Dancer in the Dark

Dancer in the Dark

Dancer in the Dark movie poster
Directed by Lars von Trier
Produced by Vibeke Windeløv
Written by Lars von Trier
Starring Björk
Catherine Deneuve
Vladica Kostic
David Morse
Cara Seymour
Peter Stormare
Music by Björk
Cinematography Robby Müller
Editing by François Gédigier
Molly Marlene Stensgård
Distributed by Fine Line Features (USA)
Release date(s) Flag of France May 17, 2000 (premiere at Cannes)
Flag of Denmark December 8, 2000
Flag of the United Kingdom September 15, 2000
Flag of Canada December 6, 2000
Flag of the United States December 6, 2000
Flag of Australia 26 December, 2000
Running time 140 min.
Language English
Budget SEK 120,000,000 (estimated)
Preceded by The Idiots

Dancer in the Dark is an award-winning musical film drama released in 2000. It was directed by Lars von Trier and stars Björk Guðmundsdóttir, Catherine Deneuve, David Morse, Vladica Kostic, Cara Seymour and Peter Stormare. The soundtrack for the film, released as the album Selmasongs, was written mainly by Björk, but a number of songs featured contributions from Mark Bell and the lyrics were by Lars Von Trier and Sjón.

This film was the first film to have an overture since The Black Hole and Star Trek: The Motion Picture, both produced in 1979.

Dancer in the Dark is the third film in Lars von Trier's 'Golden Heart Trilogy'; the previous two films were Breaking the Waves (1996) and The Idiots (1998). The film was an international co-production between companies based in several countries: Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands, United States, United Kingdom, France, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Norway. It was shot with a hand held camera, and was somewhat inspired by a Dogme 95 look.

Dancer in the Dark premiered at the Cannes Film Festival to standing ovations and controversy and was awarded the Palme d'Or, along with the Best Actress award for Björk. The song "I've Seen It All", with Thom Yorke, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song.

Contents

Plot

The film is set in Washington State in 1964 and focuses on Selma Ježková (Björk), a Czech immigrant who has moved to the United States with her son, Gene Ježek (Kostic). They live a life of poverty as Selma works at a factory with her good friend Kathy, who she nicknames Cvalda (Deneuve). She rents a trailer home on the property of town policeman Bill Houston (Morse) and his wife Linda Houston (Seymour). She is also pursued by the shy but persistent Jeff (Stormare) who also works at the factory.

What no one in Selma's life knows is that she has a hereditary degenerative disease which is gradually causing her to go blind. She has been saving up every penny that she makes (in a tin can in her kitchen) to pay for an operation which will prevent her young son from suffering the same fate.

To escape the misery of her daily life Selma accompanies Cvalda to the local cinema where together they watch fabulous Hollywood musicals (or more accurately, Selma listens as Cvalda describes them to her, to the aggravation of the other theater patrons, or acts out the dance steps upon Selma's hand using her fingers). In her day-to-day life, when things are too boring or upsetting, Selma slips into daydreams or perhaps a trance-like state where she imagines the ordinary circumstances and individuals around her have erupted into elaborate musical theater numbers. These songs, as do many of Björk's songs, use some sort of real life noise (from factory machines buzzing to the sound of a flag rapping against a flag pole in the wind) as an underlying rhythm.

Unfortunately, Selma slips into one such trance while working at the factory. When her machine breaks she is fired from her job. Soon Jeff and Cvalda begin to realize that Selma can barely see at all. Additionally, Bill reveals to Selma that his materialistic wife, Linda, has exhausted all of his savings and asks Selma for a loan, which she declines to give. He regrets telling Selma his secret, so to comfort Bill, Selma reveals her secret blindness, hoping that together they can share one another's secret. Bill then hides in the corner of Selma's home, knowing she can't see him, and watches as she puts some money in her kitchen tin.

The next day when Selma comes home she finds the tin is empty. She goes next door to report the theft to Bill and Linda only to hear Linda discussing how Bill has brought home their safe deposit box to count their savings. She additionally reveals that Bill has "confessed" his affair with Selma, and that Selma must move out immediately. Knowing that Bill was broke and that the money he is counting must be hers, she confronts him and attempts to take the money back. He draws a gun on her and in a struggle he is wounded.

Linda discovers the two of them and, assuming that Selma is attempting to steal the money, runs off to tell the police at Bill's command. Bill then begs Selma to take his life, telling her that this will be the only way she will ever reclaim the money that he stole from her. Selma shoots at him several times, but due to her blindness manages to only maim Bill further. In the end she performs a coup de grâce with the safe deposit box. (In one of the scenes, Selma slips into a trance and imagines that Bill's corpse stands up and slow dances with her, urging her to run to freedom.) She does, and takes the money to the Institute for the Blind to pay for her son's operation before the police can take it from her.

Selma is caught and eventually put on trial. It is here that she is pegged as a Communist sympathizer and murderess. Although she tells as much truth about the situation as she can, she refuses to reveal Bill's secret, saying that she had promised not to. Additionally, when her claim that the reason she didn't have any money was because she had been sending it to her father in Czechoslovakia is proven false, she is convicted and given the death penalty.

Cvalda and Jeff eventually put the pieces of the puzzle together and get back Selma's money, using it instead to pay for a trial lawyer who can free her. Selma becomes furious and refuses the lawyer, opting to face the death penalty rather than letting her son go blind. In the end Selma is hanged.

Style

Much of the film has a similar look to Lars von Trier's earlier Dogme 95-influenced films: it is filmed on low-end, hand-held digital cameras to create a documentary-style appearance. It is not a true Dogme 95 film, however, because the Dogme rules stipulate that violence, non-diegetic music, location shoots and period pieces are not permitted.

Lars von Trier differentiates the musical sequences from the rest of the film by using static cameras and by brightening the colours.

Production

The film's title suggests the Fred Astaire/Cyd Charisse duet "Dancing In The Dark" from the 1953 film The Band Wagon, which ties in with the film's musical theatre theme.

Actress Björk, who is known primarily as a contemporary composer, had rarely acted before, and has described the process of making this film as so emotionally taxing that she would not appear in any film ever again[1][2] (although in 2005, she appeared in Matthew Barney's Drawing Restraint 9). She had disagreements with the director over the content of the film, wanting the ending to be more uplifting. Deneuve and others have described her performance as feeling rather than acting. Björk has said that it is a misunderstanding that she was put off acting by this film; rather, she never wanted to act but made an exception for Lars von Trier.[1]

The musical sequences were filmed simultaneously with over 100 digital cameras so that multiple angles of the performance could be captured and cut together later, thus shortening the filming schedule.

Björk lies down on a stack of birch logs during the "Scatterheart" sequence. In Icelandic and Swedish, "Björk" means "birch". Lars von Trier thought it would be fun to put it in the film.

A Danish TMY class locomotive (owned by Swedish train operator TÅGAB, a shortline) was painted in the American Great Northern scheme for the movie, and not repainted afterward.[3] A T43 class locomotive was repainted too, though never used in the movie.

Critical responses

Reaction to 'Dancer in the Dark was extremely mixed; for example, on The Movie Show, Margaret Pomeranz gave it 5 stars while David Stratton gave it 0 - the only time this has ever happened. The mixed response to the film is reflected in the film's official website, which posts both positive and negative reviews on its main page.[4]

The film was praised for its stylistic innovations: Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times stated that "It smashes down the walls of habit that surround so many movies. It returns to the wellsprings. It is a bold, reckless gesture."[5] and Edward Guthmann from the San Francisco Chronicle wrote "It's great to see a movie so courageous and affecting, so committed to its own differentness."[6]

However, criticism was directed at its storyline: Jonathan Foreman of the New York Post described the film as "meretricious fakery" and called it "so unrelenting in its manipulative sentimentality that, if it had been made by an American and shot in a more conventional manner, it would be seen as a bad joke."[7]

Awards

Dancer in the Dark premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and was awarded the Palme d'Or, along with the Best Actress award for Björk. The song "I've Seen It All" was nominated for an Oscar for best song, at the performance of which Björk wore her famous swan dress.

Nominated

Won

Cast

Music

See also: Selmasongs: Music from the Motion Picture Soundtrack Dancer in the Dark

References in other media

Main article: Dancer in the Dark (song)

The Finnish band The Rasmus included a song called Dancer in the Dark in the special edition of their 2005 album Hide from the Sun. The song is about the movie.

References

Notes

  1. ↑ "Bjork launches celluloid comeback", BBC News, BBC News (2005-11-02). Retrieved on 2006-12-22. "Bjork vowed never to act again after making Dancer in the Dark in 2000, despite winning a best actress prize at the Cannes Film Festival." 
  2. ↑ BeatBoxBetty (October 2000). "celebetty: bjork". BeatBoxBetty. BeatBoxBetty.com. Retrieved on 2006-12-22. "Right now, I feel very strong about focusing on music"
  3. ↑ RailPictures.Net Photo » TAGAB TMY
  4. ↑ "Dancer in the Dark official website". Retrieved on 2007-05-27. 
  5. ↑ Ebert, Roger (2000-10-20). "Dancer In The Dark", Chicago Sun Times, rogerebert.com. Retrieved on 2006-12-22. "Some reasonable people will admire Lars von Trier's "Dancer in the Dark," and others will despise it. An excellent case can be made for both positions." 
  6. ↑ Guthmann, Edward (2000-10-26). "`Dancer' Dares to Be Different", San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved on 2006-12-22. "Singer Bjork amazing in von Trier's tragedy" 
  7. ↑ Foreman, Jonathan (2000-09-22). "Dreck Dressed As Art", New York Post, NYP Holdings, Inc., p. 47. Retrieved on 2006-12-22. "Despite 2 Good Performances, 'Dancer' Is Just Fakery With An Anti-american Drum To Beat" 

External links

Films by Lars von Trier
The Element of Crime • Epidemic • Europa • Breaking the Waves • The Idiots • Dancer in the Dark • Dogville • Manderlay • The Boss of It All • Antichrist
Awards and achievements
Preceded by
Rosetta		 Palme d'Or
2000		 Succeeded by
The Son's Room
Danishfilm.svg Cinema of Denmark

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