{"id":106310,"date":"2018-12-13T11:43:57","date_gmt":"2018-12-13T11:43:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/?p=106310"},"modified":"2019-06-28T14:12:16","modified_gmt":"2019-06-28T13:12:16","slug":"the-house-that-jack-built-director-lars-von-trier-serial-killers-are-relaxing-to-write","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/interviews\/the-house-that-jack-built-director-lars-von-trier-serial-killers-are-relaxing-to-write\/","title":{"rendered":"The House That Jack Built director Lars Von Trier: “Serial killers are relaxing to write”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cSerial killers are sort of relaxing to write,\u201d says Lars Von Trier. Skyping from his office in Denmark, he\u2019s jovial when discussing the process of writing his fifteenth feature film. Perhaps he has a point\u00a0<\/span>\u2014\u00a0<\/span>after all, there\u2019s a reason that so much of our popular culture revolves around a fascination with them. From television shows to best-selling books and\u00a0\u2014\u00a0of course\u00a0\u2014\u00a0films, as a collective we can\u2019t get enough of the grizzly stuff. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>My experience is that people, especially women, are very fascinated by serial killers,\u201d agrees Von Trier. \u201cI have been married twice and both of my wives read many books about them. The subject wasn\u2019t so interesting to me, but then later I decided to study a little bit about psychopaths.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

This research brought Von Trier to conceive The House That Jack Built<\/strong>, <\/i>his latest film since Nymphomaniac <\/i><\/strong>back in 2013. It\u2019s not like Von Trier to go so long without making a film, but perhaps he was due a rest, given that in its uncut form, Nymphomaniac<\/i><\/strong> ran for 330 minutes. Weighing in at a comparatively svelte 155 minutes, Von Trier\u2019s newest work tackles a subject he hasn\u2019t yet broached in his wide and often weird filmography: serial murder. Yet to dismiss The House That Jack Built<\/i> <\/strong>as purely violent titillation is to deny oneself the full experience: Von Trier\u2019s film is about murder, but it\u2019s also about art, and by the director\u2019s own admission, the art of filmmaking. Often challenging and frequently wry, Von Trier plums the depths of human misery to bring us an utterly nihilistic vision of human haplessness, mediating on our fascination with the pursuit of celebrity, through the familiar lens of the serial killer movie.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was so fun to write the dialogue because you never knew what you would end up saying,\u201d Von Trier enthuses. \u201cA psychopath believes that they believe they can get away with anything\u00a0\u2014\u00a0they really trust in themselves.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Casting former teen idol Matt Dillon as the titular psycho killer Jack feels like part of this knowingness on Von Trier\u2019s part. \u201cIt was a very difficult part to cast,\u201d he muses. \u201cA lot of people over time have written to me, saying they would do anything to work with me, and when I sent them the script they said they would do anything but <\/i>this script. But Matt was fine,\u201d he grins. \u201cI think he\u2019s doing a fine job.\u201d Certainly this is Dillon as we\u2019ve never seen him before, undergoing rapid-cycle transformations as the film jolts around in time, charting a series of \u2018incidents\u2019 over the course of Jack\u2019s life. We see him pleading a potential victim to leave him alone; we see him plotting the most depraved of crimes; we see him suffering the intrusive thoughts that come as part of his self-diagnosed Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. It takes a heck of an actor to carry such a weight, but Dillon makes it look effortless.<\/span><\/p>\n

This latest feature marked not only Von Trier\u2019s return to filmmaking, but also his return to the Cannes Film Festival, where the film premiered back in May. In 2011, following comments he made about Adolf Hitler while promoting his film Melancholia<\/strong>, <\/i>Von Trier\u00a0was declared \u2018Persona Non Grata\u2019 and banned from the festival (he took his next film, Nymphomaniac<\/strong>, <\/i>to Berlin Film Festival as a result). When The House That Jack Built<\/i> <\/strong>premiered, a hundred headlines premiered too, denouncing the film as gratuitously violent and misogynistic, as disgusted audience members walked out of Cannes screenings. \u201cPeople have walked out on many of my films, and I think that it\u2019s important to have some walkouts,\u201d Von Trier muses. \u201cBut I thought that this time, it\u2019s just violence. That\u2019s what every film has. There are some films that are much more violent than mine. But I was wrong\u00a0\u2014\u00a0people really reacted to the violence.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That violence doesn\u2019t seem to have phased Uma Thurman, who last worked with Von Trier on Nymphomaniac<\/strong>. <\/i>She returns in The House That Jack Built<\/i> <\/strong>as one of the killer\u2019s unwitting victims\u00a0\u2014\u00a0a rather abrasive woman with a flat tire and a broken carjack.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you had been with Uma Thurman for a long time, you would understand Jack\u2019s predicament,\u201d Von Trier laughs. \u201cNo, that was a joke, sorry. Don\u2019t tell that to Uma. But it was such a perfect part for her. She comes in like a rocket, and leaves like a rocket also.\u201d Uma is joined by Riley Keough (daughter of Lisa Marie Presley, granddaughter of Elvis Presley) who gives a heart-wrenching performance as Jack\u2019s naive girlfriend, whom he refers to as \u201cSimple\u201d. \u201cShe is a fantastic actress,\u201d enthuses Von Trier, and he\u2019s not wrong. \u201cI said to her, because I didn\u2019t know who she was related to,\u00a0‘When we film, you will probably find me a little drunk and a little weird,’ and she said ‘I think I can cope,’ and when I learned later who her family were, I understood. I would definitely like to work with her again.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This all-American cast makes sense when you realise the film is set in Washington, USA, despite being filmed entirely in Sweden and Denmark. \u201cWhen I started making films, I saw that America was the film language, because most of the films I saw were American,\u201d Von Trier recalls. “It was important that the language was the right one. I\u2019ve never been to America, and I certainly haven\u2019t been to the state of Washington, but we found out with the help of some Americans that the landscape we wanted could be Washington. So that\u2019s why three or four of my films have taken place there. It\u2019s not because I hate Washington,\u201d he laughs.<\/span><\/p>\n

America feels like a natural home for this mediation on the violent nature of celebrity, and pop culture references flit in and out. At one point Jack holds up cue cards recreating Bob Dylan\u2019s music video for ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues<\/strong><\/em>‘, while Davie Bowie\u2019s \u2018Fame<\/strong><\/em>\u2019 is used both in the trailer and the film itself. Previously Von Trier used Bowie\u2019s \u2018Young Americans<\/strong><\/em>\u2019 to end Manderlay <\/i><\/strong>and Dogville<\/strong>, <\/i>and \u2018Life on Mars?<\/strong><\/em>\u2019 in Breaking the Waves<\/strong>.<\/i> Von Trier has always spoken of his admiration for the icon (in 2015, he announced he was beginning to shoot The House that Jack Built<\/strong> <\/em>by quoting \u2018Diamond Dogs<\/strong><\/em>\u2019 in a Facebook video), but this is the first film of his to come out following Bowie\u2019s death in 2016. \u201cHe disappointed me by dying,\u201d Von Trier sighs. \u201cI think there are some people that don\u2019t die, and Bowie is definitely one of them. I had a therapist once that died and I felt very betrayed. But he has been a great idol of mine for all my life. You heard so much about the man behind the music that you felt like you knew him. I\u2019m disappointed, but I\u2019m still listening.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Listening too is Virge (Bruno Ganz), the omnipresent companion to Jack, who guides him along on their journey into the afterlife, and bears witness as Jack bears his soul by recalling his crimes. Taking direct inspiration from Dante Alighieri’s seminal narrative epic \u201cThe Divine Comedy<\/strong><\/em>\u201d, Jack and Virge stand-in for Dante and Virgil. \u201cFirst I worked with a co-writer called Jenle Hallund, and she had this idea about Hell which was a good idea,\u201d nods Von Trier. \u201cI thought it was about time – it\u2019s a long time since people have been followed to Hell in films. Faust<\/i><\/strong>, one of the first films, had devils with horns, but we didn\u2019t go in that direction. We were a little more poetic, I would say.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Von Trier\u2019s vision of Hell draws more on visions from classical art than cinema, pointing to the paintings of Pieter Bruegel and Hieronymus Bosch as well as directly shouting out beloved British poet and printmaker William Blake. But what of The Divine Comedy<\/strong><\/em>, so clearly a reference point for the film\u2019s structure, as Jack journeys further through the circles of Hell? <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLet me say, it\u2019s called a comedy, but I have read it and I didn\u2019t laugh very much,\u201d Von Trier says. \u201cIt\u2019s very difficult to read, because Dante who wrote it had a lot of enemies, and he wanted to write about them in a bad way, so he chose to put them in different places in Hell. It was mostly a revenge thing he did. But no one knows the names anymore of the people he was talking about, so it\u2019s not an easy book to read. With The House That Jack Built<\/strong>,<\/i> there is a lot of humour, but it depends a little bit on how you decide to see the film.\u201d There is indeed some pitch-black comedy in the film, notably in its ending, which contains one of the most breathtaking displays of cinematic hubris ever undertaken. But if The Divine Comedy<\/strong><\/em> was Dante\u2019s revenge, is The House That Jack Built<\/strong><\/em> Von Trier\u2019s just desserts for those that have wronged him? \u201cNo,\u201d he chuckles. \u201cI couldn\u2019t say that.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

But the film is <\/i>personal, often achingly so. At one point, there\u2019s even a montage including clips from Von Trier\u2019s own films. His challenge to tell a simple story creatively seems to have paid dividends. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cJack contains some of me in him, as a parallel to making art or trying to make art,\u201d Von Trier explains. Is it more about art than murder? \u201cI am sure.\u201d Indeed, one of the most compelling elements of the story is Jack\u2019s battle with his Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. “I suffer from OCD myself, and I know you can change your fixation by finding some issues that are not so dangerous,\u201d he continues. \u201cThat is the good side of OCD. If you can\u2019t live like that, you should definitely do something about it, but most people have OCD to a degree.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Filmmaking seems to be Von Trier\u2019s own way of managing his condition. \u201cThe way I structure filmmaking…first I write the synopsis, then I write the script. Everything is planned and there\u2019s a date. That helps.\u201d The thought of The House That Jack Built<\/strong> <\/i>as his own form of therapy lends it new meaning\u00a0\u2014\u00a0as does the thought of cinema as slaughter, slaughter as art and art as comedy. The richness of the themes in Von Trier\u2019s latest work mean it\u2019s deserving of discussion, which will surely be generated by its, er, festive pre-Christmas release date. And the director himself? He seems quietly happy he\u2019s still getting away with murder.<\/span><\/p>\n

The House That Jack Built<\/i> is released 14 December. Get all the latest horror news with every issue of SciFiNow.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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