This is not to excuse von Trier’s antics, but to understand how his cinema might go beyond them, enacting a critique of the sub-artistic, theatrical tendencies with which both director and film have frequently been identified.
In fact, the treatment of violence in the film – and the treatment of film itself as a form of violence – is meant to raise the issue of theatricality in art, the question of whether film can “really mean it” any longer. Yet the theatrics surrounding the film and its release are also, curiously, part of what make it necessary viewing. What has made the film so difficult to watch is not its content, as its many vocal critics have argued, but the controversy it has provoked – and the willingness of its director to fan the flames. In a short video message that introduced the cut, a gleeful von Trier wished the audience “good luck”, as if the point of the event was to test our endurance, and not to screen the new work of an occasional auteur. A “one-night only” showing of the unedited director’s cut in November only reinforced the prevailing impression that the film was little more than an empty provocation. 1 Subsequent reviews have taken issue with its failure to adhere to the usual Hollywood conventions: it is overlong and tediously abstract, misogynistic in its depiction of the mutilation of famous actresses, and gratuitously violent from beginning to end. Initial press reports focused exclusively on the nearly one-hundred walk-outs at the Cannes premier last May. The synopses, trailers and other links on our website, further information about contentĪnd age-appropriateness for specific films can be found onĪs well as through general internet searches.The reception of Lars von Trier’s The House That Jack Built (2018) has, in effect, rendered the film nearly impossible to watch. Triggering content in films, as sensitivities vary from person to person. IFC Center does not generally provide advisories about subject matter or potentially Cast Matt Dillon, Bruno Ganz, Uma Thurman, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, Riley Keough, Jeremy Davies.
The goal is the ultimate artwork: A collection of all his killings manifested in a House that he builds.Īlong the way we experience Jack’s descriptions of his personal condition, problems and thoughts through a recurring conversation with the unknown Verge – a grotesque mixture of sophistry mixed with an almost childlike self-pity and in-depth explanations of, for Jack, dangerous and difficult maneuvers. Despite the fact that the final and inevitable police intervention is drawing ever near (which both provokes and puts pressure on Jack) he is – contrary to all logic – set on taking greater and greater chances. He views each murder as an artwork in itself, even though his dysfunction gives him problems in the outside world. We experience the story from Jack’s point of view.
#The house that jack built serial#
We follow the highly intelligent Jack (Matt Dillon) through 5 incidents and are introduced to the murders that define Jack’s development as a serial killer.
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