Stellan Skarsgård looks to be a strong contender to win Best Supporting Actor at this year’s Academy Awards for his icy but infectiously soulful performance in Sentimental Value. However, Skarsgård’s Oscar would not just be a recognition of his work in Joachim Trier‘s drama about a dysfunctional showbiz family, but it would also be a way to celebrate an actor who’s been nothing but extraordinary for over 30 years in Hollywood and arthouse cinema overseas. In America, Skarsgård, who has spawned a new generation of actors with Bill and Alexander Skarsgård, is best known for being a reliable, sturdy character actor who will lend gravitas to The Avengers and Andor and steal the show in star-driven auteur films like Good Will Hunting and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
Before making his name in Hollywood, Skarsgård was one of Sweden’s most gifted performers, and nowhere were his remarkable acting chops better utilized than in the multinational tragic drama, Breaking the Waves, Lars von Trier’s film that represented the peak of a maverick cinematic movement.
Stellan Skarsgård Embodies Twisted Love in ‘Breaking the Waves’
With movies getting increasingly more bloated and studio-controlled, a handful of Danish visionary filmmakers, including Thomas Vinterberg and Lars von Trier, agreed to only produce stories under the guiding principles of Dogme 95. This manifesto laid the groundwork for their cinematic language, marked by minimalist settings, natural lighting, and handheld cameras. This anti-studio style of filmmaking is most evident in Vinterberg’s The Celebration, which looks like a home movie. Under this doctrine, films can explore the darkest crevices of the soul, as von Trier did with intimate and blazing fury in his breakout film, Breaking the Waves.
Starring Emily Watson and Stellan Skarsgård as a couple experiencing not your ordinary marital fight, Breaking the Waves follows Jan (Skarsgård), an oil driller who is paralyzed in a work accident, and is taken care of by his wife, Bess (Watson). Following the accident, which leaves Jan bedridden after breaking his neck, Bess suffers from extreme guilt, even though she had prayed for his return to safety before the injury. Making up for their lack of a sexual relationship, Jan urges Bess to pursue deviancy while still remaining faithful to him. The 1996 intense psychological drama was widely beloved, winning the jury prize at Cannes and earning enough recognition in the States to earn Watson an Oscar nomination.
Stellan Skarsgård’s Emotionally Dynamic Performance Best Captures Lars von Trier’s Vision
While Watson justifiably received all the adoration, Skarsgård’s performance is nothing to sleep on, which is still easy to do because of his effortlessness as an actor. As Jan, the oil-rig worker trying to make the best out of tragic circumstances, Skarsgård plays the role with unexpected sensitivity. As seen in Sentimental Value, where he plays a celebrated filmmaker and absent father attempting to rekindle his relationship with his daughters, his domineering presence quickly makes way for his aching vulnerability. Skarsgård inhabits the pain and longing of someone trapped in a confined space powerfully, and it serves as the punishing heartbeat of the film. Known for his provocative character studies about endless tragedy, notably Dancer in the Dark and Dogville, von Trier’s filmography doesn’t take it easy on viewers, but Skarsgård’s exists to lend needed humanity to dire situations.
Emily Watson, giving a revelatory and spellbinding performance in Breaking the Waves, embodies von Trier’s recurring themes of sexual perversion, female martyrdom, and religious guilt—thorny ideas that lead to the critical divisiveness of his work. On the flip side, Skarsgård, who would become a frequent collaborator of von Trier’s, is unshowy and seamlessly grounded with his performance, which in turn clarifies the director’s wrestling with morality. The lines between right and wrong slowly erode throughout the film, in large part due to Jan’s dual status as a manipulator and the manipulated. Jan and Bess’ love borders on the realm of sadism, but their affection appears to be genuine. Thanks to its grainy handheld photography, shot by legendary cinematographer Robby Müller, you feel like you’re watching a drawn-out and incredibly strange dynamic between a marriage. You can’t always understand their motivations, but you can sympathize with their existential dread.
It’s no surprise that Stellan Skarsgård has remained a prominent mainstay in Hollywood and international cinema, as his undeniable presence makes him an easy casting decision for any heavy, imposing force or prodigious familial figure. Even in villainous or authority parts, Skarsgård always manages to unlock newfound emotionality and grace in these challenging performances. In Breaking the Waves, the presumably soon-to-be Oscar nominee makes the illicit act of infidelity seem like a gift from a god.
Breaking the Waves is available to stream on Mubi in the U.S.
- Release Date
-
November 13, 1996
- Runtime
-
158 Minutes
- Director
-
Lars von Trier
