J
Jeffrey
Guest
By Erik Kirschbaum
CANNES, France (Reuters) - The dark underside of the United States has taken center stage in several films at Cannes this year, capped on Monday with a scathing attack of past and present racism in America by Danish director Lars von Trier.
“Manderlay,” about a fictional Alabama plantation where people are living in 1933 as if slavery were never abolished, staggered festival-goers with a disturbing portrayal of America that fails, even today, to come to terms with its racist past.
There are a number of other films that examine dark and depressing aspects of the United States and “American Dream” losers, filled with violence, drugs and alcohol abuse. They were made by directors from the United States, Canada and Europe.
The films, screening at the world’s most important festival here, also feed off a lingering anti-American sentiment prevailing in Europe over the Iraq war. Michael Moore won the festival’s top award last year for his film “Fahrenheit 9/11.”
Von Trier, whose fear of flying has prevented him from visiting the United States, won thunderous cheers at the world premiere and a news conference, where he said he enjoyed bashing America on screen because it invades his life even in Denmark.
“We are all under the influence – and it’s a very bad influence – from America,” said the 49-year-old Dane. "In my country everything has to do with America. America is kind of sitting on the world.
“America has to do with 60 percent of my brain and all things I experience in my life, and I’m not happy about that,” von Trier said. I’d say 60 percent of my life is American so I am in fact an ‘American’ too. But I can’t go there and vote or change anything there. That is why I make films about America."
“Manderlay,” which stars Danny Glover, Willem Dafoe and Bryce Dallas Howard in a bare theatrical setting, is only the latest film by von Trier to probe America’s darkest corners – all with anything but happy endings.
reuters.myway.com/article/20050516/2005-05-16T160306Z_01_N16697712_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-ARTS-CANNES-AMERICA-DC.html
CANNES, France (Reuters) - The dark underside of the United States has taken center stage in several films at Cannes this year, capped on Monday with a scathing attack of past and present racism in America by Danish director Lars von Trier.
“Manderlay,” about a fictional Alabama plantation where people are living in 1933 as if slavery were never abolished, staggered festival-goers with a disturbing portrayal of America that fails, even today, to come to terms with its racist past.
There are a number of other films that examine dark and depressing aspects of the United States and “American Dream” losers, filled with violence, drugs and alcohol abuse. They were made by directors from the United States, Canada and Europe.
The films, screening at the world’s most important festival here, also feed off a lingering anti-American sentiment prevailing in Europe over the Iraq war. Michael Moore won the festival’s top award last year for his film “Fahrenheit 9/11.”
Von Trier, whose fear of flying has prevented him from visiting the United States, won thunderous cheers at the world premiere and a news conference, where he said he enjoyed bashing America on screen because it invades his life even in Denmark.
“We are all under the influence – and it’s a very bad influence – from America,” said the 49-year-old Dane. "In my country everything has to do with America. America is kind of sitting on the world.
“America has to do with 60 percent of my brain and all things I experience in my life, and I’m not happy about that,” von Trier said. I’d say 60 percent of my life is American so I am in fact an ‘American’ too. But I can’t go there and vote or change anything there. That is why I make films about America."
“Manderlay,” which stars Danny Glover, Willem Dafoe and Bryce Dallas Howard in a bare theatrical setting, is only the latest film by von Trier to probe America’s darkest corners – all with anything but happy endings.
reuters.myway.com/article/20050516/2005-05-16T160306Z_01_N16697712_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-ARTS-CANNES-AMERICA-DC.html