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Melancholia’s End

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The Films of Lars von Trier and Philosophy

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Abstract

Through an examination of the planetary disaster organizing Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia, this essay probes both the stakes of depicting the end of the world and the competency of those in the humanities to undertake such analysis. At bottom, the following draws on Jacques Derrida’s 1984 “No Apocalypse, Not Now (Full Speed Ahead, Seven Missiles, Seven Missives),” as well as more contemporary discussions of Melancholia, in order to accentuate the singularity of the film’s ending, the “necessary” fictional status of the total apocalypse, and the capacity of those who study the expansive literary archive to engage with “real-world” matters.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For a thorough discussion of the allegorical and literal stakes of the film, see Peterson (2013) and Elsaesser (2016).

  2. 2.

    The scene is also consistent with von Trier’s expressed desire in his director’s statement (2011) “to dive headlong into the abyss of German romanticism. Wagner in spades.” Shaviro (2012) sees this as the film’s general rejection of modernism.

  3. 3.

    I am here using the term “source” as it relates to act of believing that Derrida (1998) argues is intrinsic to scientific knowledge and religion. For a meticulous reading of “Faith and Knowledge” and its connection to Derrida’s oeuvre, the history of philosophy, and the teletechnical mediascape, see Naas (2012).

  4. 4.

    On the deployment of numeric assessments as a systematic effort to eliminate belief in post-secondary education, see Kamuf (2007).

  5. 5.

    Shaviro (2012, 29) additionally notes the reverberations with “chaos reigns” from Antichrist as it encapsulates the imagery that Justine chooses to replace John’s display of modernist art.

References

  • Blanchot, Maurice. 1986. The Writing of the Disaster. Trans. Ann Smock. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

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  • Derrida, Jacques. 1998. Faith and Knowledge: The Two Sources of ‘Religion’ at the Limits of Reason Alone. Trans. Samuel Weber. In Religion, eds. Jacques Derrida and Gianni Vattimo, 1–78. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

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  • ———. 2007. No Apocalypse, Not Now (Full Speed Ahead, Seven Missiles, Seven Missives). Trans. Catherine Porter and Philip Lewis. In Psyche: Inventions of the Other I, eds. Peggy Kamuf and Elizabeth Rottenberg, 387–410. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

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  • Elsaesser, Thomas. 2016. Black Suns and a Bright Planet: Melancholia as Thought Experiment. In Politics, Theory, and Film: Critical Encounters with Lars von Trier, ed. Bonnie Honig and Lori J. Marso, 305–355. New York: Oxford University Press.

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  • Kamuf, Peggy. 2007. Accounterability. Textual Practice 21 (2): 251–266.

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  • ———. 2010. Competent Fictions: On Belief in the Humanities (working paper).

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  • Naas, Michael. 2012. Miracle and Machine: Jacques Derrida and the Two Sources of Religion, Science, and the Media. New York: Fordham University Press.

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  • Peterson, Christopher. 2013. The Magic Cave of Allegory: Lars von Trier’s Melancholia. Discourse 35 (3): 400–422.

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  • Shaviro, Steven. 2012. Melancholia, or, The Romantic Anti-Sublime. Sequence 1(1): 1–58. http://reframe.sussex.ac.uk/sequence/files/2012/12/MELANCHOLIA-or-The-Romantic-Anti-Sublime-SEQUENCE-1.1-2012-Steven-Shaviro.pdf. Accessed 27 Feb 2019.

  • Szendy, Peter. 2015. Apocalypse-Cinema: 2012 and Other Ends of the World. Trans. Will Bishop. New York: Fordham University Press.

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  • Von Trier, Lars. 2011. Director’s Statement. http://www.melancholiathemovie.com/#_directorsstatement. Accessed 20 July 2019.

  • White, Rob, and Nina Power. 2012. Lars von Trier’s Melancholia: A Discussion. Film Quarterly. https://filmquarterly.org/2012/01/10/lars-von-triers-melancholia-a-discussion/. Accessed 27 Feb 2019.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Film and Media Studies, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Timothy Holland

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  1. Timothy Holland
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Sciences Human Services and Criminal Justice, Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA

    José A. Haro

  2. Department of Academic Literacy and Linguistics, Borough of Manhattan Community College City University of New York, New York, NY, USA

    William H. Koch

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Holland, T. (2019). Melancholia’s End. In: Haro, J., Koch, W. (eds) The Films of Lars von Trier and Philosophy. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24918-2_8

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