Lars von Trier
Lars von Trier
Lars von Trier is a Danish film director and screenwriter, best known for his films Dancer in the Dark, Breaking the Waves, Melancholia and Europa. He is considered one of the great film auteurs and widely regarded as one of the most accomplished living directors in world cinema. In a prolific and controversial career spanning almost four decades, his work became distinct for its genre and technical innovation, the intensely confrontational - sometimes "humorous" - examination of existential, social and...
NationalityDanish
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth30 April 1956
CountryDenmark
Unfortunately, on one or both of my shoulders sits lots of anxiety and that is a controlling factor in my life.
Evil gives you far more strings to pull. But I must say that I have never been interested in the psychology of evil, not in the slightest. Perhaps I'm not interested in evil, but in the dark sides of human beings.
If people do not laugh it's not comedy.
It is more difficult to manipulate with film than, for instance, video. The problem with video is that it gives you a thousand possibilities.
I grew up in a culturally radical home, where strong emotions were forbidden.
I had an almost fetishistic attraction to film technology.
I'm having a vacation, and it's so beautiful, and maybe I'll never get another film idea in my life.
I'm very proud of being persona non grata. I've never been that before in my life, and that suits me extremely wellI'm known for provocations, but I like provocations when they have a purpose. And this had no purpose whatsoever. Because I'm not Mel Gibson. I'm definitely not Mel Gibson.
I understand Hitler... I sympathize with him a bit
The risk is that you furnish the project with new suggestions to try and freshen it up; it's not always beneficial. You risk betraying the original intention with the story, forgetting what it is you really want to portray.
My films are about ideals that clash with the world. Every time it's a man in the lead, they have forgotten about the ideals. And every time it's a woman in the lead, they take the ideals all the way.
Actors need bricks to play with, and in fact we rejected all the improvised fragments we had made without a plan. Improvisation without a plan is like tennis without tennis balls.
I'm happy that I'm alive. I feel like someone coming back from Vietnam, you know; I'm sure that later on I'll start killing people in a square somewhere, but right now, I just feel happy to be alive.
I sit there pouring out my woes year after year, coming up with one enormity after another about my mother and the way she let me down; but it doesn't make me any the less fearful.