LisbethOvergaardNielsenPhd

search is also more than its components, as it is present as a film-praxis in all
films.
The purpose with this thesis is to examine this search. Not in relations to
Trier’s possible intentions, but to the enunciation of the films, the way they
operate with filmic strategies, impression and style. How do the films create
meaning, and what effect does the searching character of the film language have
on this growing meaning?
One of the main theses of this thesis is that the curious and searching
modus of the film language is a primary force in the works, a character trait that
along with the experimental form is decisive for the films creation of meaning.
The experiment and the searching form are in this context mutually related
dimensions, which can be portrayed as being the reason of each other. The filmic
experiment brings about a searching, a deliberate ‘experimental’ film language, but
this search is at the same time catalyst for the experiment. And almost everything
is experimented with in Trier’s cinematic universe, right from the conceptual level
to the genres, the form and style to the technical level. In the later of the films,
also the acting has been involved in the experiment, as has the actual film
production, which has been submitted to experimental methods as for an example
Dogma 95 shows. Therefore the experiment can be seen in almost all levels in
every work by Trier, and the experiment is both a motive power and a work-
method, where the director launches a set of rules and self-imposed obstructions
as a chosen condition from which each film must evolve. The self-chosen
conditions do not have a negative character of aversion, but rather a sense of
something which initiates creativity and creates new points of views – not only on
the film itself – but as a general perspective on film as a media and in relations to
what the film media is, and what it is capable of.
Method: The Immanent Study Combined with the Analysis of Aesthetic
Reception
Lars von Trier’s films have been analyzed and studied numerous times – especially
in relations to their debatable contents. Less treated and discussed is the modus of
the film language, consequently the way in which both the stories are expressed
and just therefore furnish a new meaning.
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