Description
Book SynopsisLinda Badley offers an in-depth examination of Lars von Trier’s
Antichrist (2009),
Melancholia (2011),
Nymphomaniac (2013–14), and
The House That Jack Built (2018) and the contexts that produced them. She draws on numerous interviews with the director and his collaborators as well as inside access to archival materials.
Trade ReviewLinda Badley’s book is indispensable not only for those drawn, in spite of ourselves, to von Trier’s films, but also to all experiencing our contemporary moment in the register of despair and anxiety. Informed by personal conversations with von Trier, deeply ensconced in the filmmaking process and all its collaborators, and attentive to von Trier’s deliberate bad taste as well as his play with bending genre, Badley’s provocative readings of each film locate them in the director’s psyche while also showing that they offer a deft diagnosis of misogyny, climate disaster, capitalism, and hypocrisy run amok. -- Lori Marso, coeditor of
Politics, Theory, and Film: Critical Encounters with Lars von TrierLars von Trier Beyond Depression is the first comprehensive account of the recent work of Lars von Trier, offering a lively and compelling critical evaluation of his cycle of ‘post-depression’ films that began with
Melancholia (2009). A definitive resource on this period of von Trier’s output, its engagement with primary source material, interviews, and its incisive close readings will be indispensable to anyone interested in the filmmaker and his place within contemporary cinema. -- Tina Kendall, Anglia Ruskin University
We should be grateful to Linda Badley for leading us into the darkness of Lars von Trier's cinematic world and illuminating it.
Lars von Trier Beyond Depression draws on Badley's extraordinary knowledge of Trier and his cinema to study
Antichrist, Melancholia, Nymphomaniac, and
The House that Jack Built. Badley uses interviews of Trier and his collaborators, close analysis, genre studies, film-philosophy, ecocriticism, discussions of extreme cinema, and postcritical and postcinematic discussion to unfurl the strata of Trier's films. The book is a tour de force.
Any reader interested in Trier or auteur cinema and its afterlife should read it. -- Andrew Nestingen, author of
The Cinema of Aki KaurismakiBased on careful archival research and on highly productive insights from countless practitioner interviews,
Lars von Trier Beyond Depression offers a compelling account of
Antichrist,
Melancholia,
Nymphomaniac, and
The House That Jack Built. Focusing on the intentions, self-understandings, and personal experiences of von Trier and such theoretical lenses as dark ecology and psychoanalysis/therapy, Linda Badley evokes the contours of an ethical project in the Danish director’s contributions to trauma cinema and extreme cinema. -- Mette Hjort, chair professor of humanities and dean of arts, Hong Kong Baptist University
Lars von Trier Beyond Depression presents new, insightful readings into the director’s latest films, including valuable reflections on the creative processes and sources of inspiration in von Trier’s work based on extensive archival material, notes, statements, and drafts. These are supplemented with new interviews regarding key questions, which generates a fascinating explorative text on the cultural influences and impacts issuing from one of our finest film directors today. With her impressive and meticulous contribution, Linda Badley not only succeeds in giving new perspectives on von Trier’s films, she also manages to substantiate in depth how Danish and European culture and ways of thinking differ from American. Anyone interested in Lars von Trier’s oeuvre should start with reading this book infused with genuine ideas and perspectives. -- Bodil Marie Stavning Thomsen, author of
Lars von Trier's Renewal of Film 1984-2014: Signal, Pixel, DiagramAs one of the foremost scholars on Lars von Trier’s entire oeuvre, Linda Badley’s new in-depth study provides a fresh perspective, integrating extensive archival research, contemporary cultural references, and interviews with the director and his longtime collaborators. In examining some of the Danish auteur’s most criticized—perhaps even despised—films,
Lars von Trier: Beyond Depression uncovers multiple new approaches to understanding the processes that shaped their intensity and singularity. -- Anna Westerstahl Stenport, coeditor of
Nordic Film Cultures and Cinemas of ElsewhereTable of ContentsPreface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Nature as Satan’s Church:
Antichrist’s Dark Ecology
2.
Melancholia: Wagner, Superkitsch, and Dark Ecology
3.
Nymphomaniac: Digressionism, Collaboration, Hypotexts, Paratexts
4.
The House That Jack Built: Murder as Art/Art as Murder
Coda
Appendix
Notes
Filmography
Bibliography
Index
