Thursday, May 19, 2011
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Thursday, May 19, 2011
DAY NINE: THE
64TH CANNES INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Lars Von Trier's Third Rail
Moment At Cannes
Lars Von Trier lit up the Cannes Film Festival yesterday after making remarks
about Jewish people and Nazis at a press conference for "Melancholia", which
stars Kirsten Dunst, pictured here at the Festival in France.
Getty
Images
by
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
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Thursday,
May 19, 2011
Has the Cannes Film Festival stopped dead in its tracks? Not quite.
The 64th International soldiered on undeterred as it approached its final
weekend, despite the impending end of the world loomed in the distance.
Danish filmmaker Lars Von Trier remains somewhat a story at Cannes -- 24 hours
after making some eyebrow-raising, inflammatory remarks about Nazis and Jewish
people.
Was Mr. Von Trier joking? Apparently. But whether he was "joking" or
not shouldn't matter one way or the other. There's nothing joke-worthy
about and in what he said.
The comments were offensive and ridiculous. (Some of them are quoted
below.)
What mattered -- maybe less or maybe more than the curious remarks themselves --
was that Mr. Von Trier was excommunicated, banned from attending the remainder
of this year's Cannes Festival.
"Persona non grata," declared the Cannes Board of Directors.
"The board of directors profoundly regrets that this forum has been used by Lars
von Trier to express comments that are unacceptable, intolerable and contrary to
the ideals of humanity and generosity that preside over the very existence of
the festival."
The hammer, or the guillotine, was immediately and figuratively dropped on the
much-discussed director.
By the way, "Melancholia" -- the new film Mr. Von Trier directed and spoke about
during the strange, rambling and uncomfortable 35-minute press conference
yesterday, debuted at Cannes. The film remains part of the "In
Competition" section for the Palme D'Or at the Festival.
While saying before the world's journalists that he didn't condone World War
Two, Mr. Von Trier, who in past made comments about being "like a Nazi" or a
"Nazi" when speaking about his biological father, said yesterday that he
"sympathized with Hitler, yes, a little bit." He also spent part of the
time denigrating fellow Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier, saying that he was "happy
to be a Jew until I met [her]."
For his part Mr. Von Trier said in an apology yesterday: "If I have hurt someone
this morning by the words I said at the press conference, I sincerely apologize.
I am not anti-Semitic or racially prejudiced in any way, nor am I a Nazi."
Kirsten Dunst, who stars in Mr. Von Trier's drama about depression and the end
of the world, could be heard at the end of yesterday's press conference telling
her "Melancholia" director: "that was intense."
*
*
*
Pedro Almodovar's film "La Piel Que Habito" screened tonight in competition, and
acotr Antonio Banderas was on hand with the director he hadn't worked with for
two decades until the new film.
Honoring the late Stanley Kubrick in its Cannes Classics section, the Festival
screened "A Clockwork Orange".
The 64th Cannes International Film Festival concludes on Sunday, state of
the world permitting.
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