Film Details

Earlier this year Lars von Trier’s latest provocation Nymphomaniac—a self-proclaimed “porno epic” in two parts—was released to North American theaters (including the Cinematheque). But this four-hour movie was actually an abridged version of von Trier’s original (and intended) film, which ran five-and-a-half hours. This afternoon and evening you can see that unexpurgated director’s cut in a marathon screening divided by a dinner break. So what has been restored to this longer version? Well, since the film is an eyebrow-raising account of one woman’s sexually active life, there is more sex, and more explicit sex. There are also more jokes, more head-scratching anomalies, and more development of the characters played by Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgård, Shia LeBoeuf, Christian Slater, and Uma Thurman—and (in Volume II) Jamie Bell and Willem Dafoe.