Lars von Trier
Film director, screenwriter
1967–present
Hyperrealism, Dogme 95, German Expressionism
4
Palme d'Or, EFA, Cesar, Bodil, Goya, FIPRESCI
Beginning in the late-1960s as a child actor working on Danish television series Secret Summer, von Trier's career has spanned more than five decades.[4][5] Considered a major figure of the European film industry, he and his works have been variously described as ambitious and provocative, as well as technically innovative.[6][7] His films offer confrontational examinations of existential, social,[8][9] psychosexual, and political[4][10] issues, and deal in subjects[10] including mercy,[11] sacrifice, and mental health.[12] He frequently collaborates with the actors Jens Albinus, Jean-Marc Barr, Udo Kier and Stellan Skarsgård.
Von Trier co-created the avant-garde filmmaking movement Dogme 95 alongside fellow director Thomas Vinterberg and co-founded the Danish film production company Zentropa,[13][14] the films from which have sold more than 350 million tickets and garnered eight Academy Award nominations.
Von Trier has been the subject of criticisms and controversies. Cannes Film Festival, in addition to awarding his films on numerous occasions, once listed him as persona non grata for making a Nazism joke during an interview; animal harm on Manderlay's set, and graphic violence and unsimulated sex in some of his films have drawn criticism; and he has been accused of mistreatment and negligence towards actresses during the filming process, including Björk.[15][16][17]
Early life and education[edit]
Born Lars Trier in Kongens Lyngby, Denmark, north of Copenhagen, his parents are Inger Høst and Ulf Trier. He later learned from Inger's deathbed that his biological father was Fritz Michael Hartmann, Inger's former boss at Denmark's Ministry of Social Affairs and a World War II resistance fighter.[18]
He studied film theory at the University of Copenhagen and film direction at the National Film School of Denmark.[19] At 25, he won two Best School Film awards at the Munich International Festival of Film Schools[20] for Nocturne and Last Detail.[21] The same year, he added the nobiliary particle "von" to his name, possibly as a satirical homage to the equally self-invented titles of directors Erich von Stroheim and Josef von Sternberg,[22] and saw his graduation film Images of Liberation released as a theatrical feature.[23]
Career[edit]
1984–1994: Career beginnings and the Europa trilogy[edit]
In 1984, The Element of Crime, von Trier's breakthrough film, received twelve awards at seven international festivals[24] including the Technical Grand Prize at Cannes, and a nomination for the Palme d'Or.[25] The film's slow, non-linear pace,[26] innovative and multi-leveled plot design, and dark dreamlike visual effects[24] combine to create an allegory for traumatic European historical events.[27]
Von Trier's next film, Epidemic (1987), was also shown at Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section, and featured two story lines that ultimately collide: the chronicle of two filmmakers (played by von Trier and screenwriter Niels Vørse) in the midst of developing a new project, and a dark science fiction tale of a futuristic plague – the very film von Trier and Vørsel are depicted making. He next directed Medea (1988) for television, based on a screenplay by Carl Th. Dreyer and starring Udo Kier, which won the Jean d'Arcy prize in France.
Von Trier has referred to his films as falling into thematic and stylistic trilogies. This pattern began with The Element of Crime (1984), the first of the Europa trilogy, which illuminated traumatic periods in Europe both in the past and the future. It also includes Epidemic. He completed the trilogy in 1991 with Europa (released as Zentropa in the US), which won the Prix du Jury at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival,[28] and picked up awards at other major festivals. In 1990 he also directed the music video for the song "Bakerman" by Laid Back.[29] This video was re-used in 2006 by the English DJ and artist Shaun Baker in his remake of the song.
Seeking financial independence and creative control over their projects, in 1992 von Trier and producer Peter Aalbæk Jensen founded the film production company Zentropa Entertainment, which has sold more than 350 million tickets and was nominated for multiple Academy Awards as of 2016.[13][14] Named after a fictional railway company in Europa,[19] their most recent film at the time, Zentropa has produced many movies other than Trier's own, as well as several television series. It has also produced hardcore sex films: Constance (1998), Pink Prison (1999), HotMen CoolBoyz (2000), and All About Anna (2005). To make money for his newly founded company, von Trier made The Kingdom (Danish title Riget, 1994) and The Kingdom II (Riget II, 1997), a pair of miniseries recorded in the Danish national hospital, the name "Riget" being a colloquial name for the hospital known as Rigshospitalet (lit. The Kingdom's Hospital) in Danish. A projected third season of the series was derailed by the death in 1998 of Ernst-Hugo Järegård, who played Dr. Helmer, and that of Kirsten Rolffes, who played Mrs. Drusse, in 2000, two of the major characters, which led to the series' cancellation.
Aesthetics, themes, and style of working[edit]
Themes[edit]
Von Trier’s films deal with themes of religious imagery and his treatment of subjects[10] such as mercy,[11] sacrifice, and mental health,[12] confrontational examination of existential, social,[8][9] and political[4][10] issues. Most of the films depicted in various forms of politics and religions, such as Nazism in Europa, Christianity in Breaking the Waves and The House that Jack Built, Atheism in Dogville, and Anti-bourgeois in The Idiots.
Influences[edit]
Von Trier is heavily influenced by the work of Carl Theodor Dreyer[54] and the film The Night Porter.[55] He was so inspired by the short film The Perfect Human, directed by Jørgen Leth, that he challenged Leth to redo the short five times in the feature film The Five Obstructions.[56]
Writing[edit]
Von Trier's writing style has been heavily influenced by his work with actors on set, as well as the Dogme 95 manifesto that he co-authored.[57] In an interview with Creative Screenwriting, he described his process as "writing a sketch and keep[ing] the story simple...then part of the script work is with the actors."[57] He again cites Dreyer as an influence, pointing to his method of overwriting his scripts, then significantly cutting the length down.[57] Reflecting on the storytelling across his body of work, von Trier said, "all the stories are about a realist who comes into conflict with life. I'm not crazy about real life, and real life is not crazy about me."[57]
Filming techniques[edit]
Von Trier has said that "a film should be like a stone in your shoe".[58] To create original art he feels that filmmakers must distinguish themselves stylistically from other films, often by placing restrictions on the film making process. The most famous such restriction is the cinematic "vow of chastity" of the Dogme 95 movement. In Dancer in the Dark, he used jump shots[59] and dramatically different color palettes and camera techniques for the "real world" and musical portions of the film,.[60]
Von Trier often shoots digitally and operates the camera himself, preferring to continuously shoot the actors in-character without stopping between takes. In Dogville, because there were no walls between the "buildings" on the set, actors needed to stay in character for hours, even when not part of the scene being filmed.[61] These techniques often put great strain on the actors, most famously with Björk during the filming of Dancer in the Dark.[62]
Von Trier would later return to explicit images in Antichrist (2009), exploring darker themes, but he ran into problems when he tried once more with Nymphomaniac, which had 90 minutes cut out (reducing it from five-and-one-half to four hours) for its international release in 2013 in order to be commercially viable,[63] taking nearly a year to be shown complete anywhere in an uncensored director's cut.[64]
While Lars von Trier commissioned new musical compositions for his early films, his more recent work has made use of existing music.[65] With Nymphomaniac, the principle of musical eclecticism is also applied within the film.[65] He often heavily edits compositions to manipulate and provoke the audience.[66]
Approach to actors[edit]
In an interview for IndieWire, von Trier compared his approach to actors with "how a chef would work with a potato or a piece of meat", clarifying that working with actors has differed on each film based on the production conditions.[67] He has occasionally courted controversy by his treatment of his lead actresses.[68] He and Björk famously fell out during the shooting of Dancer in the Dark, to the point where she would abscond from filming for days at a time.[69] She stated of von Trier, who shattered a monitor while it was next to her, that "you can take quite sexist film directors like Woody Allen or Stanley Kubrick and still they are the one that provide the soul to their movies. In Lars von Trier's case it is not so and he knows it. He needs a female to provide his work soul. And he envies them and hates them for it. So he has to destroy them during the filming. And hide the evidence."[70]
Nicole Kidman, who starred in von Trier's Dogville, said in an interview with ABC Radio National that she tried to quit the film several times in response to comments von Trier made on set, often while inebriated, "but I say this laughing...I didn't do the sequel but I'm still very good friends with him, strangely enough, because I admire his honesty and I see him as an artist, and I say, my gosh, it's such a hard world now to have a unique voice, and he certainly has that."[71]
However, other actresses he has worked with, such as Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg have spoken out in defence of his approach.[70][72][73] Nymphomaniac star Stacy Martin has stated that he never forced her to do anything that was outside her comfort zone. She said "I don't think he's a misogynist. The fact that he sometimes depicts women as troubled or dangerous or dark or even evil; that doesn't automatically make him anti-feminist. It's a very dated argument. I think that Lars loves women."[74]
Controversies[edit]
Remarks during Cannes interview[edit]
In May 2011, known to be provocative in interviews,[88] von Trier's remarks during the press conference before the premiere of Melancholia in Cannes[89] caused significant controversy in the media, leading the festival to declare him persona non grata.[90] He was therefore banned from Cannes for one year,[91] although Melancholia still competed in that year's competition.[92]
Minutes before the end of the press conference, von Trier was asked about his German roots and the Nazi aesthetic, in response to his description of the film's genre as "German romance".[93][94] He joked that since he was "no longer Jewish," having been told the truth about his biological father, he now "understands" and "sympathizes" with Hitler, that he is not against the Jews except for Israel which is "a pain in the ass" and that he is a Nazi.[94] Von Trier was branded an antisemite for his remarks.[95] He released a formal apology immediately after the press conference[96] and kept apologizing for his joke during all of the interviews he gave in the weeks following the incident,[97][98][99] admitting that he was not sober,[100] and saying that he did not need to explain that he is not a Nazi.[101][102] However, in 2019, von Trier stated that he made this remark at the "only press conference I ever had when I was sober."[103]
The actors of Melancholia who were present during the incident – Dunst, Gainsbourg, Skarsgård – defended the director, pointing to his provocative sense of humor[104][105] and his depression.[106] He refused to attend a private press screening of his subsequent feature Nymphomaniac. In the director's defense, Skarsgård stated at the screening, "Everyone knows he's not a Nazi, and it was disgraceful the way the press had these headlines saying he was."[107] The director of the Cannes festival later called the controversy "unfair" and as "stupid" as von Trier's bad joke, concluding that his films are welcome at the festival and that von Trier is considered a "friend".[91]
Sex and violence in films[edit]
Several of his films – The Idiots (1998), Antichrist (2009), Nymphomaniac (2013) and The House That Jack Built (2018) – contain explicit content that has generated controversy;[108] the former faced widespread backlash upon its release as one film critic walked out from its premiere screening at Cannes due to being pornographic and heckling behaviour in the film, and was heavily censored for subsequent releases.[109] At the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, approximately 100 audience members walked out of the premiere of The House That Jack Built.[48]
Sexual harassment allegations with Björk[edit]
In October 2017, Björk posted on her Facebook page that she had been sexually harassed by a "Danish film director she worked with".[110][111] The Los Angeles Times found evidence identifying von Trier as the director in question.[112] Von Trier has apologized for psychologically abusing her[113] but rejected Björk's allegation that he sexually harassed her during the making of the film Dancer in the Dark, and said "That was not the case. But that we were definitely not friends, that's a fact," to Danish daily Jyllands-Posten in its online edition. Peter Aalbaek Jensen, the producer of Dancer in the Dark, told Jyllands-Posten that "As far as I remember we were the victims. That woman was stronger than both Lars von Trier and me and our company put together. She dictated everything and was about to close a movie of 100M kroner [$16M]."[114]
Following von Trier's statement, Björk released a further statement offering more details about her experience,[115] while her manager, Derek Birkett, also condemned von Trier's alleged past actions.[116]
The Guardian later found that Zentropa, which Jensen runs and von Trier founded, had an endemic culture of sexual harassment. Jensen stepped down as CEO when further allegations of harassment came to light in 2017, although he is still active as an executive producer in recent works.[117]
Animal cruelty during filming[edit]
A donkey was slaughtered for dramatic purposes during production of Manderlay, an act that caused actors including John C. Reilly to quit the film in protest of its cruelty to animals.[118] The scene was cut from the film before it was released.[119]
Although The House that Jack Built was praised by animal rights organization PETA for its use of realistic effects, a scene involving the main character mutilating a duckling was the subject of criticism from some audiences.[120]
Position on the Russian war against Ukraine[edit]
In August 2023, Lars von Trier published on Instagram a critical entry against the delivery of F-16 fighters to Ukraine, ending his post by saying "Russian lives matter also!"[121][122] The entry immediately became publicized in official Russian media and by the Russian propaganda officer Margarita Simonyan.[123] Oleksiy Danilov, head of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, responded on Twitter, criticising von Trier's comments, saying, "The choice between the executioner and the victim becomes a tragedy when the artist chooses the side of the executioner."[121][124] Two days later, Von Trier then made another post on Instagram, saying, "I support Ukraine with every beat of my heart! I was just stating the obvious: that all lives in this world matter!"[121]