The new film, a thriller about a serial killer, is titled The House that Jack Built and stars Matt Dillion. The same day that von Trier accepted the Sonning Prize, it was announced that The House That Jack Built would have its premiere during the Cannes film festival. It’s not on the official programme, but the fact that it is being shown at all is a sign that the festival, which banned von Trier in 2011 after he made bizarre comments about Nazis, considers him to be rehabilitated. (Von Trier, for his part, maintains that he didn’t get to finish what he was saying and consequently was misunderstood.)

During the weeks leading up to the premiere, von Trier can expect a barrage of questions about Nazism, his new film, his views on women and whatever other controversy seems to be following him around at the time.

Not today, though. The Sonning Prize celebrates European culture, and our discussion is to be about von Trier’s film and the elements of European culture they make reference to.

– What excites you about making film? If it excites you, that is.

»Making films is bothersome to me. The last one we made was especially hard because it was filled with angst. But no matter how bad it got, I was always able to crawl out of whatever depression I was suffering from to tell the actors what to do.«

He speaks slowly and carefully. Stops for long pauses to think.

– Is there something about film that helps you up from the depression? Filmmaking, the story, the actors? Is there something that you can get enthused about, or that makes you happy?

»It does make me happy, but not until the whole thing is put together. That’s when I can see whether the theories I had in mind when I was writing the manuscript were valid, and whether an extra layer has formed over them.«

Filming itself can, for personal reasons, be hard for von Trier, which in turn, can make it difficult for those around him. We’ll get back to the precise reason why. Right now, he wants to talk about his work methods, and the uncertainty they create during filming.

»When I work,« he says, »I record a scene several different ways. I do all the things I was told not to do when I was at film school. That’s liberating, mostly for the actors, who can play a role happy as well as sad. And then can I edit the whole thing without any sort of psychological line. The same actor can’t go from happy to sad in the same shot, but, the way we do it, they can. The result is that the characters are more realistic.«

Von Trier says that, nowadays, there is no wrong in filmmaking. The audience has become accustomed to consuming media, and they can pick up on things in a split second. Mistakes aren’t something they try to pick out.

»Of course they are looking for a connection between things. That’s one thing there might be too much of in my films. I’m kind of ashamed about that. I’d like to free myself up a little more.«

– Is it fair to say that you practice making mistakes?

»Yes and no. I don’t really dare, because there are some basic elements, the basic story, that I want to get right in one way or another. I’m good at teasing out the story by doing just a couple of small things. The first time you hear about the story, you shouldn’t hear about the story at all. It has to be part of a particular line about something else entirely. That’s the cornerstone … It would be nice to be able to work the same way Klaus Rifbjerg wrote. He began with the first chapter and then kept on writing. And when he felt the book was done, it was done. I’ve got a lot of respect for people who can work like that. Quite a few filmmakers work that way.«

Von Trier isn’t one of them. Endings sicken him, too. But not because he finds them hard to come up with.

»It’s easy to shut it down. The ending is the most boring part. Beginnings are always great. You just show a picture and you’re rolling. The possibilities are endless. But, what I’m not that big a fan of is drawing a film together and having it all end up at a single point.«

– Why not?

»Björk and I talked about this one time. She’s the same. She’d rather die than make a song that ended in the same key as it started in. That’s how I feel too.«

– But, endings are inevitable.

»Yes, a film has to end at some point, but that’s why my plan now is to work on a series of études instead. So I can take it easy on myself. So I don’t have to go out of my way to not have an ending.«

Von Trier’s études are to be a series of 10-minute films, none of them related. Instead, they will be »random scenes from a random film«. He’s working with Danish and Swedish actors on the project. The films will be in black and white, and they will all be shot in the same place, with just a single stage set. There will be one camera in a fixed position. The handheld camera, a von Trier trademark, has been banned.

The project is a way for von Trier to work his way out of the aversion he has to endings and long, tedious days of filming. The other reason: von Trier likes coming up with rules.

»I have to come up with rules that determine how the études should look. But I was told by sweet Peter Schepelern that someone has determined that there are 36 different types of conflict. So, I guess that means I’ll be making 36 10-minute films.«

Schepelern is a University of Copenhagen lector emeritus. He taught von Trier’s film-history course when he studied here, and, ever since von Trier dropped out of the film-studies programme in 1979, he’s served as the go-to expert on his former student. The two men get along well, which those attending the Sonning award ceremony, might have noticed. Schepelern was given the task of making an introductory speech that ran down von Trier’s accomplishments. When it came for von Trier to speak, he replied with a friendly jab: »Sitting there listening to Peter, I was thinking that I’ve sat through a lot of his lectures, and this one was assuredly the most boring of them all. I fell into a trance – there were entire passages I didn’t hear at all.«

The 36 conflicts sweet Schepelern is referring to were identified more than a century ago by French author Georges Polti, and the list includes things like madness, revenge, murderous unfaithfulness, and fully three ways to become a martyr. Gefundenes fressen for someone like Lars von Trier.

– Do you make rules for each film you make?

»I have a set of rules inspired by the Dogme 95 manifesto that evolves with each film I make. Having rules is fun because it puts a limitation on you. To tell you the truth, I’m at my best, when something goes spectacularly wrong. When that happens, I’m ready to change things around entirely.«

Von Trier likes making mistakes. If there’s no room to shoot a scene in the studio, he takes it outside.