Background

Von Trier was born in Kongens Lyngby, Denmark. He was a son of Inger Høst and Fritz Michael Hartmann. Later on, his mother married Ulf Trier and Lars adopted the surname of his stepfather. His biological father was the head of the Ministry of Social Affairs in Denmark.

Education

Lars von Trier studied film theory at the University of Copenhagen from 1976 to 1979. Later he studied at the National Film School of Denmark. While studying, he made two short films and won Best School Film Awards at Munich International Festival of Film Schools.

Career

Lars Von Trier began his career with the crime film The Element of Crime, which was a psychological drama and first in the instalment of 'Europa' trilogy. Later he directed such films as Epidemic and Europa, thus completing the Europa trilogy. In 1994 von Trier wrote and directed a Danish television miniseries called Riget (The Kingdom), which was set in a hospital and focused on the supernatural and macabre. It proved so popular that it was followed by a sequel, Riget II in 1997, and later inspired an American version, adapted by American horror novelist Stephen King, for which von Trier served as executive producer.

In 1995 von Trier and Danish director Thomas Vinterberg wrote a manifesto for a purist film movement called Dogme 95. Participating directors took what the group dubbed the Vow of Chastity, which bound them to a list of tenets that, among other things, forbade the use of any props or effects not natural to the film’s setting in order to achieve a straightforward form of narrative-based realism. In 1996, Trier wrote and directed Breaking the Waves a story about an unconventional couple who breaks the stereotype of marriage. It embodies much of the spirit of Dogme 95, though it was not technically certified as such. In the end, the only official Dogme 95 film that von Trier directed was The Idiots a highly controversial work that centres on a group of people who publicly pretend to be developmentally disabled.

In 2000 von Trier released Dancer in the Dark, a melodrama that features Icelandic pop singer Björk as a nearly blind factory worker who finds relief from her constant travails in fantasy-fueled musical numbers. In 2003 Von Trier made his next film The Five Obstructions. Later he made a trilogy Land of Opportunities which consists of Dogville, Manderlay, and Washington. Later films include Antichrist, which agitated audiences with its graphic depiction of sexual violence within a grieving couple’s relationship, and the haunting Melancholia, in which a chaotic wedding and attendant familial discord are set against a planet’s impending collision with Earth. In December 2013, Trier made a four-hour film Nymphomaniac, which was deemed as a poor adult film. The film was originally a five-and-a-half-hour film but due to its explicit content it was cut short to four hour. The movie was made into two volumes in Britain and Australia and was released. An uncensored version of the first volume was premiered at Berlin Film Festival in 2014. In 2018, von Trier directed The House That Jack Built, a deliberately provocative film that follows a serial killer through a succession of murders.

Achievements

• Lars von Trier is a Danish film director and screenwriter who is famous for his dark and intense movies. His famous films are Dancer in the Dark, Dogville and Melancholia. Von Trier has won five European Film Awards and seven Bodil Awards also. He has been nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe. In 2000, he received the Palme d'Or for his film Dancer in the Dark. In 2001 he also received the Independent Spirit Award and Goya Award. Lars von Trier was made a Knight of the Order of the Dannebrog on 14 January 1997. He was also awarded UNICEF's 'Cinema for Peace Award' at the 2004 Berlinale.

Works

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  • The House That Jack Built

    (In five episodes, failed architect and vicious sociopath ...)

    2018
  • The Five Obstructions

    (In 1967, experimental filmmaker Jorgen Leth created a str...)

    2003
  • Europa

    (Just after WWII, an American of German descent takes job ...)

    1991
  • Breaking the Waves

    (In a small and religious coastal town, a simple, devoutly...)

    1996
  • Dogville

    (A barren soundstage is stylishly utilized to create a min...)

    2003
  • Manderlay

    (In 1933 a young woman, named Grace (Bryce Dallas Howard),...)

    2005
  • Melancholia

    (The lives of sisters Justine and Claire get entangled whe...)

    2011
  • The Element of Crime

    (Fisher (Michael Elphick), an ex-detective, decides to tak...)

    1984
  • Dear Wendy

    (In a blue-collar American town, a group of teens bands to...)

    2004
  • Antichrist

    (While a married couple (Willem Dafoe, Charlotte Gainsbour...)

    2009
  • The Boss of It All

    (For years, company director Ravn (Peter Gantzler) leads h...)

    2006
  • The Early Years Erik Nietzsche

    (An accidental student (Jonatan Spang) at Denmark's Nation...)

    2007
  • Epidemic

    (A director (Lars von Trier) and a screenwriter (Niels Vør...)

    1987
  • Nymphomaniac

    (Nymphomaniac is a 2013 European two-part erotic art film ...)

    2013
  • Dancer in the Dark

    (Selma is a Czech immigrant, a single mother working in a ...)

    2000

Religion

Lars von Trier has changed religion many times. He's been an Orthodox Jew, a Catholic and a Protestant, but finally he became an atheist. In a 2005 interview with Die Zeit, von Trier said that he only turned Catholic to piss off a few of his countrymen.

In 2009, he said that he is a very bad Catholic and in fact he is becoming more and more of an atheist. Von Trier has noted that he was brought up in an atheist family, and that although Ulf Trier was Jewish, he was not religious.

Views

In his youth, Lars von Trier was fascinated by the aesthetics of Nazism, which brought him so much trouble in his future career. He even collected objects from the Third Reich and changed into Nazi uniforms. In one of his interviews von Trier said that he sympathized with Hitler, but later regretted it.

Quotations: "My films are about ideals that clash with the world. Every time it's a man in the lead, they have forgotten about the ideals. And everytime it's a woman in the lead, they take the ideals all the way."

"There are a lot of Americans I sympathise with very much, but not the Government right now, no. We just do not agree on politics, but that's not being Anti-American. I am critical about a country with a system that allows so many losers. I think that is wrong."

"Since I have said I am 60% American I can say there is one thing that kills any debate - an American disease called political correctness, which is a fear of talking ... What makes me a little bit sad is that there's an American TV show in which the president of the US is black. People say, 'Oh look, that's OK, there's a black president on TV.' That's completely humiliating because that's not how it is. There's no black president. Political correctness kills discussion."

"I want to be surrounded by porn people who love me for what I am, who say, 'Where do you want the erection, where do you want the penetration?' Where it's not complicated."

"When you shoot a film, it's hard work, and you tend to drink more. ... I've taken other drugs that helped me a lot – that was kind of the way I worked. But drinking is more to overcome some anxiety."

Personality

Lars von Trier periodically suffers from depression, and also from various fears and phobias. As a child, the two main fears of Lars von Trier were nuclear war and appendicitis. On long evenings, Lars lay in bed and tried to understand if his stomach hurt. Sometimes the panic was so intense that the child would drag his mattress under the table and sleep there. Von Trier also has a fear of flight. This fear frequently places severe constraints on him and his crew, necessitating that virtually all of his films be shot in either Denmark or Sweden. He very rarely travels to America – it's one of the mooted reasons he famously turned down the opportunity to work with Spielberg. Von Trier identifies himself as an antisocial personality. To be in "sober mind and solid memory" he uses 14 different pills. Trier refused alcohol, but he confessed that he goes to Alcoholics Anonymous.

Lars von Trier enjoys films by Russian director Andrey Tarkovsky. He confesses that he has watched "The Mirror" about ten times.

Quotes from others about the person

• Nicole Kidman: "He's very, very raw and he's almost like a child in that he'll say and do anything. And we would have to eat dinner every night and most of the time that would end with me in tears because Lars would sit next to me and drink peach schnapps and get drunk and get abusive and I'd leave and...anyway, then we'd go to work the next morning."

Connections

Lars von Trier married Cæcilia Holbek in 1987. The marriage produced two daughters. Von Trier and Holbek divorced in 1995. Von Trier's second marriage was to Bente Frøge from 1997 to 2015. The marriage produced two sons.

Father:

Fritz Michael Hartmann

Fritz Michael Hartmann was the head of Denmark's Ministry of Social Affairs and a World War II resistance fighter.

Mother:

Inger Høst

Grandfather:

Emil Hartmann

ex-wife:

Cæcilia Holbek

Daughter:

Selma Trier

Daughter:

Agnes Trier

ex-wife:

Bente Frøge

Son:

Benjamin Trier

Son:

Ludvig Trier

References

• The Cinema of Lars von Trier: Authenticity and Artifice Lars von Trier is one of the most controversial figures of contemporary European cinema. This volume analyzes the themes and motifs of the director's work and the changes he has brought to modern film.
  2007
• 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.
  2005
• The Films of Lars von Trier and Philosophy The films of Lars von Trier offer unique opportunities for thinking deeply about how Philosophy and Cinema speak to one another. The book addresses von Trier’s films in order of their release.
  2019