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Breaking the Waves
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Lars von Trier
Produced by	Peter Aalbæk Jensen Vibeke Windeløv
Written by	Lars von Trier Peter Asmussen
Starring	Emily Watson Stellan Skarsgård Katrin Cartlidge Jean-Marc Barr Udo Kier
Cinematography	Robby Müller
Editing by	Anders Refn
Distributed by	October Films (USA)
Release date(s)	Cannes Film Festival: 18 May 1996 Denmark: 5 July 1996 United Kingdom: 18 October 1996 United States: 13 November 1996 Australia: 27 February 1997
Running time	159 min. 153 min. (director's cut)
Country	Denmark Sweden France Netherlands Norway Iceland Scotland
Language	English
Gross revenue	$3,803,298 (USA) [1]
Followed by	The Idiots

Breaking the Waves is a 1996 film directed by Lars von Trier and starring Emily Watson. Set in the Scottish Highlands in the early 1970s, it tells the story of an unusual young woman, Bess McNeill, and of the love she has for Jan, her husband. The film is an international co-production led by Lars von Trier's Danish company Zentropa. It is the first film in Trier's 'Golden Heart Trilogy' which also includes The Idiots from 1998 and Dancer in the Dark from 2000.

Plot

Breaking the Waves tells the story of Bess McNeill, who marries Norwegian oil rig worker Jan, despite the apprehensions of her community and Calvinist church. Bess is somewhat simple and childlike, and has difficulty living without Jan when he is away on the oil platform. She prays for his return, and when he returns paralyzed after an industrial accident, she believes it is her fault. No longer able to perform sexually, and mentally affected by the accident, Jan urges her to find and have sex with other men and then tell him the details. With each act of promiscuity she performs Jan's health improves. Bess slowly begins to believe that what she is doing is the will of God. She goes aboard a ship at anchor as a prostitute, but when the men try to have brutal sex with her she fights her way out. Learning that Jan has taken a turn for the worse Bess returns to the ship, is brutally gang raped and dies in hospital. Jan at this point miraculously makes a full recovery. The community treats her like a whore during her burial. Unbeknown to the community however Jan and his coworkers have replaced her body in the coffin with bags of sand, They take her actual body out to sea and inter her body in the ocean. Jan and his coworkers hear the peal of church bells coming from the sky in the middle of the ocean, signalling that she is accepted by God.

Cast

• Emily Watson as Bess McNeill
• Stellan Skarsgård as Jan Nyman
• Katrin Cartlidge as Dodo McNeill
• Jean-Marc Barr as Terry
• Adrian Rawlins as Dr. Richardson
• Jonathan Hackett as Priest
• Sandra Voe as Mother
• Udo Kier as Sadistic Sailor
• Mikkel Gaup as Pits
• Roef Ragas as Pim
• Phil McCall as Grandfather
• Robert Robertson as Chairman
• John Wark as Boy 2

Style

The film is influenced by the realist Dogme 95 movement, of which von Trier was a founding member, and its grainy images and hand-held photography give it the superficial look of a Dogme film. However, the Dogme rules demand the use of real locations, whereas many of the locations in Breaking the Waves were constructed in a studio.^{[citation needed]} In addition, the film is set in the past and contains dubbed music, as well as a brief scene featuring CGI, none of which is permitted by the Dogme rules. Von Trier's first true Dogme film was The Idiots.

The extreme use of cinéma vérité has been the cause of a number of viewers of this movie in the theater to become nauseated or suffer migraines.^{[citation needed]}

Production

Helena Bonham Carter was von Trier's first choice to play the role of Bess, but she dropped out just before shooting was to start, reportedly due to the large amount of nudity and sexuality required by the role.^[2] Melanie Griffith was also considered.

The exterior scenes were shot in Scotland: the graveyard was built for the film on Isle of Skye; the church is in Lochailort, the harbour in Mallaig, and the beach in Morar.^[3] The interiors were shot at Det Danske Filmstudie, Lyngby, Denmark.

Awards

Breaking the Waves won the Grand Prix at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival,^[4] and three awards at the 1996 European Film Awards including: Film of the Year, International Film Journalists Award, and European Actress of the Year (Watson). Emily Watson was nominated for the 1996 Academy Award for Best Actress, the 1997 British Academy of Film and Television Arts award, the National Society of Film Critics prize, and the European Film Award for Best Actress.

The movie was also named one of the ten best films of the decade by both Roger Ebert and Martin Scorsese during a show where the famous film personalities listed their top movies of the 1990s.

Box office

Released on November 13, 1996, the film has grossed just over $4 million in the US.^[5]

References

Bibliography

• Lars von Trier: Breaking the Waves, 1996, ISBN 0-571-19115-0.
• Ebbe Villadsen: Danish Erotic Film Classics (2005)

External links

• Breaking the Waves at the Internet Movie Database
• Breaking the Waves at Allmovie
• Breaking the Waves at Box Office Mojo
• Breaking the Waves at Rotten Tomatoes
• Breaking the Waves at Metacritic