Kristian Levring

Kristian Levring was born in 1957 in Copenhagen. He later became a graduate of the National Film School of Denmark.{{cite web

| url =https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/p/kristian-levring/

| title =Kristian Levring

| publisher =Festival de Cannes

| access-date =2025-05-03}}

Kristian Levring began his career as a documentarian, editing a number of feature-length documentaries and Danish-language feature films during the first two decades of his time as a filmmaker. He also worked as a director for television commercials. His first feature film he directed was Et skud fra hjertet (Shot from the Heart), released in 1986.{{cn|date=January 2019}} Kristian Levring was the fourth signatory of the Dogme95 movement,{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wl2FCwAAQBAJ|title=The Holy Fool in European Cinema|first=Alina G.|last=Birzache|date=5 February 2016|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9781317310624|via=Google Books}} however moved away from this style towards the end of the aughts.{{cite web|url=http://www.cine-vue.com/2015/04/interview-kristian-levring-talks-dogme.html|title=Interview: Kristian Levring|access-date=2016-06-27|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160813135917/http://www.cine-vue.com/2015/04/interview-kristian-levring-talks-dogme.html|archive-date=2016-08-13|url-status=dead}} He co-signed the original manifesto in 1995 alongside Lars von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg, and Søren Kragh-Jacobsen.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AC9uBAAAQBAJ|title=Screen Adaptations: Shakespeare's King Lear: A close study of the relationship between text and film|first=Yvonne|last=Griggs|date=26 September 2014|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|isbn=9781408144008|via=Google Books}} In 2008, Levring and the other Dogme 95 founders were honoured with the Achievement in World Cinema award at the European Film Awards.{{cite news |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/the-manifesto-that-laid-movies-bare-1057891.html |publisher=Independent |title=The manifesto that laid movies bare |author=Kaleem Aftab |date=December 8, 2008}}

Levring released the film The King is Alive in 2000. The Guardian describes the film as following, "bus passengers stranded in the Namibian desert, who decide to stage their own private performance of King Lear to pass the time until help arrives."{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/apr/16/the-salvation-review|title=The Salvation review – a fistful of western|first=Peter|last=Bradshaw|newspaper=The Guardian |date=16 April 2015}} The passengers are stranded in an abandoned mining town in the middle of the Sahara.{{cite journal |date=April 2001 |title=Shakespeare in Heat: Lost in the Sahara? Let's Put on a Show |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yyoEAAAAMBAJ |journal=CMJ New Music Monthly |publisher=CMJ Network, Inc. |volume=92 |page=99 |issn=1074-6978 |via=Google Books}} The film utilized Lear as a foil for European society reaching a terminal crisis. The words of Lear are used to further show the disintegration of the group into chaos under the pressure of their stranding.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8TPzAgAAQBAJ|title=The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film|first=Russell|last=Jackson|date=29 March 2007|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9781107495302|via=Google Books}} While one of the members is sent on a five-day journey to get help, the social relationships that Levring explores among those that stay behind include gender, marital, and the racial elements of the relationship between the passengers and the bus driver.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fJzcAwAAQBAJ|title=Alternative Scriptwriting: Successfully Breaking the Rules|first1=Ken|last1=Dancyger|first2=Jeff|last2=Rush|date=21 August 2012|publisher=CRC Press|isbn=9781136053702|via=Google Books}} The film was named an Official Selection at the Cannes Film Festival upon its premiere.

The film has many elements in line with the Dogme95 cinematic beliefs, including placing film as a post-apocalyptic art form.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SjD_mxfVupAC|title=Apocalyptic Shakespeare: Essays on Visions of Chaos and Revelation in Recent Film Adaptations|first1=Melissa|last1=Croteau|first2=Carolyn|last2=Jess-Cooke|date=9 April 2009|publisher=McFarland|isbn=9780786453511|via=Google Books}} Jan Simons wrote that, "The King is Alive allows us to see Dogma 95 in actu, as it were. With no decor and no costumes, in the natural light of the sun's glare, and with no recourse to the technical resources of theatre, the amateur actors study their roles; Henry writes everybody's lines out by hand, from memory." Referencing to the rules of Dogma 95 are also found throughout the film.{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_GUrJW2G9WkIC|title=Playing the Waves: Lars Von Trier's Game Cinema|first=Jan|last=Simons|date=1 January 2007|publisher=Amsterdam University Press|via=Internet Archive}} The New York Times wrote of Levring's work on the film that,

"Mr. Levring's vision of hell is vivid and stark but -- thanks to that empty, endless desert -- touched with a pictorial sublimity rarely attempted within the constraints of the Dogma aesthetic. The unsparing, invasive naturalism of digital video, which seems specially calibrated to register the play of anxiety and distress on human faces, also records an inhuman landscape of undulating dunes and blinding sky. The juxtaposition creates a sense of loneliness and panic, a stomach-turning dread that makes the survival instinct look almost comically weak."{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9E07EFD7133BF932A25756C0A9679C8B63|title=Movie Reviews|newspaper=The New York Times|date=5 August 2021}}

In 2002, Levring co-wrote{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qs0YDAAAQBAJ|title=Performing Women: Stand-Ups, Strumpets and Itinerants|first=Alison|last=Oddey|date=30 April 2016|publisher=Springer|isbn=9781349729937|via=Google Books}} and directed The Intended.{{cite web|url=https://www.popmatters.com/review/intended-dvd/|title=The Intended (2002)|work=PopMatters|first=Preston|last=Jones|date=February 2, 2005|access-date=June 28, 2015}} The film follows two British expatriates and their lives in a remote Asian ivory trading station during the early 1900s, where the small community falls apart under the pressures of the foreign lands and daily struggles to survive.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9407E1D91F39F936A15755C0A9629C8B63|title=Movie Reviews|newspaper=The New York Times|date=5 August 2021}} The film has been described as, "an expressionistic and densely textured revisitation of The Heart of Darkness in the jungles of Malaysia."{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FKdY0HVF0ukC|title=Traditions in World Cinema|first1=Linda|last1=Badley|first2=R. Barton|last2=Palmer|first3=Steven Jay|last3=Schneider|date=1 January 2006|publisher=Rutgers University Press|isbn=9780813538747|via=Google Books}} The film opened at the Toronto International Film Festival.

In 2008 Levring directed Fear Me Not.{{cite web|url=https://variety.com/2008/film/markets-festivals/fear-me-not-1200470615/|title=Review: 'Fear Me Not'|work=Variety|first=Dennis|last=Harvey|date=September 14, 2008|access-date=June 28, 2015}} The film explores the issues of prescription medication on the psychology of families, following the protagonist as they try the use of antidepressants to cure his malaise stemming from workaholism. The protagonist soon becomes paranoid and starts to fear his spouse.{{cite web|url=https://variety.com/2008/film/markets-festivals/fear-me-not-1200470615/|title=Review: 'Fear Me Not'|first=Dennis|last=Harvey|date=15 September 2008}} The plot is reminiscent of the narrative of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival, where the rights were sold to IFC.{{cite web|url=http://www.screendaily.com/focus-kristian-levring-is-back-with-fear-me-not/4042085.article|title=Focus: Kristian Levring is back with Fear Me Not}} The film also opened at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Levring's western film titled The Salvation, starred Mads Mikkelsen and was screened at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival,{{cite web|url=https://variety.com/2014/film/festivals/cannes-film-review-the-salvation-1201182872/|title=Cannes Film Review: 'The Salvation'|work=Variety|first=Peter|last=Debruge|date=May 16, 2014|access-date=June 28, 2015}} where it became an Official Selection.{{cite web|url=http://www.screendaily.com/festivals/cannes-news/kristian-levring-readies-prohibition-era-drama-devils-lake/5088239.article|title=Kristian Levring readies Prohibition-era drama 'Devil's Lake'}} Levring filmed the movie in South Africa, setting it in the American frontier. The story follows the character Jon, a Danish "ex-soldier who moved to the States after losing to the Germans on the battlefield in 1864," according to Variety.{{cite web|url=https://variety.com/2014/film/festivals/cannes-film-review-the-salvation-1201182872/|title=Cannes Film Review: 'The Salvation'|first=Peter|last=Debruge|date=17 May 2014}} Levring has stated that during this era, about half of all people on the American frontier did not speak English, which was the entry-point for him to produce a film about the American west. In developing the film, Levring used both Western films and Nordic mythology as inspiration.{{cite web|url=https://diymag.com/2015/04/16/kristian-levring-talks-the-salvation-it-was-a-real-challenge-but-a-fun-challenge|title=Kristian Levring talks The Salvation: "It was a real challenge, but a fun challenge"}} In an interview with Reader's Digest, Levring stated of the film's subject matter that, "You could see the Western frontier as the beginning of civilization, and I’m very interested in the nature of civilization. Often these places are a microscope: you can look at these characters and see how they behave in quite extreme situations. Civilization is quite a thin varnish, and when you take that away it’s interesting to see what happens."{{cite web|url=http://www.readersdigest.co.uk/entertainment/film-tv-theatre/exclusive-interview-kristian-levring-tells-us-about-new-film-salvation|title=[Exclusive interview] Kristian Levring tells us about new film The Salvation}} Levring both cowrote and directed the film.{{cite web|url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/eva-green-joins-salvation-cast-443901|title=Eva Green, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Michael Raymond-James Join 'The Salvation' Cast|website=The Hollywood Reporter |date=22 April 2013}}

• Shot from the Heart (1986)
• The King Is Alive (2000)
• The Intended (2002)
• Fear Me Not (2008)
• The Salvation (2014)

{{Reflist}}

• {{IMDb name|0506290|Kristian Levring}}

{{European Film Academy Achievement in World Cinema Award}}

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Category:1957 births

Category:Living people

Category:European Film Awards winners (people)

Category:Danish film directors

Category:Danish male screenwriters

Category:Danish film editors

Category:Film directors from Copenhagen