I Love Lars Von Trier and His “Israel is a Pain in the Ass”

[joeblow]

I Love Lars Von Trier and His "Israel is a Pain in the Ass"
– May 20, 2011

http://leosigh.com/?p=3021

Filmmaker, Lars Von Trier, caused a stir at the Cannes Film Festival yesterday when he announced "Okay, I'm a Nazi". Not only did he create a stir, he got banned from the Cannes Film Festival this year. Not bad going for someone who had been there for about 10 minutes.

Lars Von Trier's mess all started when, at a press conference on Wednesday for his new film "Melancholia" he said he was "not against Jews... Israel is a pain in the ass". (Half the world agrees with that statement, ourselves included).

But Von Trier's troubles got even worse. He started out his comments by saying "I really wanted to be a Jew, and then I found out that I was really a Nazi, because, you know, my family was German, which also gave me some pleasure." (Von Trier found out a few years ago his father wasn't the Swedish Jew he thought he was but was instead his mother's German employer).

He went on to say "What can I say? I understand Hitler. I think he did some wrong things, yes absolutely, but I can see him sitting in his bunker in the end... I think I understand the man. He's not what you would call a good guy, but I understand much about him and I sympathize with him a little bit. But come on, I'm not for the Second World War, and I'm not against Jews."

He paused, obviously sensed the atmosphere in the room and that the co-star of his new movie Melancholia, Kirsten Dunst, looked like she was about to crawl out of her skin and, trying to make the mood lighter said, "Okay, I am a Nazi.

Apparently though, the Cannes Film Festival has no sense of humor as Von Trier was then promptly banned.

Come on, guys. When did it become illegal to express a negative opinion about Israel? All those rich Jews in the film industry have everyone so terrified of being called 'anti-semitic' nobody dare say anything negative about the country anymore. Bullshit. Von Trier is absolutely correct. Making negative statements about things Israel does (illegal bombings of the Lebanese and Palestinians, rampant human rights abuses against the Palestinians etc) doesn't make one 'anti-semitic'. It simply makes one unwilling to put up with the bad behavior of a country.

But, on the Hitler points, I doubt even Von Trier knew what he was saying there. He'd just dug himself a hole and was frantically shoveling out spadefuls of crap to try to get himself to come out the other end. Unfortunately all that did was leave him sitting in a hole the size of a World War II bomb crater.  I put it down to English being his second language.

At this point though, Lars Von Trier is probably feeling a lot more than just a little 'melancholia'.
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[CrackSmokeRepublican]

Lars Von Trier did make the film "Anti-Christ" which probably got him Hollywood-World Jewry's attention since it is the opposite of Mel Gibson's The Passion of Christ.  Like Marlon Brando, it looks like he just speaks his mind which is actually a good thing.  But I tend to think he went too far in a few directions just to be "dramatic".

Interview:
[youtube:1pru880a]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y2qrXMUWGA[/youtube]1pru880a]

AntiChrist: Lars Von Trier stirs things up in Cannes 2009
[youtube:1pru880a]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVrMLTtQlwQ[/youtube]1pru880a]

Trailer :shock:

[youtube:1pru880a]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBdDcQONmkM[/youtube]1pru880a]

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

Who Will Work With Lars von Trier After His Hitler Remarks?
10:15 PM 5/28/2011 by Scott Roxborough

The "Melancholia" director has survived accusations of anti-Americanism and misogyny, but his Nazi comments could finally sink his career.

As they say in the old country, Oy vey, gevalt!" said the British publicist for Melancholia, succinctly capturing the exasperation everyone connected to Lars von Trier's latest film feels after the Danish director's now-infamous comments at the Cannes Film Festival, in which he jokingly called himself a Nazi and said he "sympathized with Hitler, a little bit."

The quips set off a firestorm that led to Cannes officials banning von Trier from the festival, though his film remained in Competition and won Kirsten Dunst the best actress trophy. The Anti-Defamation League condemned him, and Melancholia's Argentine distributor said it would not release the film.

STORY: Kirsten Dunst Thanks Cannes for Allowing Lars von Trier's 'Melancholia' 'To Still Be in Competition'

Von Trier has based his career on shocking both audiences and the press. But European cinema's favorite enfant terrible might have finally gone too far.

"I know it will be harder now to get financing and to get the actors I want," von Trier admits to THR.

The director has always been able to attract A-listers to his difficult, often disturbing films; actors are drawn to his ability to eke out powerful performances. Von Trier has cleverly cast the likes of Nicole Kidman (Dogville), Willem Dafoe (Antichrist) and Dunst to give his pictures wider appeal and to secure bigger budgets.

But it's doubtful whether stars will risk being linked to von Trier in the immediate future. The director says emphatically that he "is definitely not Mel Gibson" and denies accusations of anti-Semitism. But the taint remains.

So far, many of von Trier's business partners are sticking by him. Melancholia's distributors in the U.K., France and Germany have no plans to drop the film.

"You have to separate what Lars said from the movie, which we think is one of the great works of European cinema," says Markus Zimmer, managing director at Melancholia's German distributor, Concorde. "His comments are just Lars being Lars. He loves being the agent provocateur. But the film is not offensive at all."

U.S. distributor Magnolia -- which, in addition to Melancholia, picked up von Trier's next project, a collaboration with Martin Scorsese, just hours before the fateful Nazi remarks -- has declined comment. Scorsese reps did not respond to requests for comment.

Von Trier, at least, isn't worried about his career.

"It's a pity about the damage this has done to the film and a pity if it has hurt the Cannes Film Festival at all," he says. "But as a filmmaker, I thrive on obstacles. If the obstacle now is I can't raise as much money and I can't go to Cannes, maybe that'll be a good thing for my movies."  

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/w ... von-192906