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Lars von Trier: ‘I’m a Nazi’

Film

Director’s jokes fall flat at Cannes.

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He's just directed a movie about relationship challenges as a planet collides with Earth. Now, his sense of humor has gotten even stranger. "Im a Nazi," Lars von Trier told a shocked audience at a Cannes press conference. "For a long time I thought I was a Jew and I was happy to be a Jew … But then I found out I was actually a Nazi," the Melancholia director said in an apparent attempt at humor that received scattered nervous chuckles. “My family were German. And that also gave me some pleasure. What can I say? I understand Hitler…I sympathize with him a bit.” When a reporter asked him if he’d like to work on a larger scale, the Danish film maker deadpanned: “Yes. We Nazis like to do things on a big scale. Maybe I could do The Final Solution.” Von Trier was seated between Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg when he made his bizarre remarks.

Read it at The Hollywood Reporter