Willem Dafoe is revisiting the “Antichrist” controversy greater than 15 years later.
Dafoe co-led Lars von Trier‘s 2009 movie, which facilities on a pair who grapple with the dying of their baby with Charlotte Gainsbourg. “Antichrist” is notorious for its scene of genital mutilation, and has since change into a staple in movie faculties in all places.
Dafoe mentioned throughout “The Louis Theroux Podcast” that “Antichrist” continues to be largely misunderstood by audiences.
“I feel it will get misidentified due to a few of its extremeness,” Dafoe mentioned, “however I feel it actually speaks to attention-grabbing issues about girls’s energy, males’s worry of ladies, the wrestle between the logical and the magical in life. There’s numerous sexual politics in it, and it’s not about misogyny in any respect.”
Dafoe added of von Trier, “I feel he identifies with the ladies greater than the person. I can let you know that as a result of I play the straight, logical one within the film. However I feel he’s genuinely curious and he’s an excellent filmmaker. So, you already know, the opening of that film and the epilogue of that film is nice cinema.”
Dafoe recalled that the Cannes premiere was well-received: “For cinephiles and for those that I’m eager about and have good dialogues with, they had been on this film,” he mentioned. “It’s not arrange as a crowd-pleaser.”
He added that the genital mutilation scene does “sounds horrible, however in context it’s fairly satisfying.”
Dafoe shared that von Trier was battling despair whereas making the function.
“He used to say to me every single day, ‘Hear, I is probably not there tomorrow, however I can direct you remotely from a trailer I’ve,’” Dafoe mentioned. “However he confirmed up every single day. However he wanted to inform me that every single day, me and Charlotte. It sort of breaks your coronary heart. So, he’s a man that struggles with many issues, however he’s acquired a giant coronary heart and he additionally has given quite a bit to cinema.”
Dafoe went on to argue that the controversial cultural legacy of “Antichrist” is indicative of a scarcity of nuanced discussions about trendy movie.
“Hear, there’s this drawback the place we cut back this stuff which are very advanced to sort of the warts, you already know? After which that’s what goes out,” Dafoe mentioned. “It’s notably an issue as actual movie criticism disappears and provides strategy to brief type and TikTok and influencers and all that. There’s not the dialogue that some movies of sophistication deserve. And you may say, ‘Ah, shut up be an actor, make a film,’ however I feel it’s an issue as a result of it’s starved cinema a little bit bit, that the high-minded cinema really makes method for the favored cinema.”
Dafoe confirmed that he nonetheless does “communicate with” von Trier. And whereas he mentioned von Trier has now been successfully “cancelled” after his feedback about Hitler on the 2011 Cannes premiere of “Melancholia,” Dafoe believes the auteur has “all the time been arrange as sort of this provocateur.” “Antichrist” star Gainsbourg additionally appeared in “Melancholia.”
“All people at Cannes helps that,” Dafoe mentioned, “and he simply crossed the road after which he acquired cancelled. That’s it. That’s finish of story.”
Von Trier later introduced in 2022 that he was identified with Parkinson’s illness, and will not return to filmmaking.
Dafoe himself has been “cancelled” to a level after starring in Martin Scorsese’s “The Final Temptation of Christ” in 1988. Dafoe revealed that as a result of “controversy” of the biblical function, he was dropped from a subsequent movie.
“Down the highway there was one challenge specifically that I used to be solid in and the studio un-cast me as a result of they didn’t like that I used to be related to ‘Final Temptation,’” Dafoe mentioned. “I don’t wish to do a giant crocodile tears about that as a result of it may have been a lot worse, however I didn’t really feel it a lot. I feel a lot of the accountability fell on Martin Scorsese. And I get censored on this, however I feel it’s actually true that someplace individuals suppose actors are sort of a little bit whore-ish they usually’ll do no matter to get function or one thing. In order that they don’t maintain you accountable by some means. They actually look to the director and the studio.”
And talking of the studio, Dafoe added that he thought it was a “disgrace” that the movie “didn’t get the distribution that deserved.”