88-Breaking the Waves - Director:Lars von Trier - Cast:Emily Watson, Stellan Skarsgård, Katrin Cartlidge, Jean-Marc Barr, and Adrian Rawlins.

"I prefer to work with unassailable ideas. And I wanted to do a film about goodness. When I was little I had a children's book called Golden Heart (a Danish fairytale) which I have a very strong and fond memory of. It was a picturebook about a little girl who went out into the woods with pieces of bread and other things in her pocket. But at the end of the book, after she's passed through the woods, she stands naked and without anything. And the last sentence in the book was: "'I'll be fine anyway,' said Golden Heart." it expressed the role of the martyr in its most extreme form. I reread the book several times, even though my father regarded it as the worst trash you could imagine. The story for Breaking the Waves probably has its origin there. Golden Heart is the film's Bess. I also wanted t do a film with a religious motif, a film about miracles. At the same time I wanted to do a completely naturalistic film. "

-Lars von Trier-

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"I'm a Catholic, but I don't worship Catholicism for Catholicism's own sake. I have felt the need to experience a sense of belonging with a religious community, because my parents were convinced atheists. I flirted with religion quite a bit as a youngster. You perhaps search for a more extreme religion as a youngster. You either go to Tibet or seek out the most rigorous of all faiths. With total abstinence and such like. I think I have a more Dreyer-like view of the whole thing. Because Dreyer's religious view is in essence humanistic. He also accuses religion in all his films. Religion is accursed, but not God. It's like that as well in Breaking the Waves. "

-Lars von Trier-

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"probably films like La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc and Gertrud have had their relevance in connection to Breaking the Waves. His films are naturally more academic, more refined. What is new for me is that a woman is at the centre of the story. All of Dreyer's films have a woman as the central character. And the suffering woman besides. The original title was Amor Omnie (ie, 'Love is Omnipresent'), the motto Gertrud wanted on her gravestone in Dreyer's film. But when my producer heard that title, he almost hit the roof. he found it difficult to imagine that anyone would want to see a film called Amor Omnie. "

-Lars von Trier-

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"When I was in film school, it was said that all good films were characterised by some form of humour. All films except Dreyer's! Many of his films are thoroughly vacuum-cleaned of humour. You could say that when you introduce humour to your work, you also step back a little from it. You create a distance. Here I didn't want to distance myself from the strong emotions that the story and its characters contain. I think that this strong emotional engagement was very important for me. Because I grew up in a home, a culturally radical home, where strong emotions were forbidden. The members of my family that I've shown the film to have also been severely critical toward it. My brother thought the film was indifferent and tedious and my uncle (Borge Host, Danish director and producer of short films and documentaries) saw the whole thing as an abject failure from beginning to end. But with my earlier films, he supported me in all possible ways. So perhaps Breaking the Waves is my adolescent revolt."

-Lars von Trier-

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"It is a curious mixture of religion and eroticism and possession. The well-known actors we turned to didn't dare put their careers on the line - for example Helena Bonham Carter pulled out of the production at the very last minute. That's why it felt important to find some actors who really had the enthusiasm to participate. And I think it feels as if the heart is in it among those we finally chose. We screen-tested quite a number of actresses for the role of Bess. Late I watched the video together with Bente (von Trier's partner), and she saw it as quite obvious that Emily Watson should get the role. I was also engaged by Emily's performance, but it was Bente's enthusiasm above all which convinced me. I also remember that Emily was the only one who came to the casting barefoot and with no make-up at all! There was something Jesus-like about her which attracted me. She had had no earlier film experience. Which means that she was, to a great extent, forced to trust me as a director. The collaboration was also extremely easy. The funny thing is that where Emily is concerned I consistently used the last take of every scene. With Katrin Cartlidge, on the other hand, I consistently chose the first. What is decisive is their different performance techniques. We worked in a very improvised fashion, ignoring continuity and giving the actors a lot of freedom in their performance. With Katrin, who is a more experienced actress, the intensity in her performance diminished with every new take. In Emily's case I furnished more exact instructions, which resulted in her fine-tuning her performance progressively for each new take. "

-Lars von Trier-

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"The power of an actress is fleeting, so I want to put my weight behind directors who interest me. I saw Breaking the Waves and responded in such a strong way that in an interview I told a journalist, 'I'd like to work with Lars von Trier.' Would I have played the part in Breaking the Waves? Yes, I would. And Dancing in the Dark I think is a magnificent film."

-Nicole Kidman-(later star of von Trier's Dogville)

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" 'It was just a very personal thing for me, I never made a film before. I didn't know it was an important film. But I think I was aware that it represented a very intense time of personal change for him (von Trier). Because if you look at the change between Europa and Breaking The Waves, he's thrown the rule book out of the window, and his relationship with actors completely changed, from bodies that you put somewhere to really being in touch with his emotional state. And he was discovering that in Breaking The Waves, so it was special."

-Emily Watson-

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"Even in the script, Bess was so alive and so extraordinarily different from the people surrounding her,that if Emily had played her less graphically than she did, it wouldn't have worked. It was fantastic that she just went for it."

-Katrin Cartlidge-