21-05-2003 03:16									#1
	Cannes Film Festival View of America Suffering from ads?

Any self-respecting Euro knows, or at least strongly suspects, that Americans are a bunch of venal hicks who would happily carve up their mothers with a rusty knife and sell the pieces on the open market in order to increase their income. And now, just in time to confirm those deep-seated suspicions, comes “Dogville”, a new film written and directed by Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier.

According to the Washington Post:

quote: "Dogville" is set in a fictional town in the Rockies. Kidman plays Grace, a desperate stranger who asks Dogville's residents (played by Lauren Bacall, Paul Bettany, Stellan Skarsgard, Chloe Sevigny and others) to hide her from ruthless gangsters. Initially portrayed as homespun and considerate folk, the people of Dogville turn out to be morally despicable individuals who are variously treacherous, fear-driven and even rapacious. … In the movie's biblical scheme of things, they get their just deserts.

European critics and movie goers alike have been beating down the doors in order to see this film, which is the odds-on favorite to win the prestigious Golden Palm award at the Cannes Film Festival. Von Trier is somewhat of a film wunderkind, and has done well at Cannes in the past. Moreover, he is uniquely qualified to make this “harsh indictment of small-town America”. According to the New York Times:

quote: Raised by his radical, nudist Communist parents in an unconventional environment where, as von Trier once put it, everything was permitted except "feelings, religion and enjoyment," von Trier blossomed into a neurotic, left-wing, movie-loving youth. Given a Super-8 camera at age 11, von Trier spent his teens making movies and entered Copenhagen's film school in the early '80s. After winning prizes at the Munich Film Festival in 1981 and 1982 for his student films, and adding the aristocratic "von" to his name …

But by far the most impressive qualification is that von Trier has never been to the US. Interviewed in the Washington Post, von Trier said:

quote: "The story could have taken place all around the world, but somehow the whole style of it was American. I've been reading Steinbeck. And so I asked myself how it would be" to set a film in the United States. "Actually, I feel like an American. Ich bin ein American," he said, echoing John F. Kennedy's pro-Berlin comment of the 1960s. "I would love to start a 'free America campaign,' because we've just had a 'free Iraq campaign.' That's how I feel. . . . I am sure it's a beautiful country. I would love to go there [but] I'm afraid of going there. Maybe this is all because of wrong communication [from European media], I don't know. I think it could be a wonderful place, but I'm not able to go to America right now because I don't think America is how it should be."

Lest anyone think that “von” Trier represents a stunningly unique monument to the vagaries of the artistic temperament, we also have Iranian director Samira Makhmalbaf, whose feminist "Panj e Asr" ("At Five in the Afternoon") is also in the Cannes competition. Last week Makhmalbaf accused President Bush of being “an American version of the Taliban.” So far as I can tell Makhmalbaf has never been to America either.

edit: fixed url's

	21-05-2003 03:22									#2
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quote: Any self-respecting Euro knows, or at least strongly suspects, that Americans are a bunch of venal hicks who would happily carve up their mothers with a rusty knife and sell the pieces on the open market in order to increase their income.

What? Knives? No self-respecting stereotype American would use a knife. A gun, and preferably three of them at a same time. Also, he's be simultaneously chanting from the Bible, chowing down a Big Mac, and cheering on Fox News which tell about how the godlike President Bush is filing a lawsuit against the French for not bowing towards America thrice-a-day. And he'd (both the stereotypical American and Bush) would be doing all this with a big fake glistening Yankee smile.

Sheesh. On the stereotype market, that's just not cutting it.

	21-05-2003 04:10									#3
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"von" Trier is a state-of-the-art, selfabsorbed nutcase who doesn't know anything other than how to promote himself and his neurosis.

	21-05-2003 04:44									#4
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Von Trier is a tiresome, ironic-generation jokester who can't make artistic statements of any depth and who ushered in the despicable and destructive incompetents' paradise that was the Dogme 95 movement.

See? We all dislike him but for different reasons.

	21-05-2003 04:51									#5
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Whats with that iranian radical? yes... her country sure is a lot more tolerant than that evil President Bush...

	21-05-2003 06:53									#6
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I intend to see Dogvill because I love Nicle Kidman and because I enjoyed Festen veeeeery much. Von Trier often depicts despicable poepl, and in Festen those people wer absloutley European. I couldn't care less about the location of the movie.

	21-05-2003 09:00									#7
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You can't fault the man for not coming to America... We have plenty of people who don't want to go to France or Germany for example...

	21-05-2003 10:26									#8
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Much as I think the Dogma 95 manifesto is a joke, I will say:

1) von Trier is a great director; Europa (a/k/a Zentropa), Breaking the Waves, and The Kingdom are among the very best things I saw in the 90s. This film might suck, but every director I love has made at least one film that sucked, and generally more.

2) Surely no one is more guilty of making films about places they've never been that the American Film Industry, collectively considered.

3) Artists all over the world (including in the US) hate Bush and Bush's version of America. Wherever artists gather -- whether at Cannes or at the Northern Illinois University Senior Mixed-Media Sculpture Exhibition -- you'll find these sentiments. It's like homophobia at a Southern Baptist convention -- except the artists are onto something.

	21-05-2003 10:44									#9
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quote: Originally posted by monolith94 You can't fault the man for not coming to America...

Why not? If you're going to set a film in an actual location, wouldn't you think it would be wise to at least get a feel for the place?

	21-05-2003 10:45									#10
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hmmmm...

	21-05-2003 11:59									#11
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quote: Originally posted by Stefu Fox News which tell about how the godlike President Bush is filing a lawsuit against the French for not bowing towards America thrice-a-day.

Wrong! Bush would never file a lawsuit - he hates lawyers and litigation (probably because he coudn't get into UT Law School). He'll just liberate Paris, bring "regime change", and force French wineries to use bio-engineered grapes and nasty chemical preservatives.

I'll be sure to loot the Louvre when the liberation begins. I want that painting of the woman with no eyebrows.

	21-05-2003 13:07									#12
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quote: Originally posted by DinoDoc Why not? If you're going to set a film in an actual location, wouldn't you think it would be wise to at least get a feel for the place?

It is quite clear that when american film directors depict England they have never been

	21-05-2003 13:16									#13
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quote: Wrong! Bush would never file a lawsuit - he hates lawyers and litigation (probably because he coudn't get into UT Law School). He'll just liberate Paris, bring "regime change", and force French wineries to use bio-engineered grapes and nasty chemical preservatives.

NoNOnoNOnoNOno! We're talking about American stereotypes here, and lawsuit-happiness is an integral part of the American stereotype! You might as well have a German-stereotype not spitting in your face while speaking or a French-stereotype not eating frog legs!

	21-05-2003 14:35									#14
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Spiffor, "Festen" is directed by Thomas Vinterberg and not Lars von Trier. You confuse the two because they're both part of the Danish film wave and the first two who made Dogme 95 films. Festen" was great, though. Nobody thought a movie about incest would ever achieve that degree of public approval.

	21-05-2003 15:01									#15
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Actually, if I'm going to see another von Trier movie it'll probably be this one. I like the "chalk outline" idea.

	21-05-2003 16:38									#16
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quote: Originally posted by The Templar Bush would never file a lawsuit ...

Unless he wanted to steal an election.

	21-05-2003 18:46									#17
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quote: Originally posted by Stefu . A gun, and preferably three of them at a same time.

3 huh. Well a few of us can handle that, and lots of girlfriends.

	21-05-2003 19:01									#18
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Well I have enjoyed von Trier films, so I don't know what this thread is about? von Tried having critical views of the US, meaning he's evil and bad, communist spreading propaganda to the minds of all Euros who are semi-commies anyway with their sissy-attitudes to begin with? Where's the beef?

Besides, every damn time our country is presented in small way in a movie, they film it in Moscow or something, plus they got all the facts wrong, like we're not commies etc. So.. where's the beef?

Is von Triers movie automatically anti-US because it's not about praising something we all like? Has anyone actually seen the movie yet? What's wrong with the movie anyway? Does this movie actually state the official view of America in Cannes Film Festival , if there even is one? Why should they even care about the US, and just enjoy the film? I just don't get this, I don't see what the problem is.

	21-05-2003 19:06									#19
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Well, Hell, Adam, even when they are here they still don't get it. It's revealed on the DVD that Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers was meant to be a serious commentary on American life by the director.

	21-05-2003 19:10									#20
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Those goddam Euro trash. This is outrageous!!! I can't believe that bastard made a movie based on stereotypes of Americans. And those commies in Cannes are no better.

You would never ever see a Hollywood movie using sterotypical foreigners.

	21-05-2003 19:21									#21
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quote: Originally posted by Monk Spiffor, "Festen" is directed by Thomas Vinterberg and not Lars von Trier. You confuse the two because they're both part of the Danish film wave and the first two who made Dogme 95 films. Festen" was great, though. Nobody thought a movie about incest would ever achieve that degree of public approval.

Thanks for the correction

	21-05-2003 20:27									#22
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Yeah, what is the point?

So a European director makes a movie that uses steryotypes of the US: oh my GOd!! Its the end of the world! Come on.

As long as it isn;t blatant anti-US propaganda (which it ain't), the only questions are is the movie good (cinematically worthwhile, or fun to see), or not.

	22-05-2003 09:03									#23
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quote: Originally posted by GePap Yeah, what is the point?

The point is not that von Trier has never been to the US. The point is that the movie is highly critical of the US without von Trier's even having been here.

quote: Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime. Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad

For all the times Euros have made this point with regard to Americans, one would think that it would apply with equal force in the opposite direction.

	22-05-2003 09:05									#24
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quote: For all the times Euros have made this point with regard to Americans, one would think that it would apply with equal force in the opposite direction.

You give them too much credit, my friend.

	22-05-2003 09:53									#25
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quote: Originally posted by Stefu NoNOnoNOnoNOno! We're talking about American stereotypes here, and lawsuit-happiness is an integral part of the American stereotype! You might as well have a German-stereotype not spitting in your face while speaking or a French-stereotype not eating frog legs!

We introduced widespread litigation in our society in an effort to redude the amount of gun violence.

Whoops, Tingkai's right! There is one law suit he filed ...

	22-05-2003 10:26									#26
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quote: Originally posted by Adam Smith The point is not that von Trier has never been to the US. The point is that the movie is highly critical of the US without von Trier's even having been here.

Honest question (not a provocation): have you ever lived abroad (and I mean really lived abroad, not lived on a military base or some other "Little America")? I hadn't until I moved to Turkey 3 years ago, and I was honestly shocked by the extent to which the US makes its present felt here. Every country I've been to, it's been the same -- wherever you go, there's the US: its stores, its news (CNN International should really just be called America for Foreigners), its popular culture images, its very language ("English" in name only; it's our version of English, not the Queen's). Beyond that, it seems very clear that, for most of the world, America acts and everyone else reacts -- and some countries, like Turkey, can scarcely pass a law without wondering what America will think.

My point is that, at this moment in history, not everyone has lived in America. But everyone has had to live with America, and I think that does give them some license to comment. I should have to visit Denmark before I write about the place. But we've spent the last 50 years promoting ourselves to the whole world, asking (if not forcing) the world to Think About America. It would be foolish to think that everyone who took us up on the offer would flatter us.

	22-05-2003 10:39									#27
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quote: Originally posted by Adam Smith The point is that the movie is highly critical of the US without von Trier's even having been here.

No, the point is that you are highly critical of a movie that you have not seen.

How do you know it is critical of the US?

	22-05-2003 10:50									#28
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"Why not? If you're going to set a film in an actual location, wouldn't you think it would be wise to at least get a feel for the place?"

I don't hear you complaining about the constant hollywood use of American made sets to depict foreign locations.

	22-05-2003 11:06									#29
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quote: Originally posted by monolith94 I don't hear you complaining about the constant hollywood use of American made sets to depict foreign locations.

What does that have to do with this subject?

	22-05-2003 11:08									#30
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It makes you a hypocrite to say that it's ok for hollywood to depict foreign territories on american soil but terrible for foreign movies to depict America on their soil.