Lars Von Trier Is Crucifying Anders Thomas Jensen, World Misses Joke

When Screendaily yesterday announced that Anders Thomas Jensen had helped Lars von Trier complete the script for his next film, Antichrist, the joke seemed pretty obvious to me but nobody else seems to have commented upon it.

Von trier really is no fan of Jensen's, and he has quite openly slated him in the past, criticising his films for being superficial and shallow. For his part, Andersen satirised von Triers's self-opinion in the script for Clash of Egos. I'm with Lars, largely.

And it seems to me that, in this case at least, wicked Lars will get the last laugh.

Antichrist is conceived as a deliberately 'mainstream' film about the end of the world and the son of satan coming to earth to bring it about. The film is apparently rather concerned with spectacle, overwrought action and a kind of flashy extravagance that von Trier abandoned some years ago.

It's also, clearly, a massive postmodern gag and I'm prepared to bet Jensen's contribution is a joke on him. Haven't people seen enough of von Trier's formal trickiness by now to work out how he thinks? If Antichrist had a manifesto, it wouldn't be the Dogme one, that's for sure. Something along the lines of "Always appear to be as pointedly superficial and shallow as possible" is more likely, I think.

The press conferences when this one is ready to roll out are bound to be a joy.