Dancer in the Dark

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"Dancer in the Dark" is also the title of a 2004 science fiction story by David Gerrold: see Dancer in the Dark (story).

Template:Infobox Film Dancer in the Dark is an Academy Award nominated musical film released in the year 2000. It was directed by Lars von Trier and stars Björk Guðmundsdóttir, Catherine Deneuve, Vladica Kostic, David Morse, Cara Seymour and Peter Stormare. The movie is part three in a trilogy of films by von Trier that includes Breaking the Waves and The Idiots (Danish: Idioterne). The soundtrack for the film, released as the album Selmasongs, was created entirely by Björk.

Contents

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Full cast

Björk: Selma Jezkova.
Catherine Deneuve: Kathy.
David Morse: Bill Houston.
Peter Sormare: Jeff.
Joel Grey: Oldrich Novy.
Cara Seymour: Linda Houston.
Vladica Kostic: Gene Jezkova.
Jean-Mark Barr: Norman.
Vincent Paterson: Samuel.
Siobhan Fallon: Brenda.
Zeljko Ivanek: District attorney.
Udo Kier: Dr. Porkorny.
Jens Albinus: Morty.
Reathel Bean: Judge.
Mette Berggreen: Receptcionist.
Lars Michael Dinesen: Defense attorney.
Katrine Falkenberg: Suzan.
Michael Flessas: Angry man.
John Randolph Jones: Detective.
Noah Lazarus: Officer of the Court.
Sheldon Litt: Visitor.
Andrew Lucre: Clerk of Court.
John Martinus: Chairman.
Luke Reilly: New Defense Counsel.
T.J. Rizzo: Boris.
Stellan Skarsgård: Doctor.
Sean-Michael Smith: Person in doorway.
Paprika Steen: Woman on night shift.
Eric Voge: Officer.
Nick Wolf: Man with hood.
Timm Zimmermann: Guard.
Troels Asmussen: Dancer (uncredited).
Marianne Bengtsson: Dancer (uncredited).
Edvin Karlsson: Dancer (uncredited).
Anders Skovsted: Uncredited.

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Plot

Image:Bjork - dancer in the dark.jpg

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The film, which takes place in America in 1964, focuses around Selma Jezkova (Björk), a Czech immigrant who has moved to the United States with her son, Gene Jezkova (Kostic). They live a life of poverty as Selma works at a factory with her good friend Kathy, who she nicknames Cvalda (Deneuve). She rents a trailer home on the property of town policeman Bill Houston (Morse) and his wife Linda Houston (Seymour). She is also pursued by the shy but persistent Jeff (Stormare) who also works at the factory.

What no one in Selma's life knows is that she has a hereditary, degenerative disease which is gradually causing her to go blind. She has been saving up every penny that she makes (in a tin can in her kitchen) to pay for an operation which will prevent her young son from the same fate.

To escape the misery of her daily life Selma accompanies Cvalda to the local cinema where together they watch fabulous Hollywood musicals (or more accurately, Selma listens as Cvalda describes them to her (to the aggravation of the other theater patrons) or acts out the dance steps upon Selma's hand using her fingers.) In her day-to-day life, when things are too boring or upsetting, Selma slips into daydreams or perhaps a trance-like state where she imagines the ordinary circumstances and individuals around her have erupted into elaborate musical theater numbers. These songs, as do many of Bjork's songs, take some sort of real life noise (from factory machines buzzing to the sound of a flag rapping against a flag pole in the wind) as an underlying rhythm.

Unfortunately she slips into one such trance while working a machine at the factory, which she breaks. She is fired from her job. Soon Jeff and Cvalda begin to realize that Selma can barely see at all. Additionally, Bill reveals to Selma that his materialistic wife, Linda, has exhausted all of his savings and asks Selma for a loan, which she declines to give. To comfort Bill, Selma reveals her secret blindness, hoping that together they can share one another's secret. Bill then hides in the corner of Selma's home, knowing she can't see him, and watches as she puts some money in her kitchen tin.

The next day when Selma comes home she finds the tin is empty. She goes next door to report the theft to Bill and Linda only to hear Linda discussing how Bill has brought home their safe deposit box to count their savings. She additionally reveals that Bill has "confessed" his affair with Selma, and that Selma must move out immediately. Knowing that Bill was broke and that the money he is counting must be hers, she confronts him and attempts to take the money back. He draws a gun on her and in a struggle he is shot.

Linda discovers the two of them and assumed that Selma was attempting to steal the money and runs off to tell the police. Bill begs Selma to take his life, and she shoots at him several times but he doesn't die. In the end she bashes his head in with the safe deposit box. (In one of the scenes, Selma slips into a trance and imagines that Bill's corpse stands up and slow dances with her, urging her to run to freedom.) She does, and takes the money to the Institute for the Blind to pay for her son's operation before the police can take it from her.

Selma is caught and eventually put on trial. It is here that she is pegged as a Communist sympathizer and murderess. Although she tells as much truth about the situation as she can, she refuses to reveal Bill's secret because she promised not to. Additionally, when her claims that the reason she didn't have any money was because she was sending it to her father in Czechoslovakia are proven false, she is convicted and given the death penalty.

Cvalda and Jeff eventually put the pieces of the puzzle together and get back Selma's money, using it instead to pay for a trial lawyer who can free her. Selma becomes furious and refuses the lawyer, opting instead to die rather than allow her son to go blind. In the end Selma is hanged to death, an innocent woman doing nothing more than trying to make a better life for her child.

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Personnel

Line producer: Malte Forsell.
Associate producer: Friðrik Þór Friðriksson, Finn Gjerdrum, Mogens Glad and Anja Grafers.
USA line producer: Tony Grob.
Associate producer: Torleif Hauge.
Executive producer: Peter Aalbæk Jensen.
Co-executive producer: Lars Jönsson.
Associate producer: Tero Kaukomaa and Poul Erik Lindeborg.
Co-executive producer: Marianne Slot.
Associate producer: Els Vandevorst.
Producer: Vibeke Windeløv.
Original music: Björk and Mark Bell (uncredited).
Singers: Björk, Catherine Deneuve, Siobhan Fallon, David Morse, Peter Stormare, Cara Seymour, Vladica Kostic.
Lyrics: Lars von Ttrier and Sjón Sigurðsson.
Drums: Charly Morgan (uncredited).
Non-original music: Richard Rodgers.
Cinematography: Robby Müller.
Edition: François Gédigier and Molly Marlene Stensgård.
Casting: Avy Kaufman.
Production design: Karl Juliusson.
Art direction: Peter Grant.
Costume design: Manon Rasmussen.
Second unit key hair stylist/artist: Michelle Crane.
Make up artist: Sanne Gravfort.
Catherine Deneuve make up artist: Cédric Gérard.
Special effects make up artist: Morten Jacobsen.
Hair stylist for Catherine Deneuve: John Nollet.
Make up artist for Catherine Deneuve: Ursula Rödel.
Unit manager: Joakim Höglund.
Assisatant director: Caroline Sascha Cogez.
Second unit assistant director: Damian Payne.
Second unit director and first assistant director: Anders Refn.
Second unit set decorator: Nicola Hewitt.
Property master: Jesper Lorents.
Supervising sound editor: Kristian Eidnes Andersen.
Score recording and mix: Geoff Foster.
Boom operator: Ad Stoop.
Sound designer: Per Streit.
Dolby film consultant: Mark Kenna (uncredited).
Stunts: Stig Günther.
Head of 100 camera department: Edvard Friis-Moeller.
100 camera department continuity: Sedsel Andersen.
100 camera unit and additional editor: Peter Hjorth.
Runner: Mattias Andersson.
Gaffer: Frank Berger.
Continuity: Linda Daae.
Post-production assistant: Christine Ekstrand.
Financial advisor: Peter Garde.
Björk’s assistant: Andrea Helgadóttir and Jóga Jóhannsdóttir.
Lars von Trier’s assistant: Carsten Holst.
Overture sequence: Per Kirkeby.
Still photographer: David Koskas.
Color timer: Yvan Lucas.
Unit publicist: Liz Miller.
Financial coordinator: Mette Nelund.
UK casting: Joyce Nettles.
Costume designer assistant: Louize Nissen.
Electrician: Morten Nybø and Harri Sipilä.
Choreographer: Vincent Paterson.
Vibeke Windeløv’s assistants: Pia Severin Nielsen, Charlotte Pedersen and Cecilie Rui.
Still photographer intern: Helene Sandberg.
Marianne Slot’s assistant: Chris Sanger.
Dialogue coach: Sean-Michael Smith.
Travel coordinator: Line Spanning.
Script translator: Jonathan Sydenham.
Video assistant: Jean-Robert Viallet.
FilmFour - executive production: James Wilson.
Camera operator: Lars von Trier.
Additional camera operator and focus puller: Marcel Zyskind.
Assistant camera in Sweden: Kristoffer Andrén (uncredited).
Story analyst: Karrie Melendrez (uncredited).

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Awards

Dancer in the Dark debuted at the Cannes Film Festival to standing ovations and controversy and was awarded the Golden Palm and the Best Actress award for Björk. The song "I've Seen It All" was nominated for an Oscar for best song, the performance of which launched Björk's famous swan-dress. A list of all of the various awards and nominations:

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Nominated

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Won

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Critical reaction

In the light of all this acclaim it should be noted that not all critical reaction was positive. In Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 68% fresh rating.

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Positive Reviews

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Negative Reviews

  • Jonathan Foreman wrote in the New York Post : So unrelenting in its manipulative sentimentality that, if it had been made by an American and shot in a more conventional manner, it would be seen as a bad joke. [3]

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Trivia

  • Actress Björk Guðmundsdóttir, who is known mostly for her musical career, has described the process of making this film as so emotionally taxing and trying that she claimed she would not make any appearances in film ever again. However, in 2005, she appeared in Matthew Barney's Drawing Restraint 9. Her disagreements with von Trier over the content of the film are well-known (she wanted the ending more uplifting; the song over the credits seems to aid this concept). Deneuve and others have described her performance as feeling rather than acting.
  • The movie was filmed with over 100 digital cameras so that multiple angles of every scene could be captured and filmed.
  • Curiously, the film's title appears as a phrase in Joni Mitchell's lyric for her song "My Old Man" on the album Blue (1971): My old man/He's a singer in the park/He's a walker in the rain/He's a dancer in the dark.
  • The Finnish band The Rasmus included a song called Dancer in the Dark in the special edition of their 2005 album Hide from the Sun. This song is about the movie.
  • Björk lies down on a stack of birch logs during the "Scatterheart" sequence. In Icelandic, Swedish, and Norwegian, "Björk" means "birch". Lars von Trier thought it would be fun to put it in the film.
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External links

Movies by Lars von Trier
The Element of Crime | Epidemic | Zentropa | The Kingdom | Breaking the Waves | The Idiots (Dogme 95) | Dancer in the Dark | Dogville | Manderlay | The Boss of it All | Wasington
da:Dancer in the Dark

de:Dancer in the Dark es:Dancer in the Dark fr:Dancer in the Dark it:Dancer in the Dark nl:Dancer in the Dark ja:ダンサー・イン・ザ・ダーク nds:Dancer in the Dark pl:Tańcząc w ciemnościach pt:Dancer in the Dark fi:Dancer in the Dark sv:Dancer in the Dark zh:黑暗中的舞者

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