Shared Top Border

They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?

  WebTSPDT

[ Home ] [ Directors A-L ] [ Directors M-Z ] [ 1,000 Greatest Films ] [ 21st Century ] [ Film Noir ] [ Ain't Nobody's Blues ] [ Recommended Viewing ] [ About ] [ Links ]
 
         
 
Lars von Trier
Director / Screenwriter
1956 - 
Born April 30, Copenhagen, Denmark
Key Production Country: Denmark, France, Sweden, Italy, Netherlands, Germany, Norway
Key Genres: Drama, Melodrama, Psychological Drama
Key Collaborators: Udo Kier (Character Player), Vibeke Windelov (Producer), Jean-Marc Barr (Leading Character Player), Molly Malene Stensgaard (Editor), Tomas Gislason (Screenwriter), Karl Juliusson (Production Designer), Ernst-Hugo Jaregard (Leading Player), Niers Vorsel (Screenwriter), Peter Aalbaek Jensen (Producer), Robby Muller (Cinematographer)

Recommended: The Kingdom II [TV] (1997) [co-directed by Morten Arnfred], Dancer in the Dark (2000)^
Worth a Look: Element of Crime (1984), Breaking the Waves (1996)*, The Five Obstructions (2003)^ [co-directed by Jørgen Leth)
Approach with Caution: Europa (1991), The Kingdom [TV] (1994), Dogville (2003)^
Duds: Idiots (1998), Antichrist (2009)
* Listed in TSPDT's 1,000 Greatest Films section; ^ Listed in TSPDT's 21st Century's Most Acclaimed Films section.

 
 
 
Links: [ Amazon ] [ IMDB ] [ TCMDB ] [ All-Movie Guide ] [ Senses of Cinema: Great Directors ] [ Film Reference ] [ Lars von Trier Web Space ] [ Lars von Trier Fan Site ] [ World Films Biography ] [ Bright Lights Film Journal Article ] [ Sight & Sound Interview (1996) ] [ LarsVonTrier.net ] [ Boston Phoenix Interview (2009) ] [ Sight & Sound Article (2011) ]
Books: [ Lars von Trier ] [ Lars von Trier: Interviews ] [ Dogme Uncut: Lars von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg, and the Gang That Took on Hollywood ] [ Trier on von Trier ]
 
Breaking the Waves (1996)Dancer in the Dark (2000)Element of Crime (1984)The Kingdom II (1997)
 
     
  "A natural provocateur, Lars Trier added the "von" to his name at the age of 20, less as a homage to Stroheim or Sternberg than as an act of effrontery and mischief; this reportedly deeply neurotic, phobic individual is also a daring exhibitionist. This propensity for pushing his ego to the fore has made von Trier a controversial figure, but also, with Pedro Almodóvar and Emir Kusturica one of the three most acclaimed European filmmakers of his generation... Is he an arch manipulator and a charlatan? Von Trier has certainly been guilty of the first charge, but his probing, deterministic view of man's inhumanity to man has an appropriate moral severity, and his bold, experimental aesthetic impulses are undoubtedly a shot in the arm for the European art film tradition" - Tom Charity (The Rough Guide to Film, 2007)  
     
  "A leading figure in European avant-garde, Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier is happy when being as reviled as admired. A flamboyant figure, his films are acts of provocation, alternately exhilarating and dismaying, and unmatched in their bold experimentation, stylistic range, conceptual rigor, and disturbing intensity." - Linda Badley (501 Movie Directors: A Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers, 2007)  
     
  "Von Trier is an eccentric, provocative film-maker with a penchant for extreme stylistic strategies... His early films are overblown attempts to create a dazzlingly strange, sinister world, but in the more recent Breaking the Waves and The Idiots, simpler narratives and closer attention to individual characters suggest there is perhaps a major film-maker behind the emphatic irony and insistent, bludgeoning technique. With conviction, he may achieve greatness." - Geoff Andrew (The Director's Vision, 1999)  
     
  "I think it's important that we all try to give something to this medium, instead of just thinking about what is the most efficient way of telling a story or making an audience stay in a cinema." - Lars von Trier  
     
 
Please note that the rating given for this director (see top-right) is based only on the films we have seen (listed above). Films by this director that we haven't seen include Epidemic (1987), Manderlay (2005), The Boss of it All (2006), and Melancholia (2011)^.
 6
 

"With a back-story (almost) as singular as his films, Danish director Lars von Trier was one of the most exceptional filmmakers to burst onto the international film scene in the 1990s. Unapologetically confident in his artistry and an unabashed provocateur, von Trier could kick up a fuss about his behavior, but his stylistic brio, extreme narratives, and ability with actors prevented such films as Europa (1991), The Kingdom (1994), Breaking the Waves (1996), and Dancer in the Dark (2000) from being eclipsed by their creator. Even as he openly sought a larger audience by making films in English, von Trier's success helped resurrect Scandinavian cinema's international prominence; his intense fear of flying ensured he'd never "go Hollywood." - Lucia Bozzola, Allmovie

 
 
Top 250 Directors
21st Century Top 50
100 Essential Directors (Pop Matters)
Ranked 37th on The Guardian's 2004 List of the World's 40 Best Directors
Ranked 14th on Film Comment's list of the 25 Best Directors of the Decade (2000-2009)
● The Wild Bunch... 50 of the Movies' Maddest Visionaries
501 Movie Directors: A Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers
 
See Also
Ingmar Bergman
Susanne Bier (external link)
Carl Dreyer
Bruno Dumont
Jean-Luc Godard
Jørgen Leth (external link)
David Lynch
Lukas Moodysson
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Thomas Vinterberg (external link)
Andrzej Zulawski
 
 
 
         
         

 

[ Home ] [ Directors A-L ] [ Directors M-Z ] [ 1,000 Greatest Films ] [ 21st Century ] [ Film Noir ] [ Ain't Nobody's Blues ] [ Recommended Viewing ] [ About ] [ Links ]
[ Recommended Reading Archives ] [ The Shooting Gallery ]
 
Contact Us: bill@theyshootpictures.com.
©2002-2012 They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?