Melencolia I by Albrecht Dürer.

Melancholia (from Greek μελαγχολία - melancholia, "sadness", literally black bile),^[1] also lugubriousness, from the Latin lugere, to mourn; moroseness, from the Latin morosus, self-willed, fastidious habit; wistfulness, from old English wist: intent, or saturnine, (see Saturn), in contemporary usage, is a mood disorder of non-specific depression, characterized by low levels of both enthusiasm and eagerness for activity.

In a modern context, "melancholy" applies only to the mental or emotional symptoms of depression or despondency; historically, "melancholia" could be physical as well as mental, and melancholic conditions were classified as such by their common cause rather than by their properties.^[2]

Similarly, melancholia in ancient usage also encompassed mental disorders which might now be classed as schizophrenias or bipolar disorders.

History[link]

Hippocrates is considered the first physician to describe melancholia or depression, clinically.^[3][4]

The name "melancholia" comes from the old medical belief of the four humors: disease or ailment being caused by an imbalance in one or other of the four basic bodily liquids, or humors. Personality types were similarly determined by the dominant humor in a particular person. According to Hippocrates, melancholia was caused by an excess of black bile,^[5] hence the name, which means 'black bile', from Ancient Greek μέλας (melas), "dark, black",^[6] + χολή (kholé), "bile";^[7] a person whose constitution tended to have a preponderance of black bile had a melancholic disposition. See also: sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric.

Melancholia was described as a distinct disease with particular mental and physical symptoms in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. Hippocrates, in his Aphorisms, characterized all "fears and despondencies, if they last a long time" as being symptomatic of melancholia.^[8]

In his study of French and Burgundian courtly culture, Johan Huizinga^[9] noted that "at the close of the Middle Ages, a sombre melancholy weighs on people's souls." In chronicles, poems, sermons, even in legal documents, an immense sadness, a note of despair and a fashionable sense of suffering and deliquescence at the approaching end of times, suffuses court poets and chroniclers alike: Huizinga quotes instances in the ballads of Eustache Deschamps, "monotonous and gloomy variations of the same dismal theme", and in Georges Chastellain's prologue to his Burgundian chronicle,^[10] and in the late fifteenth-century poetry of Jean Meschinot. Ideas of reflection and the workings of imagination are blended in the term merencolie, embodying for contemporaries "a tendency", observes Huizinga, "to identify all serious occupation of the mind with sadness".^[11]

The most extended treatment of melancholia comes from Robert Burton, whose The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) treats the subject from both a literary and a medical perspective. Burton wrote in the 16th century that music and dance were critical in treating mental illness, especially melancholia.^[12]

But to leave all declamatory speeches in praise [3481]of divine music, I will confine myself to my proper subject: besides that excellent power it hath to expel many other diseases, it is a sovereign remedy against [3482] despair and melancholy, and will drive away the devil himself. Canus, a Rhodian fiddler, in [3483]Philostratus, when Apollonius was inquisitive to know what he could do with his pipe, told him, "That he would make a melancholy man merry, and him that was merry much merrier than before, a lover more enamoured, a religious man more devout." Ismenias the Theban, [3484]Chiron the centaur, is said to have cured this and many other diseases by music alone: as now they do those, saith [3485]Bodine, that are troubled with St. Vitus's Bedlam dance.^[13][14][15]

A famous allegorical engraving by Albrecht Dürer is entitled Melencolia I. This engraving portrays melancholia as the state of waiting for inspiration to strike, and not necessarily as a depressive affliction. Amongst other allegorical symbols, the picture includes a magic square, and a truncated rhombohedron.^[16] The image in turn inspired a passage in The City of Dreadful Night by James Thomson (B.V.), and, a few years later, a sonnet by Edward Dowden.

Cult of melancholia[link]

A Wistful Look, by James Carroll Beckwith

During the early 17th century, a curious cultural and literary cult of melancholia arose in England. It was believed that religious uncertainties caused by the English Reformation and a greater attention being paid to issues of sin, damnation, and salvation, led to this effect.

In music, the post-Elizabethan cult of melancholia is associated with John Dowland, whose motto was Semper Dowland, semper dolens. ("Always Dowland, always mourning.") The melancholy man, known to contemporaries as a "malcontent," is epitomized by Shakespeare's Prince Hamlet, the "Melancholy Dane." Other major melancholic authors include Sir Thomas Browne, and Jeremy Taylor, whose Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial and Holy Living and Holy Dying, respectively, contain extensive meditations on death.

A similar phenomenon, though not under the same name, occurred during Sturm und Drang, with such works as The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe or in Romanticism with works such as Ode on Melancholy by John Keats. In the 20th century, much of the counterculture of modernism was fueled by comparable alienation and a sense of purposelessness called "anomie"; earlier artistic preoccupation with death has gone under the rubric of memento mori.

Related concepts In Islam[link]

The Arabic word found as ḥuzn and ḥazan^{[citation needed]} in the Qur'an and hüzün in modern Turkish refers to the pain and sorrow over a loss, death of relatives in the case of the Qur'an. Two schools further interpreted this feeling. The first sees it as a sign that one is too attached to the material world, while Sufism took it to represent a feeling of personal insufficiency, that one was not getting close enough to God and did not or could not do enough for God in this world.^[17] The Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, in the book Istanbul: Memories and the City,^[17] further elaborates on the added meaning hüzün has acquired in modern Turkish. It has come to denote a sense of failure in life, lack of initiative and to retreat into oneself, symptoms quite similar to melancholia.^{[citation needed]} According to Pamuk it was a defining character of cultural works from Istanbul after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. One may see similarities with how melancholic romantic paintings in the west sometimes used ruins from the age of the Roman Empire as a backdrop.

As a parallel with physicians of classical Greece, ancient Arabic physicians and psychologists also categorized ḥuzn as a disease.^{[citation needed]} Al-Kindi (c. 801–873 CE) links it with disease-like mental states like anger, passion, hatred and depression, while Avicenna (980–1037 CE) diagnosed ḥuzn in a lovesick man if his pulse increased drastically when the name of the girl he loved was spoken.^[18] Avicenna suggests, in remarkable similarity with Robert Burton, many causes for melancholy, including the fear of death, intrigues surrounding one's life, and lost love.^{[citation needed]} As remedies, he recommends treatments addressing both the medical and philosophical sources of the melancholy, including rational thought, morale, discipline, fasting and coming to terms with the catastrophe.

The various uses of ḥuzn and hüzün thus describe melancholy from a certain vantage point,^{[citation needed]} show similarities with female hysteria in the case of Avicenna's patient and in a religious context it is not unlike sloth, which by Dante was defined as "failure to love God with all one's heart, all one's mind and all one's soul". Thomas Aquinas described sloth as "an oppressive sorrow, which, to wit, so weighs upon man's mind, that he wants to do nothing."^[19]

See also[link]

• Depression (mood)
• Dysthymia
• Major depressive disorder
• Melancholic depression
• Nostalgia
• Saudade
• Vapours (disease)
• Weltschmerz

Footnotes[link]

Other notes[link]

• Melancholia is a specific form of mental illness characterized by depressed mood, abnormal motor functions, and abnormal vegetative signs. It has been identified in medical writings from antiquity and was best characterized in the 19th Century. In the 20th Century, with the interest in psychoanalytic writing, "major depression" became the principal class in psychiatric classifications. [See Taylor MA, Fink M: Melancholia for details of history.]
• In 1996, Gordon Parker and Dusan Hadzi-Pavlovic described Melancholia as a specific disorder of movement and mood. [Melancholia" A Disorder of Movement and Mood, Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996]. More recently, MA Taylor and M Fink crystallized the present image of melancholia as a systemic disorder that is identifiable by depressive mood rating scales, verified by the present of abnormal cortisol metabolism (abnormal dexamethasone suppression test), and validated by rapid and effective remission with ECT or tricyclic antidepressant agents. It has many forms, including retarded depression, psychotic depression, post-partum depression and psychosis, abnormal bereavement.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Melancholia

• Grunwald Center website: Durer's Melencolia and clinical depression, iconography and printmaking techniques
• "Dürer's Melancholia": sonnet by Edward Dowden
• Melancholy and abstraction, on the Berlin exhibition "Melancholy: Genius and Madness in Art"
• Diderot's historic writing on Melancholy
• A consideration of the Durer's work and the 2011 film 'Melancholia'

v t e Emotions (list) Emotions Adoration Affection Agony Awe Amusement Anger Anguish Annoyance Anxiety Arousal Attraction Caring Compassion Contempt Contentment Defeat Dejection Depression Desire Despair Disappointment Disgust Ecstasy Embarrassment Empathy Enthrallment Enthusiasm Envy Euphoria Excitement Fear Frustration Grief Guilt Happiness Hatred Homesickness Hope Horror Hostility Humiliation Hysteria Infatuation Insecurity Insult Interest Irritation Isolation Jealousy Loneliness Longing Love Lust Melancholy Neglect Optimism Panic Passion Pity Pleasure Pride Rage Regret Rejection Remorse Resentment Sadness Sentimentality Shame Shock Sorrow Spite Suffering Surprise Sympathy Tenseness Thrill Revenge Wonder Worry Zeal Zest Worldviews Compatibilism Existentialism Fatalism Incompatibilism Metaphysics Nihilism Optimism Pessimism Reclusion Social justice Weltschmerz Source: Parrott, W. (2001), Emotions in Social Psychology, Psychology Press, Philadelphia.

Lars von Trier
Lars von Trier at Cannes in 2000
Born	Lars Trier (1956-04-30) 30 April 1956 (age 56) Kongens Lyngby, Denmark
Occupation	Film director and screenwriter
Influenced by	Andrei Tarkovsky, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Ingmar Bergman, Stanley Kubrick, Douglas Sirk, David Lynch, Jørgen Leth, Erich von Stroheim, Josef von Sternberg, Bertolt Brecht
Spouse	Cæcilia Holbek (m. 1987–1995)[1] Bente Frøge (m. 1997–present)

Lars von Trier (Danish pronunciation: [ˈlɑːs fʌn ˈtʁiːˀɐ]; born Lars Trier; 30 April 1956)^[2] is a Danish film director and screenwriter. He is closely associated with the Dogme 95 collective – an avant-garde filmmaking movement – although his own films have taken a variety of approaches. His work has frequently divided the critics.^[3]

Von Trier began making films at the age of eleven. Raised by a communist mother and a socialist father in an austere environment, he converted at the age of 30 to the Catholic Church. Von Trier suffers periodically from depression, as well as various fears and phobias, including an intense fear of flying. As he himself said in an interview, "Basically, I'm afraid of everything in life, except filmmaking".^[4]. His first publicly released film was an experimental short called The Orchid Gardener (1977) and his first feature film came seven years later with The Element of Crime (1984). Among many other prizes, awards and nominations, he is the recipient of the Palme d'Or, the Grand Prix, and the Prix du Jury at the Cannes Film Festival.

Early life and career[link]

Lars Trier was born in Kongens Lyngby, north of Copenhagen, the son of Inger Trier (née Høst, 1915—1989). He had believed that his biological father was Ulf Trier (1907—1978), until his mother revealed to him on her deathbed that he had been conceived as a result of an affair she had with her employer, Fritz Michael Hartmann. His mother considered herself a communist, while his father was social democrat, and both were committed nudists,^[5] and the young Lars went on several childhood holidays to nudist camps. They regarded the disciplining of children as reactionary. Trier has noted that he was brought up in an atheist family, and that although Ulf Trier was Jewish, he was not religious. He did not discover the identity of his biological father until 1989. His parents did not allow much room in their household for "feelings, religion, or enjoyment", and also refused to make any rules for their children,^[6] with complex results for von Trier's personality and development.^[7] He began making his own films at the age of 11 after receiving a Super-8 camera as a gift and continued to be involved in independent moviemaking throughout his high school years.^[3]

In 1979, he was enrolled in the National Film School of Denmark.^[8] His peers at the film school nicknamed him "von Trier". The name is sort of an inside-joke with the von (German "of" or "from" used as a nobiliary particle), suggesting nobility and a certain arrogance, while Lars is a very common and Trier not an unusual name in Denmark.^[9] He reportedly kept the "von" name in homage to Erich von Stroheim and Josef von Sternberg, both of whom also added it later in life.^[10] During his time as a student at the school he made the films Nocturne (1980) and The Last Detail (Den sidste detalje, 1981),^[11] both of which won Best Film awards at the Munich International Festival of Film Schools,^[12] and he graduated with Images of a Relief (Befrielsesbilleder, 1982) in 1983.

Europe trilogy[link]

After graduation he began work on the very stylized crime drama, The Element of Crime (Forbrydelsens element 1984), which won a technical award at the Cannes Film Festival.

His next film was Epidemic (1987), which was also shown at Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section. The film is partly a dark science fiction-tale of a future plague epidemic, and partly chronicles two filmmakers (played by Lars von Trier and screenwriter Niels Vørsel) preparing that film, with the two storylines ultimately colliding.

For television von Trier directed Medea (1988), which won the Jean d'Arcy prize in France. It was based on a screenplay by Carl Th. Dreyer and starred Udo Kier.

He completed the Europe-trilogy in 1991 with Europa (released as Zentropa in the U.S.), which won the Prix du Jury at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival^[13] and picked up awards at other major festivals.

In 1990 he also directed the music video for the worldwide hit "Bakerman" by Laid Back.^[14] This video was reused in 2006 by the English DJ and artist Shaun Baker who did a remake of Bakerman.

[edit] Zentropa and The Kingdom

In 1992 he and producer Peter Aalbæk Jensen founded the movie production company Zentropa Entertainment, named after a train company in Europa, their most recent film at the time.^[8] The reason for doing this was to achieve financial independence and to have total creative control. The production company has produced many movies other than von Trier's own as well as television series. It is also the world's only mainstream film studio to have produced hardcore sex films:^{[citation needed]} Constance (1998), Pink Prison (1999), HotMen CoolBoyz (2000) and All About Anna (2005).

In order to make money for his newly founded company,^[15] he made The Kingdom (Riget, 1994) and The Kingdom II (Riget II, 1997), a pair of miniseries recorded in the Danish national hospital, the name "Riget" being a colloquial name for the hospital known as Rigshospitalet (lit. The Kingdom's Hospital) in Danish. A projected third installment in the series was derailed by the 1998 death of Ernst-Hugo Järegård, who played Helmer, one of the major characters.

Dogme 95[link]

In 1995, Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg presented their manifesto for a new cinematic movement which they called Dogme 95. It would however take a while before the first of these films appeared, and at this point many thought of the concept mainly as a radical idea with no future.^{[citation needed]}

In 1996, von 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).

Von Trier's next film, Breaking the Waves (1996), the first film in von Trier's 'Golden Heart Trilogy', won the Grand Prix at Cannes and featured Emily Watson, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Its grainy images and hand-held photography pointed towards Dogme 95. The second was The Idiots (1998), nominated for a Palme d'Or, which he presented in person at the Cannes Film Festival notwithstanding his dislike of travelling. Dancer in the Dark (2000) was the final component of the trilogy.

As originator of the Dogme 95 concept, which has led to international interest in Danish film as a whole, he has inspired filmmakers all over the world.^[16] Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, who created the Dogme 95 Manifesto and the "Vow of Chastity" together with their fellow Dogme directors Kristian Levring and Søren Kragh-Jacobsen shared in 2008 the European Film Award European Achievement in World Cinema.

Explicit images[link]

Von Trier's use of sexually explicit images in The Idiots (1998) started a wave^{[citation needed]} of arthouse mainstream films with unsimulated sex, such as Catherine Breillat's Romance (1999), Baise-Moi (2000), Intimacy (2001), Vincent Gallo's The Brown Bunny (2003) and Michael Winterbottom's 9 Songs (2004).

In 1998, Lars von Trier also made history by having his company Zentropa be the world's first mainstream film company to produce hardcore pornographic films. Three of these films, Constance (1998), Pink Prison (1999) and the adult/mainstream crossover-feature All About Anna (2005), were made primarily for a female audience, and were extremely successful in Europe, with the first two being directly responsible for the March 2006 legalizing of pornography in Norway.^[17]

Women too like to see other people having sex. What they don’t like is the endless close-ups of hammering bodyparts without a story. Lars von Trier is the first to have realised this and produced valuable quality porn films for women.

— Stern No. 40, 27 September 2007^[18]

Lars von Trier's initiative spearheaded a European wave of female-friendly porn films from directors such as Anna Span, Erika Lust and Petra Joy, while von Trier's company Zentropa was forced to abandon the experiment due to pressure from English business partners.^[19] In July 2009, women's magazine Cosmopolitan ranked Pink Prison as No. 1 in its Top Five of the best women’s porn, calling it the "role model for the new porn-generation".^[20] Lars von Trier would return to explicit images in his self-directed Antichrist (2009), exploring darker themes.

2000s[link]

In 2000, von Trier premiered a musical featuring Icelandic musician Björk, Dancer in the Dark. The film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes.^[21] The song "I've Seen It All" (which Trier co-wrote) received an Academy Award nomination for Best Song.

The Five Obstructions (2003), made by Lars von Trier and Jørgen Leth, is a documentary, but also incorporates lengthy sections of experimental films. The premise is that Lars von Trier challenges director Jørgen Leth, his friend and mentor, to remake his old experimental film The Perfect Human (1967) five times, each time with a different 'obstruction' (or obstacle) specified by von Trier.^[22]

He then directed two films in his announced 'U.S. trilogy': Dogville (2003), starring Nicole Kidman and Manderlay (2005), starring Bryce Dallas Howard in the same role – as Grace. Both films are extremely stylized, with the actors playing their parts on a nearly empty soundstage with little but chalk marks on the floor to indicate the sets. Both films had huge casts of major international actors (Harriet Andersson, Lauren Bacall, James Caan, Danny Glover, Willem Dafoe, etc.), and questioned various issues relating to American society, such as intolerance in Dogville and slavery in Manderlay.

Controversy erupted on the 2004 set for Manderlay when actor John C. Reilly walked off the Trollhättan, Sweden, set in late March. Reilly walked off the film when he learned that an upcoming scene involved the slaughter of a donkey for food. The film's producer says the animal—who was old and not expected to live much longer—was killed off-camera by a certified veterinarian, in accordance with Swedish law. Reilly was replaced by Zeljko Ivanek.^[23]

The U.S. was also the scene for Dear Wendy (2005), a feature film directed by von Trier's "Dogme-brother" Thomas Vinterberg from a script by von Trier. It starred Jamie Bell and Bill Pullman and dealt with gun worship and violence in American society.

In 2006, von Trier released a Danish-language comedy film, The Boss of it All. It was shot using a process that von Trier has called Automavision, which involves the director choosing the best possible fixed camera position and then allowing a computer to randomly choose when to tilt, pan or zoom.

It was followed by an autobiographical film, De unge år: Erik Nietzsche sagaen del 1 (2007), scripted by von Trier but directed by Jacob Thuesen, which tells the story of von Trier's years as a student at the National Film School of Denmark. It stars Jonatan Spang as von Trier's alter ego, called "Erik Nietzsche", and is narrated by von Trier himself. All main characters in the film are based on real people from the Danish film industry,^{[citation needed]} with the thinly veiled portrayals including Jens Albinus as director Nils Malmros, Dejan Čukić as screenwriter Mogens Rukov and Søren Pilmark in an especially unflattering portrayal as sex-obsessed school principal Henning Camre.

Von Trier's next feature film was a horror movie, Antichrist, about "a grieving couple who retreat to their cabin in the woods, hoping a return to Eden will repair their broken hearts and troubled marriage; but nature takes its course and things go from bad to worse". The film, which includes sexually explicit content, stars Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg. It premiered in competition at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, where the festival's jury honoured the movie by giving the Best Actress award to Gainsbourg.^[24] The Cannes Film Festival Ecumenical Jury, which gives prizes for movies that promote spiritual, humanist and universal values, also "honoured" the film with a special "anti-award"; a spokesman for the jury described it as "the most misogynist movie from the self-proclaimed biggest director in the world."^[25] In 2010 the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported on their website that the film production company Zentropa is reportedly making more revenue from suing movie pirates in Germany that have downloaded Antichrist illegally than from box office and DVD sales, demanding a payment of around 1,300 euros per download to avoid legal action.^[26]

2010s[link]

Von Trier's latest work is Melancholia, a psychological disaster drama;^[27] shot between 22 July and 8 September 2010 at Film i Väst's studios in Trollhättan, Sweden,^[28] and with exteriors in the area surrounding the Tjolöholm Castle.^[29] Magnolia Pictures has acquired the distribution rights for North America.^[30] The film was in competition at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.^[31]

Von Trier announced that after finishing Melancholia he hopes to begin production of The Nymphomaniac, a two-part film about the sexual awakening of a woman (Charlotte Gainsbourg).^[32] The director explained how he got the idea for the upcoming project: "my DP on [Melancholia], Manuel Claro, at one point voiced a surprising prejudice. He urged me not to fall into the trap that so many aging directors fall into – that the women get younger and younger and nuder and nuder. That's all I needed to hear. I most definitely intend for the women in my films to get younger and younger and nuder and nuder."^[33]

Phobias[link]

Von Trier suffers from multiple phobias, including an intense fear of flying.^[34] His fear of air travel frequently places severely limiting constraints on him and his crew, necessitating that virtually all of his films be shot in either Denmark or Sweden, even those set in the United States or other foreign countries. Von Trier has had a number of his films featured at the Cannes Film Festival over the course of his career, and each time has insisted on driving from Denmark to France for the festival and back.

On numerous occasions von Trier has also stated that he suffers from occasional depression which renders him incapable of performing his work and unable to fulfill social obligations.^[35]

Filming techniques[link]

Lars von Trier has said that "a film should be like a stone in your shoe". In order to create original art he feels that filmmakers must distinguish themselves stylistically from other films, often by placing restrictions on the filmmaking process. The most famous restriction is the cinematic "vow of chastity" of the Dogme95 movement with which he is associated, though only one of his films, The Idiots, is an actual Dogme 95 film. In Dancer in the Dark, jump shots^[36] and dramatically-different color palettes and camera techniques were used for the "real world" and musical portions of the film, and in Dogville everything was filmed on a sound stage with no set where the walls of the buildings in the fictional town were marked as lines on the floor.

Von Trier often shoots digitally and operates the camera himself, preferring to continuously shoot the actors in-character without stopping between takes. In Dogville he let actors stay in character for hours, in the style of method acting. These techniques often put great strain on actors, most famously with Björk during the filming of Dancer in the Dark. Often he uses the same regular group of actors in many of his films: some of his frequently used actors are Jean-Marc Barr, Udo Kier and Stellan Skarsgård.

He is heavily influenced by the work of Carl Theodor Dreyer^[37] and the film The Night Porter.^[38] He was so inspired by the short film The Perfect Human directed by Jørgen Leth that he challenged Leth to redo the short five times in feature film The Five Obstructions.^[39]

Trilogies[link]

Von Trier has on occasion referred to his films as falling into thematic and stylistic trilogies. This pattern began with his first feature film, marking the beginning of The Europa Trilogy, though he claims a trilogy was not initially planned, instead being applied to the films in retrospect. The Europe trilogy illuminated the traumas of Europe in the past and future. This trilogy includes The Element of Crime (1984), Epidemic (1987) and Europa (1991).

The Golden Heart trilogy was 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). While all three films are sometimes associated with the Dogme 95 movement, only The Idiots is a certified Dogme 95 film.

The USA: Land of Opportunities trilogy follows the character of Grace, and is set in a stylized American past. Von Trier has stated he was inspired to make a trilogy about the United States as a reaction to Americans at the Cannes film festival who said he had no right to make the Dancer in the Dark,^[8] which was often viewed as being critical of a country he has never been to (and has no intention of ever visiting, due to his phobia of travel); however, von Trier himself has stated in interviews he did not intend it to be a criticism of America, saying the film takes place in a "fictional America". Von Trier proposed the films as ‘a series of sermons on America’s sins and hypocrisy’^{[citation needed]}, inspired by the fact that American movie makers have made many movies about places across the world to which they have not travelled. All three movies will be shot in the same distinctive style, on a bare sound stage with no set and buildings marked by lines on the floor. This style is inspired by 1970s televised theatre. The trilogy will consist of Dogville (2003), Manderlay (2005) and the so far not produced Wasington.

The Kingdom (Riget) was planned as a trilogy of three seasons with 13 episodes in total, but the third season was not filmed due to death of star Ernst-Hugo Järegård shortly after completion of the second season.

Biological father[link]

In 1989, von Trier's mother revealed on her deathbed that the man whom he thought was his father was not, and that she had had a tryst with her former employer, Fritz Michael Hartmann (1909–2000),^[40] who descended from a long line of Roman Catholic classical musicians (his grandfather was Emil Hartmann, his great grandfather J.P.E. Hartmann, his uncles included Niels Gade and Johan Ernst Hartmann and thus Niels Viggo Bentzon was his cousin). She stated that she did this in order to give her son "artistic genes".^[41]

Until that point I thought I had a Jewish background. But I'm really more of a Nazi. I believe that my biological father's German family went back two further generations. Before she died, my mother told me to be happy that I was the son of this other man. She said my foster father had had no goals and no strength. But he was a loving man. And I was very sad about this revelation. And you then feel manipulated when you really do turn out to be creative. If I'd known that my mother had this plan, I would have become something else. I would have shown her. The slut!^[42]

During the German occupation of Denmark, Fritz Michael Hartmann worked as a civil servant and joined a resistance group (Frit Danmark), actively counteracting any pro-German and pro-Nazi colleagues in his department.^[43] Another member of this infiltrative resistance group was Hartmann's colleague Viggo Kampmann, who would later become prime minister of Denmark.^[44]

After four awkward meetings with his biological father, the man refused further contact.^[45] The revelations led von Trier to attempt to "erase" the connections with his stepfather by converting to Catholicism, and to rework his filmmaking into a style emphasizing "honesty".^[3]

I don't know if I'm all that Catholic really. I'm probably not. Denmark is a very Protestant country. Perhaps I only turned Catholic to piss off a few of my countrymen.^[42]

In 2009, he declared, "I'm a very bad Catholic. In fact I'm becoming more and more of an atheist."^[46]

Controversy at 2011 Cannes Film Festival[link]

On 19 May 2011, Cannes Film Festival's board of directors declared von Trier persona non grata for comments he made during a press conference for his film Melancholia the day before, an unprecedented move for the film festival.^[47][48] Responding to a question by The Times film critic Kate Muir about his German roots and his comments in a Danish film magazine about the Nazi aesthetic, von Trier claimed to have some sympathy for and understanding of Adolf Hitler,^[49] and then jokingly claimed to be a Nazi himself:^[50][51]

Von Trier at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.

What can I say? I understand Hitler, but I think he did some wrong things, yes, absolutely. ... He's not what you would call a good guy, but I understand much about him, and I sympathize with him a little bit. But come on, I'm not for the Second World War, and I'm not against Jews. ... I am of course very much for Jews, no not too much, because Israel is pain in the ass, but still how can I get out of this sentence. ...

— Press Conference for Melancholia, Cannes, 2011^[52][53]

Referring to the art of Nazi architect Albert Speer, von Trier added:

... he had some talent that was kind of possible for him to use during... Ok, I'm a Nazi.

Then, to Toronto Star film critic Peter Howell, who questioned whether Melancholia could be an answer to Hollywood blockbusters and asked von Trier if he could “envison doing a film on a grander scale than this”, von Trier replied:

On a grander scale? Yeah. Yeah that's what we Nazis, we have a tendency to do things on a greater scale. Yeah, maybe you could persuade me into the final solution with journalists. ...

Hours later, von Trier released a brief statement of apology about his comments at the press conference: "If I have hurt someone this morning by the words I said at the press conference, I sincerely apologise. I am not anti-semitic or racially prejudiced in any way, nor am I a Nazi."^[54] The next day, the festival directors held an extraordinary meeting, deciding his remarks were "unacceptable, intolerable and contrary to the ideals of humanity and generosity that preside over the very existence of the festival. [...] The board of directors condemns these comments and declares Lars von Trier persona non grata at the Festival de Cannes, with effect immediately."^[54]

Afterwards, von Trier held a news conference of his own in Danish. His first remark to the Danish journalists was: "If any of you journalists will beat me, so just do it. I will enjoy it." He went on to say that "The Holocaust is the worst crime that ever happened. I have nothing against Jews. I have a Jewish name, and all my children have Jewish names." He admitted that his remarks about the Nazis had been misguided, saying "It was really stupidly done and it was in the wrong forum. At the press conference with Danish journalists, there were no problems, but I do not think the international journalists understand my Danish humor." But he also said he was proud to have been kicked out of the Cannes festival: "I am proud to have been declared 'persona non grata'. It is perhaps the first time in cinematic history, it has happened. ... I think one reason is that French people treated the Jews badly during World War II. Therefore, it is a sensitive topic for them. I respect the Cannes festival very highly, but I also understand that they are very angry at me right now."^[55][54]

Speaking to other news outlets he said that his comments were "very sarcastic and very rude, but that's very Danish." He also added, "I don't sympathize with Hitler for one second."^[56]

In the October 2011 issue of GQ, von Trier is quoted in an interview saying he was not really sorry for the comments he made, only sorry he didn't make it clear that he was joking. He added, "I can't be sorry for what I said—it's against my nature."^[57] On 5 October 2011, von Trier was interviewed by police in Denmark about his remarks at Cannes. Afterwards, he announced that he had 'decided from this day forth to refrain from all public statements and interviews'.^[58]

Honours[link]

Von Trier was made a Knight of the Order of the Dannebrog on 14 January 1997.^[59] Ten years later von Trier decided to hand back the prize, saying that the Danish royal family are just "simple people of bad quality".^[60]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

Notes[link]

Further reading[link]

• Bainbridge, Caroline (2007). The cinema of Lars von Trier: authenticity and artifice. Wallflower Press. ISBN 978-1-905674-44-2. http://books.google.com/books?id=T6gqQAAACAAJ. Retrieved 11 October 2010. 
• Goss, Brian Michael (January 2009). Global auteurs: politics in the films of Almodóvar, von Trier, and Winterbottom. Peter Lang. ISBN 978-1-4331-0134-2. http://books.google.com/books?id=lR6sIjOBE_AC. Retrieved 11 October 2010. 
• Lasagna, Roberto; Lena, Sandra (1 June 2003) (in French). Lars von Trier. Gremese Editore. ISBN 978-88-7301-543-7. http://books.google.com/books?id=E9FYAibtRr4C. Retrieved 11 October 2010. 
• Livingston, Paisley; Plantinga, Carl R.; Mette Hjort (3 December 2008). The Routledge companion to philosophy and film. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-77166-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=hev6YYxFpYgC. Retrieved 11 October 2010. 
• Lumholdt, Jan (2003). Lars von Trier: interviews. Univ. Press of Mississippi. ISBN 978-1-57806-532-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=voTOt3GaRJAC. Retrieved 11 October 2010. 
• Schepelern, Peter (2000) (in Danish). Lars von Triers film: tvang og befrielse. Rosinante. ISBN 978-87-621-0164-7. http://books.google.com/books?id=oXlZAAAAMAAJ. Retrieved 11 October 2010. 
• Simons, Jan (15 September 2007). Playing the waves: Lars Von Trier's game cinema. Amsterdam University Press. ISBN 978-90-5356-979-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=GUrJW2G9WkIC. Retrieved 11 October 2010. 
• Stevenson, Jack (2002). Lars von Trier. British Film Institute. ISBN 978-0-85170-902-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=UHJZAAAAMAAJ. Retrieved 11 October 2010. 
• Stevenson, Jack (2003). Dogme uncut: Lars von Trier, Thomas Vinterburg, and the gang that took on Hollywood. Santa Monica Press. ISBN 978-1-891661-35-8. http://books.google.com/books?id=alcbAQAAIAAJ. Retrieved 11 October 2010. 
• Trier, Lars von; Addonizio, Antonio (1 January 1999) (in Italian). Il dogma della libertà: conversazioni con Lars von Trier. Edizioni della battaglia. ISBN 978-88-87630-07-7. http://books.google.com/books?id=cK26AAAACAAJ. Retrieved 11 October 2010. 
• Trier, Lars von; Björkman, Stig (2003). Trier on von Trier. Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-20707-7. http://books.google.com/books?id=pD5kQgAACAAJ. Retrieved 11 October 2010. 
• Tiefenbach, Georg: Drama und Regie (Writing and Directing): Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark, Dogville. 2010 Königshausen & Neumann. ISBN 978-3-8260-4096-2

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Lars von Trier

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Lars von Trier

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (May 2011)

• Lars von Trier at the Internet Movie Database
• Lars von Trier discography at Discogs
• Lars from 1–10
• Production Company
• The Director Interviews: Lars von Trier, The Boss of It All at Filmmaker Magazine
• Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
• Geoffrey Macnab, "I'm a control freak – but I was not in control" (Geoffrey Macnab talks to Lars Von Trier), The Guardian (22 September 2006).
• Slave to cinema
• The Age Interview
• Timeout Interview

William Basinski
Background information
Born	1958
Genres	Ambient Tape Process music
Years active	1998–present
Labels	Raster-Noton 2062
Website	mmlxii.com

William Basinski (born 1958) is a United States avant-garde composer of ambient music via tape music and process music. Basinski is also a clarinetist, saxophonist, sound artist, and video artist. He is best known for his four-volume album The Disintegration Loops (2002–2003), constructed from rapidly decaying twenty-year-old tapes of his earlier music.

Overview[link]

William Basinski was born in 1958 in Houston, Texas. A classically trained clarinetist, he studied jazz saxophone and composition at North Texas State University in the late 1970s. In 1978, inspired by minimalists such as Steve Reich and Brian Eno,^{[citation needed]} he began developing his own vocabulary using tape loops and old reel-to-reel tape decks. He developed his meditative, melancholy style experimenting with short looped melodies played against themselves creating feedback loops.

His first release was Shortwave Music. Although created in 1983, it was first released on vinyl in a small edition in 1998 by Carsten Nicolai's Raster-Noton label. This was followed by Watermusic, self-released in 2000 on Basinski's 2062 Records. Another 2-disc work was Variations: A Movement in Chrome Primitive, 1980: it was finally released in 2004 by David Tibet on the Durtro/Die Stadt label. At the time this work was created, Basinski was experimenting with compositions for piano and tape loops.

Throughout the 1980s, Basinski created a vast archive of experimental works using tape loop and delay systems, found sounds, and shortwave radio static. He was a member of many bands including Gretchen Langheld Ensemble and House Afire. In 1989, he opened his own performance space, "Arcadia". In the 1990s, he performed and produced records and intimate underground shows there for various NYC artists including Antony, Diamanda Galás, Rasputina, The Murmurs, and his own ad-hoc experimental electronic/improvisation band, Life on Mars. In 2000, he made a film titled Fountain with artists James Elaine and Roger Justice.

In August and September 2001, he set to work on what would become his most recognizable piece, the four-volume album The Disintegration Loops. The recordings were based on old tape loops which had degraded in quality. While attempting to salvage the recordings in a digital format, the tapes slowly crumbled and left a timestamp history of their demise.^[1][2][3]

Discography[link]

• 1998: Shortwave Music (Raster-Noton vinyl; 2007 CD, 2062)
• 2000: Watermusic (2062 Records)
• 2002: The Disintegration Loops (2062)
• 2002: The River (Raster-Noton)
• 2003: The Disintegration Loops II (2062)
• 2003: Watermusic II (2062)
• 2003: Melancholia (2062)
• 2003: The Disintegration Loops III (2062)
• 2003: A Red Score in Tile (Three Poplars)
• 2003: The Disintegration Loops IV (2062)
• 2004: Variations: A Movement in Chrome Primitive (Durtro/Die Stadt)
• 2004: Silent Night (2062)
• 2006: The Garden of Brokenness (2062)
• 2006: Variations for Piano and Tape (2062)
• 2007: El Camino Real (2062)
• 2008: The River (2062)
• 2009: 92982 (2062)
• 2009: Vivian & Ondine (2062)

External links[link]

Official sites

• William Basinski at MMLXII.com
• William Basinski at MySpace

Review sites

• William Basinski at Allmusic
• William Basinski at Pitchfork Media

Interviews

• Two and a Half Questions with William Basinski - Interview on Headphone Commute (April, 2010)

References[link]

Kirsten Dunst
Dunst at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival in NYC
Born	Kirsten Caroline Dunst (1982-04-30) April 30, 1982 (age 30) Point Pleasant, New Jersey, United States
Nationality	Dual American/German
Occupation	Actress, singer, model
Years active	1989–present

Kirsten Caroline Dunst (born April 30, 1982) is an American-German actress, singer and model. She made her film debut in Oedipus Wrecks, a short film directed by Woody Allen for the anthology New York Stories (1989). At the age of 12, Dunst gained widespread recognition playing the role of vampire Claudia in Interview with the Vampire (1994), a performance for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. The same year she appeared in Little Women, to further acclaim.

Dunst achieved international fame as a result of her portrayal of Mary Jane Watson in the Spider-Man trilogy (2002–07). Since then her films have included the romantic comedy Wimbledon (2004), the romantic science fiction Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) and Cameron Crowe's tragicomedy Elizabethtown (2005). She played the title role in Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette (2006) and starred in the comedy How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (2008). She won the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2011 for her performance in Lars von Trier's Melancholia.

In 2001, Dunst made her singing debut in the film Get Over It, in which she performed two songs. She also sang the jazz song "After You've Gone" for the end credits of the film The Cat's Meow (2001).

Early life[link]

Dunst was born in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, to Inez (née Rupprecht) and Klaus Dunst.^[1] She has one younger brother.^[2] Her father worked as a medical services executive, and her mother was an artist and one-time gallery owner.^[3] Dunst's father is German, originally from Hamburg, and Dunst's mother, who was born in New Jersey, is of German and Swedish descent^[4][5] (Dunst obtained German citizenship in 2011 and now holds dual citizenship with the United States and Germany).^[6][7]

Until the age of six, Dunst lived in Brick Township, New Jersey, where she attended Ranney School.^[8] In 1991, she moved with her mother and younger brother to Los Angeles, California, where she attended Laurel Hall Day School. In 1995, her mother filed for divorce.^[3] The following year Dunst began attending Notre Dame, a private Catholic high school in Los Angeles.

After graduating from Notre Dame, Dunst continued the acting career that she had begun at the age of eight.^[2] As a teenager, she found it difficult to deal with her rising fame, and for a period she blamed her mother for pushing her into acting as a child. However, she later expressed that her mother "always had the best intentions".^[9] When asked if she had any regrets about the way she spent her childhood, Dunst said: "Well, it's not a natural way to grow up, but it's the way I grew up and I wouldn't change it. I have my stuff to work out ... I don't think anybody can sit around and say: 'My life is more screwed up than yours.' Everybody has their issues."^[7]

Career[link]

Early work[link]

Dunst began her career when she was three years old as a child fashion model in television commercials.^[3][10] She was signed with Ford Models and Elite Model Management.^[3] At the age of eight years old she made her film debut in a minor role in Woody Allen's Oedipus Wrecks, a short film that was released as one-third of the anthology New York Stories (1989).^[3] Soon after, she landed a small part in The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), as Tom Hanks's daughter.^[3] In 1993, Dunst played Hedril in "Dark Page", the seventh episode of the seventh season of Star Trek: The Next Generation.^[11]

Critical success[link]

The breakthrough role in Dunst's career came in Interview with the Vampire, a 1994 film based on Anne Rice's novel, in which she played the child vampire Claudia, a surrogate daughter to Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt's characters in the film.^[12] The film received ambivalent reviews,^[13] but many film critics complimented Dunst's performance. Roger Ebert commented that Dunst's creation of the child vampire Claudia was one of the "creepier" aspects of the film, and mentioned her ability to convey the impression of great age inside apparent youth.^[14] Todd McCarthy in Variety noted that Dunst was "just right" for the family.^[15] The film featured a scene in which Dunst received her first kiss from Brad Pitt, who was 18 years her senior.^[16] In an interview with Interview magazine, she revealed, while questioned about her kissing scene with Pitt, that kissing him had made her feel uncomfortable: "I thought it was gross, that Brad had cooties. I mean, I was 10."^[17] Her performance earned her the MTV Movie Award for Best Breakthrough Performance, the Saturn Award for Best Young Actress, and her first Golden Globe Award nomination.^[2][18][19]

Later in 1994, Dunst appeared in the adaptation of the drama Little Women opposite Winona Ryder and Claire Danes.^[3] The film received favorable reviews.^[20] Critic Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that the film was the greatest adaptation of the novel and remarked on Dunst's performance, "The perfect contrast to take-charge Jo comes from Kirsten Dunst's scene-stealing Amy, whose vanity and twinkling mischief make so much more sense coming from an 11-year-old vixen than they did from grown-up Joan Bennett in 1933. Ms. Dunst, also scarily effective as the baby bloodsucker of Interview With the Vampire, is a little vamp with a big future."^[21]

In 1995, she appeared in the fantasy movie Jumanji, loosely based on Chris Van Allsburg's 1981 book of the same name.^[22] The story is about a supernatural and ominous board game which makes animals and other jungle hazards appear upon each roll of the dice.^[22] She was part of an ensemble cast that included Robin Williams, Bonnie Hunt, and David Alan Grier. The movie grossed $262 million worldwide.^[23] That year, and again in 2002, she was named one of People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People.^[3] In 1996, Dunst had a recurring role in the third season of NBC's medical drama ER. She portrayed a child prostitute, Charlie Chiemingo, taken under the guidance of Dr. Doug Ross, played by George Clooney.^[2] In 1997, she was the voice of Young Anastasia in the animated musical film Anastasia.^[24] Also in 1997, Dunst appeared in the political satire Wag the Dog, opposite Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman.^[25] The following year she was the voice of the title character, Kiki, a 13-year-old apprentice witch who leaves her home village to spend a year on her own, in the anime movie Kiki's Delivery Service (1998).^[26]

Dunst was offered the role of Angela in the 1999 drama film American Beauty, but turned it down because she did not want to appear in the film's suggestive sexual scenes or kiss co-star Kevin Spacey.^[17] She later explained: "When I read it, I was 15 and I don't think I was mature enough to understand the script's material."^[17] That same year, she appeared in the comedy Dick, alongside Michelle Williams. The film is a parody retelling the events of the Watergate scandal which lead to the resignation of U.S. president Richard Nixon.^[27]

In Sofia Coppola's independent film The Virgin Suicides (1999), Dunst played the role of troubled adolescent Lux Lisbon.^[28] The film was screened as a special presentation at the 43rd San Francisco International Film Festival in 2000.^[29] The movie received generally favorable reviews,^[30] and San Francisco Chronicle critic Peter Stack noted in his review that Dunst "beautifully balances innocence and wantonness."^[31]

In 2000, she played Torrance Shipman, the captain of a cheerleading squad in Bring It On.^[32] The film generated mostly critical reviews,^[33] with Charles Taylor of Salon.com writing that the film had failed to provide Dunst with as good a role as she had either in Dick or in The Virgin Suicides.^[34] However, Jessica Winter of The Village Voice complimented Dunst, stating that her performance was "as sprightly and knowingly daft as her turn in Dick. She provides the only major element of Bring It On that plays as tweaking parody rather than slick, strident, body-slam churlishness."^[35] The movie grossed $90 million worldwide.^[23]

The following year, Dunst had the lead in the teen comedy Get Over It (2001).^[36] She later explained that one of the reasons for accepting the role was that it gave her the opportunity to sing.^[37] Also in 2001, she depicted the late American actress Marion Davies in The Cat's Meow, directed by Peter Bogdanovich. Derek Elley of Variety described the film as "playful and sporty," saying that this was Dunst's best performance to date: "Believable as both a spoiled ingenue and a lover to two very different men, Dunst endows a potentially lightweight character with considerable depth and sympathy."^[38] In the Esquire review, Tom Carson called her performance "terrific."^[39] For her work, she won the Best Actress Silver Ombú category award at the 2002 Mar del Plata Film Festival.^[40]

[edit] Spider-Man and after

Dunst at the Cannes film festival premiere of Marie Antoinette.

In the 2002 superhero film Spider-Man, the most successful film of her career to date, Dunst played Mary Jane Watson, the best friend and love interest of the title character, played by Tobey Maguire. The film was directed by Sam Raimi. Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly remarked on Dunst's ability to "lend even the smallest line a tickle of flirtatious music."^[41] In the Los Angeles Times review, critic Kenneth Turan noted that Dunst and Maguire made a real connection on screen, concluding that their relationship involved audiences to an extent rarely seen in films.^[42] Spider-Man was a commercial and critical success.^[43] The movie grossed $114 million during its opening weekend in North America and went on to earn $822 million worldwide.^[23]

Following the success of Spider-Man, Dunst appeared in the independent drama Levity (2003), where she had a supporting role.^[44] That same year she starred in Mona Lisa Smile (2003). She was part of an ensemble cast that included Julia Roberts, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Julia Stiles. The film generated mostly negative reviews,^[45] with Manohla Dargis of the Los Angeles Times describing it as "smug and reductive."^[46] She next appeared in the supporting role of Mary Svevo in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), alongside Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, and Tom Wilkinson.^[47] The latter film received very positive reviews,^[48] with Entertainment Weekly describing Dunst's subplot as "nifty and clever."^[49] The movie grossed $72 million worldwide.^[23]

The success of the first Spider-Man film led Dunst to reprise the role in the 2004 sequel, Spider-Man 2.^[50] The movie was well received by critics^[51] and a financial success, setting a new opening weekend box office record for North America.^[52] With revenue of $783 million worldwide, it was the second highest grossing film in 2004.^[23] Also in 2004, she portrayed a rising tennis player in the Wimbledon Championships opposite Paul Bettany, who played a fading former tennis star in the romantic comedy Wimbledon. Reception for the movie was mixed,^[53] but many critics enjoyed Dunst's performance.^[54][55] Claudia Puig of USA Today reported that the chemistry between Dunst and Bettany was potent, with Dunst doing a fine job as a sassy and self-assured player.^[56]

In 2005, she appeared as flight attendant Claire Colburn alongside Orlando Bloom, in Elizabethtown, a movie written and directed by Cameron Crowe. The film premiered at the 2005 Toronto Film Festival. Dunst revealed that working with Crowe was enjoyable, but more demanding than she had expected.^[7] The movie garnered mixed reviews,^[57] with the Chicago Tribune rating it one out of four stars and describing Dunst's portrayal of a flight attendant as "cloying."^[58] It was a box office disappointment.^[59]

Dunst's next film role was the title character in the 2006 biographical film Marie Antoinette. Adapted from Antonia Fraser's book Marie Antoinette: The Journey, the film was Dunst's second with director Sofia Coppola.^[60][61] The movie was screened at a special presentation at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival,^[62] and was reviewed favourably.^[63] International revenues were $45 million out of $60 million overall.^[64]

Dunst with Brian Geraghty at the 2010 premiere of Bastard.

In 2007 she again played Mary Jane Watson, in Spider-Man 3.^[65] In contrast to the previous two films' positive reviews,^[43][51] Spider-Man 3 was met with a mixed reception by critics.^[66] Nonetheless, with a total worldwide gross of $891 million, it stands as the most commercially successful film in the series and Dunst's highest grossing film to the end of 2008.^[23] Having initially signed on for three Spider-Man films, she revealed that she would do a fourth, but only if Raimi and Maguire also returned.^[67] In January 2010 it was announced that the Spider-Man franchise would be restarted, thus dropping Dunst, Maguire, and Raimi from the film series.^[68][69]

In 2008, Dunst starred alongside Simon Pegg in How to Lose Friends and Alienate People,^[70] an adaptation of the memoir of the same name by former Vanity Fair contributing editor Toby Young.^[71] After she signed on to the film, she revealed that she had joined the project because Pegg was scheduled to appear in it.^[72]

Since 2010, Dunst's work has included directing the short film Bastard which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2010,^[73] and was later featured at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.^[74] Her next role was in a leading role opposite Ryan Gosling in the romantic drama All Good Things (2010) in which she portrays a woman from a run-down neighborhood who goes missing.^[75] The feature received reasonable reviews,^[76] and earned $640 thousand worldwide.^[23] Dunst stars in Lars von Trier's science-fiction film Melancholia as a depressed woman at the end of the world. The film, which also stars Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland and Charlotte Rampling premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. Dunst won the Best Actress Award award for her performance.^[77][78]

Dunst has signed to appear in Sweet Relief as peace activist Marla Ruzicka, a U.S. relief worker killed by a suicide bomb in Baghdad.^[79][80] She has expressed interest in playing the role of Blondie frontwoman Debbie Harry in Michel Gondry's upcoming biographical film about the band.^[81][82] Dunst is due to appear in Juan Diego Solanas' science fiction-romance film Upside Down co-starring Jim Sturgess.^[83] Dunst has also recently filmed the short film The Second Bakery Attack with Brian Geraghty.^[84]

Reports have also stated that she will join Kristen Stewart, Sam Riley, and Garrett Hedlund in the upcoming feature, On the Road.^[85] She will make a cameo appearance in the upcoming short feature Fight for Your Right Revisited. It premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.^[86] As of September 2011, Dunst finished filming the independent comedy, Bachelorette, produced by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay.^[87][88] Reports have stated that she will join Clive Owen and Orlando Bloom in the international thriller titled 'Cities'. Filming will begin in Spring of 2012.^[89] In January 2012, Dunst will also star alongside Mark Ruffalo and Billy Crudup in the drama film, Red Light Winter.^[90]

Music[link]

Dunst made her singing debut in the 2001 film Get Over It, performing two songs written by Marc Shaiman.^[91] She also lent her voice to the end credits of The Cat's Meow, singing Henry Creamer and Turner Layton's jazz standard "After You've Gone."^[67][92] In Spider-Man 3, she sings two songs as part of her role as Mary Jane Watson, one during a Broadway performance, and one as a singing waitress in a jazz club.^[67][93] Dunst revealed that she recorded the songs earlier and later lip-synced to it when filming began.^[67] She also appeared in the music videos for Savage Garden's "I Knew I Loved You,"^[94] and R.E.M.'s "We All Go Back to Where We Belong"^[95] and she sang two tracks—"This Old Machine" and "Summer Day"—on Jason Schwartzman's 2007 solo album Nighttiming.^[96] In an interview with The Advertiser, Dunst explained that she has no plans to follow the steps of other actors who release albums, saying: "Definitely not. No way. It worked when Barbra Streisand was doing it, but now it's a little cheesy, I think. It works better when singers are in movies."^[9]

Dunst starred as the magical princess Majokko in the Takashi Murakami and McG directed short Akihabara Majokko Princess singing a cover of "Turning Japanese". This was shown at the "Pop Life" exhibition in London's Tate Modern museum. It shows Dunst prancing around Akihabara, a crowded shopping district in Tokyo.^[97][98] The exhibition was held from October 1, 2009 to January 17, 2010 in London.

Personal life[link]

Dunst has reportedly been involved in short-term relationships with actor Jake Gyllenhaal, and musician Johnny Borrell of Razorlight.^{[99][100][101]}

Dunst was treated for depression in early 2008 at the Cirque Lodge treatment center in Utah.^{[102][99][102]} She explained that she had been feeling low in the six months before her admission.^[102] In late March she checked out of the treatment center and began filming All Good Things. In May she went public with this information in order to highlight the struggle faced by so many other successful women and to dispel false rumors that had been very painful for her friends and family.^[103][104] She has also gone public detailing her "sedate lifestyle" and the fact that she has a single apartment in New York with one bedroom.^[105] She is Lutheran.^[106]

Citizenship[link]

She gained German citizenship in 2011 and now holds dual citizenship with Germany and the U.S.^{[107][108][109][110][111]}

Politics[link]

Dunst supported Democratic candidate John Kerry in the 2004 U.S. presidential election.^[112] Four years later, she supported Democrat Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election.^[10][113] Dunst revealed that she supported Obama "from the beginning" of the presidential campaign.^[114] In support of this, she directed and narrated a documentary entitled Why Tuesday, explaining the United States tradition of voting on Tuesdays.^[114][115] Dunst explained that Tuesday is "not a holiday, and [the United States is] one of the lowest democratic countries in voter turnout."^[114] She felt it important to "influence people in a positive way" to vote on November 4.^[115]

Charity work[link]

Her charity work includes participation with the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, in which she helped design and promote a necklace, for which all proceeds from sales went to the Glaser foundation.^[116] She also has helped with breast cancer awareness; in September 2008 she participated in the Stand Up to Cancer telethon, to help raise funds to accelerate cancer research.^[117][118] On December 5, 2009, she participated in the Teletón in Mexico, to help raise funds to treat cancer and children rehabilitation.^[119]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Los Angeles portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Kirsten Dunst

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Kirsten Dunst

• Kirsten Dunst at the Open Directory Project
• Kirsten Dunst at the Internet Movie Database
• Kirsten Dunst at Yahoo! Movies
• Kirsten Dunst at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
• Kirsten Dunst at People.com