The Lars von Trier Conversations – Volume Two

»Talking intensively with people about films and cinema means searching for something that you have only guessed at.« In 2021 and 2022, Georg Tiefenbach continued the conversations about Lars von Trier’s films with editor Molly Malene Stensgaard, cinematographer Manuel Alberto Claro, special effect artist Peter Hjorth, and writer and director Lars von Trier. Trier’s films are always about four great mysteries: Life, love, suffering, and death. Throughout his oeuvre, Trier has experimented with a wide range of creative possibilities from naturalism to abstraction to romanticism and symbolism. His personal fears, which are numerous and varied, have never prevented him from confronting the big questions of life in his films. On the contrary, they have driven him to pursue them in his art. His stories deal with the existential crises of consciousness, identity, trust, and faith. He neither denies fears and longings, nor does he glorify them. From this point of view, Melancholia turns out to be one of Trier’s most personal films. These conversations are about the film Melancholia and the entire oeuvre, about the craft and secrets of filmmaking, and above all about cinema as an aesthetic experience. Practice should be understood theoretically, and theory should be practically applicable, theory and practice embracing each other. Arts and science mean mutual enrichment.