Lars von Triers fornyelse af filmen 1984–2014: Signal, pixel, diagram by Bodil Marie Stavning Thomsen (review)

The impetus behind Bodil Marie Stavning Thomsen's latest book is the desire to analyze the compelling and apparently paradoxical new form of realism with which Lars von Trier's films confront their viewers. Von Trier's realism as a direct confrontation with the viewer (which in some cases may even verge on a kind of affront or assault) coincides with Thomsen's project in the book, which is sensitive to the physicality of the spectatorial experience von Trier's films engender. The range of physical/affective responses von Trier's films make possible depends on their particular form of realism, which Thomsen argues is characterized by prioritizing the viewer's "fysiske sansning" (p. 19) [physical sensation] above the "refleksive afkodning af et repræsentationelt (og indeksikalsk) niveau" (p. 19) [reflexive decoding of a representational (and indexical) level]. Von Trier's direct appeal to the embodied, sensory experience of the viewer constitutes for Thomsen "en alternativ forståelse af realisme, som man kunne kalde affektiv eller performativ" (p. 19) [an alternative understanding of realism, which one could call affective or performative].

Von Trier's "performative realism" is thus at odds with classical Bazinian realism, which built upon André Bazin's enthusiasm for cinema's capacity to harness the mechanical indexicality of photography with the recording of temporal duration in naturalistically rendered time and space. For Bazin, cinema had the almost magical capacity to "embalm time" (What Is Cinema? Vol. 1, University of California Press, 1967, 14). Because of this capacity, filmmakers had the ethical duty to refrain from compromising the integrity of their films by, for instance, limiting the depth of field, cutting up longer segments through excessive montage, or relying on overwrought stylistic devices (see Bazin, What Is Cinema? Vol. 1). In contrast to Bazin's aesthetics of deep focus, long takes, and inconspicuous authorship, von Trier's films confront their viewer with a realism characterized by an intensely physical spectatorship. According to Thomsen, one of the ways von Trier achieves this is not by making the medium as transparent as possible—and thus attempting to convey a kind of unmediated view of the material world—but rather by making the materiality of the medium as conspicuous as possible. This can be seen in von Trier's well-known experiments with transferring filmed images to videotape and back again, one of many techniques he used to amplify the electronic signal and create a "noisy" image on his television projects Medea (1988), Riget I (The Kingdom I, 1994), and Riget II (The Kingdom II, 1997). This conspicuous image mediation is reinforced by other techniques of re-mediation (that is, showing images that have appeared on other media), such as the security camera images from Riget I (p. 69). Besides this interest in the textured "noisiness" of the film image itself, von Trier's films reveal a broader fascination with textured surfaces and planes, which makes possible "en særlig form for haptisk sansning" (p.21) [a particular form of haptic sensation] within the viewer. Thomsen's emphasis on the haptic qualities of spectatorship stems from her own stated admiration for the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze (p. 13), whose two works of "cinematic philosophy," Cinéma 1: L'image-mouvement (Les Éditions de Minuit, 1983) and Cinéma 2: L'image-temps (Les Éditions de Minuit, 1985), have been influential in European and American film theory circles in recent years (see David Rodowick, Gilles Deleuze's Time Machine, Duke University Press, 1997). Deleuzeian criticism has been particularly appealing in the absence of a "grand theory" in academic film studies in the past few decades, since Deleuze's methodology and approach are wide-ranging and flexible, and eschew totalizing theoretical systems in favor of a more open-ended, Bergson-inspired treatment of the temporal, visual, and sensory dimensions of the cinematic medium. Thomsen's methodological approach seems to have borrowed from Deleuze's eclectic and open...