Dancer in the Dark is to become an Opera, premiering at Denmark's Royal Theatre during their 2010-2011 season. Already the Swedish soprano Ylva Kihlberg - pictured below - has been given the lead role of Selma.
Henrik Engelbrecht is writing the libretto in English while Poul Ruders will compose the music - presumably with Bjork's original pieces as a foundation? There's no suggestion that Lars von Trier will be directly involved in any way.
Dominic Frisby has some ideas about how stand-up comedy should be filmed: the camera should be hand-held; there's no need to compose or balance anything in any particular way - just point and shoot; the sound should be taken from a mic on or near the camera, not through the sound desk.
Comedogme '07: He's the Lars von Trier of comedians. Sort of.
A new clip on YouTube puts this theory to the test... and I think it works just the way he wanted it to. The scene has been called The Great Shave, and to find out why, you'll have to watch.
I was the man with the camera in his hand and, yep, you can hear me laughing on the soundtrack regularly.
This is, I'm afraid, very bad news.
Talking to a Danish newspaper, Lars von Trier has revealed that all plans for any future films are currently on hold. He's suffring from very serious depression and it has inhibited his ability to write or direct absolutely. He descirbed himself as feleing like "a blank sheet of paper".
Here are some quotes from von Trier in the article, in English:
It's very strange for me, because I've always had at least three projects in my head at one time. You can't make a film and be depressed at the same time. They say that it can take a couple of years to recover after a depression - but let us see. I assume that Antichrist will be my next movie,but right now I don't know.
Von Trier is undoubtedly one of the most important filmmakers in the world, and one of the greatest innovators in the entire history of film. There's a sizeable chance we'll never see another film from him. If that's true, this is a very, very sad day for cinema. There's also quite some likelihood that this will pass. I hope so - if not for us, the audience, then for von Trier himself.
There's now an English subsite at the Danish The Boss of it All site. You might be surprised how broad the comedy in the trailer is now there's subtitles to assist you.
Dig around and you'll find plenty of interesting business, like this explanation of the Lookey game (click to enlarge):
A huge archive of footage from the Cannes film festival has gone online today. Clips can be streamed for free, while many can also be purchased for around 50p-75p a pop to download.
The database is fully searchable and users can also submit their own clips shot during the fest.
Here are some of my favourite clips found in my first, rather cursory, search through. Be aware that many have French narration with no subtitles and, very often, if anybody does sepak English, they have a French translator mixed over the top.
Groucho Marx talks about the political aspect of his films, and Alfred Hitchcock plays detective on a boat.
Interview with American director Quentin Tarantino in Paris about the upcoming release of his movie Pulp Fiction, recipient of the Palme d'Or at the 1994 Festival de Cannes.
Extract of the award ceremony and Grand Prix to If... by Lindsay Anderson.
The winners of the 36th festival: Andrei Tarkovski, the Monty Python team, Hanna Schygulla and Gian Maria Volonte.
The Palme d'Or at the 53rd Festival de Cannes this evening crowns Dancer in the Dark, the film from Danish director Lars Von Trier. Icelandic singer Björk, who plays the heroine in this musical drama, won the Best Actress Award. Interview with Lars von Trier (about Björk) and interview with Björk. The Best Actor Award is bestowed on Tony Leung for his role in In the Mood for Love; Jiang Wen for Devils on the Doorstep; Taiwanese filmaker Edward Yang receives the Best Director Award for Yi Yi.
The BAFTA ceremony is on hold for twenty minutes of news and about seven hundred man hours of urination, so I thought: well, why not blog a little on part one.
Well, so far I was disappointed by Andrea Arnold not thanking Lars von Trier; for Happy Feet beating Cars; for anything beating Children of Men for special effects - and I mean anything. Ever. In the history of film. That it was Pirates 2 just made it even more silly.
I was pleased by Michael Arndt winning for his Little Miss Sunshine screenplay; for Pan's Labyrinth winning Film Not in the English language; for Emanuel Lebezki netting best cinematographer.
The rest? No strong emotions, or divided feelings at least. I'm still hoping that The Departed is shut out and doesn't take a thing, even though my hopes of Babel being cold-shouldered entirely are over.
There's a very exciting film project on the cards, but only the luckiest of us will get to see it - well, any time soon, at least. It looks like Quentin Tarantino, David Lynch. the Coen Brothers, Lars von Trier, Wong Kar Wai, Michael Cimino, Ken Loach, Wim Wenders, Chen Kaige, Abbas Kiarostami, Emir Kusturica and Nanni Moretti are amongst the directors behind the camera for this incredible king-of-all-films.
Sound too good to be true? Well, not quite actually.
This year, the Cannes film festival marks it's 60th anniversary and as a special celebration, an anthology of shorts by winners of the Palme d'Or is being compiled. The only director confirmed as absent so far is Pedro Almodovar, who appears to be too busy with his frightening sounding new film.
It isn't clear if this incredible seeming collaborative collage of shorts is ever going to see the lght of day outside of the festival, but I would sincerely hope so. Keeping something so desirable, and most likely very enjoyable, from the film fans of the world would strike me as arrogant and selfish.
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.
Is the trailer for Lars von Trier's The Boss of it All doing the rounds of UK cinemas? I can't find it anywhere, but I have received a complete transcript of all of the trailer's dialogue.
[EDIT: The trailer is in fact online now though maybe - maybe - not the same one as the transcript below was taken from. Anybody care to translate and confirm that they are one and the same?]
Only one gag comes across clearly - to me at least - but I found it all pretty intriguing, as expected.
Of course, Lars is rallying against the passivity of typical cinemagoers at the moment with his Lookey game. Perhaps we can play with this trailer in his honour...
Read the trailer transcript below and invent your own images to make sense of the dialogue. Decide who says what, and to whom, and where, when and why. If you want to film it and You Tube it even, that'd be great. Go on: pretend you're Jorgan Leth in The Five Obstructions.
Hi, I'm the company president. It's a big secret. A company must have a president.
I'm an actor.
That's exactly what you need.
Here he is ... The boss of it all.
Any questions?
What does the company make?
IT.
I don't stand a chance!
Good thing you can act.
Lousy acting from start to finish.
I know when a man wants me.
Male chauvinist.
Kisser, you're not in the IT business.
Neither are you!
The company outing will go on as planned. Happy now?
It's f*cking muggy!
So that's why they call you the boss of it all.
You are a b*st*rd.
Yes.
Variety have today announced that Lars Von Trier’s latest film will contain the latest innovation in interactive entertainment: The Lookey. Far from being a tricksy old-school gimmick like The Tingler or Smell-o-Vision, The Lookey is described by Trier as "a mind game that will enhance the audience’s involvement in the cinematic experience". And how does it work? Well, throughout the film a number of ‘visual disturbances’ will manifest themselves in such a way as to appear out of context. The audience are invited to play along by spotting these visual anomalies - the first lucky looker will win themselves a cash prize and the chance to appear as an extra in Lars’ upcoming horror film Anti-Christ.
So far, so Peter Greenaway - but what on earth does he mean by 'visual disturbance'? Will it be something akin to the legendary flash-frames in British sit-com The Young Ones? Or are we to expect the kind of gratuitous errors lately typical of fellow Scandinavian Lukas Moodysson? I guess we will have to wait until The Boss Of It All hits cinemas to get a lookey for ourselves.
