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Making waves: trauma and ethics in the work of lars von Trier

2004; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 8; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1479758042000264984

1740-1666

Caroline Bainbridge,

Abstract The cinema of Lars von Trier can be characterised in diverse ways, but one of the most striking and memorable aspects of his work in the "Europa trilogy" (Element of Crime 1984; Epidemic 1987; Europa 1991) and the more recent "Goldheart trilogy" (Breaking the Waves 1996; The Idiots 1998; Dancer in the Dark 2000) is the centrality of trauma in both narrative and form and the corresponding emphasis on ethics. Each of these trilogies sets out to scrutinise ambiguities and ambivalences around binaries such as good/evil and guilt/innocence through the exploration of socio‐cultural trauma such as war and plague in the earlier trilogy, and through more individually‐inflected trauma in the latter one. Interestingly, von Trier flags the inter‐relation between the success of the ideals that are central to his narrative forays and the gender of his protagonists (Smith Citation2000, p. 24). How, then, might it be possible to make sense of the slippages and confusions implicit in von Trier's film‐making in order to discern his ethical concerns, and how might these concerns be articulated through cultural assumptions about gender and ethical identities? This essay explores the ethical assumptions and imperatives that mark out von Trier's work, signalling the role of the spectator in the formation of the ethics of his cinematic project. Drawing on psychoanalytic theory and feminist notions of ethics, the paper asks whether von Trier's work is merely to be framed in terms of postmodern provocation or whether his manipulations of cinema and all its accoutrements ought rather to be understood in terms of a radical artistic endeavour designed to foreground the importance and potential of cinema as a site of scrutiny of the inter‐relation between ethics, trauma and gender. Notes The "Europa" trilogy consists of Forbrydelsens element/The Element of Crime (von Trier 1984), Epidemic (von Trier 1987) and Europa (von Trier 1991) and the 'Goldheart' trilogy comprises Breaking the Waves (von Trier 1996), Idioterne/The Idiots (von Trier 1998) and Dancer in the Dark (von Trier 2000). There are five manifestos written to accompany von Trier's films in the "Europa" and "Goldheart" trilogies. These are now available in English (Björkman Citation2003). von Trier comments that "the railway track looks a lot like a reel of film" (Björkman Citation2003, p. 129). This is, of course, highly evocative of the Antigone myth. This parallels the development of Freud's notion of the death drive (1920). von Trier describes the "Goldheart" story as follows: "It was a picture book about a little girl who goes into the forest with some slices of bread and other stuff in her pockets. But at the end of the book, when she's got through the forest, she's standing there naked and with nothing left. And the last line of the book was 'But at least I'm okay' said Goldheart. It seemed to express the ultimate extremity of the martyr's role" (Björkman Citation2003, p. 164). Similarly, von Trier's relationship to the female actors is also well documented and scrutinised in such terms (as each of these sources indicates). While it is clear that the epilogue here is, in one way, intended as a playful reminder of the film's general attack on dogmatic religious belief and practice, the recourse to fantasy arguably underscores the commitment to the ideal of transcendence that might be understood in relation to a desire to maintain a relation to God or to the divine despite the overt critique of religious practices. In this, von Trier is heavily influenced by Carl Dreyer (see Björkman 2003, p. 168). As José Arroyo has remarked, this is, indeed, the best way to upset an audience (2000, p. 16). The Dogme 95 manifesto is available at: http://www.dogme95.dk (accessed 21 April 2004). In this respect, I am thinking of the claims to the political set out in the work of thinkers such as Diana Fuss (1989), where essentialism is read as a strategic tool to be out to use in the opening up of spaces for newly politicised thinking. I am very grateful to Anita Biressi and to the anonymous reviewer for their helpful and constructive comments on this essay.