Dogme 95 & Lars von Trier

[Lotus]

Simply for the satisfaction of my curiosity in people's opinions - genius or madman? Polemic discussions on differences between madmen and geniuses welcome :)

[rja211077]

Madman's an inappropriate word. Eccentric, certainly. Genius, possibly (I do think the word genius is greatly overused these days but he's certainly a talented and innovative filmmaker). The two are not mutually exclusive. It's like asking whether something is yellow or circular. It does seem that, despite his undoubted talents as a filmmaker, he's a difficult guy to work with. Witness his spectacular fall out with Bjork (not that I'm saying it was necessarily entirely his fault...obviously we don't know the ins and outs).

[Lotus]

Well, the reason for the word 'madman' was a simple one - according to a cerain psychological theory, abnormality is measured by the average on the IQ scale. So anyone below - or above the average IQ would be considered 'abnormal'. And from what I know about him, he is an incredibly intelligent person. So technically speaking, if one were to accept that definition of abnormality, you could use the word 'madman' in its colloquial meaning to describe him and his attitude to cinematography :) However, I do agree with you - incredibly eccentric and very talented. But do we think so just because we see him doing something different? And speaking of different, eccentric and talented - where do you stand on Almadovar and Takeshi Kitano?