Lars Von Trier Drinking Again In Order To Direct

Director Lars Von Trier has admitted that he’s drinking again so that he can work.

The Danish filmmaker made his comments to the Guardian, where he confessed that he had decided to start consuming alcohol once again in order to embark on new projects.

“I went to AA meetings every day for a half a year,” Von Trier confessed. “We supported each other to keep sober. These people kind of become your family. I used all my strength to get sober — now I start to drink a little again, so that I can work. When you shoot a film, it’s hard work, and you tend to drink more.”

Von Trier also confirmed that he has “taken other drugs” to help his creativity, while he noted, “drinking is more to overcome some anxiety.”

Back in 2014, Von Trier confirmed that he was now sober and had undergone treatment for alcohol and drug addiction. However, he also suggested that he would have to quit filmmaking because he’d made all of his previous efforts while drinking.

Speaking to the Danish newspaper Politiken, via Variety, Von Trier admitted, “I don’t know if I can make any more films, and that worries me. 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?”

Von Trier admitted that he drank a bottle of vodka a day in order to exacerbate his creativity. He also confirmed that he created Dogville’s screenplay while he was in the midst of a 12-day drug binge.

Von Trier took a vow of silence in 2011 after he made incredibly controversial comments where he stated, “I’m a Nazi… I understand Hitler.”

Von Trier made the remarks while at the Cannes Film Festival to promote Melancholia. However, he insisted that they were meant in jest.

He told the Associated Press, via Huffington Post, “I don’t have so much to say, so I kind of have to improvise a little and just to let the feelings I have kind of come out into words. This whole Nazi thing, I don’t know where it came from, but you spend a lot of time in Germany, you sometimes want to feel a little free and just talk about this s***, you know?”

Von Trier’s previous work has included Dogville, Antichrist, Melancholia, and Nymphomaniac.

[Image via Films ACTU]