Dancer in the Dark
Short description
Set in the United States in 1964, Dancer in the Dark follows Selma Jezkova, a Czech immigrant and single mother working in a factory. She is losing her sight to a hereditary condition, and her young son Gene faces the same fate unless she can pay for an operation. Selma saves what she can, and she escapes her hard circumstances by retreating into the Hollywood musicals she loves, imagining song-and-dance numbers in the sounds around her. When a neighbour in financial trouble takes her savings, her situation turns desperate.
Lars von Trier wrote and directed the film, the seventh of the seventeen features he has directed, coming between The Idiots and Dogville. Björk plays Selma, with Catherine Deneuve as Kathy, David Morse as Bill Houston, Peter Stormare as Jeff, Joel Grey as Oldrich Novy and Cara Seymour as Linda Houston, among a credited cast of 71 and crew of 126. Made for about 13 million US dollars, it took roughly 40 million worldwide. On IMDb it holds 7.9 from 123,000 votes, on TMDB 7.8 from 2,076, while a critics' rating stands at 7.3 from 120 reviews, so audiences rate it slightly higher than critics do.
What's left behind the scenes
- The role of Katie was originally intended for an African-American actress, but for the sake of Catherine Deneuve, who very much wanted to participate in Lars von Trier's new project, he rewrote the script.
- At the beginning of the film, in the scene where workers leave the factory, a man and a woman with two children can be noticed near the parking lot. The woman is Bente von Trier, the director’s wife, and the children are Lars von Trier’s two sons.
- Trier wanted to make a cameo appearance in the film – he was supposed to play an angry man scolding Selma and Katie in a cinema, but he later gave the role to another actor.
- Initially, Stellan Skarsgård was supposed to play Jeff, but due to his commitment to "Aberdeen" (2000), he appeared in only two scenes as Dr. Selma.
- The judge's name is E.D. Mantle. This is a tribute to Anthony Dod Mantle, who was the cinematographer on three films related to the Dogme 95 movement ("The Celebration" (1998), "Mifune's Last Song" (1999), and "Julien Donkey-Boy" (1999)).
- At the beginning of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" (1998), the song "My Favourite Things" plays, which also appears in "Dancer in the Dark" (2000). As the characters in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" drive to this song, they pass a sign that reads "Selma."
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