# Nymphomaniac (film)

Nymphomaniac (stylised as NYMPHMANIAC onscreen and in advertising) is a 2013 erotic art film written and directed by Lars von Trier. The film stars Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgård, Stacy Martin, Shia LaBeouf, Christian Slater, Jamie Bell, Uma Thurman, Jean-Marc Barr, Willem Dafoe, Connie Nielsen, and Mia Goth in her debut. Separated as two-part films, the plot follows Joe (played by Gainsbourg and Martin), a self-diagnosed "nymphomaniac," who recounts her erotic experiences to a bachelor who helps her recover from an assault. The narrative chronicles Joe's promiscuous life from adolescence to adulthood and is split into eight chapters told across two volumes. The film was originally supposed to be only one complete entry, but, because of its length, von Trier made the decision to split the project into two separate films. Nymphomaniac was an international co-production of Denmark, Belgium, France, and Germany.
The world premiere of the uncut Volume I occurred on 16 February 2014 at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival, while the uncut Volume II premiered at the 71st Venice International Film Festival. The world premiere of the Director's Cut took place in Copenhagen on 10 September 2014. It was nominated for the 2014 Nordic Council Film Prize.
Nymphomaniac is the third and final installment in von Trier's unofficially titled Depression Trilogy, following Antichrist and Melancholia.

## Plot

Highly educated but cloistered middle-aged bachelor Seligman finds nymphomaniac Joe beaten up and lying in the alleyway behind his apartment. He takes her to his home and listens as Joe recounts the story of her libidinous life. Seligman parallels much of what she has experienced with various methods of fly fishing, his favorite sport.

### Volume I

In her early childhood, Joe's father is a tree-loving doctor whom she adores, while her mother is, as Joe describes her, a "cold bitch". In adolescence, Joe loses her virginity to an arbitrary young man named Jerôme. This first encounter, which ends with Jerôme casually leaving her to fix his moped, leaves her disappointed, while Seligman observes that the combination of the number of times Jerôme penetrated her, three times vaginally and five times anally, resembles the Fibonacci sequence.
Several years later, Joe engages in a contest with her friend B during a train journey; whichever of the two women has sex with the most passengers by the train's arrival at the station wins a bag of chocolate. Joe wins after performing fellatio on S, a passenger in a first-class car and a married man who resists both her and B's advances until Joe forces herself on him.
Joe then relays her first experiences with actual love, which she dismisses as "lust with jealousy added". Joe takes on more lovers as she, B, and several friends create a club, "The Little Flock", dedicated to liberating themselves from society's fixation on love. Joe eventually leaves after all the other members end up developing serious attachments to their conquests. As a young adult, Joe drops out of medical school and finds work as a secretary at a printing company. Her first employer is Jerôme. She avoids his advances in favor of sleeping with other co-workers, to his consternation. Joe writes Jerôme a letter after realizing she has developed feelings for him, but is too late as he has left with the jealous secretary, Liz. She is immediately fired by Jerôme's uncle, the actual owner of the company, for her incompetence and goes back to indulging her nymphomania despite yearning for Jerôme.
While Joe is sleeping with one of her lovers, H, his wife arrives and admonishes both of them in front of her children, though Joe states in the present that this barely affected her. Joe's next lover, A, subsequently arrives in the middle of Mrs. H's breakdown. The family eventually leaves, but not before Mrs. H verbally attacks Joe, slaps H, and flees the apartment wailing.
A conversation about Edgar Allan Poe's death from delirium tremens reminds Joe of the last time she saw her father; she is the only one to visit him in the hospital as he dies of cancer. He asks her not to slander her mother, who is afraid of hospitals, for not being there. Joe watches her father experience violent spasms and paranoid delusions, screaming for his wife. To distract herself from his suffering, Joe has sexual intercourse with several people at the hospital. When he finally dies, Joe becomes sexually aroused, but is then overcome with depression.
After Seligman explains how he feels Bach perfected polyphony, Joe talks about three lovers leading up to her "cantus firmus". The "bass voice", F, is a tender but predictable man who prioritizes her sexual needs over his own. The "second voice", G, thrills Joe because of his animalistic control of her. During one of Joe's regular walks in the local park, Jerôme finds her after separating from Liz, and they embrace. The two engage in authentically passionate sex – set alongside Joe's experiences with F and G – but Joe is distraught upon discovering she can no longer "feel anything".

### Volume II

Joe becomes annoyed with Seligman's focus on allegories before realizing he cannot relate to her experiences. He confirms his asexuality and virginity, but claims this makes him the best man to listen to her story.
Joe reminisces about a field trip as a young girl, whereupon she had a vision of Valeria Messalina and the Whore of Babylon looking over her as she levitates and spontaneously has her first orgasm. This shocks Seligman, who explains her orgasm is a mockery of the Transfiguration of Jesus on the Mount. In the past, Joe suffers a crisis upon losing her ability to achieve sexual pleasure, despite finding a different sort of pleasure with Jerôme. When the two conceive a baby, Marcel, together, Jerôme struggles to satisfy her needs and allows her to see other men, though this puts a rift in their relationship.
Joe's quest to reclaim her orgasm culminates in visits to K, a sadist who assaults women seeking his company. At Christmas, after rescuing an unattended Marcel who has wandered onto a snowy balcony, Jerôme forces her to choose between the family and herself. She picks the latter and, after receiving an especially brutal beating from K that allows her to climax again, takes a path of loneliness away from her only chance at a normal life. Marcel is sent to live in a foster home. Several years later, Joe has regained pleasure, but her genitalia have sustained irreversible damage due to a lifetime of sexual activity combined with K's brutality. Her habits are known around her new office, prompting the boss to demand she attend sex addiction therapy.
Joe becomes pregnant and seeks an abortion, but the doctor insists she speaks to a counselor first. This visit ends disastrously, and Joe decides to perform the procedure herself with several household implements and a wire hanger. This leads to a very heated argument between Joe and Seligman in the present regarding abortion rights.
Joe reluctantly attends therapy and attempts sobriety. During one meeting, she sees a reflection of her younger self in the mirror, insults every member of the group, and proclaims pride in her nymphomania before leaving. Realizing she has no place in "normal" society, Joe turns to organized crime and becomes a debt collector. She reminisces about a house call to a man who she initially finds sexually unreadable. She ties him to a chair, strips him, and attempts to provoke him, ultimately gleaning that he is a repressed pedophile. Taking pity on him, she fellates him. Joe explains to Seligman that she empathized with the man's status as a sexual outcast, and lauds him for going through life without acting on his aberrant desires.
Joe's superior, L, recommends that she groom an apprentice and suggests P, the 15-year-old daughter of criminals. Joe is initially repulsed by the idea, but Joe and P eventually begin a sexual relationship, Joe ultimately inviting P to move in with her while hesitantly teaching P her job.
During one round of debt collection, Joe notices that they are at a house belonging to Jerôme and tells P to perform her first solo job to avoid being seen. Joe later discovers P is having an affair with Jerôme. Joe ambushes the two in an alleyway and attempts to shoot them. When this fails, Jerôme viciously beats Joe before having sex with P in front of her. P then stands over Joe and urinates on her before leaving her as she was at the beginning of the film.
In the present, Seligman suggests the circumstances of Joe's life were due to differences in gender representation; all of the guilt and shame she felt made her fight back "like a man", ultimately "forgetting" to rack the gun because her human worth would not allow her to kill someone. Joe finally feels at ease, having unburdened her story to someone she truly considers a friend. She vows to rid herself of her sexuality before going to sleep.
Seligman attempts to rape Joe as she is unconscious, but Joe wakes up and reaches for the gun. Seligman attempts to justify himself, but Joe shoots him, grabs her things, and flees the apartment.

## Cast

Main cast
* Charlotte Gainsbourg as Joe (ages 35–50)
** Stacy Martin as Young Joe (ages 15–31)
* Stellan Skarsgård as Seligman
* Shia LaBeouf as Jerôme Morris
* Christian Slater as Joe's Father
* Jamie Bell as K
* Uma Thurman as Mrs. H
* Willem Dafoe as L
* Mia Goth as P
* Sophie Kennedy Clark as B
* Connie Nielsen as Katherine (Joe's mother)
* Michaël Pas as Older Jerôme
* Jean-Marc Barr as The Debtor Gentleman
* Udo Kier as The Waiter
Vol. I cast
* Maja Arsovic as Joe (7 years)
* Sofie Kasten as B (10 years)
* Ananya Berg as Joe (10 years)
* James Northcote as Young Lad #1 on Train
* Charlie G. Hawkins as Young Lad #2 on Train
* Jens Albinus as S
* Felicity Gilbert as Liz, The Secretary
* Jesper Christensen as Jerôme's Uncle
* Hugo Speer as Mr. H
* Cyron Melville as Andy (A)
* Saskia Reeves as Nurse
* Nicolas Bro as F
* Christian Gade Bjerrum as G
* Anders Hove as Odin (extended version only)
Vol. II cast
* Shanti Roney as Tobias, The Interpreter
* Laura Christensen as Babysitter
* Caroline Goodall as Psychologist
* Kate Ashfield as Therapist
* Tania Carlin as Renée
* Daniela Lebang as Brunelda
* Omar Shargawi as Thug #1
* Marcus Jakovljevic as Thug #2
* Severin Von Hoensbroech as Debtor In Greenhouse

## Production
### Pre-production

Executive producer and Zentropa co-founder Peter Aalbæk Jensen revealed that the film is to be two parts. "We are making two films. It is a big operation. I personally hope that we should be ready for Cannes next year. We will shoot both and edit both – and we want to finish both at the same time." He explained there will be two versions of each film: an explicit cut and a softer cut.
LaBeouf got his role in Nymphomaniac by sending a tape of himself having intercourse with his girlfriend Karolyn Pho to von Trier. Slater got connected to von Trier via his agent being in Denmark and used makeup under his eyes to make himself look old enough to be Joe's father.
LaBeouf said in August 2012, "The movie is what you think it is. It is Lars von Trier, making a movie about what he's making. For instance, there's a disclaimer at the top of the script that basically says we're doing it for real. Everything that is illegal, we'll shoot in blurred images. Other than that, everything is happening. ... [V]on Trier's dangerous. He scares me. And I'm only going to work now when I'm terrified."

### Filming

Principal photography occurred between 28 August–9 November 2012 in Cologne and Hilden, Germany, and in Ghent, Belgium.
To produce scenes of simulated sex, von Trier used digital compositing to superimpose the genitals of pornographic film actors onto the bodies of the film's actors. Producer Louise Vesth explained during the Cannes Film Festival:
   We shot the actors pretending to have sex and then had the body doubles, who really did have sex, and in post we will digital impose the two. So above the waist it will be the star and the [sic] below the waist it will be the doubles.
Gainsbourg and Martin further revealed that prosthetic vaginas and closed sets were used during filming. Martin stated that her acting experience for the film was enjoyable and, after explaining that the film's characters are a reflection of the director himself, referred to the process as an "honour." Martin also stated that shooting the sex scenes was a bit boring due to their technical nature.

### Music

A seven-track soundtrack was released digitally by Zentropa on 27 June 2014, containing a mix of classical and modern rock music, along with two sound clips from the prologue of the film.

## Marketing

In early 2013, the first teaser poster was released from the film's official website. Shortly thereafter, Zentropa released a promotional photo shoot featuring the film's main characters posing in suggestive positions and a list of the film's chapters. This was followed by the release of a picture of Trier himself with duct tape covering his mouth, accompanied by a press release explaining the official launch of the film's campaign.
An incremental marketing campaign was used to promote the film, as brief video segments, each described as an "appetizer" by the film's production company, were released online leading up to the film's release date. Each appetizer represented each of the eight chapters of Nymphomaniac and the first one, entitled "The Compleat Angler", appeared on 28 June 2013, the last Friday of the month—this pattern would be followed for the monthly release of the subsequent clips. Following "The Compleat Angler", "Jerôme" featuring Martin and LaBeouf, was released in August; "Mrs. H" in September; the predominantly black-and-white "Delirium" (containing a voice-over by Skarsgård) was released in October; in November, the appetizer for "The Little Organ School" was uploaded to YouTube, but was quickly removed due to its explicit content; "The Eastern and the Western Church" was released exclusively for Vimeo on 29 November; in December, the appetizer for "The Mirror" was released, again on Vimeo; and on 25 December, leading into the European release of the film, "The Gun" was released on the film's official website.
In October 2013, a series of posters were released, each depicting the film's characters during the moment of orgasm. Along with the appetizers and the character posters, five theatrical posters (three for the complete feature and one for each volume) and an international trailer featuring some of the explicit sexual scenes, were released.
In July 2014, Zentropa revealed the poster for the Director's Cut when announcing its premiere at the Venice Film Festival. The poster combined the original teaser with Lars von Trier standing in between the two parentheses.

### Rating

Nymphomaniac initially received an NC-17 from the Motion Picture Association of America in early 2014. The film, however, surrendered the rating and was released without any MPAA rating.

## Release

Von Trier's complete five-and-a-half-hour version was released in few territories and only long after the original premiere. Instead, a four-hour version was edited without the director's involvement and has been used for the film's international release, divided into two volumes – Volume I and Volume II – with ninety minutes removed.
   Lars von Trier's upcoming NYMPHOMANIAC is distributed in two parts (Volume I and II) and two versions (one lasting four hours in total, one in five and a half hours in total). From 25 December 2013, and approximately four months ahead, the four-hour long NYMPHOMANIAC Volume I and II is released worldwide. In some territories the two volumes will be released at the same time, and in some territories the volumes will be released apart. Each country has its own rules of censorship and in order to create cohesion between each country's distribution strategies the four-hour long version will be the one released first. And even this version is expected to meet minor additional changes in certain countries. Just as Lars von Trier gave consent to the making of different censored versions of ANTICHRIST, when that film was released, Trier has also approved of this version of NYMPHOMANIAC. Technically the changes in the abridged version consist of an editing-out of the most explicit close-ups of genitals and the film has, in agreement with Lars von Trier, been shortened by his editors to a length, which has been decided upon in collaboration with several of the film's stakeholders, two parts of two hours each. The five-and-a-half-hour long version of NYMPHOMANIAC Volume I and II expect to be finalized for distribution sometime in 2014. When, exactly, is to be confirmed. This version will be distributed in those parts of the world where laws of censorship allow. Ever since NYMPHOMANIAC was announced as Lars von Trier's next project it's been out in the open that the film would be distributed in different versions, ensuring financing, and as widespread distribution of NYMPHOMANIAC as possible, and finally to ensure Lars von Trier as much artistic freedom as possible.
   We knew from the beginning that there would be various versions. But we didn't really work with that. We worked with one film, and that's the film that is Lars' version, the Director's Cut. Then, after we'd worked with that for eight months, we used a month to do the shorter version. So it wasn't really like trying to do different versions at once. We just did one film – a film that we really liked. A long film with a break, basically.
A "secret" advance screening of Volume I occurred at the Sundance Film Festival on 21 January 2014, at the Egyptian Theater with tickets distributed bearing the film title "Film X" amidst rumors the film could either be von Trier's film, or Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel. The film's UK premiere took place on 22 February 2014. In the United States, the film was also released in two parts, billed as Nymphomaniac: Volume I and Nymphomaniac: Volume II, but on separate dates: 21 March 2014 and 4 April 2014.
In Australia and New Zealand, the four-hour version of the film was distributed by the Transmission Films company. Released on 20 March 2014, the two volumes were shown back-to-back with an interval.
In February 2014, the uncut Volume I was screened at the Berlin Film Festival. In September 2014, the uncut version of Volume I and Volume II was screened at the Venice Film Festival. The complete Director's Cut, including both volumes, was finally released to a general audience in Copenhagen, Denmark, premiering on 10 September 2014, where it was shown with a half-hour intermission at a red carpet gala screening with von Trier present in the audience; at this premiere, during the film's restored abortion sequence, where Joe performs an abortion on herself, three male audience members fainted and had to be carried out of the cinema.

## Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, Volume I achieved a 76% approval rating and an average rating of 6.9/10, based on 202 reviews; the website's critical consensus states: "Darkly funny, fearlessly bold, and thoroughly indulgent, Nymphomaniac finds Lars von Trier provoking viewers with customary abandon." Volume II received a 59% rating with an average of 6.4/10, based on 126 reviews; the consensus states: "It doesn't quite live up to the promise of the first installment, but Nymphomaniac: Volume II still benefits from Lars von Trier's singular craft and vision, as well as a bravura performance from Charlotte Gainsbourg." On Metacritic, the first volume holds a 64/100 rating based on 41 critics, and the second volume a 61/100 rating based on 34 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
In the UK, Martin Solibakke of Mancunion praised Stacy Martin's performance, saying he had "never felt so sure about an actress's future success since I saw Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's Bone four years ago". He ended his review with hailing the film, saying "Lars von Trier ends up hitting the G-spot of avant-garde filmmaking with a movie only he could ever make, and gives the open-minded members of the audience one of the most powerful and sensational experiences ever seen in arts."
Michelle Orange of The Village Voice called it a "jigsaw opus, an extended and generally exquisitely crafted riff." In The Australian, David Stratton said that he "detested" some of Trier's films, and states that Nymphomaniac "seems designed to be his magnum opus, the film in which he gets to rail against everything he loathes about contemporary life and contemporary cinema." The modified version screened in Australia, officially referred to as the "international" version. Stratton further stated on the television review program At the Movies that he found the four-hour runtime of the film to be "daunting", but praised some of the performances, particularly those of Stacy Martin and Jamie Bell. Stratton's co-host Margaret Pomeranz meanwhile, while also praising the boldness of the performances, felt the film's unsimulated depictions of sex didn't add to the narrative and as such had, "such an undercurrent of sadism that I was, not repelled, but distanced". Thought Catalog remarked on how the plot failed to be consistent or plausible.
Keith Uhlich of The A.V. Club named Nymphomaniac the third-best film of 2014.
On the Melbourne community radio station, 3RRR, film criticism program "Plato's Cave" praised von Trier's work on Nymphomaniac and presenters, Thomas Caldwell and Josh Nelson, defended the director against accusations of misogyny. Both presenters agreed that actresses who von Trier has worked with, such as Nicole Kidman and Björk, have delivered excellent performances in his films, while Nelson referred to Antichrist and Melancholia, the first two installments of the Depression Trilogy, as "masterpieces". Caldwell concludes the review by stating, "... if you're coming new to him [von Trier], I think this is a real crash course in all his preoccupations."
When the complete Director's Cut had its general release world premiere in Copenhagen on 10 September 2014, major Danish critics gave it high ratings. In spite of this, the Director's Cut sold only 3,494 tickets in Danish cinemas.

### Accolades

| Award ceremony | Category | Nominee(s) | Result |
| 67th Bodil Awards | Best Danish Film | Lars von Trier | Nominated |
| 67th Bodil Awards | Best Actress | Charlotte Gainsbourg | Won |
| 67th Bodil Awards | Best Actress | Stacy Martin | Nominated |
| 67th Bodil Awards | Best Actor | Stellan Skarsgård | Nominated |
| 67th Bodil Awards | Best Supporting Actress | Uma Thurman | Nominated |
| 67th Bodil Awards | Best Supporting Actor | Jamie Bell | Nominated |
| 27th European Film Awards | Best Film | Lars von Trier | Nominated |
| 27th European Film Awards | Best Actress | Charlotte Gainsbourg | Nominated |
| 27th European Film Awards | Best Actor | Stellan Skarsgård | Nominated |
| 27th European Film Awards | Audience Award for Best Film | Lars von Trier | Nominated |
| 2015 Gopo Awards | Best European Film | Lars von Trier | Nominated |
| 2015 Jupiter Awards | Best International Actress | Uma Thurman | Nominated |
| 2014 Nordic Council | Nordic Council Film Prize | Lars von Trier | Nominated |
| 2015 Polish Film Awards | Best European Film | Lars von Trier | Nominated |
| 32nd Robert Awards | Best Danish Film | Lars von Trier | Won |
| 32nd Robert Awards | Best Director | Lars von Trier | Won |
| 32nd Robert Awards | Best Original Screenplay | Lars von Trier | Won |
| 32nd Robert Awards | Best Actress | Charlotte Gainsbourg | Nominated |
| 32nd Robert Awards | Best Actor | Stellan Skarsgård | Nominated |
| 32nd Robert Awards | Best Supporting Actress | Stacy Martin | Nominated |
| 32nd Robert Awards | Best Supporting Actress | Uma Thurman | Nominated |
| 32nd Robert Awards | Best Supporting Actor | Jamie Bell | Nominated |
| 32nd Robert Awards | Best Cinematography | Manuel Alberto Claro | Won |
| 32nd Robert Awards | Best Costume Design | Manon Rasmussen | Won |
| 32nd Robert Awards | Best Makeup | Dennis Knudsen, Morten Jacobsen and Thomas Foldberg | Nominated |
| 32nd Robert Awards | Best Visual Effects | Peter Hjorth | Won |
| 32nd Robert Awards | Best Sound Design | Kristian Eidnes Andersen | Won |
| 32nd Robert Awards | Best Editing | Molly Malene Stensgaard and Morten Højbjerg | Won |
| 32nd Robert Awards | Best Production Design | Simone Grau Roney | Nominated |
| 32nd Robert Awards | Audience Award | Louise Vesth and Lars von Trier | Nominated |

## Home media

Nymphomaniac was released both together (in a two-disc set) and separately via DVD and Blu-ray in the United States on 8 July 2014. Director's Cut was made available in the US on both home media formats on 25 November 2014.