I really love Melancholia. No doubt Von Trier is a class 1 asshole and I don't really have a lot of interest in Dancer or Breaking any more, but Melancholia made me really appreciate him again. I also think Dogville is extraordinary but mainly because of Kidman.
― akm, Friday, 18 May 2018 21:08 (six years ago) link
is maderlay any good or is it garbage like everyone said it was?
― akm, Friday, 18 May 2018 21:09 (six years ago) link
i liked breaking the waves tho it’s been years since i saw it. medieval catholic female martyr saint in male presbyterian environment seems like a good premise for a film. also enjoyed the kingdom. FUCKING DANES and all that.
― Fizzles, Friday, 18 May 2018 21:24 (six years ago) link
melancholia was dogshit
― Fizzles, Friday, 18 May 2018 21:26 (six years ago) link
It’s great (Manderlay, that is). That said, I haven’t actually returned to watch it again and it’s probably for the best that Wasington was never completed... But at the time I felt it was on a par with Dogville but for the performances.
No one’s with me on this, but Antichrist is my absolute favourite. Followed by Breaking the Waves and Melancholia.
The masochism of his female characters never reads for me as a flat cruelty or misogyny, it is always overflowing with projective identification and revenge as reparation and women destroying (or trying to) the systems that made them. He’s not playing god with a litany of weak female characters or anything, it’s clear that his (and our) identification is with them and he wants us to feel all this disorganised pain, and it’s very powerful and memorable.
― tangenttangent, Friday, 18 May 2018 21:33 (six years ago) link
on second thought Melancholia is way better than Breaking the Waves, I really need to rewatch it. and watch Antichrist for the first time
― flappy bird, Saturday, 19 May 2018 04:26 (six years ago) link
thanx poll
Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.
― System, Saturday, 29 December 2018 00:01 (five years ago) link
The Kingdom is still the correct answer
― Οὖτις, Saturday, 29 December 2018 00:03 (five years ago) link
It’s great (Manderlay, that is).
It's uh ... problematic ... idk if it codes differently for non-Americans in the same vein as the uh, famous bottle opener of yore, but it has similar issues w/r/t race as a lot of the other films do to women's issues. And it that regard, maybe it isn't "misogyny" or "cruelty" but it sure felt that way while I was watching the "let's have horrible things happen to nice women trilogy" ... idk, as I've gotten older, I have a lot less patience for films made by white European men being arty and manipulative through beating people over the head with depictions of trauma that people who aren't white men actually experience.
The Kingdom is still cool. Zentropa was good iirc.
― sarahell, Saturday, 29 December 2018 02:33 (five years ago) link
that's kind of why I like Melancholia the most, Kirsten Dunst is resigned and basically happy to die, she's one of his only protagonists that comes out with her dignity intact, *and* for once a female protagonist that takes glee along with LVT at everyone else's misery.
― flappy bird, Saturday, 29 December 2018 04:11 (five years ago) link
That's ... kinda not what he's all about tho? (Which, fine. Fuck him and all.)
― love craptually (Eric H.), Saturday, 29 December 2018 04:15 (five years ago) link
Well, I partially take that back. His career does build up to the realization that women absorb suffering in ways that men are laughably incapable of reaching.
― love craptually (Eric H.), Saturday, 29 December 2018 04:16 (five years ago) link
tbh I think I voted for Dancer in the Dark
― flappy bird, Saturday, 29 December 2018 04:25 (five years ago) link
Well, I mean yeah. Björk.
― love craptually (Eric H.), Saturday, 29 December 2018 04:26 (five years ago) link
sticking to my guns and voting for Nympho as it's his culminating work
― resident hack (Simon H.), Saturday, 29 December 2018 07:52 (five years ago) link
as I've gotten older, I have a lot less patience for films made by white European men being arty and manipulative through beating people over the head with depictions of trauma
^^^
I don't watch this guy's movies, everything I read about them says his spiel is a highly aestheticized version of some stuff that seemed super intense to me as a teenager and now seems...easy and cheap and cowardly from an artistic standpoint
like, if I need this kind of thing, I can watch "The Last House on the Left" or "Flower of Flesh and Blood" or whatever, stuff that's a little more forthright about where its makers' interests lie
― she carries a torch. two torches, actually (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Saturday, 29 December 2018 11:24 (five years ago) link
Or something like Mizoguchis films. They're also all about the suffering of women. Like, half of all art is about the suffering of women. Lars von Trier has just always been more explicit about it, but I don't think that's a bad thing.
― Frederik B, Saturday, 29 December 2018 11:42 (five years ago) link
Voted for Dogville; I've only seen it, Waves, and Melancholia, and/but it's the only one I think I'd willingly watch again.
― grawlix (unperson), Saturday, 29 December 2018 12:37 (five years ago) link
Like, half of all art is about the suffering of women. ― Frederik B, Saturday, 29 December 2018 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― Frederik B, Saturday, 29 December 2018 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Half of all art in the west is about the suffering of baby jesus. But well done for trying to equate the empathy and humanism of Mizoguchi with the misogyny and tantrums of LvT.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 29 December 2018 16:43 (five years ago) link
“LVT is like Mizoguchi” is some galaxy brain shit
― flappy bird, Saturday, 29 December 2018 16:54 (five years ago) link
p sure zero art in the west is about the suffering of baby jesus tbh
Jesus's suffering came later
― Οὖτις, Saturday, 29 December 2018 17:07 (five years ago) link
Mizoguchi is misogynistic as fuck, lol.
― Frederik B, Saturday, 29 December 2018 20:05 (five years ago) link
I think there's definitely some art about the suffering of baby jesus. The flight into Egypt and stuff like that. + his circumcision?
― Frederik B, Saturday, 29 December 2018 20:06 (five years ago) link
never even heard either of those stories so I wouldn't say 50% of western art is about those two particular episodes, and whether any suffering was involved with either seems kinda debatable anyway
― Οὖτις, Saturday, 29 December 2018 20:13 (five years ago) link
No, you're absolutely right, I just got a bit distracted. It's just, I'm a church singer, and the sunday on the circumcision of Jesus is one of the weirder sundays of the year...
― Frederik B, Saturday, 29 December 2018 20:55 (five years ago) link
The circumcision of Jesus is depicted often in western art but depict it as something the baby Jesus is suffering. The account of the circumcision in the bible is very brief.in Catholicism the fact that Jesus was given his name is what's focused on (It's called the feast of the Holy name or something similar).
― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Saturday, 29 December 2018 21:36 (five years ago) link
"It isn't depicted as" should be in there
― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Saturday, 29 December 2018 21:37 (five years ago) link
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/40/Bellini-circumcision-NG1455-fm.jpg/600px-Bellini-circumcision-NG1455-fm.jpg
Hmm…
― pomenitul, Saturday, 29 December 2018 21:47 (five years ago) link
This wilful mis-representation of my post by ILX's resident art historians has been worth it
Mizoguchi may have perhaps been concern trolling but misogynistic is a reach - especially when using him to explain LvT away.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 29 December 2018 23:28 (five years ago) link
"concern trolling"?? nah. yes he made many movies about suffering women, but the attitude and the touch is a world away from LVT. slice of life/melodrama vs. sadistic playhouse. LVT's style is certainly valid and he's made lots of good movies but I don't think the comparison holds.
― flappy bird, Saturday, 29 December 2018 23:53 (five years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.
― System, Sunday, 30 December 2018 00:01 (five years ago) link
I agree that the comparison doesn't hold, just pretending that Fred had a point for a couple of seconds.
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 30 December 2018 00:09 (five years ago) link
I’m the one who voted Epidemic. Glad Medea got a vote and that The Kingdom won.
― Spirit of the Voice of the Beehive (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 30 December 2018 00:27 (five years ago) link
Well, a third series of the The Kingdom certainly wasn't on my list of predictions for 2021 but there you have it.
― You will notice a small sink where your sofa once was. (Old Lunch), Thursday, 17 December 2020 18:10 (three years ago) link
😳
― Robert Gotopieces (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 17 December 2020 18:55 (three years ago) link
omg really?????
oh FRABJOUS MOTHERFUCKING DAY
shame half of the o.g. cast are dead, like
― Uptown Top Scamping (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 17 December 2020 19:11 (three years ago) link
Danskjävlar!
― Robert Gotopieces (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 17 December 2020 19:12 (three years ago) link
yes. yes they are.
― Uptown Top Scamping (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 17 December 2020 19:13 (three years ago) link
Hour-long interview from late 2020. I love the part where he says "Let me tell you a funny story about David Lynch" which is really a story about himself and not that funny, but utterly him. Loves Bowie and Bruno Ganz. He says his trembling is from anti-depressants, but I wonder if it's alcoholism/withdrawal related?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXWcl6OuVw8
― Elvis Telecom, Saturday, 16 October 2021 02:37 (two years ago) link
Breaking the Waves, Dancer In the Dark, and Dogville seemed increasingly extreme as heroine martyr films, but then Dogville ultimately was a revenge film
― Dan S, Saturday, 19 February 2022 02:26 (two years ago) link
The last film of his I enjoyed was The Boss of It All. Antichrist and Melancholia had their virtues, but being pleasant viewing experiences wasn't one of them - the sense of artistic struggle and general emotional malaise was too strong. I put off seeing Nymphomaniac until the long version became available, but if it did, I haven't watched it; I don't know whether the thought of seeing his last two films makes me indifferent or repulsed.It's strange because in the 90s he was so fascinating, even when I didn't "agree" with the films (like Breaking the Waves) or he seemed to be playing with a joker persona. A real dark cloud came over his work in the last 15 years or so, and I don't think it's just depression.
― Halfway there but for you, Saturday, 19 February 2022 04:40 (two years ago) link
Diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease https://cphpost.dk/?p=137468
― Alba, Monday, 8 August 2022 16:14 (one year ago) link
He says his trembling is from anti-depressants, but I wonder if it's alcoholism/withdrawal related?
Oh God
― Halfway there but for you, Monday, 8 August 2022 16:53 (one year ago) link
Well goddamn...
― Elvis Telecom, Monday, 8 August 2022 17:02 (one year ago) link
THE KINGDOM EXODUS along with restored KINGDOM I and II coming soon!
― If The Damned Are United (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 1 October 2022 00:03 (one year ago) link