The films of Lars von Trier are consistently described as excessive, categorized as extreme cinema. Dense, dark, but rarely titillating, they enhance conflict and impact by simultaneously folding together multiple layers of excess both stylistic and visceral within complex narrative frameworks, all of which lack clear narrative resolution but culminate in death. Von Trier’s films induce trauma, and emotional rupture rarely paralleled in cinema yet challenge audiences to respond to cinema in new ways. Although often noted, the film’s spiritual, religious nuances rarely have extended analysis beyond Breaking the Waves (1996) and Dogville (2003). I will argue that the spiritual, biblical content of the films holds a key to making sense of von Trier’s oeuvre of excess. In this perspective, the excess is subsumed under spiritual conflict—beyond a human to human struggle—which acts as a centrifugal force, exploding outward. Thus, spiritual conflict is the mechanism that unpacks the films’ notorious excess. Von Trier's films, in my view, truthfully and prophetically expose the complicity of the spectator in personal and structural evil, forcing self-examination related to the films' theological themes. As such, von Trier’s films and concerns may be considered analogous to the extreme, transgressive prophetic voice of the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel, understood in light of insights drawn from his prophecy and its form of delivery. I will explore the prophetic voice in von Trier's films by juxtaposing them with Ezekiel's prophecy through Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics and Ben Quash’s theological aesthetics. Ezekiel and von Trier both have a reputation as destabilizing critics of their cultures, von Trier as the provocateur of extreme cinema, and Ezekiel as the outrageous prophet who acts and verbalizes the unspeakable in God's name. The focus of this thesis however, is not von Trier’s status as an artist-prophet, but a prophetic voice that issues forth in the films, juxtaposed not with Ezekiel the prophet, but Ezekiel’s prophecy and prophetic acts. There is not sufficient evidence to validate von Trier as artist-prophet, and the layers of history and redaction limit our knowledge of the person Ezekiel
Lars von Trier and the prophetic voice: a comparative analysis of Lars von Trier and the old testament prophet Ezekiel
Ver Straten-Mc Sparran, R. (Author). 1 Dec 2019
Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis › Doctor of Philosophy