Academic literature on the topic 'Antichrist (film)'

Lars von Trier’s chef-d’oeuvre Antichrist (2009) was immediately criticized, especially by pronounced feminist reviewers, for being misogynistic and excessivelyviolent. The article discusses these criticisms and argues that they bound in a failure to appreciate the aesthetic dimensions of the film. Instead, it is claimed that Antichrist can essentially be read as a dream that unfolds the primal scene (the child observing his parents having sex); in the prologue its angelic, liberating side, and throughout the rest of the movie its brutal and traumatic side. As such, Antichrist is an attempt at traversing the impossible relation between the sexes much more than it is a portrait of any particular traits of men or women.

AbstractIn 2002, film director Lars von Trier agreed to stage Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle in Bayreuth. The project was abandoned, however, after two years of preparation. For this article’s research, I conducted interviews with key persons involved with the project, not least Lars von Trier himself, and I was given access to unseen materials (documents, videotapes and other items) from the archives of Lars von Trier’s film company, Zentropa, which shed light both on the director’s plans for the production and on the process that would eventually spell the end of the project. The materials, however, turned out to illuminate not only what the opera world lost, but also what von Trier’s later films gained from his immersion into Wagner’s creative world. In this article I seek to map both the ill-fated process and explore the later benefits from it in the films Antichrist (2009), Nymphomaniac (2013) and, above all, Melancholia (2011), with its echoes of Wagner’s apocalyptic Götterdämmerung.

RESUMO O Anticristo, filme de Lars von Trier, lançado em 2009, mostra o desespero de um casal ao perder seu único filho. Extremamente polêmico e repleto de referências bíblicas - a começar pelo título -, é um filme que choca pelo incessante desespero de uma mãe em luto que parece carregar o peso do mundo em sua condição de mulher. A proposta deste artigo é fazer uma análise deste filme iluminando a culpa cristã historicamente atribuída à mulher e seus desdobramentos imediatos, como o feminicídio. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Análise Fílmica; Cristianismo; Feminicídio; O Anticristo. ABSTRACTAntichrist, film of Lars von Trier, released on 2009, shows the the despair of a couple to lose their only son. Extremely controversial and fraught with biblical references - beginning with the title -, it’s a film that shocked the unyielding despair a bereaved mother that seems to carry the weight of the world on his wife's condition. The purpose of this paper is to analyze of this film illuminating the christian guilt historically attributed to the woman and their immediate consequences, like the feminicide. KEYWORDS: Filmic Analysis; Christianity; Feminicide; Antichrist. RESUMEN Anticristo, pelicula de Lars von Trier, lanzada em 2009, muestra el desespero de una pareja cuando pierde su único hijo. Extremadamente polémica y llena de referencias bíblicas - empezando con el título -, es una película que sorprende al inquebrantable desesperación de una madre em luto que parece cargar el peso del mundo por ser mujer. El objetivo de este artículo es analizar esta película iluminando la culpa cristiana históricamente asignada a las mujeres y sus consecuencias inmediatas, como el feminicidio. PALABRAS CLAVE: Análisis fílmica; Cristianismo; Feminicidio; Anticristo.

Procuramos mostrar aqui como o filme Anticristo (Antichrist, 2009) do cineasta dinamarquês Lars von Trier pode ser analisado atentando-se para suas apropriações literárias. Destacaremos, assim, as relações que o filme estabelece com as elaborações estéticas e algumas obras do dramaturgo sueco August Strindberg e do dramaturgo alemão Bertolt Brecht. Também nos propomos a investigar como o estudo do foco narrativo apresentado pelo filme permitiria uma leitura destoante das que o filme tem recebido e como ferramentas da crítica literária possibilitariam apontar na obra uma armadilha ideológica central para sua interpretação.

RESUMO: Este estudo visa à análise da utilização de um recurso literário no cinema: o narrador não confiável. A apropriação cinematográfica do narrador – elemento épico por excelência – engendrou algumas mudanças significativas desse recurso, haja vista as diferenças entre a sétima arte e a literatura, e as necessidades de adequação aos gêneros. No entanto, essa apropriação também manteve traços essenciais das diversas espécies de narrador tão estudadas na ficção escrita. Isto posto, propõe-se uma investigação do narrador não confiável no filme Anticristo, de Lars von Trier, à luz de um narrador literário: Bento Santiago, do romance Dom Casmurro, de Machado de Assis. Não obstante a distância temporal, espacial e genérica (no sentido de gêneros literário e cinematográfico), a aproximação desses narradores elucida questões interessantes, como por exemplo a crítica proposta pelas obras e o modo com o qual ela se relaciona com os seus respectivos públicos. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: narrador não confiável, ponto de vista, foco narrativo. __________________________ ABSTRACT: This study aims to analyze the use of a literary mechanism in cinema: the unreliable narrator. The cinematic appropriation of the narrator – an epic element par excellence – produced significant changes of this narrative resource, as there are differences between literature and the seventh art, and there is a need of adjustment according to each genre. Nonetheless, this appropriation also has maintained essential aspects of the multiple sorts of narrators, which are studied in writing fiction. Therefore, it is proposed an investigation of the unreliable narrator of the movie Antichrist, by Lars von Trier, in the light of a literary narrator: Bento Santiago, from the novel Dom Casmurro, by Machado de Assis. Despite the temporal, spatial and generic (in the sense of different genres, the literary and the cinematographic) distance between the movie and the novel, the comparison of these two narrators clarifies interesting issues, such as the critique proposed by these works and the way in which it relates to their respective audiences. KEYWORDS: unreliable narrator, point of view, perspective.

The Danish film A Horrible Woman (orig. En frygtelig kvinde, 2017) marked a pattern that can be identified throughout several decades of Danish filmmaking. Examples are found in contemporary films like Antichrist (2009), as well as in earlier Danish films like The Abyss (1910) and Red Horses (1950). In these and other examples, women characters exhibit monstrous behavior that can be construed as a form of othering. Furthermore, othering women and mothers by presenting them as terrible, abnormal, or monstrous in Danish (popular) culture goes well beyond the silver screen. In this article, ‘mother–daughter scholars’ Mira Chandhok Skadegård and Tess Sophie Skadegård Thorsen explore how monstrosity functions as a tool for othering in film and other media, offering both a (generational) and historical view, and a discussion of current constructions of monstrosity, on and off screen, in Denmark. The article argues that monstrosity, as a symbol of power and violence, becomes a particularly oppressive gendered gesture. The authors examine this in a correspondence with one another. In letter form, with shifting analytical positions between mother and daughter, a dialogue emerges between generations on questions of ‘(m)otherhood’ in Danish film and other Danish contexts, transitions of female film characters from passive to aggressive, and the role of monstrosity in othering non-white immigrant ‘(m)others’ in public discourse. Finally, the article argues for a different approach to ‘monstrous othering’. Through a reparative reading, it discusses whether there is empowerment and agency connected to being ascribed monstrosity.

Apocacidal Tendencies: Three Excerpts from the Heaven's Gate Website 1995 (A term which blends apocalypse with suicide, apocacides could be best described as those groups or individuals who understand salvation from an imagined approaching armageddon to involve, indeed depend upon, the voluntary sacrifice of one's own life on earth.) 1. '95 Statement by An E.T. Presently Incarnate: "... We brought to Earth with us a crew of students whom we had worked with (nurtured) on Earth in previous missions. They were in varying stages of metamorphic transition from membership in the human kingdom to membership in the physical Evolutionary Level Above Human (what your history refers to as the Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven). It seems that we arrived in Earth's atmosphere between Earth's 1940s and early 1990s. We suspect that many of us arrived in staged spacecraft (UFO) crashes and many of our discarded bodies (genderless, not belonging to the human species), were retrieved by human authorities (government and military). Other crews from the Level Above Human preceded our arrival and 'tagged' -- placed a despite 'chip' -- in each of the vehicles (bodies) that we would individually incarnate into, when that instruction would be given. These 'chips' set aside those bodies for us ... In any given civilisation on a fertile planet such as Earth (and Earth has had many periodic/cyclical civilisations), the Level Above Human plants all the new life forms (including humans) for that civilisation in a neutral condition so that they have a chance to choose the direction of their growth. The Level Above Human -- or Next Level -- directly (hands on) relates significantly to the civilisation at its beginning stage, and subsequently (with few exceptions) at approximately 2000-year intervals (48-hour intervals from a Next Level perspective) until that civilisation's final 'Age.' ..." 2. Our Position Against Suicide: " ... We know that it is only while we are in these physical vehicles (bodies) that we can learn the lessons needed to complete our own individual transition, as well as to complete our task of offering the Kingdom of Heaven to this civilisation one last time. We take good care of our vehicles so they can function well for us in this task, and we try to protect them from any harm. We fully desire, expect, and look forward to boarding a spacecraft from the Next Level very soon (in our physical bodies). There is no doubt in our mind that our being 'picked up' is inevitable in the very near future. But what happens between now and then is the big question. We are keenly aware of several possibilities ... The true meaning of 'suicide' is to turn against the Next Level when it is being offered. In these last days, we are focused on ... entering the Kingdom of Heaven ..." 3. Last Chance to Evacuate Earth Before It's Recycled (Sept 29, 1996): "... I'm in a vehicle that is already falling apart on me, and I'm desperate to try to help you have a last chance to go ... I don't mean to make fun of this. I am desperate -- for your sakes. Within the past twenty-four hours I have been clearly informed by my Older Member of how short the remaining time is; how clearly we cannot concentrate on anything except the perspective that says: the end of this civilisation is very close. The end of a civilisation is accompanied by spading under, refurbishing the planet in preparation for another civilisation. And the only ones who can survive that experience have to be those who are taken into the keeping of the Evolutionary Level Above Human ..." Heaven's Gate -- http://www.trancenet.org/heavensgate/index.html Magnificat Meal Movement [Toowoomba, Australia] -- http://homepages.iol.ie/~magnific/ Apocaholic Cocktails: Mixing Visions of the End Armageddon Anonymous: Hidden Faces Plotting the End on Television The 1996 book release X-Files Confidential describes its subject matter as "'social-science fiction' ... fuelled by the realities -- and internal anxieties -- of [our] time: the era of diminished expectations", a television show which "concerns itself with the dark side of technology, competition, politics, ambition, and selfishness", warning against the "risks of abandoning an interior life or one's community" and reinforcing the notion that "our attempts to combat evil are usually an exercise in futility" though that "effort alone is significant". Unlike the participants within the apocaholic communities who intimate that the 'truth is with us', the X-Files, as an entertainment product of the secular industry, proclaims that the 'truth is out there'. This conceptual and narrative framework within the X-Files works on several levels: Frustrates resolution through contrived revelation; Frustrates revelation through contrived resolution; Identifies and resists externally imposed futures; Gives a narrative voice to marginalised hierarchies of genres, values and futures mythology, eg., those involving ufology, genetic mutations and the like; De-emphasises mainstream hierarchies of authority, genres, values and futures mythology; Suggests a regime of hidden truth, embedded within what initially appears as disconnected and unrelated phenomena; Implicates the mainstream future as conspiricist (i.e., the governments which control our futures do not have our interests at heart); Identifies the ritualistic reassurance set by the mainstream discursive strategy (e.g., "apology is policy"); Cultivates its own in-language, or futurespeak, where special terms refer to a future-oriented conspiracy of mammoth proportions. And, finally, it gives meaning to the millennium beyond a mere change in dates. All in all, the X-Files is popular and successful because it explores the possibilities of resolvable and unresolvable endings. It blurs the boundaries between the theological and the secular imaginings of the end. It borrows elements common to contemporary evangelicalism, endtime signs such as the mark of the beast, and gives them a plausible secular narrative. For example, whereas it might be difficult to suspend disbelief for a story that has a charismatic antichrist controlling the world through marking its population with 666, X-Files modernises the setting by creating a mysterious consortium of 12 elders who are in allegiance with some alien plan to initiate a scheduled holocaust. Such an organised drive towards armageddon involves genetic tagging of the populations through smallpox injections, little biochips which switch on and switch-off cancers, transportation of plague through bee stings and heavenly lights that harbour creatures with sinister purposes. In the X-Files, mainstream society is the cult whose future has been pre-organised by its real architects and whose adherents, the general populace, move through society blinded by ideas and doctrines of thought that Mulder sees as lies. His ultimate quest is find the truth, to reveal the future being secretly planned for the world. His quest involves reading the signs of the times in his encounters with the X-Files. Scully, whose initial introduction was to provide a sceptic balance to his quest, in fact provides a scientific rationale for Mulder's seemingly odd flights of fancy. In explaining Mulder's theories away in pseudo-scientific terms, Scully makes the unthinkable seem more plausible, and her character development from sceptic to believer provides the narrative added credibility for long-term viewers. If Scully can be convinced, then there must really be a hidden sinister future embedded beyond the mainstream outlook. Mainstream programmes such as these can in themselves throw wine of the proverbial armageddon fire. Both Star Trek and the X-Files were favourite pastimes for the Heaven's Gate Cult. Star Trek epitomised the ultimate open-ended humanist future, exploration of the unknown, while the X-Files epitomised the nature of this level, a conspiricist and closed future in which the world's only hope lay in the revealing of the sinister unknown before the great destructive end. Needless to say, X-Files-styled sites proliferate the Webscape in late 1999: Apocalypse Soon -- http://www.apocalypsesoon.org/english.html UFOs & Antichrist Millennium Bug Connection New World Order -- http://www.mt.net/~watcher/nwoy2k.html UFOs, Aliens & Antichrist: The Angelic Conspiracy & End Times Deception -- http://www.mt.net/~watcher/ "The Bible says that the b'nai Elohim, angels, sons of God, were ministers of creation, from before the worlds, Job 38:7. Contrary to popular secular theories, the b'nai Elohim are created beings distinct from ELOHIM the God of Israel. God created the b'nai Elohim to reflect His glory, and reflect His word which spoke all things into being. Before a third of the heavenly host rebelled, they were stewards of creation, building civilizations on the terrestrial planets of our solar system designed to glorify the Word of God. The Cydonia "face" is a monument constructed by these Sons of God, revealing their knowledge of the message in the stars. Both the Cydonia face and the Sphinx are cherubim, combining figures in the constellations Virgo and Leo, symbolic representations of the first and second advent of Christ on Earth." Satan's Plan to Escape Judgement -- http://www.mt.net/~watcher/hate.html "Previous pages explained how Satan was created to lead the angelic hierarchy, ruling over physical civilizations of angels on planets, such as the one still in evidence on Mars. After Satan rebelled, the center of his angelic civilization was destroyed "from among the stones of fire", yet the Bible tells us Satan is still waiting for the time of God's judgment. Satan is not in hell, he is still allowed audience before God, where he accuses the faithful (Rev.), and he still roams above and within the earth (Job). Since Satan is the most beautiful and powerful cherub, Prince of the Powers of the Air, intelligence behind UFO phenomena, the authority over all the aerial regions outward from earth..." The Millennium Group -- http://www.millenngroup.com/ Australia's Fair Dinkum Magazine -- http://unforgiven.iweb.net.au/~dinkum/ Eyes on the World -- http://eotw.orac.net.au/articles/index.html Antichrist / False Prophet -- http://members.tripod.com/jonastheprophet1/antipope.html "Antichrist will arise out of the British Monarchy within the context of the European Union/False prophet will arise out of the Vatican-Whore Church/Both will work together to build Satan's end time kingdom in these last and final days." 666 Sketch: The Mark of the Beast -- http://www.greaterthings.com/Essays/666mark.htm Conspiracy Books -- http://parascope.com/parastore/booksconspiracy.htm Corrupt Government, Conspiracy, New World Order, A Future? -- http://www.pushhamburger.com/ Dark Conspiracy -- http://www.blazing-trails.com/DarkConspiracies/welcome.html "Things have gotten really seriously convoluted. To try to follow some of the conspiracies requires a substantial amount of dedication. Any one thread can lead to so many other threads, eventually, maybe they will come together into a complete tapestry that could scare the bejabbers out of you." New World Order Conspiracy -- http://www.ufomind.com/para/conspire/nwo/ Silver Screen Endings: Blockbuster Profits in Apocalypse Gripped in a delirium of apocaholicism, contemporary secular society is exploring the conditions and consequence of endings. Mainstream presentations such as Independence Day, Event Horizon, Armageddon, End of Days, The Matrix and Deep Impact depict the notion of endings in elaborate and extravagant modes. Independence Day is a lesson in Orwellian doublethink -- it begins by destroying the very values it eschews at its closure. The statue of liberty, the White House, and the Empire State Building, all contemporary icons of western democratic and consumerist values, are brutally and spectacularly disintegrated. Yet the very core of the western meta-narrative, the maintenance of independence, which brought about the empowerment of these icons, is upheld throughout the film, leaving a critical viewer with the sense that what we are watching in this film is not the destruction of the world by some alien force -- certainly no other nation is depicted as so grossly devastated nor are any icons of other significantly known cultures destroyed -- but the annihilation of contemporary western icons: essentially, the death of icons. The values are constant, as emoted by the President of the United States towards the fiery conclusion of the movie, but the icons are unstable, susceptible to external disruption, unlike the proverbial humanist spirit. Hence, most audiences reacted gleefully to seeing famous landmarks blasted to smithereens -- this goes hand in hand I suspect with the prevailing social atmosphere cultivating change: do away with the current icons, they are no longer valid nor do they faithfully represent the social world around us, we require new ones to image our emerging spirit. Event Horizon is very different in content and style. It blends conventional theology with science fiction to create an incredible narrative about a starship so fast that it punches a hole through to hell and back. The concern throughout the film as the blood thickens is not with the collective end to society but rather with the very personal and private closure to individual life and the post-death experience. Other films, like Deep Impact and Armageddon, draw on the "worst bits" in the bible, to quote one trailer, and depict disturbing destructive images of the western metropolitan society, with dramatic wrangling over who will survive and how in order to establish a brave new world. What links these varying cinematic depictions of the end? Is it perhaps the imagined triumph of humanist spiritism, usually legitimised through the sacrificial offering of a main character in a film's final showdown? (Bruce Willis dies in Armageddon, Tea Leoni waits with her estranged father for the tidal wave in Deep Impact, and a half-drunk kamikaze pilot in an old biplane destroys the mothership at the close of Independence Day.) Being excessively popular, one needs to ask what role these films play within the collective social narrative of endism: do these films serve to quiet anxieties about the end by visualising human solutions to impossible destructive odds? Or do apocalyptic blockbusters market towards existing endtimes tension, reflecting the growing apocaholic nature of our societies as we near the close of the twentieth century and thereby, in true western capitalist fashion, profit from this cultural dysfunction? Or do films of this nature answer a more base, unacknowledged desire within our societies to see the end and survive? Event Horizon -- http://www.eventhorizonmovie.com/ End of Days -- http://www.end-of-days.com/ The Matrix -- http://www.whatisthematrix.com/ Deep Impact -- http://www.deepimpact.com/ Timeout: Clocking the Endtimes Christian End-Time Expectations -- Millennia Monitor -- http://www.fas.org/2000/endtime1.htm This resource provides links to a wide variety of Christian sources with a primary focus on millennial, apocalyptic, or other End Time expectations. Countdown 2000: Your Guide to the Millennium -- http://www.countdown2000.com/index.htm "As we approach the millennium, the world seems to be getting weirder. Countdown 2000 is packed with the latest news, hype, and hysteria. Where will the blow-out parties be? Will Y2K cause global havoc? How can I get involved in improving the world? Whatever the millennium and year 2000 mean to you, Countdown 2000 can help you learn what you want to know. Countdown 2000 is packed with over 150 pages, and 2500 links." Amazing Prophecy -- http://bibleprophecy.com/ Topics covered: Bible prophecy, rapture, tribulation, millennium, last days, end times, end of time, second coming, covenants, revelation, advent, antichrist, 666, parousia (appearing of Christ), preterist (fulfilled prophecy), eschatology (the study of last things), and many more. 888 Christ Come: Your Bible Prophecy Website -- http://www.888c.com/ Apocalists: The Tribulation Inbox Interesting things happen on discussion lists. Perhaps a more significant example of apocalyptic dissemination, capable of real-time feedback and iteration on endtime signs within every corner of the Web, millions on the bible highway speak of the premillennial tension that characterises contemporary cultural life and thousands more direct these lunges into apocalyptic extrapolation via discussion lists. Nowhere has the apocalyptic urge to image the end, to identify the sign of its approach, been more revitalised than on this electronic frontier: indeed, Apocalypse has an impressive online presence. Today, anyone can receive daily updates sent to their email inbox on the progress or nearness of the great endtimes tribulation, press releases of the latest armageddon publication list, prophecy ezines, the latest incarnation of the mark of the beast 666, new candidates for antichrist identification and revelation reports, to name but a few: Bible Prophecy Discussion List -- http://www.geocities.com/~dawn-/index.html Bible Prophecy-L was created as an open, moderated forum to discuss and share information related to end times Bible prophecy. Some of the topics you may find discussed are: Eschatology; Global Government; Global Religion and the New Age Movement; Rapture; Antichrist; Environmental Changes (earthquakes, tornados, volcanoes, freak storms, flooding etc.); Israel and the Middle East; Signs in the Heavens (UFOs, Comets, etc.); Pestilence (infectious diseases); Wars and Rumors of Wars; Prophecy Conference Updates ... etc. Bible Prophecy Report -- http://philologos.org/bpr Bible Codes News Update -- http://thebiblecodes.com/news/bcnu.htm Tribulation News -- http://www.tribnews.net/mir Conspiracy Journal -- http://www.members.tripod.com/uforeview/welcome.html Citation reference for this article MLA style: Jason Ensor. "Apocacide, Apocaholics and Apocalists: A Selective Webography of Endism." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2.8 (1999). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9912/apocacide.php>. Chicago style: Jason Ensor, "Apocacide, Apocaholics and Apocalists: A Selective Webography of Endism," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2, no. 8 (1999), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9912/apocacide.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Jason Ensor. (1999) Apocacide, Apocaholics and Apocalists: A Selective Webography of Endism. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2(8). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9912/apocacide.php> ([your date of access]).

This thesis highlights depicted motherhood in film. Antichrist is used as the primary object in my analysis, which is a film that has been vividly debated in the literature, beacuse of it's graphic content. To a large extent, this film has been discussed in relation to Lars von Triers intentions and previous works, but in this thesis the film and it's depicted motherhood is viewed through it's symbolic elements. These elements, when analysed in relation to film language and motherhood theory, point out the representation of an ambivalent nature of motherhood. The symbolic content in five different scenes, which is attributed to Her as a mother, is also found in other cultural and religious sources. I claim that this depicted ambigous motherhood is central to the films narrative. As a consequence, this thesis also unfolds the peripheral depicted fatherhood, an aspect in need of futher investigation.

Le développement simultané du cinéma et de la psychanalyse a donné lieu à de nombreuses études confrontant et associant ces deux sphères. Cette thèse interroge plus particulièrement le transfert comme phénomène se manifestant dans la rencontre entre le spectateur et le film, et s’appuie sur les théories de psychanalyse jungienne. À partir de la prise en compte d’un cinéma analytique, associant réflexivité et thématique psychologique, l’hypothèse émise est celle de la présence de « psychés-films », facilitant l’étude du phénomène de transfert dans l’expérience spectatorielle. À travers leur construction spatiale et temporelle et par leur constitution figurale, ces « psychés-films » s’apparentent à des psychés projetées à l’écran et visuellement accessibles. Dans son acception jungienne, le transfert est un phénomène transpersonnel aux conséquences psychiques et physiques et qui engage deux individus dont les inconscients communiquent entre eux. En mettant en évidence les spécificités d’un tel phénomène au cinéma, cette thèse interroge la possibilité d’envisager un inconscient propre au film, notamment à l’aide de théories d’esthétique du cinéma, et les conséquences éventuelles, dans le corps et dans la psyché, d’une rencontre transférentielle entre le spectateur et le film. Afin d’étudier la possibilité d’un transfert dans l’expérience spectatorielle, cinq films interprétables en tant que « psychés-films » sont analysés sous un angle jungien : Persona et L’Heure du loup, réalisés par Ingmar Bergman et Antichrist, Melancholia et Nymphomaniac, réalisés par Lars von Trier. Pour ce faire, cette recherche s’effectue suivant des perspectives psychanalytique (Jung, Ferenczi, Freud, Abraham et Török), esthétique (Brenez, Lefebvre, Vancheri) et philosophique (Damasio, Derrida), et par la prise en compte d’un spectateur idéal
The simultaneous development of cinema and psychoanalysis led to many studies confronting and associating these two fields. This thesis examines more specifically transference as a phenomenon arising in the encounter between spectator and film, and is based on Jungian psychoanalytic theories. Considering an analytic cinema, which associates reflexivity and psychological themes, I hypothesised the existence of “psyche-films”, enabling the study of the psychoanalytic transference within spectator’s experience. Through their spatial and temporal constructions and their figural composition, these “psyche-films” are akin to psyches projected on screen and visually accessible. According to Jung, transference is a transpersonal phenomenon with psychological and physical consequences, involving two individuals whose unconscious communicate together. Bringing out the characteristics of such a phenomenon, this thesis explores the possibility of considering the film’s own unconscious, in particular with the help of film aesthetics theories, and questions the consequences, inside body and psyche, that might be caused by the transferential encounter between spectator and film. In order to study the possibility of such a transference in the spectator’s experience, five films regarded as “psyche-films” are analysed using a Jungian perspective: Persona and Hour of the Wolf, directed by Ingmar Bergman and Antichrist, Melancholia and Nymphomaniac, directed by Lars von Trier. To this end, this research is performed using psychoanalytic (Jung, Ferenczi, Freud, Abraham and Török), aesthetic (Brenez, Lefebvre, Vancheri) and philosophical (Damasio, Derrida) perspectives, and considering an ideal spectator

Through the lens of the horror film and the fairy tale, this thesis explores the notion of the grotesque as a boundary phenomenon—a negotiation of what is self and what is other. As such, it locates the function that the monstrous and the grotesque have in the formation of a personal and social identity. In asking why we take pleasure in the perverse, I explore how permutations of guilt, victimhood, and desire can be actively rewritten, in order to construct a stable sense of self.

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This work is an analysis of the film Antichrist, by Lars von Trier, from the archetypal criticism proposed by Northrop Frye. The hypothesis is that the film uses narrative patterns whose matrix is biblical to organize his narrative. The first chapter deals with the film and the work of the director. In the second chap-ter, the first step is to define what archetype means in literature, with authors who have worked with the concept. Then our main theory is presented in the work of the Canadian critic Northrop Frye. The third chapter, finally, is an analysis of the film from three different approaches: gender, in which we discuss the tragedy in Anti-christ; mode, in which the narrative of the film is perceived in the tension between the realistic and mythic narratives; and images, in which patterns of imagery stand out from the film in relation to vertical poetic, to the woman and the erotic relation-ship and to the nature and the garden
Este trabalho é uma análise do filme Anticristo, de Lars von Trier, a partir da crítica arquetípica proposta por Northrop Frye. A hipótese é a de que o filme recorre a pa-drões narrativos cuja matriz é bíblica para organizar sua narrativa. O primeiro capítulo aborda o filme e a obra do diretor. No segundo capítulo, a primei-ra etapa consiste em definir o que arquétipo significa em literatura, apresentando os autores que trabalharam com o conceito. Em seguida, é apresentada nossa teoria principal na obra do crítico canadense Northrop Frye. O terceiro capítulo, por fim, é uma leitura do filme a partir de três eixos: gênero, no qual se discute a tragédia no Anticristo; modo, no qual a narrativa do filme é percebida em sua tensão entre as nar-rativas realista e mítica; e imagens, no qual se destacam padrões imagéticos do filme em relação à poética vertical, à mulher e a relação erótica e à natureza e o jardim

Written and directed by Lars von Trier, one of the most influential and provocative filmmakers working today, Antichrist (2009), tells a story of parental loss, mourning and despair that result from the tragic death of a child. When the film screened at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, it split audiences down the middle. Some attacked von Trier for misogyny (amongst other things), while others defended him for creating a daring and poetic portrait of grief and separation. Dense, shocking, and thought-provoking, Antichrist is a film which calls for careful analysis. The book follows an account of the film's making with an in-depth consideration of the themes and issues arising from it — the ambiguous depiction of the natural world, the shifting gender power relations, its reflections on Christianity and the limitations of rationality. At the film's heart, says the author, is a heart-breaking depiction of grief-stricken parents, a confounding interplay between psychology and psychosis, misogyny, and empowerment.

The use of hard-core sex and brutal violence in films such as Antichrist, Romance and Irreversible has been branded by many as an unsophisticated attempt to attract audiences. These accusations of gimmickry have been directed towards a range of extreme art films, however they have rarely been explored in detail. This book therefore seeks to investigate the validity of these claims by considering the extent to which these often infamous sequences of extremity inform the commercial identity of the film. Through close textual analysis of various paratexts, the book examines how sleeve designs, blurbs, and special features manage these extreme reputations, and the extent to which they exploit the supposed value of extremity. The book positions the tangible home video product as a bearer of meaning, capable of defining the public persona of the film. The book explores the ways home video artefacts communicate to both highbrow and lowbrow audiences by drawing from contradicting marketing traditions, as well as examining the means through which they breach long-standing taste distinctions. Including case studies from both art cinema and exploitation cinema – such as Cannibal Holocaust, Salò, Or the 120 Days of Sodom, Weekend and Antichrist – the book explores the complicated dichotomies between these cinematic traditions, offering a fluid history of extreme art cinema while challenging existing accounts of the field. Ultimately, the book argues that extremity – far from being a simple marketing tool – is a complex and multifaceted commercial symbol.

This concluding chapter looks at the critical reception of Lars von Trier's Antichrist (2009). Despite the efforts of some to dismiss the film as a prank, Antichrist is an astonishing film of rage and hopelessness, and its disturbing extremes speak of broad and deeply felt moral, social, and, ultimately, political anxieties. Compared with von Trier's previous films, Antichrist feels like a calculated provocation, begging audiences to question, both intellectually and viscerally, the limits of faith or ethics or whatever it is that makes one draw a line between good and evil. Still, how one sees, understands, and reacts to the film depends to a very large extent on what attitudes, beliefs, and prejudices one brings to it. Antichrist is essentially a film about misogyny. By revealing (via extreme exaggeration) the structure of patriarchal domination, the film critiques the tendency of mainstream films that represent women as needing to be disciplined by a rational male figure. In this respect, Antichrist has a considerable amount of feminist value to offer, and it should be explored as a complex net of sometimes contradictory meanings that expose the representation of the female gender within cinema and the fears connected to it.

This chapter offers a detailed analysis of Lars von Trier's Antichrist (2009). In some respects, Antichrist is a deceptive title, implying a simple reversal of the Christian opposition between good and evil, yet the film should, in part, be understood in a context more complicated than that of Christianity, or even New Age pseudo-paganism. It occupies a unique territory, somewhere between horror film and psychodrama, where themes such as misogyny, maternal ambivalence, madness, and lust permeate a ruptured dreamscape with a sustained and unique oddness. Hence, the world of the film is, in a sense, gothic and fantastic; a mode particularly suited for expressing a heady mix of ‘unconscious desire, repressed energies and antisocial fantasies’. The gothic space is also a sight of seduction, sexual transgression, cruelty, humiliation, and death; themes that are all reworked and recombined in Antichrist's dramatic atmosphere. Ultimately, what makes Antichrist stick with audiences is the potent undertow, the sense of loss, guilt, and despair that pervades the locations and plasters itself across the mother's grieving face.

This introductory chapter provides an overview of Antichrist (2009). Written and directed by Lars von Trier, Antichrist tells a story of parental loss, mourning, and despair that result from the tragic death of a child. The two main characters in the film are not specifically named; their distinction in the credits is only by their gender; ‘She’, a researcher into witchcraft and gynocide (Charlotte Gainsbourg), and ‘He’, a cognitive therapist (Willem Dafoe). The film is divided into four chapters — ‘Grief’, ‘Pain (Chaos Reigns)’, ‘Despair (Gynocide)’, and ‘The Three Beggars’ — book-ended by a prologue and an epilogue. Challenging his audience emotionally and psychologically, von Trier's oeuvre has focused predominantly on female characters suffering incredible social duress. In Antichrist, one encounters perhaps von Trier's bleakest vision and his darkest, angriest film to date, where accusations of misogyny were again a source of controversy, born of the black depression into which he had admittedly sunk. The chapter then presents a brief biography of von Trier, which gives a clear picture of von Trier's artistic motivations and offers an insight as to how the director capitalised on numerous factors to bring Antichrist to the screen.

This chapter explains that at the centre of Antichrist's (2009) thematic agenda is the female character's body, providing the object for her husband's rivalry over its control. Throughout the film, the woman's transgressive sexual appetite produces excitement and feelings of liberation, then harm and guilt, and finally complete psychic chaos and self-destruction. Her body is also seen as the site of potential danger, where female sexuality itself is an assault on the male ego. Certainly, Lars von Trier wants the audience to be shocked and repulsed, but he is also forcing them not only to register the felt intensities of the characters, but also to question why these representations of violence seem to work so effectively to alienate the audience. In this way, Antichrist grafts its disconcerting metaphors of male—female power struggles onto its narrative of excess, in order to interrogate issues such as sexual violence, female emancipation, and the crisis of masculinity.

Lars von Trier role as a provocateur, although well established, is central to his paratextuality. Approaching his performances in the film festival space as additional paratexts, the chapter shows how the director adds a transgressive capital to his films through these external acts. The chapter then instigates a detailed paratextual study of Antichrist. The chapter illustrates how Chelsea Films, a sub-branch of the larger Curzon conglomerate, adopts a generic horror schema for its paratextual presentation of Antichrist. Discussing the ramifications of the company’s decision to position a pair of bloody scissors on the film’s cover, the chapter concludes that the use of a horror narrative image simplifies the text and nullifies its arthouse credentials. Thereafter, the chapter explores Artificial Eye’s remediation, suggesting that the company are unsuccessful in their attempt to redefine the film within the parameters of art cinema. Finishing with an exploration of the film’s involvement in the Film4 Extreme Season, the chapter highlights the differences between the commercial representation of extremity on DVD and Television, showing the latter to be more flexible.

The chapter provides a close reading of “Answer to a Reproof,” and Cunard’s reputation as a poet who rejected Western culture as she strove to define herself in relation to it as an outlaw. The chapter suggests Cunard uses the figure of Thamar, in the role of Antichrist, “as mistress of sexual excess, embodying female agency in the extreme,” as muse. Marcus also gives an analysis of Cunard’s representation in film and other media as a femme fatale and Ezra Pound as an early influence and male mentor, she would grow suspicious of and go on to reject.

This chapter explores a previously overlooked area in von Trier, Dogma95, and Vinterberg scholarship by investigating the industrial and aesthetic practices, generic elements, and themes that make up their collective “Amerika” elsewhere. Where the two Danish directors’ American references have often been passed off as auteurist provocations, this chapter addresses the tensions and contradictions between the films’ European locations and American settings and the discursive play between Scandinavian and European “art” cinema and American genres (the musical, the western, gangster, horror, and science-fiction/disaster film) to expose a counter-hegemonic transnational politics. Films under discussion, including Dancer in the Dark, Dogville, Manderlay Antichrist, Melancholia, It’s All about Love, Dear Wendy, are all set in an imagined USA, a country von Trier has never visited. Their settings are more often delocalized and blatantly mythical and inspired by a distantiated and critical, Kafkaesque and Brechtian, perspective – of “Amerika.”

Much of this chapter focuses on the melodramatic genre and its application in contemporary extreme cinema. Melodrama typically involves loss, and/or a character that arrives too late. In Linda Williams’s notion of the “body genres,” these are films designed to elicit tears, and they frequently revolve around family. However, these are narrative concerns and therefore speak to emotions—particularly sadness. Extreme Cinema attempts to demonstrate how contemporary practices might embellish emotive narrative content with affecting cinematic techniques. Lars von Trier’s 2009 film Antichrist, for instance, is about the death of a child and how the parents of the deceased child negotiate their grief, anger, and guilt. Von Trier visualizes the overwhelming anxiety and suffering by means of hyper-stylization—exaggerated colours and lighting, audio design, slow-motion, rapid-fire editing, extreme close-ups, etc. Also discussed is the work of Japanese filmmaker Shion Sono, particularly his films Strange Circus and Why don’t you play in hell?.