The so-called America 250 celebration is currently underway, with our country marking the epic milestone in a variety of ways.
A docuseries just dropped on Netflix called The American Experiment, for example, which tells the story of how the 13 colonies united against the British, overthrew the Redcoats and emerged on the other side with both independence and their own system of government.
And back in the early 2000s, a filmmaker from an entirely different nation decided to helm a series of movies about American life in the early 20th century.
Award-winning director Lars Von Trier debuted Dogville, his experimental arthouse drama starring Nicole Kidman and plenty of other big games, at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. It was the first of three planned films for a “USA: Land of Opportunities” trilogy and released in the U.S. the following year.
The second installment, Manderlay, was released in 2005 and starred in Bryce Dallas Howard in place of Kidman, 59, due to scheduling conflicts. But it’s worthy of note that a projected third film still has not come to fruition, despite the fact Von Trier, 70, has still kept busy making movies ever since.
Those who know the indie cinema scene, particularly Von Trier’s filmography, know that Dogville takes the cake over Manderlay in terms of memorability for multiple reasons — particularly that the controversial auteur had written the Dogville script during a 12-day drug binge, according to a 2014 interview.
“I don’t know if I can make any more films, and that worries me,” he said during the same interview, per The Guardian, where he also revealed he was receiving treatment for dependency. “There is no creative expression of artistic value that has ever been produced by ex-drunkards and ex-drug-addicts. Who the hell would bother with a Rolling Stones without booze or with a Jimi Hendrix without heroin?”