66+ Lars von Trier Quotes On Art, Culture And David Lynch

Lars von Trier is a Danish film director, screenwriter, and producer. He is known for his controversial and often experimental films, which have earned him awards at the Cannes Film Festival, the European Film Awards, and the Robert Awards. His most famous works include Breaking the Waves, Dogville, and Melancholia. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Lars von Trier on life, art, love.

Top 10 Lars Von Trier Quotes

1. If one devalues rationality, the world tends to fall apart.
2. I think its 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.
3. I think that sexuality is the part of human beings that is closest to nature. And nature is dangerous somehow, yes, if you put nature against civilisation, nature is definitely a threat.
4. I am the best film director in the world.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. You know, I really do have some morals. I do actually care about people. And I do have a political standpoint.
8. I grew up in a culturally radical home, where strong emotions were forbidden.
9. 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.
10. I am very romantic about communism even still, but I know terrible things happened.

Lars Von Trier Short Quotes

• Political correctness kills discussion.
• Even if you feel all right, tell the actors you don't have full power, and they will help you.
• The secret ingredient to sex is love.
• I am a man of very many anxieties but doing strange things with the camera is not one of them.
• I encouraged the cast to make up their own lines.
• Everything is going to hell, but we should smile all the way.
• If people do not laugh it's not comedy.
• I understand Hitler... I sympathise with him a little bit.
• I think that limitations are the most important part of any art form
• I always do something that I've never done before.

Lars von Trier Quotes About Life

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

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'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

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

Lars von Trier Quotes About Coming

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

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

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

Lars von Trier Quotes About Film

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

One of the things that got me thinking during therapy is that they say that fear is only thoughts, and nothing will happen because thoughts will never be real. And my thesis, or joke, in film Antichrist, is that they really do become real. — Lars von Trier

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

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

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

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

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

If there are some people that like the film and some people that do not, that's fine for me, because I do not intend to make very broad 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

Lars von Trier Quotes About Films

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

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

We start with a rehearsal where the actors kind of bring what they think should be in the scene. But we film everything, and we use cuts of this first take, also. — Lars von Trier

Lars von Trier Famous Quotes And Sayings

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 am crazy about time cuts. I have a theory that the audience tie everything together so they don't see time cuts but the time cuts give us the possibility of jumping in time, which means a psychological evolution can be cut down. — 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'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

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

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

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

Just the fact that you're working is good for you. — Lars von Trier

I can't tell you why I choose stuff, it's really something I don't analyse. The only thing I can say is that a film has to demand to be made, I don't have a plan of what films I'm going to make. The only thing that I know now is that I'm not too crazy about doing things again that I've been into 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

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

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

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

Perhaps the only difference between me and other people is that Ive always demanded more from the sunset. — Lars von Trier

I had a lot of frustrations, and I was drinking far too much, and I was just trying to survive and this is what came out of it. — 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

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

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

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

The cognitive therapy that takes place in the film Antichrist is a form of therapy that I have used for some time, and it has to do with confronting your fears. I would say that especially the part of the film that has to do with therapy is humoristic because people who know about this form of therapy would know that the character is more than a fool. — 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 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

Life Lessons by Lars von Trier

1. Lars von Trier's work emphasizes the importance of challenging societal norms and conventions in order to create meaningful art.
2. His films often explore themes of guilt, morality, and the human condition, emphasizing the power of empathy and understanding.
3. Through his work, he encourages viewers to question the status quo and think critically about the world around them.