Lars von Trier

Lars von Trier
Born	Lars Trier (1956-04-30) 30 April 1956 (age 68) Kongens Lyngby, Denmark
Nationality	Danish
Education	National Film School of Denmark University of Copenhagen
Occupation(s)	Film director and screenwriter
Years active	1977-present
Known for	Auteur Director
Notable work	Melancholia Dancer in the Dark Breaking the Waves Europa
Movement	Hyperrealism, Poetic Realism, Dogme 95, German Expressionism
Spouse(s)	Cæcilia Holbek (m. 1987–95;)[1] Bente Frøge (m. 1997–present;)
Children	Selma Trier, Agnes Trier
Awards	Palme d'Or, EFA, Cesar, Bodil, Goya, Fipresci
Honours	Unicef Cinema for Peace, Knight of the Order of the Dannebrog
Signature
File:Lars Von Trier Signature.png

Lars von Trier (born Lars Trier, 30 April 1956)^[2] is a Danish film director and screenwriter, best known for his films Dancer in the Dark, Breaking the Waves, Melancholia and Europa.^[3][4] He is considered one of the great film auteurs^[5][6][7] and widely regarded as one of the most accomplished living directors in world cinema.^[5] In a prolific and controversial^[8][9] career spanning almost four decades, his work became distinct for its genre and technical innovation,^[10][11] the intensely confrontational - sometimes "humorous"^[12] - examination of existential, social^[13][14] and political^[8][15] issues, the iconic construction and portrayal of incredible personalities^[16][17] and the treatment of atypical subjects^[15] like mercy,^[18] sacrifice and mental health.^[19] His political and humanitarian thematic was honored in 2004 with the Cinema for Peace awareness award.^[20]

Among more than 100 awards and over 200 nominations^[4] in festivals worldwide, he is the recipient of the Palme d'Or (for Dancer in the Dark), the Grand Prix (for Breaking the Waves), the Prix du Jury (for Europa) and the Technical Grand Prize (for The Element of Crime and Europa) at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2016 Trier started filming The House that Jack Built, an English-language serial killer thriller, rumored to premiere in Cannes in 2018.^[21]

Lars von Trier is the founder and shareholder of international film production company Zentropa Films,^[22][23] a company that has sold more than 350 million tickets and has garnered seven Academy Award nominations over the past 25 years.^[24]

Trier was born in Kongens Lyngby, north of Copenhagen, the son of Inger Høst, and Fritz Michael Hartmann (the head of Denmark's Ministry of Social Affairs and a resistance fighter).^[25] He received his surname by Høst's husband Ulf Trier whom he considered his biological father until 1989.^[25] The director would later become famous for being voluntarily and honestly explicit to journalists about his complex family and upbringing and the impact it had on his identity, beliefs and artistic process.^[26]

He began making his own films at the early age of eleven after receiving a Super-8 camera as a gift, and continued his independent film making throughout high school.^[27] Trier was also an early achiever, having managed to study film theory at the University of Copenhagen, film direction in the National Film School of Denmark,^[28] win two Best school film awards at the Munich International Festival of Film Schools^[29](for the films Nocturne and Last Detail),^[30] brand the German nobiliary particle "von" for his name (as a satirical homage to the equally self-invented titles of directors Erich von Stroheim and Josef von Sternberg)^[31] and see his graduation film Images of Liberation be released as a regular theatrical feature^[32] (a first in Denmark), all by the age of 23. Just one year later in 1984, The Element of Crime, Trier's breakthrough film will receive 12 awards in 7 international festivals^[33] including the Technical Grand Prize in Cannes and a nomination for the prestigious Palm d'Or.^[34] The film's slow non-linear pace,^[35] its innovative and multi-leveled plot design and its dark dreamlike visuals^[33] achieved to transmit its allegory for the European historical traumas in a unique way, heralding a new voice in film.^[36]

His next film was Epidemic (1987), which was also shown at Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section. The film is partly a dark science fiction-tale of a future plague epidemic, and partly chronicles two filmmakers (played by Lars von Trier and screenwriter Niels Vørsel) preparing that film, with the two storylines ultimately colliding.

Von Trier has on occasion referred to his films as falling into thematic and stylistic trilogies. This pattern began with his first feature film, which turned out to be the first of the Europa trilogy, although he claims a trilogy was not initially planned, instead being applied to three films in retrospect. The Europa trilogy illuminated the traumas of Europe both in the past and the future. It includes The Element of Crime (1984), Epidemic (1987) and Europa (1991).

For television Lars von Trier directed Medea (1988), which won the Jean d'Arcy prize in France. It was based on a screenplay by Carl Th. Dreyer and starred Udo Kier. He completed the Europe-trilogy in 1991 with Europa (released as Zentropa in the US), which won the Prix du Jury at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival^[37] and picked up awards at other major festivals. In 1990 he also directed the music video for the worldwide hit "Bakerman" by Laid Back.^[38] This video was reused in 2006 by the English DJ and artist Shaun Baker who did a remake of Bakerman.

In 1992 Lars von Trier and producer Peter Aalbæk Jensen founded the movie production company Zentropa Entertainment, named after a fictional railway company in Europa, their most recent film at the time.^[28] The reason for doing this was to achieve financial independence and to have total creative control. The production company has produced many movies other than Lars von Trier's own, as well as television series.

In 1995, Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg presented their manifesto for a new cinematic movement which they called Dogme 95. It would however take a while before the first of these films appeared. The Dogme 95 concept, which led to international interest in Danish film as a whole, Lars von Trier inspired filmmakers all over the world.^[39] and In 2008, together with their fellow Dogme directors Kristian Levring and Søren Kragh-Jacobsen, Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg received the European Film Award European Achievement in World Cinema.

In 1996, Lars von Trier conducted an unusual theatrical experiment in Copenhagen involving 53 actors, which he titled Psychomobile 1: The World Clock. A documentary chronicling the project was directed by Jesper Jargil, and was released in 2000 with the title De Udstillede (The Exhibited).

Lars von Trier's Film awards

Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Lars Von Trier
Award	Wins	Nominations
Cannes Film Festival Awards	6	14
European Film Awards	5	13
César Awards	1	4
Golden Globe Awards	3	10
Goya Awards	1	4
Bodil Awards	7	11
Other Film Awards Worldwide	76	136

The Golden Heart trilogy was about naive heroines who maintain their 'golden hearts' despite the tragedies they experienced. This trilogy consists of Breaking the Waves (1996), The Idiots (1998), and Dancer in the Dark (2000).^[40] While all three films are sometimes associated with the Dogme 95 movement, only The Idiots is a certified Dogme 95 film.

Lars von Trier's next film, Breaking the Waves (1996), the first film in his 'Golden Heart Trilogy', won the Grand Prix at Cannes and featured Emily Watson, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Its grainy images and hand-held photography pointed towards Dogme 95. The second in the trilogy was The Idiots (1998), nominated for a Palme d'Or, which he presented in person at the Cannes Film Festival, despite his dislike of travelling. Dancer in the Dark (2000) was the final component of the trilogy.

File:Dancer in the Dark movie poster.jpg

In 2000, Lars von Trier premiered a musical featuring Icelandic musician Björk, Dancer in the Dark. The film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes.^[41] The song "I've Seen It All" (which Lars von Trier co-wrote) received an Academy Award nomination for Best Song.

The Five Obstructions (2003), made by Lars von Trier and Jørgen Leth, is a documentary, but also incorporates lengthy sections of experimental films. The premise is that Lars von Trier challenges director Jørgen Leth, his friend and mentor, to remake his old experimental film The Perfect Human (1967) five times, each time with a different 'obstruction' (or obstacle) specified by Lars von Trier.^[42]

All three movies would be shot in the same distinctive style, on a bare sound stage with no set and with buildings marked by lines on the floor. This style is inspired by 1970s televised theatre. The trilogy consists so far of Dogville (2003) and Manderlay (2005) and will be completed with Washington (yet to be made).

He then directed two films in his announced 'US trilogy': Dogville (2003), starring Nicole Kidman, and Manderlay (2005), starring Bryce Dallas Howard in the same role – as Grace. Both films are extremely stylised, with the actors playing their parts on a nearly empty sound stage with little but chalk marks on the floor to indicate the sets. Both films had huge casts of major international actors (Harriet Andersson, Lauren Bacall, James Caan, Danny Glover, Willem Dafoe, etc.), and questioned various issues relating to American society, such as intolerance in Dogville and slavery in Manderlay.

The US was also the scene for Dear Wendy (2005), a feature film directed by Lars von Trier's "Dogme-brother" Thomas Vinterberg from a script by Lars von Trier. It starred Jamie Bell and Bill Pullman and dealt with gun worship and violence in American society.

In 2006, Lars von Trier released a Danish-language comedy film, The Boss of It All. It was shot using a process that he has called Automavision, which involves the director choosing the best possible fixed camera position and then allowing a computer to randomly choose when to tilt, pan or zoom.

It was followed by an autobiographical film, da [The Early Years: Erik Nietzsche Part 1] (2007), scripted by Lars von Trier but directed by Jacob Thuesen, which tells the story of Lars von Trier's years as a student at the National Film School of Denmark. It stars Jonatan Spang as Lars von Trier's alter ego, called "Erik Nietzsche", and is narrated by Lars von Trier himself. All main characters in the film are based on real people from the Danish film industry,^{[citation needed]} with the thinly veiled portrayals including Jens Albinus as director Nils Malmros, Dejan Čukić as screenwriter Mogens Rukov and Søren Pilmark.

The Depression Trilogy consists of Antichrist, Melancholia and Nymphomaniac. All three star Charlotte Gainsbourg and deal with characters who suffer depression or grief in different ways. This trilogy is said to represent the depression that von Trier himself experiences.^[43]

Lars von Trier's next feature film was Antichrist, a film about "a grieving couple who retreat to their cabin in the woods, hoping a return to Eden will repair their broken hearts and troubled marriage; but nature takes its course and things go from bad to worse". The filmstars Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg. It premiered in competition at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, where the festival's jury honoured the movie by giving the Best Actress award to Gainsbourg.^[44]

COntroversy which includes sexually explicit content

In 2011, Lars von Trier released Melancholia, a psychological drama. The film was in competition at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.^[45]

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Following Melancholia, Lars von Trier commenced the production of Nymphomaniac, a film about the sexual awakening of a woman played by Charlotte Gainsbourg.^[61]

In early December 2013, a four-hour version of the five-and-a-half-hour film was shown to the press in a private preview session. The cast also included Stellan Skarsgård (in his sixth film for Lars von Trier), Shia LaBeouf, Willem Dafoe, Jamie Bell, Christian Slater, and Uma Thurman. In response to claims that he has merely created a "porn film", Skarsgård stated: "... if you look at this film, it's actually a really bad porn movie, even if you fast forward. And after a while you find you don't even react to the explicit scenes. They become as natural as seeing someone eating a bowl of cereal." Lars von Trier refused to attend the private screening due to the negative response that he received to Nazi-related remarks made at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, which led to his expulsion from the festival. 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."^[59]

For its public release in the UK, the four-hour version of Nymphomaniac was divided into two volumes—Volume I and Volume II—and the film's UK premiere was on 22 February 2014. In interviews prior to the UK release date, Gainsbourg and co-star Stacy Martin revealed that prosthetic vaginas, body doubles, and special effects were used for the production of the film. Martin also stated that the film's characters are a reflection of the director himself and referred to the experience as an "honour" that she enjoyed.^[62]

The film was also released in two volumes for the Australian release on 20 March 2014, with an interval separating the back-to-back sections. In his review of the film for 3RRR film criticism program, "Plato's Cave", presenter Josh Nelson stated that, since the production of Breaking the Waves, the filmmaker that Lars von Trier is most akin to is Alfred Hitchcock, due to his portrayal of feminine issues. Nelson also mentioned filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky as another influence whom Lars von Trier himself has also cited.^[63]

In February 2014, an uncensored version of Volume I was shown at the Berlin Film Festival, with no announcement of when or if the complete five-and-a-half-hour Nymphomaniac would be made available to the public.^[64]

Lars von Trier is working on a new feature film The House That Jack Built, which was originally planned as an eight part television series. The story will be about a serial killer, seen from the murderer's point of view.^[65][66] Shooting is planned to start in the autumn of 2016.^[65][67]

He is heavily influenced by the work of Carl Theodor Dreyer^[68] and the film The Night Porter.^[69] 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 feature film The Five Obstructions.^[70]

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Von Trier has said that "a film should be like a stone in your shoe". To create original art he feels that filmmakers must distinguish themselves stylistically from other films, often by placing restrictions on the filmmaking process. The most famous restriction is the cinematic "vow of chastity" of the Dogme95 movement with which he is associated, though only one of his films, The Idiots, is an actual Dogme 95 film. In Dancer in the Dark, jump shots^[71] and dramatically-different color palettes and camera techniques were used for the "real world" and musical portions of the film, and in Dogville everything was filmed on a sound stage with no set where the walls of the buildings in the fictional town were marked as lines on the floor.

Von Trier often shoots digitally and operates the camera himself, preferring to continuously shoot the actors in-character without stopping between takes. In Dogville he let actors stay in character for hours, in the style of method acting. These techniques often put great strain on actors, most famously with Björk during the filming of Dancer in the Dark. Often he uses the same regular group of actors in many of his films: some of his frequently used actors are Jean-Marc Barr, Udo Kier and Stellan Skarsgård.

Von Trier would return to explicit images in his self-directed Antichrist (2009), exploring darker themes, but ran into problems when he tried once more with Nymphomaniac, which had ninety minutes cut out (reducing it from 5½ to 4 hours) for its international release in 2013 in order to be commercially viable,^[72] taking nearly a year to be shown complete anywhere in an uncensored Director's Cut.^[73]

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This section is empty. You can help by adding to it. (July 2016)

Trier has a known penchant for working with actors and production members more than once. His main crew members and producer team has remain intact since the film Europa.^[74] The list of actors reappearing on his films, even for small parts or cameos is also extensive and many of them have repeatedly expressed their devotion^[75] to Lars von Trier and willingness to return on set with him,^[76][77][78] even without payment.^[79][80] Stellan Skarsgård was cast in several Lars von Trier films: The Kingdom, Breaking The waves, Dancer in the Dark, Dogville, Melancholia and Nymphomaniac. Aside from his leading role in Europa, Trier cast Jean-Marc Barr in 6 more english-language films. Though mostly in small parts, Udo Kier is the actor with the most appearances on a Lars Von Trier film (10).

This section is empty. You can help by adding to it. (July 2016)

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During the German occupation of Denmark, von Trier's suggested father Fritz Michael Hartmann worked as a civil servant and joined a resistance group, Frit Danmark, actively counteracting any pro-German and pro-Nazi colleagues in his department.^[81] Another member of this infiltrative resistance group was Hartmann's colleague Viggo Kampmann, who would later become prime minister of Denmark.^[82] After von Trier had had four awkward meetings with his biological father, Hartmann refused further contact.^[83]

I don't know if I'm all that Catholic really. I'm probably not. Denmark is a very Protestant country. Perhaps I only turned Catholic to piss off a few of my countrymen.^[84]

In 2009, he declared, "I'm a very bad Catholic. In fact I'm becoming more and more of an atheist."^[85]

His mother considered herself a Communist, while his father was a Social Democrat, and both were committed nudists, and the young Lars went on several childhood holidays to nudist camps. His parents regarded the disciplining of children as reactionary. Trier has noted that he was brought up in an atheist family, and that although Ulf Trier was Jewish, he was not religious. His parents did not allow much room in their household for "feelings, religion, or enjoyment," and also refused to make any rules for their children, with complex effects upon Trier's personality and development.^[86][87]

In 1989, von Trier's mother told him on her deathbed that the man whom von Trier had thought was his biological father had not been, and that he was the result of a liaison she had had with her former employer, Fritz Michael Hartmann (1909–2000),^[88] who was descended from a long line of German-speaking Roman Catholic classical musicians. Hartmann's grandfather was Emil Hartmann, his great grandfather J. P. E. Hartmann, his uncles included Niels Gade and Johan Ernst Hartmann, and Niels Viggo Bentzon was his cousin. She stated that she did this to give her son "artistic genes".^[89]

Until that point I thought I had a Jewish background. But I'm really more of a Nazi. I believe that my biological father's German family went back two further generations. Before she died, my mother told me to be happy that I was the son of this other man. She said my foster father had had no goals and no strength. But he was a loving man. And I was very sad about this revelation. And you then feel manipulated when you really do turn out to be creative. If I'd known that my mother had this plan, I would have become something else. I would have shown her. The slut!^[84]

He periodically suffers from depression, and also from various fears and phobias, including an intense fear of flying. As he quipped in an interview, "basically, I'm afraid of everything in life, except filmmaking."^[90]

On numerous occasions, von Trier has also stated that he suffers from occasional depression which renders him incapable of performing his work and unable to fulfill social obligations.^[91]

Trier suffers from multiple phobias, including an intense fear of flying.^[92] This fear of air travel frequently places severe constraints on him and his crew, necessitating that virtually all of his films be shot in either Denmark or Sweden.

• Zentropa, Lars Von Trier's Production Company
• Lars von Trier at IMDb
• Lars von Trier in the Danish Film Database
• Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database

• Bainbridge, Caroline (2007). The cinema of Lars von Trier: authenticity and artifice. Wallflower Press. ISBN 978-1-905674-44-2. Retrieved 11 October 2010.
• Goss, Brian Michael (January 2009). Global auteurs: politics in the films of Almodóvar, von Trier, and Winterbottom. Peter Lang. ISBN 978-1-4331-0134-2. Retrieved 11 October 2010.
• Lasagna, Roberto; Lena, Sandra (1 June 2003). Lars von Trier (in French). Gremese Editore. ISBN 978-88-7301-543-7. Retrieved 11 October 2010.
• Livingston, Paisley; Plantinga, Carl R.; Mette Hjort (3 December 2008). The Routledge companion to philosophy and film. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-77166-5. Retrieved 11 October 2010.
• Lumholdt, Jan (2003). Lars von Trier: interviews. Univ. Press of Mississippi. ISBN 978-1-57806-532-5. Retrieved 11 October 2010.
• Schepelern, Peter (2000). Lars von Triers film: tvang og befrielse (in Danish). Rosinante. ISBN 978-87-621-0164-7. Retrieved 11 October 2010.
• Simons, Jan (15 September 2007). Playing the waves: Lars Von Trier's game cinema. Amsterdam University Press. ISBN 978-90-5356-979-5. Retrieved 11 October 2010.
• Stevenson, Jack (2002). Lars von Trier. British Film Institute. ISBN 978-0-85170-902-4. Retrieved 11 October 2010.
• Stühl, Leo (2012): Die Kunst im Horrorgenre: Gewaltexzesse und Pornografie in Lars von Triers Antichrist. Diplomica, Hamburg 2013, ISBN 978-3955490997. Retrieved 09. September 2013.
• Stevenson, Jack (2003). Dogme uncut: Lars von Trier, Thomas Vinterburg, and the gang that took on Hollywood. Santa Monica Press. ISBN 978-1-891661-35-8. Retrieved 11 October 2010.
• von Trier, Lars; Addonizio, Antonio (1 January 1999). Il dogma della libertà: conversazioni con Lars von Trier (in Italian). Edizioni della battaglia. ISBN 978-88-87630-07-7. Retrieved 11 October 2010.
• von Trier, Lars; Björkman, Stig (2003). Trier on von Trier. Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-20707-7. Retrieved 11 October 2010.
• Tiefenbach, Georg: Drama und Regie (Writing and Directing): Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark, Dogville. 2010 Königshausen & Neumann. ISBN 978-3-8260-4096-2