Tag-arkiv: Lars von Trier

Manderley by Lars von Trier

Af admin, den 17. maj 2005. 2 svar

We are all Americans, exclaimed the Danish director Lars von Trier at the press conference in Cannes where his new movie Manderley was shown yesterday. Really? Well, let’s keep this posting in English then just to go along with this although it looks more like an attempt to buttress the usual anti-Americanism displayed in main stream movies.

True to form, Lars denounced President Bush as an “asshole”. There, that’s telling them! No argumentation offered and none was probably expected by the privileged audience who last year greeted Michael Moore with a standing applause. How noble of Lars to say exactly what people expected him to say, how courageous of him to take the same position as the entire established movie world and all the moneymen of Hollywood.

The movie itself has not yet been aired in Denmark, so we have to rely on the reports from Cannes. Apparently, Lars is grabbling with an issue that is important at least to some parts of the Left. Having opposed the liberation of Iraq and thus effectively supported the continued reign of madman Saddam Hussein, what is one to think of the current situation, where a democracy is taking root supported by the vast majority of Iraqis and where the only opposition left hardly qualifies as ?insurgents?, a point made embarrassing clear by Christopher Hitchens in yesterday?s Slate.com. The question is made even more pressing by the fact that for many on the Left this is not the first time they have wound up on the wrong side of the democracy/tyranny divide since the end of the Cold War. How to preserve one?s self-image as a humanitarian?

The answer to this conundrum appears to be that democracy may not be all what it is cracked up to be. Maybe uneducated Iraqis think so and risk their lives in the thousands in doing so, but a sophisticated artist like Lars knows better. And so Lars grabs back to the dear old story of Uncle Tom with all the subtle questions that is connected to that story. Was slavery really that bad, wasn?t the black slaves in many ways better off than the oppressed workers of the industrialised North, etc. ad nauseam.

To fit the first part of his trilogy, the story has to be set in the 1930’s where slavery had been banned in no small part due to that wickedly belligerent President Lincoln, another Republican determined to impose his unilateralist view of the world on others irregardless of their specific cultural differences. But in Lars? movie, the slavery continues in this particular place which is not that odd, at least not compared to the rest of the story.

Then in this blissful state of enlightened slavery idealistic but heavy handed foreigners arrive to ?liberate? the slaves; note the quotation marks, this is art you know. And naturally mayhem follows.

Obviously, this is a story about Iraq. All was nice and quiet for years, Saddam and his henchmen were going about their jobs filling mass graves with Iraqis, when all of a sudden they were brutally invaded and democracy forced upon them. Now, how can we expect something like that to end well? Just because it did the last time we forced democracy on liberated and even defeated countries after WW II, it is by no means certain that it will work again. At least we should not expect any gratitude from the Iraqis in the future as the French and Germans do their outmost to show at any given chance, not least in film festivals like Cannes.

Well, the movie itself may be good, even if the story is rotten. Gone with the wind is a case in point. But it will probably say more to those on the Left who opposed the war in Iraq. To the rest us of Danes, the soldiers risking their lives in Iraq helping build democracy there, the 75 pct. who in a survey conducted in January even before the Iraqi election supported our military presence in Iraq and the majority of the electorate who in February re-elected our pro-war government, the movie is probably less soul-searching.

Anti-AmeriCannes

Af Mikael Bonde Nielsen, den 16. maj 2005. 1 svar

Med sædvanlig charme, opfindsomhed og elokvens har Lars von Trier ifølge Politiken ladet alverdens filminteresserede forstå, at George W. Bush er en klovn. Udmeldingen kan måske tilskrives den helt karske kendsgerning, at hans seneste mesterværk Manderlay er blevet bemødt med en vis ligegyldighed blandt de filmkyndige i Cannes, selv om den med sit klassisk anti-amerikanske tema ellers må siges at have alle forudsætninger for at slå igennem i de kredse. På den baggrund kan man ikke fortænke den danske filmskaber i, at han gør alt for at sikre sig kommerciel succes ad andre veje, fx ved at sige noget upassende eller anstødeligt i de erfaringsmæssigt påvirkelige omgivelser. Sidste år lykkedes det jo fint for Michael Moore at gøre opmærksom på sin egen person ved at troppe op i Cannes med Fahrenheit 9/11; en slags propaganda-collage vendt mod den daværende og nu genvalgte præsident. Så måske går den igen! Det vil tiden vise.

Når jeg opholder mig ved Triers udtalelse sker det ikke i indignation over hans forudsigelige afsætningsmetoder. Nej, det er mere fordi det er et rimeligt påskud for en kommentar til den anti-amerikanisme, der hærger over hele Europa. Og hvad er i denne forbindelse mere naturligt, end at tage afsæt i landet, hvor Trier for tiden opholder sig. For her er der som bekendt ikke kun utilfredshed med amerikanernes økonomiske og militære hegemoni; her er man navnlig foruroliget over amerikanernes kulturnedbrydende dominans.

En af dem, der har bidraget til at afdække det franske traume er Jean-François Revel, der som navnet antyder har aktier udi det franske. Det er så absolut en fordel, idet en udenlandsk kritikker jo altid er en uvelkommen gæst. Revel kan omvendt ikke beskyldes for, at være fremmed for franske forhold. Og netop derfor er han værd at blive klog på. Det kan man blive ved at læse hans bog Anti-Americanism, der udkom for nogle år siden. Har man ikke mod på at gå om bord i den, kan jeg henvise til The Anti-American Obsession; en forrygende god artikel af samme forfatter, der figurerede i The New Criterion i oktober 2003.

En af de mest udbredte franske forestillinger er, at USA i kraft af sin profitorienterede kulturindustri bidrager til at nivellere den åndelige verdensscene og derigennem fortrænge den virkelige kunst. Derfor er kulturel diversitet efterhånden blevet et mantra for franske åndspersonligheder. Til dette bemærker Revel:

“In practice, Europeans?and chiefly the French?use the jargon phrases ?cultural exceptionalism? and ?cultural diversity? as code words for state aid and quotas. We keep hearing that, after all, ?Cultural goods are not simple commodities.? But that is merely a platitude. Whoever pretended that they were? Still, neither are they purely the products of state financing; otherwise, Soviet painting would have been the finest in the world”

Men hvordan kan det være, at amerikanerne er så pokkers overlegne på den kulturelle front? Det franske bud er, at amerikanerne råder over nærmest bombesikre afsætningskanaler – der en passant understøttes af presse, politikere og anonyme kapitalkræfter ? som sætter dem i stand til at opretholde en total dominans på den globale kulturscene. Her peger Revel på argumentets boomerang-effekt:

“In January 2002, when Yves Saint Laurent unexpectedly announced his decision to retire, suddenly bringing his career as couturier to an end, reaction to the news was worldwide. And it was not only Saint Laurent?s talent that was influential everywhere, but also that of his predecessors, who for over a century had created and sustained French leadership in haute couture (which is not to diminish the excellence of other schools, notably the Italian). There was no suggestion in the foreign press that this traditional preeminence of French haute couture and Saint Laurent?s influence was attributable to a ?bomb-proof distribution system? that, with the shady complicity of ?politicians and newspapers,? had succeeded in ?imposing? French styles on others. Anyone who said as much would have been ridiculed”.

Det med latterliggørelsen er jeg sikker på. Lige så sikker er jeg på, at filmkritikkerne i Cannes hellere vil give de Gyldne Palmer til en instruktør, der skildrer livet i en polsk vandpyt, end til en instruktør, der forstår at imødekomme millioner af biografgængeres behov for at blive underholdt med kvalificerede virkemidler.