Lars von Trier's Women [Paperback]

The Danish director Lars von Trier is undoubtedly one of the world's most important and controversial filmmakers, and arguably so because of the depiction of women in his films. He has been criticized for subjecting his female characters to unacceptable levels of violence or reducing them to masochistic self-abnegation, as with Bess inBreaking the Waves, 'She' inAntichristand Joe inNymphomaniac. At other times, it is the women in his films who are dominant or break out in violence, as in his adaptation of Euripides'Medea, the conclusion ofDogvilleand perhaps throughoutNymphomaniac.Lars von Trier's Womenconfronts these dichotomies head on. Editors Rex Butler and David Denny do not take a position either for or against von Trier, but rather consider how both attitudes fall short of the real difficulty of his films, which may simply not conform to any kind of feminist or indeed anti-feminist politics as they are currently configured. Using Lacanian psychoanalysis and acknowledging the work of prior scholars on the films,Lars von Trier's Womenreveals hidden resources for a renewed 'feminist' politics and social practice.

Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Feminine Act and the Question of Woman in Lars von Trier's Films - Rex Butler (Monash University, Australia) and David Denny (Marylhurst University, USA)
Chapter 1: Performing the Feminine - Linda Badley (Middle Tennessee State University, USA)
Chapter 2: Feminimity: Between Goodness and Act - Slavoj }i~ek (University of Ljubljana, Yugoslavia)
Chapter 3: Listening toDancer in the Dark: Singing as Recalling the World - Ulrike Hanstein (Bauhaus-Universit?t Weimar, Germany)
Chapter 4: A Woman's Smile - Rex Butler (Monash University, Australia)
Chapter 5: Female Fight Club: Lars von Trier's Women and the Paradox of Being - Sheila Kunkle (Metropolitan State University, USA)
Chapter 6: Cruelty and the Real: The female figure inOrchid?garlcZ