Interview with Lars Von Trier

cj-3 about chaos. And that is why you can easily find a figure as Kessler in Eastern Europe tüday. O.S.A.: Why do you want to show chaos? L.T.: h is verv unpleasant to live in chaos. The human being cannot stand chaos, it is ruin to the human being, a heading towards destruction. But %mmSmist J«r *„.T nevertheless I see a poetic beautv in Interview with chaos. And it can be a good educational point to confront people with chaos in LARS VON TRIER short moments. Afterwards they can return to their safe homes in the suburbs. So perhaps I am an excellent BY OLAV SKAANING ANDERSEN educator, but I will deny that till my death. O.S.A.: The faibire. or ruin, of the O.S.A.: Your latesl film, Zenlropa, is Bul I don't have any ideas of or any ideaiisi is an important theine in abnost aboiit Europe, especially Germaiiy. It opinions about Europe. To me Europe is all your films. Fisher in Element of seems lo me lliat you identify Germany a feeling or a sentiment, which 1 find Crime, Dr. Mesmer in Epidemic and Leo with Europe, they are identical to you. quite difficult to explain. That is why I Kessler in Zenlropa. Why? What is so fascinaling about Germany/' niake movies. L.T.: During my life I have aiways felt L.T.; Germany is tlie entrance to Eiirope O.S.A.: You are not able lo discuss that people exploited me when I was and 1 am obsessecl by the country. Zenlropa as a fdm related lo Europe as good. So it is a kind of revenge when the Germany is a symbol, it is Europe. And realilyy. idealistic character meets with bad luck the Germán society has aiways L.T.: No, Not really. I don't know in my films. Now 1 really hale teachers demonstrated the most extreme passions: anything about real life except that I and ideahsts. They are didactic and tell in its national character as well as in the voted yes to the Maastricht-treaty in the people how they should act and behave. relationships between individuáis and recent Danish referendum. Primarily But the idealist is also a boring figure. 1 the relations to other countries. 1 feel it because of the events in Eastern Europe. was a true idealist when I was young as a kind of thread, and this creates a I am interested in the present opening of and look how I am sitting in my own universe of war, a perfect setting for a Europe, but you can be completely sure: company now. film. Europe will never be able to co-operate For commercial reasoiis it is aiways good I have a kind of anxiety concerning seriously. There will aiways be a country to be an avangardist at the beginning of Germany. 1 feel tliat Germany that disagrees, i.e Norway. your career. It creates a kind of humiliated me during the Second World Chaos will aiways exist and that is idealism, so today it is stiil possible to War. Besides ihat I consider the fact that exactly what I like. If there was to be an live well 011 your baldheaded past.... my parents had to escape from Germany European Union with precise and well O.S.A.: Jf the arlisi is not an. idealist, during the war as a great huniiliation. defined borders, one could not talk u^hal is he ihen? V^ CENrtOAIiANIiCOOf A(l( MO0l^^ T I C A m l^ars \'üii 'l'ricr, Werí;walfs sons, 1991. L.T.: Primai'ilv he is preoccupied wifh O.S.A.: Yon combine popular culture Orson Welles' own personality. 1 was íígliting ollier artists. Arl: -or media- is a and classical ihernes in 7,enlropa and I very inspired by Hitchcock when I made great forcé, bul: is also sornething which see a greal in.yjiralion froni Hitchcock Zentropa. 1 don't know exactly what it easily í'ossilizes. So it is very imporlant and Orson Wellesy is, but 1 feel good in his company. It is t;o fight against otiier arlisis; i.e. lo avoid L.T,: Yes, I have a greal interest in like watching a soap-opera on that art í'ossilizes coinpletelv. 1 woiild Orson Welles. Especially when he malees Televisión. You get a family in a like lo be tlie one who sils in ihe córner the clash betvveen ihe tradilional dramaturgic sense, that means you know and savs; this has lo be done differentlv. Hollywood film and the art movie. He what is going to happen. It is an The whole machinerv - technic|ue, really bends the rules. When he made alphabet, which 1 know through and econoiny - of arl grows and becanse oí' Touch OfEi'il he took the worst novel, through in the case of Hitchcock: When tíiis we have to í'ighl against this he could find and il becanie an excellent I watch a movie of him I immediately hmilation oí our possiljilities. I vvant to film. On the contrary his screen visión of know the alphabet so to speak! teil stories people do not necessarily Kafka's 7Víe Procexs is not - not at all - Hitchcock and Donald Duck are both want lo íollow or walch. I wanl to give so interesting as Touch OJ'Eril. There's part of the common knowledge and people pictiires and images f'roin a woríd no clash in The Process, perhaps culture of our generation. We have their of fihn they do nol know in advance. because there is loo much Kafka in visual stereotypes in our heads. When I made Zentropa I retumed to this We can have up to seven layers of L.T.: I find a kind of honesty in Dreyer's problem and confronted it with my eyes images when we are working on image füm which does not exist anywhere else. open again, so to spetik. I really like superimposition, in black and white as That is all. I discovered him when I was these clichés. They are instruments, like weU as coloiu'. But the important thing is quite young and I must have seen the words of the alphabet, and they can that we combine two images which could Jeanne D'arc hundreds of times. Dreyer be extended. The principal technique be fümed with different lenses. With is a saint to me. I will not accept concems the putting together of things background shot with a telephotolens anything to be wrong with him. He in a different way. and a foregroimd shot with a wideangle made films which are very unlike mine. O.S.A.: You use rear and frontprojection lens, we can créate an unsetding effect But he did it with a purity of heart. Not quite openly and obviously? which marks the audience although it is because he wanted to make money. That L.T.: I have the fascination of rear not immediately noticeable. The same is is completely certain. Ten years passed projection from Hitchcock. He uses it in true with the movements and changes of between his films. In the silent film era an abstract way, so it is obvious that the camera. We are making images that he made bad, or poor, füm. But rear projection is at play. When you seem perfectly reaÜstic, but tum out to afterwards he foUowed a specific goal styhze in this way, or in any other way, contain an element which leads the film right until his death and that is a good what you do is to tidy up the picture. in directions plaimed beforehand attitude towards ufe. Hitchcock, Dreyer and Welles all did although hidden in the actual image. O.S.A.: What do you have in common this. Rear and front projection in O.S.A.: What does it mean to match with him? Zentropa is made with quite an foreground and background? L.T.: I have leamed purity and stylistic oldfashioned technique. It was meant to L.T.: It is always interesting to see a abüity from Dreyer, but I do not have be difficult. I like to make film as close-up of a man -and then in the much in common with him when it comes difficult as possible. It is too easy to background to be able to watch what is to the subjects. AH his movies are about make a videofilm, everybody can do inside his head. It has always interested woman as a victim. He sees the woman as that. That is why I make films which are me. We also did it in Element ofCrime. a saint. On the contrary women are difficult to make technically. You smash the perspective and it ahnost absent, or non existent, in my O.S.A.: You challengeyour own ability becomes decorative. füms. The women are really stereotypes in as fdmmaker? O.S.A.: What does your part in the Element ofCríme and Epidemic. But in L.T.: Yes, it is a challenge, a kind af avantgarde film milieu imply? my new füm Breaking The Waves I try to athletic endeavor. And you always get L.T.: The avantgarde is obviously change this. This füm is inspired by results when the conditions are difficult. important as such. Nevertheless I find a Dreyer's Gertrud. I try to make a In Zentropa we try to do an immense mixture of the avantgarde and the melodramatic story, a sonorous job to raise people's awareness and popular film to be more interesting.

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