# Dancer in the Dark

Dancer In The Dark is a 2000 film about Selma Ježková, a Czech immigrant and single mom who suffers from a hereditary degenerative disease that will inevitably cause her to go blind, who moved to the United States hoping to give her son a surgery that will save him from the same fate.
    Directed by Lars von Trier. Written by Lars von Trier.

## Selma Ježková

* In Czechoslovakia, I saw a film, and they were eating candy from a tin just like this. I thought to myself... how wonderful it must be in the United States.
* I've got little games I play when it goes really hard. When I'm working in the factory... and the machines, they make these... rhythms... And I just start dreaming, and it all becomes music.
* Clatter, crash, clack! Racket, bang, thump! Rattle, clang, crack, thud, whack, bam! It's music, now dance!
* I used to dream that I was in a musical coz in a musical nothing dreadful ever happens.

## Dialogue

    Selma: You're fantastic. You just have to listen to your heart, Cvalda.
    Kathy: I don't want you to call me Cvalda.
    Selma: You're Cvalda to me.
    Selma: [in the cinema, asking description of the movie because she can't see] How is she doing?
    Kathy: It's when she cannot keep up, and she's going to faint. Ah, she fainted.
    Angry man: Please be quiet.
    Kathy: Oh, give us a break. She doesn't see that well.
    Angry man: I paid good money to see this film.
    Kathy: Well, so did she.
    Selma: I love it when they dance.
    Angry man: For Pete's sake, it's a musical. Of course they're dancing!
    Kathy: We know that!
    Angry man: Oh, you're so smart.
    Kathy: Yes.
    Selma: I think you made friends, Kathy. [laughing]
    Selma: Would it make you feel better If I told you a secret?
    Bill: What secret could you tell me?
    Selma: I'm going blind. Not yet, but... soon. Maybe sometime this year.
    Bill: Blind...
    Selma: It's not as bad as it sounds. It's, uh... It's a family thing.
    Bill: But, blind?
    Selma: I've always known it. From... when I was a little girl, I knew.
    Bill: And you're okay?
    Selma: Well, I came to America because in America, they can give Gene an operation.
    Selma: You know when the camera goes really big and it comes up out of the roof, and you just know that it's gonna end? I hate that. I used to cheat on that when I was a little girl back in Czechoslovakia. I would leave the cinema just after the next to last song, and the film would just go on forever. It's lovely, isn't it?
    Bill: That is lovely.
    Jeff: Look, I don't understand. In musicals... why do they start to sing and dance all of a sudden? I mean, I don't suddenly start... to sing and dance.
    Selma: No... You're right, Jeff. You don't.
    Jeff: You can't see, can you?
    Selma: What is there to see?
    Brenda: Why don't you try to think of something nice, all right?
    Selma: It's just so quiet here.
    Brenda: What's that got to do with it, Selma?
    Selma: You know, when I used to work in the factory... I used to dream that I was in a musical... Because, in a musical, nothing dreadful ever happens.
    Kathy: But he needs his mother, you know, alive, no matter where!
    Selma: You don't understand! He needs his eyes!
    Kathy: He needs his mother!
    Selma: No!
    Kathy: Yes! Alive!
    Selma: NO!!
    Kathy: Listen to reason for once, Selma! Selma...
    Selma: I listen to my heart...
    Jeff: Why did you have him? You knew he would have the same disease as you.
    Selma: I just wanted to hold a little baby... just in my arms.

## Taglines

* You don't need eyes to see.
* In a world of shadows, she found the light of life.

## Cast

* Björk - Selma Ježková
* Catherine Deneuve - Kathy (Cvalda)
* Peter Stormare - Jeff
* David Morse - Bill Houston
* Cara Seymour - Linda Houston
* Vladica Kostic - Gene
* Joel Grey - Oldřich Nový

## External links

* Dancer in the Dark quotes at the Internet Movie Database