****PLEASE READ****
****i am not jorgen leth. i am a student of his films and like minded film makers. the following is an interview i found online. thank you.****
'I like the idea of how Muhammad Ali beat George Foreman by lying back on the ropes and absorbing the blows' Let's start with some credentials. Jorgen Leth is an award-winning film-maker. He is also a poet and a novelist. During the Tour de France he works as a commentator on Danish TV. His year is divided between his homes in Denmark (where he is a professor at the national film institute) and Haiti, where he serves as the honorary consul. In short he is a respected - even revered - cultural institution.Those watching The Five Obstructions, however, might be forgiven for seeing the 66-year-old in a different light. As engineered by Lars von Trier, the film puts Leth in the role of a clown, a stooge, a dupe. Von Trier's challenge is for Leth to direct a remake of his acclaimed 1967 short, The Perfect Human, with a few little impediments thrown in for good measure. These include shooting the film in the "most miserable place" that Leth can think of (which turns out to be the red light district of Bombay) and never holding a shot for longer than 12 frames (Leth is known for his lengthy, edit-free takes). When the director manages to overcome these hurdles, von Trier hits him with another. He orders him to go away and make "a crap cartoon". The Five Obstructions succeeds on so many levels. The way in which Leth completes his tasks is frequently ingenious (and his films-within-the-film are mini-masterpieces in themselves). But the picture is perhaps most fascinating as a psychological portrait of two very different men, pitting von Trier's Machiavellian malice against Leth's bewildered, Job-like doggedness. This is your classic struggle between a great attack and a great defence. "I did not want to be aggressive back," Leth tells me. "That is not natural for me. So I decided to lie back and listen to what he said and then respond to it. I like the idea of how Muhammad Ali beat George Foreman by lying back on the ropes and absorbing the blows." So he feels that he won the fight? "In a way, yes. And I think that Lars admits that too." At the end of the film, von Trier confesses that "it is always the attacker who is exposed."It turns out that Leth has known von Trier for many years. They have a history together. These days, of course, von Trier is renowned as the great agent-provocateur of world cinema, scandalising audiences with his Dogme doctrine, his Cannes-winning Dancer in the Dark and the Yank-bashing Dogville. But before that he was just another student at the film institute, where Leth was his mentor. Von Trier would later claim that Leth once snubbed him in the hallway, and that he nursed this grievance for years afterwards. "So maybe this film is his revenge on me," Leth says. "It's him killing his father. It's all very Oedipal." He admits that he was at times taken aback by the torments that his former pupil arranged for him. "I thought that Lars was very tough, but then he has always had a destructive streak in him. Of course a part of it is just him playing the villain, but another part of it is really him. He was trying to torpedo me at every turn." Would he say that von Trier is a natural sadist? Leth chuckles. "In a way, yes. He likes to torment and humiliate people. But it is double-edged. There is a purpose to it."The purpose, in this case, is an attempt to get at his mentor's "inner scream". Von Trier explains that he finds Leth's documentaries a tad too cerebral and detached for their own good. His obstructions were specifically designed to break Leth down, to put him in touch with his deepest emotions. "Lars has this crazy theory that truth comes out if you are broken. And I don't agree with that. It is a romantic and sentimental notion. He wanted me to break down. But it will not happen. Not with me."Leth goes on to explain that his documentaries are detached for a reason. "I'm an observer, not a participant. I hate documentaries that bring all the answers with them." He also returns fire on von Trier's own films. "I like most of his work, but not all of it. Some of the extreme melodramatic elements I do not like. I like Dogville very much. I am less fond of Dancer in the Dark."Despite their differences, however, there remains a warmth between the two men. "We share a lot of things, Lars and me. For instance, we share a great knowledge of depression and melancholy, and we correspond about that a lot. This gives a certain tenderness to our relationship, a family feeling." He pauses and sips his coffee. "Because I have a vast experience of depression myself. That's why I live in Haiti. It was a choice that came up at a time of great crisis in my life."Leth first visited Haiti in 1981. He relocated there ten years later, and is today installed as the honorary consul to the island. "It's an honorary position, not a paid position. It doesn't involve much work. A few public functions, and I have to help any Dane who gets into trouble on the island." Do many Danes visit Haiti? "Hardly any. Only my friends."Certainly it seems a strange place to find a sixtysomething Scandinavian intellectual. Leth says he was drawn to the place by its sensuality and generosity of spirit. "And the women too," he adds. "The women were a major attraction for me." He is also fascinated by the culture, particularly the voodoo scene. In recent years he has taken to filming voodoo ceremonies around the island. "People think of voodoo as very frightening, but it's not," he says. "The general experience of attending a voodoo ceremony is a feeling of warmth and humour. Of course, there is a frightening side to voodoo as well - the zombies, for instance. But I have no access to that side of it. They won't let me film that stuff because I am an outsider, a white man from Europe." So he's obstructed? "Exactly," says Leth. "That is the one obstruction I haven't been able to get around.Layout Created by Estabon
