Blind Spots and Double Vision: National and Individual Fantasy in Dancer in the Dark

This paper explores the relation between individual and national fantasy in Dancer in the Dark. The film’s innovative musical numbers purport to take us inside Selma’s head and show us her intimate visions. These spectacular visions highlight the brutal realities of Selma’s life, revealing the “cruel optimism” of the immigrant’s psychic investment in the American dream. They also show the extent to which a bankrupt nation depends upon that investment. Drawing attention to its own cinematic technique, Dancer suggests the complicity of film in this ideological melodrama and exposes the political risks and possibilities of von Trier’s subjective cinematic style.