Trier on von Trier

An opinionated, revealing collection of interviews with the mercurial Danish director of Dogville, Dancer in the Dark, and Breaking the Waves.

The only director to have accomplished the unique feat of premiering all of his features at Cannes, Lars von Trier is the unabashed prince of the European avant-garde. The grand ambitions of his career mirror those of an earlier generation of directors, such as von Sternberg and von Stroheim, a similarity the director openly acknowledges, having affected the lordly ‘von’ in his name as a tribute while still in film school. From his highly stylized debut, Element of Crime , to the universally acclaimed Breaking the Waves and controversial musical Dancer in the Dark , von Trier has constantly challenged the boundaries of contemporary film, and this thoughtful and engagingly humorous assortment of interviews with fellow director Stig Björkman reveals the motivation behind his most lasting and controversial innovations-most notably the back-to-basics Dogme 95 movement, as well as the propless, setless Dogville , which debuted at Cannes in 2003 to lavish praise. Accompanied by several ‘manifestos’ which explicate his most experimental films, Trier on von Trier promises a definitive portrait of “the most brilliant director working in cinema today.” ( IndieWIRE )