LONDON – During a press junket on Monday director Lars von Trier expressed anger and annoyance in response to critics referring to his latest work with belittling words like “movie,” “film,” and “part of the entertainment industry.”
“A ‘movie’? Listen, The Great Muppet Caper is a ‘movie,’” the acclaimed Danish director told reporters. “A ‘film,’ is a big fat Jane Austen adaptation a little boy falls asleep watching. If these reporters want to see my art, they are going to have to be awake, they are going to have to be crying, and they are going to have to be spiritually and emotionally damaged by the images I have constructed, whether they understand them or not.”
Von Trier, whose work has received harsh allegations of being ‘something intended to be viewed in theatres and homes for the pleasure and intellectual stimulation of humans,” grew animated as he sharply redressed these claims.
“If you watch a… “movie”… and you get hungry, you will eat the popcorn you purchased before the show. If you are watching one of my pieces and you get hungry, the sensation will hit you like a wave of mercy, because it proves that your body is real and what’s on the screen is just made up. If you are watching a “movie” and you have to go to the bathroom, you go to the bathroom. If you are watching one of my creations, you won’t do that, because your fight/flight response will engage and your body will suppress nonessential functions for several hours,” he said while gesturing broadly.
The director acknowledged that this misapprehension on the part of critics was partly the result of certain artistic concessions he has made in his past several films. “I think I always knew that once I gave into the philistines’ demands and started including campy “movie” elements like sets and lights, and throwing in a few crowd-pleasing scenes that didn’t include clitorectomies, some people would start lumping me in with commercial directors like George Lucas and Werner Hertzog. But I had no idea it would happen this fast.”
Von Trier then abruptly crumpled a tiny origami rabbit nobody was really sure why was there and burst into tears.
