No sex. No danger. No guilt. What would Freud say?
One
night not long ago I sat at my
computer, unable to get started on an article I was writing about the economic viability of the Russian space program. So I decided to visit a mall. On the escalator, I was standing behind a woman who was talking sternly to a little girl, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying. I decided to purchase laundry detergent. But I went into a shoe store instead, and the salesman told me the store did not carry detergent. I realized I was in Denver, though I wasn’t sure why. I went outside. It began to rain, but not very hard, just an inconsequential drizzle.
Are you asleep yet? Well, I was. This is how I dream: long, pointless narratives that start insignificantly, slog through meaningless details in textureless surroundings and
end without resolution. No sex. No danger. No guilt. No intrigue. If Freud was right that dreams are unfulfilled longings, then I apparently long to be bored witless.
I once dreamt about being unable to fall asleep. That lasted for hours; I awoke exhausted. I have dreamt about eating dinner, forkful by forkful, usually something bland like macaroni and cheese. I have dreamt about refinishing furniture. Using spell-check. Going to the bathroom.
I used to be embarrassed by my dreams, but no more. That is because I just got off the phone with Lars von Trier, the reigning genius of European avant-garde filmmaking. I reached him at his studio in Hvidovre, Denmark.
Von Trier’s films have been described as being filled with “ doom-haunted surrealism” and containing “a distinctive blend of film noir and German Expressionism.” He directed
Dogville, with Nicole Kidman.
I described my dream about the mall and escalator and shoe store, exactly as I wrote it above, and asked him if it might make a good movie. Lars So, you are pitching it? Me Exactly. Lars Well, it is very good, a very good picture. We just need to make it a little more dreamlike. Me More dreamlike? Lars Yes, avant-garde is taking things that are very clear and making them difficult, as opposed to American filmmaking, which is making difficult things simple. It is good that you have only a light drizzle. It is very European that it rains only a little. I like it. In an American film, it would rain very much. I could make the film. It would get a lot of support from European countries, much funding from Europe. They would give me a lot of money, but there would be no spectators at all. Me Spectators? Lars No one would come to see the film. But that is good. It would tell me I am on the right track. We European filmmakers feel we are better than our audiences. Me Wow. Can I tell you a dream I had last night? Lars Yes, please. Me I was walking my dog when I suddenly realized we were in vaguely unfamiliar surroundings. People were eating ice cream cones — though, curiously, I didn’t see a store where they might have purchased them. I went into a library, and they told me the dog would have to wait outside. So I left the dog outside, and went back inside and asked for a book on mountain climbing. I’m not sure why because I have never wanted to climb a mountain. I checked the book out and was reading it on the way home when I realized I’d forgotten my dog. So I went back. The dog was there, so I took him home. He was limping a little, which worried me, but not that much because he is very old. Lars That is fantastic! Me It is? Lars It is a little more mainstream. You start by thinking there is no point, but then comes the point, with the dog. You see? Me Uh … Lars It is a horror film. In the beginning something terrible happens, but then it turns out good. You find the dog. An American producer will like that. You can make a film about Iraq, so you invade Iraq, but you forget about the Iraqis, and they’re limping a little at the end. You see? Me … Lars Actually, I am worried about the dog limping, if you are going to market it in the United States. American films will show a lot of guns and people killed in sadistic ways, but not a dog that doesn’t feel well. I’m afraid you will have to take that out.