brickwall wrote:Lars Von Trier has always come off as quite perverse and scummy in interviews to me
I knew that Lars von Trier was tough to work with for everyone involved on set (John C. Reilly once stormed off set and refused to work with LvT again; Björk acted similarly), but the sexual harassment allegations against Björk during the filming of Dancer in the Dark (a garbage movie, btw) are, from what I understand, new, and of course extremely disappointing. While Björk claims that after her confrontation LvT changed for the better, I still feel compelled to reevaluate the movies of his I've enjoyed with a new set of eyes, particularly the movies made before he worked with Björk, like Breaking the Waves. Björk is one of my musical heroes and I don't take her accusations lightly.
There is no one way to make art, and often times people don't get along, people inevitably fight, and people are bad to one another, but certain lines should never be crossed, and the way men in the film industry have treated women workers is fucking awful and I hope a sea change occurs. Representation isn't enough: More women ought to be in positions of financial power and positions of artistic control. More women directors and writers, please.
When things like this happen I'm often conflicted, because I realize that people who have done horrible things, or people with views I despise, still have the capacity to make great art, and I still think that applies to LvT, no question. Melancholia is a wonderful movie and, in spite of Björk's story, it's also true that LvT has written many empowering and empathetic roles for women. Yet, I also realize that art doesn't exist in a vacuum, and separating the artist from their art is impossible. The author is not dead, as those nerdy post-modernists like to argue; the author is alive and frequently working with people. In LvT's movie Breaking the Waves, the protagonist is sexually harassed and assaulted continuously, and the link between LvT's behavior towards Björk and the behavior of characters in his movies is now hard for me to separate. I'm not one to boycott art, and I'm not one to advocate for censorship of art, but I can't help but feel elements of his filmography have been soured as a result.