised Kidman in Dogville (possibly also wheedling Bettany, who becomes her main captor). So, it is no surprise that he feels an affinity with Matt Dillon's Jack, who fondly believes he is getting away with his crimes, only to belatedly twig that he is being pitched straight to hell. Because, for all its anarchic spirit, Von Trier's work inhabits a strict moral universe. It is a place of saints, martyrs and sinners. And if Jack comes to believe in the concept of divine retribution, it must follow that the director does, too.

"No, no," he says. "It is a picture, remember? The film implies that Jack has a romantic attachment to that notion. I really don't – I'm not religious at all. But I did just read a book by Stephen Hawking, and he says this thing that has stuck with me. He says that we begin as stardust and we end as stardust. And that's a liberating feeling – not in a religious sense, but in an emotional sense. I like the idea that there are multiverses. I like the photo from the Hubble telescope that defines the universe, that shows the stardust. That's liberating for me. I take a comfort from that."

In the late 90s, he made a TV show called The Kingdom and installed himself as its master of ceremonies. Von Trier would appear in a tuxedo at the end of each episode, commenting on the action with a live-wire wit. He was ablaze with charisma, full of punk mischief, not entirely to be trusted. But that was a different man, another multiverse. Today, the director seems corroded, defeated. He says that it typically takes five years to emerge from a bout of depression. He estimates that he is about 18 months through the trip.

Outside the house, the pump continues spewing water. The production crew have gathered poolside to observe its meltdown. I shake Von Trier's hand and urge him to look after himself because I have rarely met someone so in need of close policing. "Yes, OK," he replies. "I will try not to get drunk." But, for some reason, this prospect strikes him as deeply amusing. He is still chuckling to himself as the door swings shut.

The House That Jack Built is out on 14 December






Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Alethia on December 29, 2018, 12:40:09 PM
THE HOUSE THAT LARS VON TRIER BUILT, AND THAT I LIVE IN

by Lindsey Romain for Ebert.com

The first time I watched "Nymphomaniac," it was cold and it was late and a slant of light from a street lamp striped the floor of my studio apartment, casting ugly shadows on the wall behind my laptop. Innocuous items—a mug full of pens, a bottle of vitamins, a porcelain deer—grew in size, a grotesque sprawl that hovered, claws-raised, over the screen below. I watched all four hours of the two-part film through strained eyes, the shadows eventually morphing into stringed black creatures before dissolving as daytime encroached. I remember them because they evoked the very sensation that comes over me when I watch a new Lars von Trier film: judgment and condemnation. As if I willed them to life to consider my sin.

There is inherent shame that comes from my fascination with von Trier. It is the shame of being a woman, and therefore a target of his artistic rage. The shame of knowing full well the things he's done, like drunkenly calling himself a Nazi at a Cannes press conference, or getting naked on set in front of female actors, or telling Nicole Kidman he wanted to "tie her up and whip her" during rehearsals for "Dogville," or sexually harassing Björk on the set of "Dancer in the Dark." Things I acknowledge, and that sit like cold lumps in the back of my throat when I eagerly return to "Breaking the Waves," "Melancholia," and "Antichrist." Movies I adore, that invoke something beneath my skin, and that grow in meaning as I grow in age: Bess McNeil's (Emily Watson) mania and complicated relationship with religion in "Breaking the Waves"; Justine's (Kirsten Dunst) cosmic depression in "Melancholia"; Charlotte Gainsbourg's She and her deep, psychosexual self-hatred in "Antichrist." All feelings I've vacillated between in my adulthood, but also feelings that are drenched in the poisoned blood of their creator, irrevocably tied to his mounting misdeeds—and perhaps mine, too.

Watching von Trier is entering into a deranged agreement. All parties are guilty, and good morale is sacrificed. But to enter willingly as a woman adds an extra layer of malignancy. His "Antichrist"-and-beyond era is especially troublesome, as his focus narrowed to a field of vision that sees only the pain perpetuated against women, often by themselves: a woman slicing off her clitoris with a rusty pair of scissors, another ravished by depression and burned to a crisp in a cosmic apocalypse, and another so addicted to sex that she's found beaten and urinated on in her film's opening chapter.

And then there's von Trier's latest, sickest work, "The House that Jack Built," a two-and-a-half-hour Hell journey through the baroque mind of a modern-day serial killer, played by Matt Dillon. The film tracks Jack as he hones his sadism, weaponizing his latent misogyny and picking off women—any woman, really, but the ones that annoy him most are assigned the cruelest fate. In the opening chapter, he finds his first victim (Uma Thurman) on the side of the road as she's having car trouble. He drives her to a nearby mechanic, and she taunts and annoys him—accuses him of looking like a serial killer, practically begging him to do her in—until he eventually murders her by bashing her face with a tire-jack. We see, throughout the movie, glimpses at the results: the bloody, caved-in skull of a beautiful woman who was murdered for simply seeing through the veneer of a destructive male ego.

This continues on, each segment wildly outdoing itself. Jack strangles a woman (Siobhan Fallon Hogan) in her home and then drags her body behind his car, her face shredding into goo on the asphalt. He stalks a mother (Sofie Gråbøl) and her two sons, then ghoulishly arranges their bodies in a mock picnic, forcing her to feed her dead child a slice of pie before shooting her in the head. He insults his girlfriend (Riley Keough) before trapping her in her apartment and amputating her breasts, one of which he later re-fashions into a wallet. He stores his victims in an industrial freezer, he takes photographs of their bodies in rigor mortis, posing them to the desired effect. He calls himself "Mr. Sophistication" and speaks highly of art despite his failed architectural endeavors and clumsy kills. He's a MAGA Hannibal Lecter, accidentally auspicious.

The psychopath-as-artist metaphor (if you can even call something discussed ad nauseam in the text a "metaphor") is the great theme of "The House That Jack Built," a too-obvious meditation on von Trier's own career. As Jack narrates his story like the BTK killer on trial—methodically, unsympathetically—to "Verge," a clear allusion to Dante's Virgil, his reflections mutate into a pastiche of von Trier's own filmography. Quite literally, too: We see scenes from his films play out in one of Jack's long rants about separating art from artist, dejecting the idea that art is inherently therapeutic. Jack's ego is a shadow play of the media character von Trier has become, a puppet of the absurd and narcissistic.

Why, then, do I find myself so enraptured by "The House That Jack Built"? I, of course, find no comfort in the images of bloodied female bodies, their anatomy splayed carnally and ridiculously in progressively deranged ways. I do not sympathize, empathize, or even remotely feel in any small way for Jack, nor does he for himself, I don't think. There's nothing to love in the film's ornate nihilism or violence against not just women, but also animals and children.

And yet, and yet ... I am fascinated by the film's empathetic purview of the harsh conditions women live under, the horrors foisted on our bodies and souls by wicked men like Jack, who get away—over and over and over and over again—with the most despicable crimes imaginable, some so normalized they remain downright conspicuous. Indeed, "The House that Jack Built" has been slapped with the same incongruent criticisms as works like "Antichrist" and "Nymphomaniac"; that it's a "huge fuck you" to its viewers, that it's "self-congratulatory," that it's "empty and repugnant."

But I share none of that resentment. I see, instead, a man reconciling with his id, making a mockery of the behavior he's both monetized and perverted, and that he keeps getting away with. The film, to me, reads as both self-critical and critical of the audience who paid to sit through it. If von Trier is Jack—and of course he is—there is much to be gleaned from how often he points to Jack's continued unearned salvation. At one point, after driving his second victim's body through the streets, leaving a literal blood trail, rain begins to fall, a "divine" act that erases all the morbid evidence almost immediately. Later, Jack hijacks a police car and parks it outside his storage facility, the siren still blaring, mere meters away from his lewd freezer full of mutilated bodies, as if he's begging to be found—and yet before he can be caught, he's saved, yet again, by Verge's intervention. Jack is a comically inept criminal, and yet he evades persecution over and over, as men are wont to do. In my reading, von Trier isn't winking at his ability to slink through the cracks as he continues making art: he's outright mocking the systems that allow people like him—the wealthy, white, artistic male elite—to do so. In the end, Jack isn't saved or forgiven or set free. He's cast into the deepest fires of Hell. When the credits hit, Buster Poindexter's "Hit the Road Jack" blares, as if to glorify in Jack's sudden departure. "Don't you come back no more."

Indeed, there are rumors that "The House That Jack Built" will be von Trier's final film. I could think of no better way for a controversial filmmaker to bow out: With a blatant condemnation of himself and the systems that let men like Jack win. Maybe it is a "fuck you." And maybe we deserve it.

https://www.rogerebert.com/balder-and-dash/the-house-that-lars-von-trier-built-and-that-i-live-in#disqus_thread (https://www.rogerebert.com/balder-and-dash/the-house-that-lars-von-trier-built-and-that-i-live-in#disqus_thread)
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on December 29, 2018, 12:47:31 PM
Quote from: eward on December 29, 2018, 12:40:09 PM"The House that Jack Built" has been slapped with the same incongruent criticisms as works like "Antichrist" and "Nymphomaniac"; that it's a "huge fuck you" to its viewers, that it's "self-congratulatory," that it's "empty and repugnant."

But I share none of that resentment. I see, instead, a man reconciling with his id, making a mockery of the behavior he's both monetized and perverted, and that he keeps getting away with. The film, to me, reads as both self-critical and critical of the audience who paid to sit through it.

EXACTLY!
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Robyn on December 29, 2018, 01:40:02 PM
during my amphetamine days it became a running joke among my friends that no one should mention Trier to me, I would just take the opposite viewpoint and argue about it for hours... he is so just so much fun to talk about and you can argue from any standpoint you want and still be right about it... he is a living paradox which he is aware of it. to quote his wife;

QuoteLars Trier's greatest achievement is Lars von Trier

the dude added "von" to his name when he was a kid to piss off his film teachers... that says it all, really. he is just creating this myth about himself. regarding what Pete said in the other thread, that we can't end the argument with "his work can't be misogynistic because he's a FEMINIST", I would say that it's the exact opposite. trier as a person seems to be a misogynistic idiot (I don't defend him as a human anymore, saying that he is a good person trying to be bad), but most of his films are feminist imo. I guess that's what makes him fascinating to people, it isn't black and white, his films contradicts themselves all the time which evokes debates. that's why he is a important filmmaker. he provokes in a way that makes people talk about issues that's important. that's the way you should do it.

Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Robyn on February 06, 2019, 06:22:10 AM
was this posted here? it's a pretty great read. 
https://uniavisen.dk/en/lars-von-triers-library-of-pleasurable-things/
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on August 18, 2019, 01:54:40 AM
Rewatched Dancer In The Dark. It's a film I love deeply but rarely watch, for obvious reasons. But wow does it hold up. And I think I sort of see it through new eyes now. When I first saw Dancer I was still a teenager, and I think I was primarily excited by the irreverence and incongruity of the musical scenes. Now, I'm most affected by Bjork's explosive humanity. This could be the best performance ever committed to film. No joke. Bjork's scenes toward the end, where her singing is captured on set, are so insanely raw and so deeply real. Just on a whole other level.

(Big spoilers incoming...)

Time has also been very kind to the "Christ figure" theory. Let's take this chronologically:

1. Like Jesus, Selma came from humble beginnings. You might also say she has a couple followers.

2. She wants to heal others (her son) but knows she is doomed.

3. There is great mystery about her father, and he's kind of this mythical, nameless figure.

4. After the murder, Selma literally washes her hands of it in the river. Just a splash of religious symbolism, if you will.

5. When she's captured at theatre practice—"there's always someone to catch me... when I fall"— she falls backwards into the hands of the police in a Christlike pose with arms outstretched. They then carry her down the aisle and out the door as if carrying a cross.

6. During the trial and aftermath, Selma is completely selfless and basically does nothing to save herself. She attempts to go gracefully—"I am prepared."

7. While in her cell, she puts her ear to the air vent and hears what sounds like a chorus of angels. (She's told that she might be hearing the chapel, but... we know.)

8. As she is taken to die, she (in her fantasy) sympathetically interacts with the others who've been sentenced to death.

9. Selma is, of course, essentially crucified—restrained to a wooden board and hung.

10. Finally, in a shot that's much longer than I remember, the camera floats up, and up, and up, as Selma ascends to heaven. You could also interpret the white curtain being drawn as an entombment before her ascension.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: polkablues on August 18, 2019, 03:04:25 AM
Genuinely the most emotionally harrowing movie I've ever seen.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Something Spanish on August 18, 2019, 10:23:56 AM
Hadn't thought about this in the longest, still remember the feeling of seeing it for the first time in theaters: gutted. At the time easily one of the most painfully draining movies i'd seen, little did I know about a month later I'd watch Requiem in a movie theater and not be able to leave until an usher suggested to get the fuck out.

Not sure if I have the emotional strength to sit through this again. Weirdly dug the soundtrack, even without being a Bjork-er.

Interesting points there, JB.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Alethia on August 18, 2019, 11:56:09 AM
Quote from: Jeremy Blackman on August 18, 2019, 01:54:40 AM
10. Finally, in a shot that's much longer than I remember, the camera floats up, and up, and up, as Selma ascends to heaven. You could also interpret the white curtain being drawn as an entombment before her ascension.

I always liked that the camera literally goes "through the roof" exactly as she describes earlier in the film, at the very point where she said she would always get up and leave, so it would just "go on forever...".
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: jenkins on August 18, 2019, 02:17:07 PM
that's a good reminder about that movie jb, think ill cruise back to it soonish

i was in this conversation with a person talking about the sadness of dancer in the dark but i kept mentioning breaking the waves by accident. i haven't seen either of them in a long while but always think of breaking the waves as his saddest movie. is dancer sadder? are they equal?
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: jenkins on August 19, 2019, 04:33:24 PM
it was the kind of thing where i'd forgotten all about it except i remembered it as it was happening

i think it's interesting how one's memory can work like that

this movie is so extra

it's too much

even the camera is anxious

it sort of encapsulates the burdensome Gen X mentality

clearly that was a mentality that needed levity

i did really like the musical performances

and Bjork's performance

except also it's hard for me to say that the apparent irl damage to Bjork was worth this movie

they called it emotional porn even back then didn't they

i think i was on the movie's side back then, was like "nuh-uh this is reality"

but now that i'm older it's definitely emotional porn

it's so harrowing she's jesus christ?

jesus christ

i won't be rushing back to Breaking the Waves and i'm not sure which is sadder

i will say that i don't know how this particular movie could be any better made

like it's not like i think this movie could be made better
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Alethia on December 17, 2020, 11:36:19 AM
Out of the Shoutbox and into the Director's Chair

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiruvygnJCc
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: PinkTeeth on December 17, 2020, 12:51:51 PM
oy vey
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: WorldForgot on December 20, 2020, 12:26:41 PM
Quote from: jenkins on December 20, 2020, 12:22:32 PM
you guys aren’t alone with your Dancer in the Dark fondness and it’s not as if i can’t imagine why. it’s not even in my top three LvT but that’s not a real life problem
Me neither and
Thankfully it's the opposite of a problem cuz this provocateur, mutherfuckin' prankster decided to really push his approach to the medium with each film -- and in owning eras of his personality has also had cycles of aesthetic that sometimes supersede how the thematic content hits. A wide swath of approach for any director.

Re-reading the Antichrist thread on this forum iz a blast.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: jenkins on December 20, 2020, 12:33:03 PM
yeah he is something special. if he was just a florida resident that'd be one thing, but he's globally accomplished. he provokes people across the planet and not a lot of provocative people can provoke more than like a hundred people you know

i adore The Boss of it All but just for kicks really. the truly questionable one is Epidemic i think. i'd have to rewatch it
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Robyn on December 29, 2020, 07:04:03 AM
-"What do you do with the new Kingdom?"
-"There's all kinds of bad taste and splatter. Everythings there's. It's bad taste. That's important for me"

Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Drenk on December 29, 2020, 07:17:48 AM
He has Parkinson?  :yabbse-sad: He looked particularly down in the interviews for The House that Jack Built.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Robyn on December 29, 2020, 07:49:05 AM
Side effects due to medictions, he has said.

He talks about The Kingdom as "the last film" and not the next one in line. Maybe this is it for him.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: WorldForgot on December 30, 2020, 12:20:27 PM
Hoping he does write and publish that pamphplet. To me he does appear more spirited now than during the House that Jack Built, at least still curious about form and loved hearing his current feelings on literature + time cuts.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Robyn on December 30, 2020, 02:39:59 PM
Yeah, really good interview!

Loved his take on Twin Peaks and dramaturgy... you could probably apply that to the Lost discussion that was happening in the shout box yesterday. :P Also that Lynch anecodote was hilarious lol 

I'm enjoying the more humorous tone he's going for nowadays... nymphomaniac, the house that jack built and now the kingdom again.

Did Little Brother die in The Kingdom? That's what we need in 2021!

Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Robyn on May 18, 2021, 02:37:42 PM
(https://mb.cision.com/Public/16563/3347153/b9e5609665795c16_800x800ar.jpg)

Some new danish actors got announced (along with some old favorites from the first seasons) and "a few international stars will follow soon". Perhaps there will be an American equivalent of Ernst-Hugo Järegård? Not sure how it would work without the Sweden/Denmark dynamic, but could be fun

Spoiler: ShowHide
if they cast Willem Dafoe.


Edit: the actors
QuoteBodil Jørgensen, Ghita Nørby, Nicolas Bro, Peter Mygind och Søren Pilmark
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Robyn on May 18, 2021, 02:44:48 PM
Also "Riget Exodus should be watched as an stand-along season"
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Robyn on September 09, 2021, 09:09:59 PM
https://feber.se/film/kandistatt-i-lars-von-triers-riket-exodus/429079/

Google translated:

QuoteNow it is clear which of the actors I will get roles in the third season of Lars von Trier's TV series about Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen.

Mikael Persbrandt will get the role of Helmer Jr. who is the son of Stig-Helmer, the Danish-hating doctor who was played by Ernst-Hugo Järegård in the first two seasons of the series. Other Swedes who appear in roles in the Kingdom of Exodus are Ida Engvoll as a hacker, Tuva Novotny as a doctor and Alexander Skarsgård as a lawyer.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Alethia on September 14, 2021, 11:57:57 AM
On My 25 Years in Lars von Trier's World

Siobhan Fallon Hogan on her ongoing collaboration with the Danish auteur, including his company Zentropa producing her latest movie, Rushed.

I have worked as an actress for more than 30 years, in movies like Men in Black and Forrest Gump, and TV shows such as Saturday Night Live and Seinfeld. People who know me for my comedy work may not realize, however, that I have acted in three Lars von Trier films over the past 20 years: Dancer in the Dark, Dogville and The House That Jack Built.

I first gained entry into Lars' world when casting director Avy Kaufman saw me play Phoebe in As You Like It (opposite Elizabeth McGovern's Rosalind) in Shakespeare in the Park in New York. She took a chance on me and called me in for the very serious role of Brenda the prison guard in Dancer in the Dark, starring Björk, which ended up winning the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. I had two young kids at the time and my four-year-old, Bernadette, had an ear infection that kept me up all night before the audition. I was so exhausted that I was able to cry on command and got the role!

When I arrived in Denmark, Lars invited me to his home to discuss my role. I had been fascinated with prison guards since my father, who was a lawyer in Upstate New York, had defended a prison guard from Auburn Correctional Facility who'd had a nervous breakdown after working in the high-security prison. I'd thought a lot about how hard it would be to work in a prison and pondered why someone would choose a job working with such dangerous people. My character Brenda ends up loving her prisoner, and I wondered what it would be like to go from terrified to compassionate.

(https://i.imgur.com/DYag5Xx.jpg)

Lars' writing for women is superb and he has a fantastic sense of humor, so we immediately hit it off. On set, he lets the camera roll and brings out the best performances from every actor. He runs his set like a play, where the crew members are just as important as the actors. I learned so much from working with Lars, producer Vibeke Windeløv, and Lars' producing partner Peter Aalbæk Jensen, namely that passion for the story is much more important than money or fame.

A few years after Dancer in the Dark, Lars cast me in his next feature, Dogville. Working on that film was magical. We started shooting four months after 9/11. I had a three-month-old, a three-year-old and a six-year-old and Vibeke Windeløv used to hold my baby so I could eat breakfast. We all lived in a big inn in Sweden. I became great friends with Lauren Bacall, who was brilliantly funny. Stellan Skarsgård and Paul Bettany were hilarious, and the legendary Ben Gazzara was also part of our amazing cast. Everyone was still in shock from 9/11 and sat around a huge table every night, drinking. Because of my kids, I could only go up to "the table" once a week – it was honestly fantastic, with all the different personalities from all over the world. While Lars was shooting, Ben, Lauren and I were on set and were supposed to be improvising dialogue, but instead were like sixth graders in a school play, talking about anything but the dialogue. One time, we were laughing so hard over some ridiculous story that we were whispering to one another that we must have ruined the shot ... Can you imagine?! We had to be separated, like kids. Lars, of course, just laughed.

Every time I ever left one of Lars' sets, I knew I would be back again; I have this weird sixth sense – they call it "Irish Fay." When I returned to do The House That Jack Built, it was my third time working with Lars. I adored my part, playing one of the women that Matt Dillon's character murders, and loved reuniting with the crew, especially Peter Aalbæk Jensen.

(https://i.imgur.com/iHkxkzW.jpg)

A year later, I went to Cannes for the premiere of The House That Jack Built; walking down the red carpet with Lars on my right and Matt on my left was like a dream. Lars got a seven-minute standing ovation before and after the film. He had not been to Cannes in several years and it was a beautiful welcome back from the audience. It was extremely moving and I was so happy for Lars, because he is a genius and a beautiful person and I truly adore him.

(https://i.imgur.com/uLSB6Cp.jpg)

Three years ago, I wrote Rushed, a thriller that tells the story of a mom in Upstate New York who goes toe to toe with a frat boy after her son is involved in a hazing incident. The inspiration for the story came from my own experience lying in bed, worried sick about my kids when they were off at college. When they didn't answer their cell phones late at night, my mind used to go to the worst places imaginable. Because of my long working relationship with Lars, naturally, I sent the script for Rushed to a few producer friends at Lars' production company, Zentropa. They read the script, loved it and were all in to co-produce. I was thrilled!

I then called every friend I loved to work with and started to cast the film. Robert Patrick, who I have acted opposite a number of times over the years, read the script and agreed to play my husband. I had also worked with Jake Weary from Animal Kingdom and my dear friend Peri Gilpin, who signed on to be in the film too. Avy Kaufman, the casting director who first cast me in Dancer in the Dark, cast the rest of the roles. My kids are in the film too!

The people in my town of Rumson, New Jersey, were beyond generous and housed crew members for free. I brought on Vibeke Muasya from Denmark to direct, who was suggested to me by Vibeke Windeløv, and she did a brilliant job! Our editor was Sabine Emiliani, who previously cut March of the Penguins and a movie I did with Johnny Depp, The Professor. Matthias Schubert, a brilliant cinematographer who I had worked with on a horror movie called The Shed, joined us too.

I'd learned from working with Lars to treat the crew and cast equally and for us all to be united by a common goal. There are no divas, no above-the-line or below-the-line on Lars' sets. I treated people the way I would want to be treated and we all had a fabulous time. I followed the Zentropa way.

When I was set to return to Copenhagen for the sound edit, Peter Aalbaek Jensen said, "Siobhan, you will stay on my houseboat when you are here for the edit. My 23-year-old daughter will be there too." I said, "OK, Peter, I love that – but I may baptize her when I come in some night!" (He knows I am a crazy Catholic.) He said, "Let me know how that goes." Sadly, because of the pandemic, I ended up doing the sound remotely with the brilliant Kristian Eidnes Andersen and Thomas Jaeger.

Since finishing Rushed, I have written another film, Shelter in Solitude, which follows a faith-filled wannabe country singer and her unconventional relationship, and most of the crew from Rushed is coming back to make it. (Robert Patrick will play my brother this time!) We will start filming at the end of September in Upstate New York, in Syracuse and in my hometown of Cazenovia.

Rushed opened in theaters across the USA and in Europe on August 27, and can be streamed on all the major digital platforms. (I am a technical disaster, so I wouldn't know how to download a film if you paid me! I love watching films old-style in a theater.) With this film, I took all I've learned over the course of my career, put pen to the page, raised money, hired friends and now Rushed is out in the world – it is a miracle! I am so grateful, especially to Lars for all the opportunities and showing me how to run a set where story always overrides ego!

https://www.talkhouse.com/on-my-25-years-in-lars-von-triers-world/ (https://www.talkhouse.com/on-my-25-years-in-lars-von-triers-world/)
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Robyn on September 30, 2021, 09:56:13 AM
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: wilder on June 29, 2022, 04:01:42 AM
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Robyn on June 29, 2022, 03:59:38 PM
THE TRANSITION!!!!
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Alethia on June 30, 2022, 07:37:49 PM
OH DEATH WHERE IS THY STING???

So excited to once again have to take the Good with the Evil 🤘🏻
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: wilder on July 27, 2022, 05:16:06 PM
'The Kingdom Exodus': MUBI Acquires Lars Von Trier's Third And Final Season Of His TV Show Ahead Of Its Venice 2022 Premiere
The Playlist

Late last month, Lars Von Trier fans got their first peek at the third and final season of his TV series "The Kingdom Exodus." It's Von Trier's first project since 2018's divisive serial killer film "The House That Jack Built," and the first season of "The Kingdom" since 1997. And now, after its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, it will stream exclusively on the global streamer MUBI.

MUBI snagged distribution rights for "Exodus" for North America, the UK and Ireland, Latin America, Turkey, and India after it premieres out of competition at the Venice Lido. No word on when MUBI begins to stream the show, but expect it sometime this Fall. And that's not all: MUBI will also stream remastered, extended director's cuts of the first two seasons of "The Kingdom" concurrently with "Exodus." The new cuts feature never-before-seen footage, big news for fans of a show that hasn't been available to watch for quite a while.

Here's an official synopsis for "The Kingdom Exodus":

Heavily influenced by the ghostly series The Kingdom, the sleepwalker Karen seeks answers to the unresolved questions of the series in order to save the hospital from doom. Sound asleep one night, Karen wanders into the darkness and inexplicably ends up in front of the hospital. The gate to the Kingdom is opening once more...
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Drenk on August 08, 2022, 11:36:17 AM
Lars Von Trier officially announces that he has Parkinson:

https://twitter.com/BilgeEbiri/status/1556669839682551808
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: Alethia on September 29, 2022, 11:00:43 AM
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: wilder on May 12, 2023, 09:12:12 PM
Mubi Acquires 11 Lars Von Trier Films In North America, Sets Remastered 'The Idiots' For Theatrical Release
Deadline

Mubi has acquired 11 films by Lars von Trier for North America, including the director's Dogme 95 entry The Idiots. It will release a new uncut 4K restoration of the film June 16 theatrically timed to its 25th anniversary, followed by an exclusive streaming release.

Other titles, most newly restored, include Dogville (2003), The Five Obstructions (2003), Manderlay (2005), The Boss of it All (2006), Breaking the Waves (1996), the Europa Trilogy (The Element of Crime, Epidemic, Europa), Antichrist (2009) and Dancer in the Dark (2000). Some are streaming on Mubi now, others will roll out on through September 2025.

Mubi acquired new restorations of von Trier series, The Kingdom Seasons 1 and 2, along with its latest season, The Kingdom Exodus in 2022.

TrustNordisk brokered the deal with Mubi.

The Idiots, which premiered at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival, was made under the Dogme 95 school started by von Trier and other Danish filmmakers. It centers on a commune, whose members aim to disrupt bourgeois society by spontaneously feigning physical or mental disabilities in public. The darkly comic film was censored when it was released. It's been remaster by Zentropa Post Production.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: wilder on June 05, 2023, 07:56:02 PM
On Mubi July 7th


QuoteCelebrating it's 25th anniversary, next month MUBI is proud to present a brand new, 4K restoration of THE IDIOTS. Lars von Trier's only feature made under the Dogme 95 "Vows of Chastity", THE IDIOTS centers on a Danish commune whose members aim to disrupt bourgeois society by spontaneously feigning physical or mental disabilities in public — including a new recruit (Bodil Jørgensen) motivated by a secret sorrow.

Previously censored upon release, this darkly comic and ultimately devastating film is now presented restored and uncut, as a highly provocative work which contemplates the very value of provocation.
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: wilder on August 07, 2023, 04:47:56 AM
September 25, 2023

Breaking the Waves (1996) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Artificial Eye (UK)

(https://i.imgur.com/T9blALv.jpg)

After her husband is injured in an oil rig mishap, a pious newlywed must reconcile her intense faith in God with an unusual request from her husband.



September 25, 2023

Lars Von Trier: A Curzon Collection on blu-ray from Artificial Eye (UK)

(https://i.imgur.com/rMu3f7f.jpg)

Feature Films

-Element of Crime (restored)
-Epidemic (restored)
-Europa (restored)
-Breaking the Waves (restored)
-The Idiots (restored)
-Dogville (restored)
-The Five Obstructions
-Manderlay
-The Boss of it All (restored)
-Antichrist
-Melancholia
-Nymphomaniac: The Director's Cut - Volumes I & II
-The House that Jack Built
Title: Re: Lars Von Trier
Post by: WorldForgot on November 28, 2023, 09:46:58 PM
Great throwback conversation between Paul Thomas Anderson and Lars Von Trier (https://cigsandredvines.blogspot.com/2011/04/flashback-friday-pt-anderson-talks-with.html?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email) in Cigarettes and Red Vines -- from the Punch Drunk Love / Dancer in the Dark era. Pre-Dogville.

QuoteLVT: But saying that I know how your country could be a better place, as somebody who is not American, is the most provocative thing you can say, and why is that? It doesn't have so much to do with nationalism or borders; it has to do with politics and your basic idea of what you should do with human beings.
PTA: Where did you get the title for Dogville?
LVT: I spoke to Thomas Winterberg, to one of his colleagues, actually, and we were talking about concentration camps, and then it became America straight away [they laugh]. No, we were talking about how they managed to keep discipline and life going on in the concentration camp, and his theory, which I believe, is that they transformed people into animals. If they are animals, then they are much easier to control. It's very easy to make human beings into animals: let them be cruel, let them be anything--it's such a thin layer, and that was part of the strategy in the concentration camps. And then we talked about dogs, and I said the film had to be called "something-ville."
PTA: So there are a few things.
LVT: [laughs] Actually, quite a lot of things. But the strange thing is, in my situation--which you cannot put yourself in--I know so much about America. Eighty percent of my media, the media I see, has to do with America, 80 percent of the paper has to do with America in some way or another, 80 percent of the television, can you imagine that?
PTA: Isn't it that way in most of the world?
LVT: Yes it is, but that puts me in a situation where America is a part of me also, whether I want it or not or whether you want it or not--it is a part of me. And that's why I'm completely entitled to say whatever I want, because I've heard more about America than I've heard about Denmark, for Christ's sake!
PTA: Beautiful.
LVT: I watched Magnolia--actually to cast my own movie--but I liked it very much. It was kind of European, although now I don't like European films, either, because they are too American. It's very much a matter of taste, but it's very fulfilling when somebody dares to do what he thinks is most interesting, and I believe that is what happened with Magnolia. I think it is extremely important to please yourself.
PTA: I can count on one hand, maybe both hands, people that I trust, and I feel that if I make a movie, I make it for myself, absolutely first. But there are people that I want to show it to, that I want to like it, but it's also okay if they don't like it, because they'll let me know why, and how, and for what reasons. And that feels good; that is in no way debilitating or hurtful--but if you can hold them in the palm of your hand--
LVT: --To me it was very, very important to show the first film I did to Andrei Tarkovsky, and he hated it. [laughs] He thought it was a load of crap. The film was Element of Crime. He hated it, I tell you.