Nymphomaniac is a 2013 two-part drama art film written and directed by Lars Von Trier. On a snowy evening, the elderly bachelor Seligman (Skarsgård) finds the self-diagnosed nymphomaniac Joe (Gainsbourg) beaten up and lying in an alleyway. He brings her back to his apartment and listens intently as Joe, over the next eight chapters, recounts the eventful story of her oversexed life. Seligman, a cloistered, overeducated man, connects and analyzes Joe’s stories with what he has read about.The film stars Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgård, Shia LaBeouf, Uma Thurman, Christian Slater, Willem Dafoe and Jamie Bell between others. The film was originally supposed to be only one complete entry; but, because of its four-hour length, von Trier made the decision to split the project into two separate films. To produce scenes of unsimulated sex, Von Trier used digital compositing to superimpose the genitals of pornographic film actors onto the bodies of the film’s actors. The general release world premiere of the complete 5½ hours Director’s Cut took place in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 10 September 2014. The film was nominated for the 2014 Nordic Council Film Prize. Nymphomaniac is the third and final installment in von Trier’s unofficially titled “Depression Trilogy”, having been preceded by Antichrist and Melancholia. The film makes several references to the other films in the trilogy. For example, the scene showing Marcel approaching an open upper floor window references the similar sequence during the beginning of Antichrist and even uses the same background music from that aforementioned scene. Furthermore, Joe’s monologue about loneliness is edited to shots of the universe from Melancholia.
