Controversial director Lars von Trier’s massively ambitious erotic double feature Nymphomaniac has been abandoned – or at least the softcore version of it has been. Von Trier’s original plan was a five-and-a-half-hour, two part sexual odyssey split into hardcore and softcore, but now both parts will be shown with explicit scenes after the director gave up the final cut after refusing to trim 90 minutes from the runntime.
The decision was taken after Von Trier was unwilling to trim the current running time of five hours. Peter Aalbaek Jansen, Von Trier’s longtime producer revealed, “You cannot make a film for more than 60 million kroners (about $11 million or £6.9 million) that is so lengthy. Five and a half hours is so extreme that it reduces market value so radically that investors would have felt they had bought a pig in a poke.”
Nymphomaniac stars Charlotte Gainsbourg, Shia LaBeouf, Willem Dafoe, Jamie Bell, Stellan Skarsgard, Uma Thurman, Mia Goth, Udo Kier, Christian Slater, Connie Nielsen and numerous porn stars who will replace the genitals of the Hollywood stars. It will open in Copenhagen on Christmas Day as a two-part four-hour cut.
In all truth, I’m a big fan of Von Trier but can’t say I’m expecting to be a big fan of Shia LaBeouf’s face mid-orgasm.
Originally published November 12, 2013. Updated April 15, 2018.
