For courage and sheer audacity in form and plot, no filmmaker on the world stage matches Lars von Trier. He was born on April 30, 1956 in Copenhagen, Denmark and raised by free-thinking, nudist, communist parents. The idiosyncratic filmmaker has a phobia of flying.
Lars von Trier and fellow Dutch filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg (The Celebration) from Copenhagen founded the Dogme 95 collective with Thomas Vinteberg (The Celebration), creating a Manifesto and asking contributors to sign a vow of chastity. The rules placed an emphasis on the purity and attempted to create a fresh kind of film away from tired conventions.
It started with Breaking The Waves (1996), the film that launched the career of English actress Emily Watson: the tear jerking melodrama. Simple Bess sacrifices her own life to save her husband's.
In Dancer in the Dark (2000), Bjork portrays a blind single mother who is sentenced to the death penalty and sings her way down the the executioner's chair.
Perhaps most painful of all, however, was the inhumane treatment Nicole Kidman received from a small American town in the brilliant Dogville (2003), which was set entirely on a soundstage.
The Boss of It All (2007)
Chacun Son Cinema (2007)
Manderlay (2006)
Dogville (2004)
The Five Obstructions (2004)
Dancer in the Dark (2000)
The Idiots (2000)
The Kingdom II (1998)
Breaking the Waves (1996)
The Kingdom - Series One (1995)
Zentropa (1992)
Epidemic (1987)
The Element of Crime (1987)
Liberation Pictures (1983)
Lars von Trier Wikipedia entry
