FEATURED JOBS
Comments (0)What do you do when your director turns out to be, well, a complete moron? That was actress Kirsten Dunst’s dilemma recently when Lars Von Trier, the Danish director of her new flick, “Melancholia,” made some inane, offensive remarks about Nazis.
At a Cannes Film Festival press conference recently promoting “Melancholia,” Von Trier, 55, caused a stir when announcing he is “actually a Nazi” who “understands Hitler.”
Say what, Lars? (Keep in mind he once made a film called “The Idiots.”)
Pretty little Kirsten and her co-star, Charlotte Gainsbough, were a bit taken aback by Von Trier’s comments, to say the least. Obviously, they weren’t familiar with his quirky, dark, irreverent, Euro-trash sense of humor.
Neither was the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants, which declared in a statement, “Holocaust survivors condemn Von Trier’s repulsive comments as an insensitive exploitation of victims’ suffering for self-serving promotion and publicity. His bizarre comments may have been made in jest and for shock, but those subjected to the brutalities of the Nazi regime cannot find amusement in recalling the torture and deaths of those terrible times.”
Von Trier’s words were actually an attack against fellow Danish director Susanne Bier, whose “In A Better World” won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film this year.
“For a long time, I thought I was a Jew and I was happy to be a Jew,” said Von Trier. “Then, I met Susanne Bier and I wasn’t so happy. But then I found out I was actually a Nazi. My family were German. And that also gave me some pleasure. What can I say? I understand Hitler. ... I sympathize with him a bit.
”I don’t mean I’m in favor of World War II and I’m not against Jews, not even Susanne Bier. In fact, I’m very much in favor of them. All Jews. Well, Israel is a pain in the [rear end] but ...”
Asked if he’d ever direct a large-scale film, Von Trier said, “Yes. We Nazis like to do things on a big scale. Maybe I could do `The Final Solution.’”
OK, time to shut up, Lars.