Joachim Trier has been on a high since Cannes where his latest film, Sentimental Value, was the Grand Prize winner, just missing out on the Palme d’Or so many thought it deserved. Norway’s official entry for the Best International Film Oscar has since been finding audiences in America ever since Telluride, Toronto and the New York film festivals — and now in theaters everywhere. This week he will be going to the Golden Globes, where Sentimental Value is up for eight awards, a strong showing for any movie but especially for a foreign-language film. Trier is personally up for four trophies including Best Picture – Drama, Director, Screenplay and Foreign Film. It is considered a major possibility for numerous Oscar nominations across most categories.
Trier joins me for this week’s edition of my Deadline video series Behind the Lens for a wide-ranging conversation on the movie, his career, and especially the other movies and filmmakers that have inspired both of us. It has been quite a journey for Trier, who comes from a filmmaking family (both grandfather and father were in the business) and grew up on movie sets, so it naturally just seeped into his being. Actually the movies he started out making were all about skateboarding, a familiar subject for this two-time Norwegian skateboarding champion. He talks about that life and transitioning to the kind of films he is interested in making (just don’t try to get him to direct a chamber drama). He loves doing living, breathing humanist movies about family, and his filmography includes the Oslo trilogy, notably The Worst Person in the World which brought him two Oscar nominations including for Screenplay with writing partner Eskil Vogt; his English-language debut Louder Than Bombs; and many others.
Watch on Deadline
We also talk about the casting of Sentimental Value, working with Stellan Skarsgård for the first time for whom he says he wrote the screenplay, along with Renate Reinsve who plays his estranged daughter. She is a bit of a muse now for Trier since she starred in Worst Person and took the Best Actress prize at Cannes. He also says he was thrilled to work with Elle Fanning in this as well.
The movie is about a filmmaker father played by Skarsgård who, though estranged from his family and two daughters, turns up at their mother’s funeral with a script in hand he has written for the oldest daughter (played by Reinsve) who wants nothing to do with it. It is a film that in many ways is about fixing what is broken and trying to find ways to communicate in a family that has lost that ability. Trier talks about the inspirations for all of it.
To watch our conversation and go “behind the lens”‘” with Joachim Trier, watch the video above.
Join me every Monday during Oscar season for a new edition of Behind the Lens, and every Wednesday for a new episode of The Actor’s Side.
film of the year for me, don’t get the comments above. masterful. wonderfully written and directed
Great opening sequence, goes into a bit too low of a gear afterwards
I liked the film but the transitions (frequently cutting to black) and the voiceover didn’t feel mastered at all.
Some films work no matter what; this film, like his last, relies so heavily on the talents of his actors (who are great in all their films btw).