Lars von Trier (né Lars Trier; born 30 April 1956) is a Danish film director and screenwriter widely known for his provocative and highly polarizing style. His most notable works include Breaking the Waves (1996), The Idiots (1998), Dancer in the Dark (2000), Dogville (2003), Antichrist (2009), Melancholia (2011) and Nymphomaniac (2013), as well as The Kingdom miniseries trilogy (1994–2022).
Beginning in the late-1960s as a child actor working on Danish television series Secret Summer, Trier's career has spanned more than five decades. Considered a major figure of the European film industry, he and his works have been variously described as ambitious and provocative, as well as technically innovative. His films offer confrontational examinations of existential, social, psychosexual, and political issues, and deal in subjects including mercy, sacrifice, and mental health. He frequently collaborates with the actors Jens Albinus, Jean-Marc Barr, Udo Kier and Stellan Skarsgård.
Trier co-created the filmmaking movement Dogme 95 alongside fellow director Thomas Vinterberg and co-founded the Danish film production company Zentropa, the films from which have sold more than 350 million tickets and garnered eight Academy Award nominations.
Trier has been the subject of criticisms and controversies. Cannes Film Festival, in addition to awarding his films on numerous occasions, once listed him as persona non grata for making a Nazism joke during an interview. Animal harm on Manderlay's set, and graphic violence and unsimulated sex in some of his films have drawn criticism, and he has also been accused of mistreatment and negligence towards actresses during the filming process, including Björk.
Born Lars Trier was born in Kongens Lyngby, Denmark, north of Copenhagen, his parents are Inger Høst and Ulf Trier. He later learned from Inger's deathbed that his biological father was Fritz Michael Hartmann, Inger's former boss at Denmark's Ministry of Social Affairs and a World War II resistance fighter.
He studied film theory at the University of Copenhagen and film direction at the National Film School of Denmark. At 25, he won two Best School Film awards at the Munich International Festival of Film Schools for Nocturne and Last Detail. The same year, he added the nobiliary particle "von" to his name, possibly as a satirical homage to the equally self-invented titles of directors Erich von Stroheim and Josef von Sternberg, and saw his graduation film Images of Liberation released as a theatrical feature.
1984–1994: Career beginnings and Europa trilogy
In 1984, The Element of Crime, Trier's breakthrough film, received twelve awards at seven international festivals including the Technical Grand Prize at Cannes, and a nomination for the Palme d'Or. The film's slow, non-linear pace creates an allegory for traumatic European historical events. Trier's next film, Epidemic (1987), was also shown at Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section.
Trier has referred to his films as falling into thematic and stylistic trilogies. This pattern began with The Element of Crime (1984), the first of the Europa trilogy, which illuminated traumatic periods in Europe both in the past and the future. It also includes Epidemic. He completed the trilogy in 1991 with Europa (released as Zentropa in the US), which won the Prix du Jury at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival, and picked up awards at other major festivals. In 1990 he also directed the music video for the song "Bakerman" by Laid Back.
Seeking financial independence and creative control over their projects, in 1992 Trier and producer Peter Aalbæk Jensen founded the film production company Zentropa Entertainment, which has sold more than 350 million tickets and was nominated for multiple Academy Awards as of 2016. Named after a fictional railway company in Europa, their most recent film at the time, Zentropa has produced movies other than Trier's own. It has also produced hardcore sex films: Constance (1998), Pink Prison (1999), HotMen CoolBoyz (2000), and All About Anna (2005). Trier made The Kingdom (Danish title Riget, 1994) and The Kingdom II (Riget II, 1997), a pair of miniseries.
1995–2000: Dogme 95 manifesto, and Golden Heart trilogy
In 1995, Trier and Thomas Vinterberg presented their manifesto for a new cinematic movement, which they called Dogme 95. The Dogme 95 concept, which led to international interest in Danish film, inspired filmmakers all over the world. It required filmmakers to shirk several common techniques in modern filmmaking, such as studio lighting, sets, costumes, and non-diegetic music. In 2008, together with their fellow Dogme directors Kristian Levring and Søren Kragh-Jacobsen, Trier and Thomas Vinterberg received the European film award for European Achievement in World Cinema.
In 1996 Trier conducted an unusual theatrical experiment in Copenhagen involving 53 actors, which he titled Psychomobile 1: The World Clock. A documentary chronicling the project was directed by Jesper Jargil, and was released in 2000 with the title De Udstillede (The Exhibited).
Trier achieved international success with his Golden Heart trilogy. Each film in the trilogy is about naive heroines who maintain their "golden hearts" despite the tragedies they experience. This trilogy consists of Breaking the Waves (1996), The Idiots (1998), and Dancer in the Dark (2000).
Breaking the Waves won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival and featured Emily Watson, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. The second film in the trilogy, The Idiots, was nominated for a Palme d'Or at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. In 2000, Trier premiered Dancer in the Dark, a musical featuring Icelandic musician Björk, which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. The song "I've Seen It All" (co-written by Trier) received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song.
2003–2008: USA: Land of Opportunities trilogy and other works
The Five Obstructions (2003), made by Trier and Jørgen Leth, is a documentary that incorporates lengthy sections of experimental films. The premise is that Trier challenges Leth, his friend and mentor, to remake his 1967 experimental short The Perfect Human five times, each time with a different obstacle.
His next proposed trilogy, USA: Land of Opportunities, consists of Dogville (2003), Manderlay (2005), and the unmade Washington. The first two installments were shot with the same distinctive, extremely stylized approach, with the actors performing on a bare sound stage with no decoration, buildings' walls marked by chalk lines on the floor, a style inspired by 1970s televised theatre. Dogville starred Nicole Kidman as Grace Margaret Mulligan, a role taken by Bryce Dallas Howard for Manderlay. Both films feature an ensemble cast including Harriet Andersson, Lauren Bacall, James Caan, Danny Glover, and Willem Dafoe. The films question various issues relating to American society, such as intolerance and slavery.