European Cinema. Face to Face with Hollywood

Abstract

Taken from a still depicting Nicole Kidman in Lars von Trier's Dogville (2003), the cover illustration of Thomas Elsaesser's latest publication provides an introduction to some of the characteristics and paradoxes of the relationship between European cinema and Hollywood which the book sets out to explore. The image comes from a film which is ostensibly a critique of small-town America, but which also can be seen to comment on the ‘fortress’ mentality in today's Europe. Dogville was produced through the complex processes of independent filmmaking in the EU, combining small-scale entrepreneurship and an internationally acclaimed auteur with (sub- as well as supra-) national funding schemes. At the same time the film uses American-accented English dialogue and Hollywood stars such as Kidman and Lauren Bacall. In its length, its arch rhetoric and its Brechtian deconstruction of illusionist techniques, von Trier's film defiantly champions the traditions of European art cinema, yet its narrative draws on Hollywood genres such as the classical gangster film and the rape-revenge movie.

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