James Martel
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- October 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190600181
- eISBN:
- 9780190600211
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190600181.003.0007
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory, Comparative Politics
This chapter discusses how the figure of God is addressed in Breaking the Waves. In the film, Bess McNeill talks to God, while letting the audience know that God exists only via her own belief. In ...
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This chapter discusses how the figure of God is addressed in Breaking the Waves. In the film, Bess McNeill talks to God, while letting the audience know that God exists only via her own belief. In some way, this invention makes God hers and hers alone. Thus, God produces two contradictory tendencies. First, God produces a sense of fate for Bess, an uncontrollable destiny to which she must submit. Second, God is a means by which she upends that same sense of fate. The metaphor of breaking, in the film’s title, suggests that Bess is broken by God (she is subject to what she sees as God’s unavoidable power). However, that sense of fatedness is itself broken by the way that Bess channels—or invents—God’s voice, thus creating a radical political alternative.Less
This chapter discusses how the figure of God is addressed in Breaking the Waves. In the film, Bess McNeill talks to God, while letting the audience know that God exists only via her own belief. In some way, this invention makes God hers and hers alone. Thus, God produces two contradictory tendencies. First, God produces a sense of fate for Bess, an uncontrollable destiny to which she must submit. Second, God is a means by which she upends that same sense of fate. The metaphor of breaking, in the film’s title, suggests that Bess is broken by God (she is subject to what she sees as God’s unavoidable power). However, that sense of fatedness is itself broken by the way that Bess channels—or invents—God’s voice, thus creating a radical political alternative.
Stephen S. Bush
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- October 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190600181
- eISBN:
- 9780190600211
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190600181.003.0006
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory, Comparative Politics
This chapter discusses two interpretations of von Trier’s Breaking the Waves (1996) in its treatment of violence. One interpretation concerns Bess McNeill’s sacrificial love for her husband, Jan, in ...
More
This chapter discusses two interpretations of von Trier’s Breaking the Waves (1996) in its treatment of violence. One interpretation concerns Bess McNeill’s sacrificial love for her husband, Jan, in which Bess’s violent death becomes the supreme expression of that love. According to an alternative interpretation, informed by Georges Bataille, the role of violence in the film is to bring the viewer to an experience of commonality with Bess. It is also an acknowledgment of the viewer’s own cruel fascination with the spectacle of violence. The chapter argues that the two interpretations are in tension, revealing shortcomings not only in von Trier’s treatment of violence, but also in Bataille’s.Less
This chapter discusses two interpretations of von Trier’s Breaking the Waves (1996) in its treatment of violence. One interpretation concerns Bess McNeill’s sacrificial love for her husband, Jan, in which Bess’s violent death becomes the supreme expression of that love. According to an alternative interpretation, informed by Georges Bataille, the role of violence in the film is to bring the viewer to an experience of commonality with Bess. It is also an acknowledgment of the viewer’s own cruel fascination with the spectacle of violence. The chapter argues that the two interpretations are in tension, revealing shortcomings not only in von Trier’s treatment of violence, but also in Bataille’s.
