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- Title
Blind Spots and Double Vision National and Individual Fantasy in Dancer in the Dark.
- Authors
Wohl, Victoria
- Abstract
This paper explores the relation between individual and national fantasy in Dancer in the Dark. The film's innovative musical numbers purport to take us inside Selma's head and show us her intimate visions. These spectacular visions highlight the brutal realities of Selma's life, revealing the "cruel optimism" of the immigrant's psychic investment in the American dream. They also show the extent to which a bankrupt nation depends upon that investment. Drawing attention to its own cinematic technique, Dancer suggests the complicity of film in this ideological melodrama and exposes the political risks and possibilities of von Trier's subjective cinematic style.
- Subjects
DANCER in the Dark (Film); VON Trier, Lars, 1956-; FANTASY films; IMMIGRANTS in motion pictures; MELODRAMA in motion pictures
- Publication
Theory & Event, 2015, Vol 18, Issue 2, p1
- ISSN
2572-6633
- Publication type
Film/Television Criticism