Lars von Trier on David Lynch | Louisiana Channel

In this short video Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier shares his admiration for the Twin Peaks TV series and tells a funny story of a failed meeting with its director, David Lynch.

Lars von Trier was inspired by David Lynch’s series ‘Twin Peaks’ when making The Kingdom (1994). What fascinates Trier about Twin Peaks is how it is told and never reveals an overall meaning behind the events going on in the series. “It's based on the assumption that you expect all these peculiar things happening at the end will lead to a greater meaning. He (David Lynch, red.) never intended that,” Trier says. Lynch “tried to finish it both with a feature film and another series but it was never his intention, he's made it a point that it doesn't come together in the end,” von Trier states. “The funniest thing is to tease and not reach a conclusion.”

When Trier was invited to meet David Lynch at the Film School in Copenhagen, he sees Lynch sitting in a room “with a couple of suits who looked like Jehovah's Witnesses.” Trier decides to hide in a nearby office under the desk table, where he stayed laying on the floor for an hour: Afterwards, Lars von Trier manages to escape unseen. “I can't take seeing the alliance between something that I admire this much and something I admire this little,” he says.

Lars von Trier (b.1956) is a Danish film director and screenwriter, whose prolific career spans almost four decades. His pivotal work is known for its technical innovation and examination of existential, social, and political issues in movies such as ‘The Element of Crime’ (1984), ‘Europa’ (1991), ‘Breaking the Waves’ (1996), ‘The Idiots’ (1998), ‘Dancer in the Dark’ (2000), ‘Dogville’ (2003), ‘Antichrist’ (2009), ‘Melancholia’ (2011), Nymphomaniac (2013) and ‘The House That Jack Built’ (2018). He is also the creator of the TV series ‘The Kingdom’ (1994-1997) and one of the creators of the innovative Dogma 95 style manifesto (along with e.g. Thomas Vinterberg), which has since marked Danish and European film alike. Among his numerous awards at film festivals worldwide, Trier has received the Palme d’Or, the Grand Prix, Prix du Jury, and The Technical Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as The University of Copenhagen’s DKK 1 million Sonning Prize 2018. In 2018 Brandt Museum in Odense, Denmark presented a major exhibition providing a retrospective overview of the work of Trier: ‘Lars von Trier – The good with the evil’. Trier is also the founder and shareholder of the international film production company Zentropa Films. In 2022 Lars von Trier will release the third part of ‘The Kingdom’, entitled ‘The Kingdom Exodus’.

Lars von Trier was interviewed by Christian Lund at his home outside Copenhagen in November 2020.

Camera: Jakob Solbakken & Rasmus Quistgaard
Edit: Kasper Bech Dyg
Produced by Christian Lund
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2020
Supported by Nordea-fonden

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[jevinday]

It makes me so sad to see him shake like this. I love you Lars, you have changed my entire life. Like I can't even explain it, he is my favorite filmmaker ever. I hope you hang in there for a little longer, if not that's okay too. I can feel your pain dude.

[billt]

I love his art. Hurts me when seeing him shaking like this. Hangin there, Lars.

[aleckredfearn]

It's funny that the David Lynch story sounds like a scene out of Riget.

[jordanmoscovitch]

It's actually a very Lynchian story.

[larsvonfan]

heartbreaking seeing him like this.
my grandfather passed away last year at 70 cuz of parkinsons

[KussePikken]

Absolutely honest and wonderful. The fall of his admiration. I love it !!

[guyologist]

“I can tell you a really funny story about Lynch.”

* tells a story about himself *

[plasmaarmelund]

Lars has deep admiration for David Lynch.

[danilocaposeno]

That's exactly what happen to me when I went to a transcendental meditation "presentation" (except for the desk thing), I saw Lynch with Donovan and a lot of other personality, try to sell some second hand Indian spirituality with a telesales-man attitude. I don't know if it was the cultural difference between european and usa way of selling things, but it was painful to watch, because I love Lynch as a director and as a philosopher... I decided to send this experience in to The Black Lodge, I’ll think about it in 25 years.

[sgalabarda]

Wow...this story is really bizzare and I really understand him

[limpicatto]

It's easy to understand: Lynch was selling "transcendental meditation" that day, surrounded by phonies. Von Trier didn't like that. He never said he didn't liked Lynch's work. It's all about that "transcendental meditation" company or corporation.

[muffinsauce]

I wanna give this guy a hug, some chocolates, and a stern handshake. I think he needs it.

[miguelvidalmartinez]

"I did it for me. I liked It. I was good at it. I was really…I was alive."

[gomcocramp]

so this is where the scene in RIGET comes from... where the hospital's director is hiding under his desk -

[THEEARWAX]

Went and saw Lost Highway on the big screen for the first since it came out Loved it even more this time

[roddck]

good that Kingdom comes together in the end

[JonathanNelsonOfficial]

I love the backlash Lars gets for voicing his thoughts. He disrupts the illusions people live in and they strike like vipers at him. I love some things David Lynch has done, but I find it totally accurate that he went from thinking he was the goat to being an ice cream salesman. Funny.

[normalhispanicdude]

I thought revival was absolutely great. I love it more than the first one.

[DJGamingSmash]

Even after hearing and seeing this, I still wholeheartedly love both David Lynch and Lars Von Trier, hope LvT pulls through with whatever medical thing appears to be happening with him, wish him the best. While I personally disagree from what I've seen and the brilliant solutions to mysteries Lynch has cleverly improvised without compromising his interpretive dream logic, I don't hold him on as much of a pedestal to ignore that what Trier saw may have been accurate, but I wasn't there, so I can't tell you if he's right or wrong, only about what I've seen from films. Also, Trier also has a tendency to avoid answers questions in his films ("AntiChrist" does not have a clear-cut answer to it's mystery, like Lynch, he keeps it metaphorical) so I'm surprised to hear he feels this way. Best of luck to all.

[outernothingness]

Sad to see this. Ten years younger than Lynch, and he appears fifteen years older.