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
Everything is going to hell, but we should smile all the way.
Far be it from me to force anyone into either chess or dressage, but if you choose to do so yourself, in my opinion there is only one way: follow the rules.
If you want to provoke, you should provoke someone who is stronger than you, otherwise you are misusing your power.
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. 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.
If anyone would like to hit me, they are perfectly welcome. I must warn you, though, that I might enjoy it. So maybe it's not the right kind of punishment.
Basically, I'm afraid of everything in life, except filmmaking.
Perhaps the only difference between me and other people is that Ive always demanded more from the sunset,
A film should be like a rock in the shoe.
I think working with actors is a little bit how a chef would work with a potato or a piece of meat. You have to kind of have a look at the potato or the piece of meat and see what kind of possibilities are in the ingredient. I know I'm using the wrong metaphor. I think my job is to see what potato is there and from there, just work under their conditions.
More than anything, there are more images in evil. Evil is based far more on the visual, whereas good has no good images at all.
My films generally center around thousands of pictures being flashed in rapid succession to create the illusion of motion.
I would say that I am a poor Christian; I'm not a believer. It was this idea very early in my life that life on Earth, nature or man could not be a creation of a merciful God.
I am very romantic about communism even still, but I know terrible things happened.
I know that I cannot be with a person for three hours without saying at least ten things that would kill me.