The Philadelphia Story and an Impending Doom

I'm so hyped! There is no secret that I adore the deeply disturbed Danish doomsday-filmmaker (alliteration for the win) Lars von Trier, so of course I look forward to his next film Melancholia (2011). But there is more!

The latest edition of the Swedish movie magazine Cinema just arrived to a thankful Lolita, and isn't there one of those strange, surreal interviews with Lars von Trier about his latest film in it? Of course there is! There is a reason for my strange blog title, so listen up: The film Melancholia is inspired by The Philadelphia Story (1940).

I will repeat that. In this interview Lars von Trier says that his latest film, the one that succeeds Antichrist (the film with a stillborn deer, an evil fox that proclaims "Chaos REIGNS" and Willem Defoe ejaculating blood), is inspired by the Cary Grant/Katharine Hepburn/James Stewart screwball comedy The Philadelphia Story. Suck on that!

So if you can imagine the hilarious wedding chaos of Tracy Lord with a planet ten times bigger than Earth that soon will collide with our dear Tellus, you seem to have gotten the gist of Melancholia. This sounds so awesome that I don't know what to do of myself. I think I will jump off the balcony and try to fly away with anticipation. (No, I haven't taken any drugs that I don't already take regularly. I'm just psyched about this.)

It's alright, Alexander. I won't kick you out of bed. Non! maintenant...! viens...

Now the cast. It's awesome! Surprisingly enough Kirsten Dunst - I have high expectations for her. Do this right, woman! Then we have one of my favorite actresses of this day and age, Charlotte Gainsbourg (yep, the daughter of the man that so sexily sings Je t'aime moi non plus with Jane Birkin). She was fantastic in Antichrist, I don't doubt that she will match that performance. Then there is Kiefer Sutherland (another surprise), Charlotte Rampling (yay! a favorite superbitch of mine), John Hurt and scary Udo Kier. (See him in Blood for Dracula from 1974, if you have no self respect. Like me.) Among the Swedish cast we have father and son Stellan Skarsgård and Alexander Skarsgård - known in great, big, amazing America for the tentacle monster in Pirates of the Caribbean respectively a sexy vampire in the True Blood series. And a Lady Gaga video, in which he is called "Alejandro", for some reason. (Crikey, why do I know that?)

[Lot's of vampire actors/actresses, when I think about it... Kirsten Dunst in Interview with the Vampire (1994), Kiefer Sutherland in The Lost Boys (1987), Udo Kier as Count Dracula and Alexander Skarsgård as Eric Northman in True Blood. There is a vampire inflation going on. Be ware. Pull the strings!]

Now watch the damn trailer. It really is The Philadelphia Story - Lars von Trier style! Sometimes I'm so proud of Scandinavia! *happy sigh* Who wants to buy me movie tickets?

Note: it's filmed in Trollywood, Sweden. Woo-hoo! (No, Denmark and Sweden are in fact not the same country.)

[Update May 11: I'll just copy-paste what dear Tim Williams e-mailed me.

Just read your blog post for "Melancholia"--nice as always; however, I felt bound to point out that in the Pirates of the Caribbean milieu, Stellan Skarsgaard in fact plays Orlando Bloom's cursed father ("Bootstrap Bill") and not the "tentacle monster" ("Davy Jones") who is played by Bill Nighy. Small faux-pas, probably insignificant, but I thought I would tell you that privately before anyone else did publicly.

Keep 'em flying!

Sorry for the error, but in my humble opinion bad movies don't need any serious research before being mentioned. Like the first Pirates of the Caribbean, though. And obviously, the Skarsgård/Skarsgaard family.]

Anna Karina (1940-)

Well, why not Anna Karina? She's cool. And I've had an awful day including a second workday at a door-to-door sales job, loosing my cell phone and an ambulance ride to the mental clinic. After a hot bath I decided to make an effort to put something up on my blog, so here it is! I'll take another shot at my life on Monday.

The Abyss (1910)

Afgrunden
Director: Urban Gad
Denmark 1910
37 min

The Abyss is a Danish silent film starring one of the first international movie actresses, Asta Nielsen. (In Germany she was known as simply "Die Asta".) Her naturalistic acting style differed from the melodramatic acting most of the early movie actors used since working on stage. The erotic nature of most of her characters and the sensualism of her acting caused that she was heavily censored in the United States.



In the beginning of the movie Magda Vang (Nielsen) meets a nice man, Knud Svane (Robert Dinesen), riding a streetcar, and they quickly fall in love with each other. Knud invites Magda to live with him and his parents in the country for a while.
What happens is that a travelling circus comes to the village, and Magda is seduced by one of the artists, leaving her fiancé for him. Magda joins the circus and perform together with her lover.



Scene: Magda performes an erotic dance on stage, with her lover tied up with a lasso.




The relationship shows to be passionate and dramatic, and it's easy to see that it will soon fall apart. One day, after their erotic performance on stage, Magda realizes that her lover is attracted to another actress and starts a fight that gets both of them fired. She finds a job as a piano player instead.
But one day her and her fiancé's paths cross each other once again, leading to a dramatic settlement between them and her abusive lover.



The restoration of this soon-to-be 100 year old film is astonishing. Only a few scenes have been nearly destroyed, looking like the picture below. But that only gives the film a more eerie feeling.

This is the first film I've ever seen featuring Asta Nielsen. What a woman! Here I am, impressed by the frivolous flappers of the 1920's, and I'm being taken aback by one scene with Die Asta ten years before! (Perhaps Scandinavian women always have been more easy than American?)
Anyway, I'm impressed by this Danish woman!
The movie was very engaging and easy to take in and be moved by, probably because the acting, as I said before, wasn't as theatrical and melodramatic as other early silent films are. I strongly recommend this one.