Lars Von Trier Quotes & Sayings

I know that I cannot be with a person for three hours without saying at least ten things that would kill me. — Lars Von Trier

True values entail suffering. That's the way we think. All in all, we tend to view melancholia as more true. We prefer music and art to contain a touch of melancholia. So melancholia in itself is a value. Unhappy and unrequited love is more romantic than happy love. For we don't think that's completely real, do we? ... Longing is true. It may be that there's no truth at all to long for, but the longing itself is true. Just like pain is true. We feel it inside. It's part of our reality. — Lars Von Trier

If anyone would like to hit me, they are perfectly welcome. I must warn you, though, that I might enjoy it. So maybe it's not the right kind of punishment. — Lars Von Trier

A film has to be like a stone in the shoe. — Lars Von Trier

More than anything, there are more images in evil. Evil is based far more on the visual, whereas good has no good images at all. — Lars Von Trier

I sit there pouring out my woes year after year, coming up with one enormity after another about my mother and the way she let me down; but it doesn't make me any the less fearful. — Lars Von Trier

I'm happy that I'm alive. I feel like someone coming back from Vietnam, you know; I'm sure that later on I'll start killing people in a square somewhere, but right now, I just feel happy to be alive. — Lars Von Trier

Actors need bricks to play with, and in fact we rejected all the improvised fragments we had made without a plan. Improvisation without a plan is like tennis without tennis balls. — Lars Von Trier

It is more difficult to manipulate with film than, for instance, video. The problem with video is that it gives you a thousand possibilities. — Lars Von Trier

I am the best film director in the world. — Lars Von Trier

Far be it from me to force anyone into either chess or dressage, but if you choose to do so yourself, in my opinion there is only one way: follow the rules. — Lars Von Trier

I encouraged the cast to make up their own lines. — Lars Von Trier

If you want to provoke, you should provoke someone who is stronger than you, otherwise you are misusing your power. — Lars Von Trier

My films are about ideals that clash with the world. Every time it's a man in the lead, they have forgotten about the ideals. And every time it's a woman in the lead, they take the ideals all the way. — Lars Von Trier

You can't do much in this world without hurting someone else. Every time you take a breath it's to the disadvantage of someone or something. And then you have to decide how and in which way you will hurt others. And I find it quite agreeable trying not to hurt anyone, but I have made this decision about the fish. It's a pity about them, but also, if I pull up a fish, then it makes space for another fish who will be so happy to get more space. And he will become a very happy little fish. You can rationalize it in a number of different ways - maybe the fish I pull up is depressed and wants to end his life, but he hasn't really been able to do it. It's not easy if you're a fish. I wouldn't know what a big salmon who's really tired of it all would do. — Lars Von Trier

I hope my films will never completely be without the ability to mark anybody. — Lars Von Trier

A film should be like a rock in the shoe. — Lars Von Trier

If people do not laugh it's not comedy. — Lars Von Trier

The risk is that you furnish the project with new suggestions to try and freshen it up; it's not always beneficial. You risk betraying the original intention with the story, forgetting what it is you really want to portray. — Lars Von Trier

I did a lot of strange things. But I am a bad Catholic that's for sure. Although I think it's difficult to believe in evil. — Lars Von Trier

I understand Hitler ... I sympathize with him a bit — Lars Von Trier

There is no creative expression of artistic value that has ever been produced by ex-drunkards and ex-drug-addicts. Who the hell would bother with a Rolling Stones without booze or with a Jimi Hendrix without heroin? — Lars Von Trier

I am not very tough with raising my children, but you can argue that to be more tough will help your children. — Lars Von Trier

The secret ingredient to sex is love. — Lars Von Trier

I am very romantic about communism even still, but I know terrible things happened. — Lars Von Trier

I always do something that I've never done before. — Lars Von Trier

Only a fool does not fear actors, but you can't beat them, and if you can't beat them, join them, as they say. As I've got older I've become very interested in that part of the work. — Lars Von Trier

I am a man who likes to control things, and if I can't control them totally I will not control them at all. — Lars Von Trier

Unfortunately, on one or both of my shoulders sits lots of anxiety and that is a controlling factor in my life. — Lars Von Trier

You could say that when you introduce humour to your work, you also step back a little from it. You create a distance. — Lars Von Trier

I think it's a very strange question that I have to defend myself. I don't feel that. You are all my guests, it's not the other way around, that's how I feel. — Lars Von Trier

Evil gives you far more strings to pull. But I must say that I have never been interested in the psychology of evil, not in the slightest. Perhaps I'm not interested in evil, but in the dark sides of human beings. — Lars Von Trier

I think working with actors is a little bit how a chef would work with a potato or a piece of meat. You have to kind of have a look at the potato or the piece of meat and see what kind of possibilities are in the ingredient. I know I'm using the wrong metaphor. I think my job is to see what potato is there and from there, just work under their conditions. — Lars Von Trier

I am crazy about my own films. The films I've just made I'm crazy about them. But then I don't see them for many years. It's like when you get a new child you're very crazy about this child but then after a few years you're like, "what was its name again?" — Lars Von Trier

Perhaps the only difference between me and other people is that I've always demanded more from the sunset. More spectacular colors when the sun hit the horizon. That's perhaps my only sin. — Lars Von Trier

I'm fighting against my will to control. I think that is what I am doing. I would like to accept things in life, in all matters of life I would like to accept, but it's so difficult. I think we all have this struggle. — Lars Von Trier

I'm very proud of being persona non grata. I've never been that before in my life, and that suits me extremely wellI'm known for provocations, but I like provocations when they have a purpose. And this had no purpose whatsoever. Because I'm not Mel Gibson. I'm definitely not Mel Gibson. — Lars Von Trier

Nature is Satan's church. — Lars Von Trier

I'm not a woman! Let's make that very clear! Oh I don't know, maybe I am. I am an American woman. Or 65 percent of me is. — Lars Von Trier

When I was younger, I was fascinated by David Bowie, for example. he had created an entire myth around himself. It was as important as his music. — Lars Von Trier

I think it's important that we all try to give something to this medium, instead of just thinking about what is the most efficient way of telling a story or making an audience stay in a cinema. — Lars Von Trier

Basically, I'm afraid of everything in life, except filmmaking. — Lars Von Trier

I am a man of very many anxieties but doing strange things with the camera is not one of them. — Lars Von Trier

If one devalues rationality, the world tends to fall apart. — Lars Von Trier

When I show a film at a festival, I am showing myself. Everything is at stake for me. — Lars Von Trier

I would say that I am a poor Christian; I'm not a believer. It was this idea very early in my life that life on Earth, nature or man could not be a creation of a merciful God. — Lars Von Trier

I think that limitations are the most important part of any art form — Lars Von Trier

Everything is going to hell, but we should smile all the way. — Lars Von Trier

It's the opening of Manderlay in Cannes, and I'm sitting next to this guy who's writing for a tiny fictitious French paper called On the Sunny Side, and he's writing a review on the film, and he's obviously bored. Then he tells me about all the cars he owns, and how rich he is, and all these things. So, at a certain point, he says, "So what do you do?" Then I take out this very strange hammer we have in the Danish building business, and I say, "I kill." And then I kill him. It is as stupid as it sounds. — Lars Von Trier

I grew up in a culturally radical home, where strong emotions were forbidden. — Lars Von Trier

That's the great thing about entering a convent: There are things that you simply can't do, so you don't have to worry about them. — Lars Von Trier

I come from a family of communist nudists. I was allowed to do or not do what I liked. My parents were not interested in whether I went to school or got drunk on white wine. — Lars Von Trier

You know, I really do have some morals. I do actually care about people. And I do have a political standpoint. — Lars Von Trier

If I made a musical in the beginning of my career, it would have been crane shots and tracking shots and people coming out of cakes and whatever, but these techniques are something that I've left behind me. — Lars Von Trier

It's always been a lie that it's difficult to make films. — Lars Von Trier

My films generally center around thousands of pictures being flashed in rapid succession to create the illusion of motion. — Lars Von Trier

I'm having a vacation, and it's so beautiful, and maybe I'll never get another film idea in my life. — Lars Von Trier

I like gardening. I'm really a nature man. I spend as much time as I can in nature. I feel really safe there. — Lars Von Trier

When I was in film school, it was said that all good films were characterised by some form of humour. — Lars Von Trier

I had an almost fetishistic attraction to film technology. — Lars Von Trier