If there’s anything I’ve learned sitting across a table from Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn, it’s that people from Denmark have a dry sense of humor. I tried to convey it with a screeencap of his best troll face, but the experience reminded me of an infamous Cannes panel.
The Cliff’s Notes: Melancholia director Lars Von Trier was hit with a leading question about his nationality at the French film festival. Engaging this absurdity with facetious reply, the auteur pretended to sympathize with Hitler. Von Trier has adamantly described the event as being a case of his Danish sense of humor doing him in. I have to say that I also sympathize.
With Von Trier, not Hitler. As a resident of Boston I sometimes find myself entangled when jesting across state lines. (Just imagine someone from The Departed having a conversation with your grandmother). Lars Von Trier has already been banned from the festival, but now also faces charges. In response, the filmmaker has chosen take a vow of silence. Read on for details…
[Via The Playlist]The Danish police, immune to Danish humor, are investigating whether Lars Von Trier has broken French laws by justifying war crimes. Even taking his comments literally, this is a hard sell, but the controversy has provoked the director to shut his trap once and for all. In a final statement, Von Trier has announced that he will no longer speak to the press or take interviews from this day forth, opting for self preservation over freedom of speech.
Today at 2 pm I was questioned by the Police of North Zealand in connection with charges made by the prosecution of Grasse in France from August 2011 regarding a possible violation of prohibition in French law against justification of war crimes. The investigation covers comments made during the press conference in Cannes in May 2011. Due to these serious accusations I have realized that I do not possess the skills to express myself unequivocally and I have therefore decided from this day forth to refrain from all public statements and interviews. Lars von Trier, Avedøre, 5. October 2011.
Lars Von Trier is currently preparing to make Nymphomaniac, a film that will reportedly feature graphic sex scenes and chronicle the sexual journey of a woman from age zero to fifty. The intention is that multiple versions of it will be cut, with a more daring flavor exclusive to DVD. I guess you can silence the man but never his work.
