Constraining Lars Von Trier: Issues of Censorship
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CONSTRAINING LARS VON TRIER: ISSUES OF CENSORSHIP, CREATIVITY, AND PROVOCATION A Dissertation By Kirsten L. Boatwright Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Middle Tennessee State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY December 2011 Major Subject: English UMI Number: 3506848 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent on the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI 3506848 Copyright 2012 by ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This edition of the work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 CONSTRAINING LARS VON TRIER: ISSUES OF CENSORSHIP, CREATIVITY, AND PROVOCATION Kirsten L. Boatwright Approved as to style and content by Graduate Committee: <f. Dr. Linda C. Badley, Dissertation Director TU^-, Dr. Will Brantley, Reader Dr. Laura Dubek, Reader Dr. Tom Strawman, Chair, English Department Dr. Michael D. Allen, Dean, College of Graduate Studies DEDICATION A university's essential character is that of being a center of free inquiry and criticism—a thing not to be sacrificed for anything else. -Richard Hofstadter, Columbia University, 1968 This dissertation is dedicated to the seventy faculty members in whose classes I listened, inquired, and learned. Thank you for guiding my journey. u ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Although writing a dissertation may at times be a lonely process, it is never a solitary endeavor. One never begins the climb or reaches the summit without the inspiration, guidance, and support of numerous individuals. While I could never acknowledge or properly thank all those involved, a few must tolerate my feeble attempt. This dissertation is a consequence of my parents' teaching. My mother, Sharon Aunspaugh, taught me the value of reading early in life while my father, Rusty Boatwright, educated me on the fun and frustrations of good debate. Mom, this book's on me. Daddy, yes, I'd like very much to swing on a star. In the spring of 2008, I approached three professors who exemplified the qualities I most esteemed in teaching and scholarship. The members of my "Dissertation Dream Team," as I christened the trio, were demanding yet understanding, focused as well as broadminded, passionate but also pragmatic. While they proved their worth long before the dissertation process began, each brought unique talents and perspectives to this project. Dr. Laura Dubek provided evaluations of each chapter as they were completed, commenting on content, structure, and readability, but more importantly, she acknowledged my tendency toward self-criticism and funneled the bulk of her feedback through my dissertation director. While I will probably never be privy to all of her iii initial reactions, 1 will be lorever grateful for her initiative in changing the "normal" way of doing things and, thereby, helping me to maintain my sanity. Dr. Will Brantley contended with my unfinished, hurriedly submitted draft at the end of this journey, and his meticulous reading and finely penciled notes (we share an abhorrence of pens) pointed me to numerous errors I had repeatedly overlooked. Although he avoided those early drafts, he is in them nonetheless. Each time a word was discarded in favor of another more precise term, Dr. Brantley's influence reigned. Acknowledging the contributions of my director Dr. Linda Badley is a satisfying yet difficult undertaking. She has supported my every step during this journey even when I wandered, as I often do, along the wrong path. When I informed her that I wished to discard twelve months of research in favor of a new subject that had yet to be determined, she not only backed the decision but also suggested several suitable research alternatives including that which is covered in this dissertation. For over three years, Dr. Badley has answered every inquiry, commented on every draft, and provided insight into the subject, theory, and writing process. Her contributions have been both invaluable and inspirational. (She also makes a great lunch.) I despair because I'll miss our long discussions and her witty, albeit odd, sense of humor, but I will also endeavor to emulate her unending generosity and exceptional scholarship because it is the best acknowledgement I can offer. iv Believing that success is a collaborative effort and failure a solitary struggle, it is with unreserved appreciation that I acknowledge the contributions of the faculty and staff of the MTSU English Department, Dr. M.J.H., my family, friends, and felines, as well as those herein named. While any deficiency in scholarship is wholly mine, any success results directly from their gifts of time, energy, patience, and support. v ABSTRACT Danish film director Lars von Trier has made a career out of provoking audiences, critics, and the film industry alike. Equally adept at constructing and applying rules, to his own art as well as that of others, he repeatedly defies, thwarts, subverts, and even mocks constraints erected by others. Not without his predecessors—Andrei Tarkovsky, Carl Th. Dreyer, and Federico Fellini—von Trier has always tested the limits of his medium and revealed a willingness to test the written and tacit laws of society. Censorship is a recurrent theme that has affected the subject, style, and reception of the director's work, and he recurrently employs self-censorship in his filmmaking with constraints and prohibitions involving cinematic technique and narrative content. He deliberately provokes censorious reactions in order to reveal or breach unrecognized or unacknowledged incidences of hegemonic censorship or constraint. Von Trier frequently indicts the status quo of filmmaking technique, political ideology, and religious dogma in his films, with censorship or constraint often marking the intersection where art and society collide. This dissertation explores von Trier's unique artistic approach and demonstrates how the director exploits, exposes, and challenges censorship in its myriad forms and in diverse settings. Additionally, it establishes a link between von Trier's cinematic encounters with censorship—as tool, obstacle, or inspiration—and changes in the film vi industry as well as the content, form, and criticism of film. Because this approach employs a global perspective and takes as its focus a director with five decades of experience and more than thirty films to his credit, our understanding of censorship changes with context. Consequently, terms are defined in the first chapter and von Trier's engagement with censorship controls the subsequent chapters. A brief biographical sketch of von Trier—essential to any discussion of the director and restrictions— focuses on issues related to his films, filmmaking, and legendary upbringing and initiates an examination of constraints, as well as cultural censure, within his works and the censure and censorship elicited by them. In additional to exploring von Trier's role as co-creator of the Dogme95 movement, with its proscriptive commandments for filmmaking, I analyze The Idiots (1998), the first two installments of the director's USA: Land of Opportunities trilogy, Doguille (2003) and Manderlay (2005), and Antichrist (2009), before returning in conclusion to the broader issues of censorship, constraints, and cinema. After delineating the effects von Trier and his works have had on filmmaking, film content, and film criticism, both locally and globally, I offer an epilogue examining a still-developing situation of censorship stemming from comments made by the director at the Cannes International Film Festival in May 2011. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Chapter I: Terms, Theories, and Themes 7 The Five Obstructions 16 Chapter II: Artist, Artifice, and Art 21 Breaking the Waves 40 Chapter III: Idiotic Idealism? 47 Dogme #2: The Idiots 56 Chapter IV: The Truth Hurts 73 Manderlay 92 Chapter V: No Justification Required 105 Chapter VI: No End in Sight 126 Epilogue 131 Works Cited 146 Filrnography 163 Appendix A: Cinema for Peace Award Acceptance Speech 166 Vlll 1 INTRODUCTION In many respects, asking questions about artmaking is a lot like artmaking itself: the product of one inquiry becomes the source for the next. -Ted Orland, The View From the Studio Door Despite its inherent aim towards freedom, art—including film—lias always been governed by rules. Danish film director Lars von Trier is equally adept at constructing and enforcing rules, to his own art as well as that of others. However, when others have defined the constraints, whether overtly or surreptitiously, the director has defied, thwarted, subverted, and even mocked the cons trainers and their constraints, along with the institutions and societies from which they are borne. Censorship is a recurrent theme that has affected the subject, style, and reception of von Trier's work both locally and, since the mid-1990s, internationally.l In addition to censoring the work of others (as with his Dogme95 'rules'), the director recurrently employs self-censorship in his own work with constraints and prohibitions involving cinematic technique and film content, and he deliberately provokes censorious 1 While commonly excluded when referring to persons by last name, "von" is employed in this dissertation to differentiate