Considering this the first time I heard of Melancholia, I would say von Trier's news baiting worked.

I was looking forward to the movie but am now hesitant to see it.

Well, he's not a moron, but he might also not be anti-semitic. He certainly got a lot of people to help publicize his new film.

From the coverage at Salon, he seems neither idiotic nor anti-Semitic. He did not seem particularly Hitler-loving or even Hitler-sympathetic. Salon had a reporter at the press conference and he reported it like this:

[von trier] began by discussing the fact that he had grown up believing he was partly of Jewish descent and had learned more recently that his ancestry was predominantly German. "I really wanted to be a Jew, and then I found out that I was really a Nazi, because, you know, my family was German," he said. If he had stopped there, at one mention of a forbidden word, and apologized or backtracked, then we're not talking about any of this today. Lars being Lars, he kept going. He was interested in the Nazi aesthetic, he said, and as for Hitler, who "was not what you would call a good guy ... I understand much about him, and I sympathize with him a little bit." That might have sealed his doom, but von Trier continued: "But come on, I'm not for the Second World War, and I'm not against the Jews. I'm 100 percent for the Jews. Well, maybe not too much, because Israel is kind of a pain in the ass ... How do I get out of this sentence? [Dramatic pause.] OK, I'm a Nazi."

I like some of his movies but they are awkward and often uncomfortable, much like this whole conversation seems.

anti-semetic or moron?

I'll take Obnoxious And Trollish for $500, Alex.

I like some of his movies but they are awkward and often uncomfortable, much like this whole conversation seems.

That sums up Lars von Trier for me: awkward, uncomfortable, always pushing past the point where most of us would OH MY GOODNESS SHUT UP.

A while ago, I decided to keep watching his films but to avoid his personal statements and interviews as much as possible. (I recently watched AntiChrist and it had a profound effect on me. I still find myself occasionally staring off into space and thinking about it. I never want to see it again, and it makes me think of The Man's advice from The Road: Just remember that the things you put in your head are there forever.)

"Just... an idiot?" - Nope, just trying to deal with depression. That depression may in many cases have a physical/biological basis is a fine first step, but we have a long way to go before it is broadly treated in an effective holistic manner.

What I disliked about Dancer in the Dark was the completely hopeless worldview. Plus it felt self-cociously artsy without (what felt to me) much real meaning.

But I guess agree with those here who tend to not think of him as either anti Semitic OR a moron. I do think he's sort of emotionally clueless though. To me part of being a successful human is thinking and responding to the feelings of others, but I know we all have our own measuring stick for how to do that and also our own definitions of what is important to do in this life.

There is no good, Monroe. There is no evil. There is only flesh.

I vote moron and maybe provoker. I've watched a couple of his movies but I don't make a point of seeing new ones, because I feel like he just repeats the same message over and over.