LisbethOvergaardNielsenPhd

The potential of the film style and the cinematic form which create meaning will
in this context be analyzed within the tradition of the reception of aesthetic
primarily represented by Wolfgang Iser’s thoughts in “The Appeal-Structure of
the Text” (1970/1981). As apposed to a biographical analysis on one side, which
focuses on relations between author and work, and the reception analysis on the
other, which focuses on the empirical receptor, then the aesthetic analysis of
reception is orientated towards the works own approaching strategies and the
function of these strategies. With this work orientated focus in the thesis, the
analysis will disclose many approaches and elements. They will not cover the films
close-analytically or repeat a strict form for analysis on each work. In stead the
priority is to examine the way the films act; what is it Trier’s cinematic enunciation
strategies challenge? How is the film language constructed? How does it work?
Which paths in the film’s universe is the spectator offered to follow? Which
passages do the works create for their receptor, and what influence does it have
when the films presented their selves as they do.
The Composition of the Thesis
Chapter 1 examines why The Element of Crime created so much attention in 1984.
Why was the film so different and what nourished the film? What did the film
react against, and what did the cinematic strategies, significant style and visual
experiments express? The film’s visual (dream) visions are analyzed and the dark,
deprived and gruesome pictures, which seemed to both offend and fascinate, is
the primary focus of the analysis.
In chapter 2 the oblique “trivial film”, Epidemic, is analyzed. Epidemic came
into being as a result of a bet between Lars von Trier and the film consultant
Claes Kastholm whether it was possible to make a film for only one million
Danish kroner. The starting point for the analysis is the austere style, which is the
film’s (economic) premise and experiment. Furthermore, the analysis should
contribute to an illumination of concerns related to fiction and reality because the
film, in a meta fictitious manner, explicitly incorporates a game with the
decomposing of the boundaries of the work.
Chapter 3 examines the “beautiful aesthetic” (which seldom occurs in Lars von
Trier’s universe) which characterizes his next film, Europa, a technical and visual
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