lars von trier - nymphomaniac

Ok, I might be misrembering Bakhtin. Rabelais is a pure example of 'prose' as Bakhtin defines it. A mixture of genres, of modes, a centrifugal method of writing. Novels are prose, etc, but I might get the exact words backwords. Sorry, I've lent out my Bakhtin books, but it's from The Dialogic Imagination. But Nymphomaniac is a supremely centrifugal method of filmmaking as well.

This wasn't bad at all! In toto, at least. Liked Stellan Skarsgard as the therapist and sort of audience proxy, and of course LvT has to extinguish any hint of sunlight in the last scene.

I very much doubt Lars was intelluctually or emotionally committed to this film.

I disagree; he seems to have been, for whatever that's worth.

Six months later the first part still looks good as one of the year's best comedies.

it IS funny, purposefully

I won't ruin Udo Kier's scene, but Charlotte G does her own tribute to the Harpo Marx silverware routine.

Yeah, that scene escalates really wonderfully.

It's weird, I didn't dislike this (I liked a few things about it) but somehow I regret seeing it. There's a weird sort of deadness about the whole thing that lingers unpleasantly. Maybe it's something else, I'm not sure.

"Would it be alright if I showed the children the whoring bed?"

Von Trier regards Joe through the eyes of men

well, he's a man

Was it the director's cut you watched, btw?

no, the US release.

Ok. I think that cut is the same as everywhere else, though. It's just been cut in two for the US. But the Directors Cut should come to US at some point as well. Includes scenes that made people faint in DK, so, you know.

I saw Winter Sleep today, btw, which in a weird way made me think of this one. It has the weird digressive conversational character as well, and that sense of being made like a big book from the 19th century.

it IS funny, purposefully

― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius),

what Shia TheBeef tells himself.

like I said, I remember it with a chuckle because it was, by some measure, one of the most ineptly conceived and awfully written films I've seen this year.

it stops being funny when he tries to depict female sexuality. On the evidence, Von Trier should be institutionalized.

that "female sexuality" is one monolithic thing which you comprehend completely is something I'll try to keep in mind.

and that sense of being made like a big book from the 19th century.

Like Middlemarch or something huh? :-)

I really want to see it, but only the full versh.

He's shown in Melancholia and BTW that at least he understands they have a world apart from men. This movie brings to mind what Katey Rich said recently: certain male directors should just say, "You know what? Fuck it. I know nothing about women. Let me not even try."

from the way TheBeef is directed I don't think VT understands men either tbh

to me, the level of bile and disgust von trier tends to inspire seems way out of proportion to anything he's ever said or done. i was having a conversation about horror movies w/ a friend a few weeks back and i mentioned liking 'antichrist' and he launched into a 15-minute monologue about how vile and misogynistic it was, and how it made him want to spit on LVT. this is a guy who has no problem with any slasher movie he's ever seen btw.

Tone and pace don't help his cause.

For me he belongs in today's revived Things I Just Don't Care About thread. BTW had some startling bits, so do most of the others, but I only liked it and Melancholia. If you care and write about movies, then you can't avoid him, although -- well, maybe you can.

yeah this movie was good, & like most LVT had a few strikingly beautiful shots. I actually thought the second movie was the 'funnier' of the two, but I also laughed and applauded the ending of Melancholia (which I was fortunate enough to see in theaters) so YMMV

It just seems to me like a did this for a laugh or a weird drunken bet to get all these actors in a film featuring hardcore sex, fishing, mathematics, Rammstein, Bach and Poe.
If you really wanted to offend people why would you make this?
But I'm actually kind of enjoying it because it feels different and entertaining enough.

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Monday, August 25, 2014 3:45 PM (4 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Now that I've seen the second part,it mostly reminds me of the crazy pulpy hot blooded but philosophical Japanese comics of the 70s for young men.
I very much doubt Lars was intelluctually or emotionally committed to this film.

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Tuesday, August 26, 2014 9:43 PM (4 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The idea that he was not "committed" to this is ridiculous. He agonized over it, and his pet concerns are all over it.

I don't know about Trier well enough but I've heard quite a few people say that he carefully creates controversy and bafflement in everything he does.
Every now and then I see something that seems like it was partially created to see how seriously people would take it. I got that feeling from this.

Biut that's commitment.

I also laughed and applauded the ending of Melancholia (which I was fortunate enough to see in theaters)

― I can just, like, YOLO with Uber (bernard snowy), Monday, 29 December 2014

I'm not sure if you're saying you laughed earlier in the film or if you laughed at the end while you were applauding?

I don't know about Trier well enough but I've heard quite a few people say that he carefully creates controversy and bafflement in everything he does.
Every now and then I see something that seems like it was partially created to see how seriously people would take it. I got that feeling from this.

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Tuesday, 30 December 2014

Biut that's commitment.

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 30 December 2014

I guess it would be but I was just doubting if the film really shown Lars Von Trier's own views and said things he really believed. If the strong opinions of Gainsbourg are things he believes or not?

Either way I'm not too bothered.

Why on earth does it matter if LvT believes what his CHARACTERS are saying is true? That is so far from being the point of his films - and of art in general.

it tends to be how the PC Brigade views art.

One of the best things about LvT is that he speculates, tries on arguments, takes them as far as they can go (and then some...) then revisits them in later films, tries on something opposite, or slightly askew. Of course, when he fails, when he builds a whole film around bullshit, worthless ideas, as in Manderlay, it all falls flat, flatter than almost anybody else falls flat. But taken as a whole, his filmograpy is all the more vital for it.

Besides the obvious "whoring bed" scene, I almost did a spit-take at the reprise of the Antichrist prologue. Despite his rep his movies are often very funny.

i always thought that part in the end of dogville when one the gangsters holds up a baby and the other one machine guns it was lars' idea of a funny visual gag.

Lars' idea of a funny visual gag is Udo Keir popping out of a vagina. With him on that.

yes! one of the most indelible images in a movie ever. also CHAOS REIGNS is supposed to be at least kind of funny, right

really liked part 1 of the director's cut (it's split on netflix the same way the theatrical release is). everyone describing that part as a comedy p much otm. can definitely see why those who dislike it feel that way.

gonna watch part 2 today. have read descriptions of the thing that everyone found unwatchable, and tbf, it sounds pretty fuckin intense. (not to mention a completely unrealistic depiction of the entirely safe reality of that procedure, but when did LVT care about strict reality when trying to make a point or provoke or both? briefly considered watching the cut version of part 2, but fuck it I'm committed now

The whole point of the unwatchable thing is how unsafe that procedure becomes when it isn't done legally and officially. It's pro that procedure.

right, I didn't think he was against it. just fired it up now, so I'll know soon enough what it's really like.

overall I like this more than dogville and dancer in the dark so far, quite a bit less than melancholia (an all time fave for me)

(on a side note, udo kier's facial expressions continue to be nothing less than hilarious)

finished it. understand why people would find certain bits offensive (and share in that feeling for a few of them), or why they'd find the whole thing maddening. but kind of extraordinary overall.

considering that not that many movies explore or critique nice-guy/dishonest misogyny a la what seligman does at the end, I appreciated this movie for going there and then having joe just say fuck it and clipping him

acting incredible by and large, especially gainsbourg and stacy martin but also uma, christian slater, jamie bell

shia labeouf's scenes were relatively painless at worst and well-handled at best, which for him is a start

Director's Cut >>>>

much harder to watch than the original but, for me, much more rewarding

yeah I'm glad that's the one I chose from the start. got the sense there was as much contextual stuff cut from the US release as there were extreme penetration closeups, violent scenes etc

Finally watched this (the director's cut). All through part 1 I was convinced that Joe was dead and we're watching a metaphorical judgement - her entire life passing before our eyes. I don't know if I could make the same argument after part 2, but killing an evil god/angel/whatever before running down the stairs into hell seems pretty on-brand for LvT.