Ahhh Technicolor!

Far From Heaven offers a modern take on a traditionally based story of the upper-middle class problem of keeping up appearances. When placed side by side with the 1950s movie “All that Heaven Allows,” FFH does not just tackle the issue of class, but also the issue of race, homosexuality, homophobia, and divorce. Lampl-De Groot offers some insight into the roles of the characters within FFH and how they differ from the traditional mainstream movie. Groot presents the idea of an active male and passive female; however, FFH gives the viewer a backwards perspective where the active male role (the one the audience identifies with) is Kathy, the female. The passive female roles are portrayed by Frank and Raymond as characters that are objectified by the audience through Mulvey’s “scopophilic action.”

Fanon, on the other hand, feels that the way we see ourselves is entirely based on the viewpoint of the society around us. This is so completely evident in the way that Kathy and Frank are in a society built on keeping up an appearance to suit the people around them. “It is a third person consciousness.” What, then, is the significance of these theories when applied to race in the film? Race becomes a result of a proposed differentiation from the world around you. This is not to say that we do not see the difference before the proposal, but we do not think of it as a difference or a separation. Is this similarly experienced when applied to gender in life or in film? One’s full realization of things like race or gender is done so through one’s relationships. Through one’s experience of others, one realizes one’s self. In FFH, Frank realizes his own sexuality through relationships with other men. Kathy realizes her own brute whiteness through her relationship with Raymond.

Bjork, Karl Marx, and Dancing

Dancer in the Dark is a movie based on estrangement; estrangement of the main character, Selma, from the characters around her, Jean, Cathy, Bill, Linda, and Jeff; estrangement of Selma from the movie audience; and estrangement of the movie audience from the movie. Marx, too, talked of estrangement of the worker from the work and the “self” from the “other.”


I began to wonder about the true significance of the musical sequences. In all cases they tend to estrange Selma from the life around her, but in the factory scene it also tends to represent Marx ideas on the unification of the workers. What, then, is the affect of the estrangement of Selma to real life on the audience? Personally, I argue that these sequences alienate the audience from Selma and signify the alienation of the audience from the plight of the worker. However, Von Trier was likely trying to establish the medium for escape which gives Selma and the audience hope despite the tribulations of the world around them.

I was also curious as to the importance of Jeff to Selma and to the story as a whole. It seems that Jeff was Selma’s connection the possibility of class consciousness and worker revolution. Jeff’s role, though small, represents an estranged sense of sight for Selma. He gives vision the idea of class connection.

Dancer in the Dark was an interesting movie; however, I think that the estrangement Von Trier worked so hard to represent hurt the way his audience connected with the film and the character of Selma.