Duck and Cover

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In a N.Y. Times profile of Willem Dafoe (which is more or less linked to a forthcoming Public Theatre production of a play called Idiot Savant), Dave Itzkoff discusses the actor being "dismayed" about last May's Cannes Film Festival reception to Lars von Trier's Antichrist, in which Dafoe stars. The press screening was "a raucous" thing "that drew boos and mocking laughs," Itzkoff notes.

Willem Dafoe

"It's a hothouse environment, and they like scandal," Dafoe comments. "You see who holds the cards and what plays, what doesn't play. Where the idiots are, where the thoughtful people are. And for the most part the idiots win. But that's okay."

That's not a fair or correct assessment of the Cannes press corps. They might generate an uproar after seeing a film that seems ludicrously wrong or overwrought in some way, but they don't go looking for scandal -- the critics I know are low-key types who take 'em as the come. That said, if a movie happens to be a major wipeout on its own terms they won't hesitate to point that out. Nobody gets a sweetheart pass in Cannes.

Dafoe says he "saw the project as a challenge to strike the right balance between controlling himself and letting himself go. How, for example, should he play a scene where he is spoken to by the carcass of a dead fox, or where Ms. Gainsbourg drives a rod through his leg and attaches a millstone to that rod?

"'You just have to do what makes sense for you,' Dafoe replies. 'One man's hammy overacting is another man's passionate acting. One man's boring, flat walk-through performance is another's beautifully restrained performance.'" Phooey...that's just evasion. Antichrist was a stacked deck against which no actor could prevail. There's no way to play a scene with a bloody talking dead fox without looking like a fool.

A couple of hours after the infamous Cannes Antichrist screening I wrote that "there's no way [the film] isn't a major career embarassment for costars Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg, and a possible career stopper for Von Trier. I know that if I had been in Dafoe or Gainsbourg's shoes I would have come to my senses and walked off the film. I would have said 'go ahead, sue me -- I welcome a lawsuit!' and walked home proudly and at peace."

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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on October 26, 2009 at 8:40 AM

comment #1

actionman says ...

I really can't wait to see Antichrist.

Posted by actionman at October 26, 2009 9:13 AM

comment #2

Admiral82 says ...

Hasn't Von Trier had numerous actors walk off his films? It seems like I recall John C. Reilly walking off and bowing out of "Manderlay." Many stories have circulated about Bjork and her issues while working on "Dancer In the Dark."

I am an admirer of Von Trier and his work. But one has to wonder how tough he is to work with?

Posted by Admiral82 at October 26, 2009 9:15 AM

comment #3

Admiral82 says ...

I can't wait to see it either actionman.

Posted by Admiral82 at October 26, 2009 9:16 AM

comment #4

Sabina E says ...

being an actor, a filmmaker, artist, etc... it comes with the territory of receiving negative attention from the media, including critics and audiences.

I was really upset when half of the audience (all Americans, nonetheless) refused to clap at the end of my play in London. They spoke of their disgust, their offense, at my play and they said they wished they never saw something so filthy and so weird.

Yeah, I was upset about it at first, but then I got over it.

Posted by Sabina E at October 26, 2009 9:21 AM

comment #5

erniesouchak says ...

Among actors, Dafoe is unique. I'm always sorry to see him end up in crap.

Posted by erniesouchak at October 26, 2009 9:44 AM

comment #6

TulseLuper says ...

Loved it. Favorite film of the year so far. In fact, I think it might be von Trier's best film. To each his own I guess.

Posted by TulseLuper at October 26, 2009 9:45 AM

comment #7

M. Hulot says ...

I went to a performance of your play, Deaf. And the audience didn't clap at the one I attended, either. But our lack of clapping (at least in my party of five) had nothing to do with any supposed weirdness or filth, it is to do with the fact that we simply didn't like your play.

The filfth and the weirdness was, for lack of better word, silly. And I found the more serious parts to be really quite funny.
And not in a good way.

Posted by M. Hulot at October 26, 2009 9:52 AM

comment #8

Ryansi51 says ...

M. Hulot-

can you please tell us more about Deaf's play? I can't wait to hear what it was about and what was so "filthy and weird" about it...

Posted by Ryansi51 at October 26, 2009 10:06 AM

comment #9

Nick X says ...

I want to see Deaf's play now.

Posted by Nick X at October 26, 2009 10:13 AM

comment #10

JD says ...

It's also my favorite film of the year so far. Jeff has a rough time with tonally complex work. Always has. Always will. He knows plenty about movies, but this brand of art cinema is way over his head. Please don't trust his opinion on Antichrist.

Posted by JD at October 26, 2009 10:15 AM

comment #11

JohnCope says ...

To suggest that Antichrist is "way over his head" gives the film WAY too much credit. However, contra Jeff, I will say that one of the only moments I found truly effective, with the kind of potent and dislocating force presumably intended, was the "chaos reigns" moment; it certainly didn't play as farce to me.

Posted by JohnCope at October 26, 2009 10:32 AM

comment #12

MAGGA says ...

Every discussion I've seen where people defend this film (the Poland vid, Norwegian newspapers) always imply that the people who don't like it simply don't get it, and yet the themes they speak of are not only shown clearly, but are plainly stated by the charicatures in the film itself. For me the underlying theme seemed to be about abortion, and in a very conservative way. Which is at odds with the not-very-conservative level of splatter, but then I've never seen von Trier as someone who means anything he says in his films nor interviews.

The biggest problem with the film for me was the amount of verbal exposition. Endless discusuions of themes that would have appealed to me much more if they were simply a component of the drama. But then I had the same problem with his two American Trilogy-movies.

Having said that, as a fellow Scandinavian I would love to have von Trier as a marketing consultant whenever I finally get my own projects off the ground. His are the only movies from our part of the world that gets this kind of widespread attention, and it's always due to a gimmick (no artificial lighting, no camera choreography in a musical, no realistic sets, all yellow colours) or a controversy. He plays the cinematic elite the way Michael Bay plays Joe Popcorn, and I guess I grudgingly admire him for it.

Posted by MAGGA at October 26, 2009 11:23 AM

comment #13

RSBrown says ...

I love your posts Jeff, but here I gotta side with Dafoe. There's all sorts of tea flavors, this one wasn't yours. Granted, I haven't seen it, but Dafoe doesn't sound like he's going to apologize for the movie any time soon. And I respect that.

Posted by RSBrown at October 26, 2009 11:29 AM

comment #14

anonymous2 says ...

Loved Antichrist It will be one of my favorites of the year. The prologue is one of the most amazing contemporary marriages of music and images I've seen. Masterful.

How can you think of this movie as an embarrassment? How many actors wish they could have this type of calling card? Not that Dafoe needs one but this is definitely not hurting Gainsbourg's career, i.e. best actress at Cannes.

Posted by anonymous2 at October 26, 2009 12:09 PM

comment #15

Big Black says ...

"There's no way to play a scene with a bloody talking dead fox without looking like a fool."

There is always a way. Nothing is too far-out, nothing is too much, and nothing is too far-fetched for a story in the right hands, and it sounds cowardly, safe and just plain unimaginative to claim otherwise.

The most absurd moments can work due to the sheer will of a brilliant and dedicated actor - and then there are the million other production factors which make every moment in storytelling of any form either embarrassing or transporting depending on.. well, everything. This has happened far too many times in far too many instances for claims like yours to ever ring true.

Posted by Big Black at October 26, 2009 12:10 PM

comment #16

dinovelvet says ...

Oddly enough, there's also no way to play a scene with a talking live Megan Fox without looking like a fool, either.

Posted by dinovelvet at October 26, 2009 1:33 PM

comment #17

Sabina E says ...

Hulot, even if you didn't like my play, thank you for attending. I appreciate that.

Posted by Sabina E at October 26, 2009 6:33 PM

comment #18

Caustic712 says ...

I say this as someone who values Dafoe's good performances: the man didn't walk off Body of Evidence, Speed 2, or The Boondock Saints. It's going to take a lot more than a bloody talking dead fox, or his name appearing in print anywhere near Lars Von Trier's, to embarrass him.

Posted by Caustic712 at October 26, 2009 7:15 PM

comment #19

DeeZee says ...

Caustic: I'd say being in Dragonball Evolution would do it.

Posted by DeeZee at October 27, 2009 1:50 AM

comment #20

michael says ...

Antichrist won't end his career. If that two hour and forty five minute bowel movement called "Mandalay" didn't end it, this one won't. I have one word for him: overrated.

Posted by michael at October 27, 2009 4:46 AM

comment #21

michael says ...

The holier than thou, head up their ass, arty farts cream all over everything he does, but to actually sit through one of his boring, dull, dead and endless films is to see a half-ass director blow himself for all the world to see.

Posted by michael at October 27, 2009 4:50 AM

comment #22