for 26 December 2000. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Tim Cavanaugh
Special Guest Editor

Terry Colon
Art Director

Heather Havrilesky
Senior Editor

Joey Anuff
Publisher

Well, here's an interesting side-note on von Trier. He grew up thinking that his father (whom he had never met) was Jewish, and identified strongly as a Jew. Then, on his mother's deathbed, she confessed that she made it all up and he wasn't Jewish after all. Von Trier had a breakdown shortly after that confession. What a way to get cosmically fucked.

Elliot Feldman
<EFeldman@station.sony.com>

Something similar happened in my family. My mother, through certain subtle hints and suggestions — maybe it was the way she carried herself, I don't know — throughout my life implied we were wealthy. Guess what we found out on her deathbed? Ouch!

The upshot is that to earn every third slice of my daily bread I now have to write for Suck.com. I'm not sure if that qualifies me as "cosmically fucked" or not. Let me suggest, however, that in some small way it has made me if not a better person than at least a different one.

Thanks for your aside -

Slotcar H.

As a fellow letter writer quoted Neil Gaiman recently regarding comic books, I think the followers of the Dogme 95 Manifesto may be mistaking a medium for a genre. To clarify, by discounting all genres of films, they make claim there is to be only one sort of film, thus making film the genre. Of course, the whole Vow of Chastity could not have been whole-heartedly serious; what director would honestly swear to no longer be an artist? A clever bit of performance art, more like.

I confess to not having seen any of the films to come out of the "movement," and I don't know if they're rentable. I will cop to being a semi-snob about the movies. But I'm no elitist. I refuse to watch Titanic, but I thought Scream was great fun. I adore the movie musical, as I do the stage musical, but I also enjoy the assorted dark and angsty movies that diametrically oppose that genre.

That said, I feel very said for Mr. von Trier that he is unable to appreciate a more broad spectrum of art/entertainment. The Sound of Music fakery? Maybe contrived, but not with ill-intentions. Besides, if one recalls, Rodgers and Hammerstein perpetrated this "fakery" on stage before it reached the silver screen. In any case, The Sound of Music, which was based on the true story of a family who would become a popular singing group, is less unusual as a movie musical than, say, Oliver! or Annie. Why are orphans breaking out into song? Now that doesn't make sense.

Of course, one mustn't question the true artist's tastes. That will always brand one a Philistine.

Thanks for the piece. Very intriguing as I haven't yet seen Ms. Gudmundsdottir's star turn, but I will rectify that soon enough. I had hoped to avoid the open forum sob-fest, but it seems I'd really be missing something.

Alexia Henke
<alexia_henke@exchangeny.deutschinc.com>

Dear ACH:

As someone who, in a reversal of your position, is an elitist but not a snob, I suggest you run right out