A daring, more experimental video, on the uses of music and sound, the push and pull of the combination of musical and melodramatic genres in Lars Von Trier´s Dancer in the Dark:

Creator´s Statement:

Drawing on various writings around the importance and diegesis of the musical number combined with research around Von Trier’s portrayal of the female, the Dogme 95 movement and drawing on Arroyo’s idea of the melodrama musical and the offset between expression and repression, I have created a shortened edited version of Von Trier’s 2000 musical Dancer In The Dark omitting the musical numbers from the film and Selma’s voice entirely to explore these above points. How integral are the songs to the story’s plot? Without the privileged view inside Selma’s head, do we feel she is repressed, both by herself and the world around her? What benefit do the musical numbers provide for us an audience and Selma as a character? In addition, I have mapped the sounds that begin each musical number in the film. By cutting the musical numbers the song can simply no longer be expressed and pass us by, instead the sound remains trapped, like a thought repressed.