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Jørgen Leth

3.7/5 ( ratings)
Born
June 13 1937
Website
Go to Website
Jørgen Leth is a Danish poet and film director who is considered a leading figure in experimental documentary film making. Most notable are his epic documentary A Sunday in Hell and his surrealistic short film The Perfect Human . He is also a sports commentator for Danish television and is represented by the film production company, Sunset Productions.

Biography

Born on June 14, 1937 in Århus, Denmark, he studied literature and anthropology in Århus and Copenhagen and was a cultural critic for leading Danish newspapers from 1959 to 1968. His interest in Polish anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski had a profound influence on his work. He travelled in Africa , South America and India and Southeast Asia . His first book was published in 1962 and he has written 10 volumes of poetry and eight non-fiction books. He made his first film in 1963 and has since made 40 more, many distributed worldwide. His most acclaimed is a 1967 short, The Perfect Human, which also featured in the 2003 film The Five Obstructions made by Leth and Lars von Trier. Leth's sports documentaries bring an epic, almost mythic, dimension to the field, as seen in Stars and Watercarriers and A Sunday in Hell .

He has been a creative consultant for the Danish Film Institute as well as chairman of the Institute's board . He has also been a professor at the Danish National Film School in Copenhagen, at the State Studiocenter in Oslo and has lectured at UCLA, Berkeley, Harvard and other American universities.

Leth covered the Tour de France for Denmark's TV 2 from 1988 until 2005 as the expert commentator in partnership with journalist Jørn Mader. In 1999, he was appointed Danish honorary consul in Haiti.

He attracted controversy in Denmark after publication of his autobiography Det uperfekte menneske . It included a graphic account of sexual relations with the 17-year-old daughter of his cook in Haiti.[3] This created a media storm in Denmark,[4] partly because of his plan to make a film called Det Erotiske Menneske , funded by the Danish Film Institute, in collaboration with DR and Nordisk Film and TV Commission. The controversy upset several groups in Denmark. In October 2005, due to the controversy, he resigned his post as Danish consul in Haiti and was dismissed as commentator with TV2, but was reappointed in 2009. The film Erotic Man, Leth's homage to his sexual encounters with young women in third world countries, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2010. The film received lacklustre reviews which deemed it "dirty-old-man cinema" and colonialist exploitation.

Leth has had retrospectives at the National Film Theatre, London , in Rouen, France , at the American Film Institute, Washington D.C. , in Mumbai, India , New York , Sao Paulo , Toronto , Florence , Rome , Sao Paulo , Warsaw and Teheran and Athens International Film Festival, Athens .

He lived in Jacmel, Haiti from 1991 to 2010 where the Haiti earthquake destroyed his house.

Jørgen Leth

3.7/5 ( ratings)
Born
June 13 1937
Website
Go to Website
Jørgen Leth is a Danish poet and film director who is considered a leading figure in experimental documentary film making. Most notable are his epic documentary A Sunday in Hell and his surrealistic short film The Perfect Human . He is also a sports commentator for Danish television and is represented by the film production company, Sunset Productions.

Biography

Born on June 14, 1937 in Århus, Denmark, he studied literature and anthropology in Århus and Copenhagen and was a cultural critic for leading Danish newspapers from 1959 to 1968. His interest in Polish anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski had a profound influence on his work. He travelled in Africa , South America and India and Southeast Asia . His first book was published in 1962 and he has written 10 volumes of poetry and eight non-fiction books. He made his first film in 1963 and has since made 40 more, many distributed worldwide. His most acclaimed is a 1967 short, The Perfect Human, which also featured in the 2003 film The Five Obstructions made by Leth and Lars von Trier. Leth's sports documentaries bring an epic, almost mythic, dimension to the field, as seen in Stars and Watercarriers and A Sunday in Hell .

He has been a creative consultant for the Danish Film Institute as well as chairman of the Institute's board . He has also been a professor at the Danish National Film School in Copenhagen, at the State Studiocenter in Oslo and has lectured at UCLA, Berkeley, Harvard and other American universities.

Leth covered the Tour de France for Denmark's TV 2 from 1988 until 2005 as the expert commentator in partnership with journalist Jørn Mader. In 1999, he was appointed Danish honorary consul in Haiti.

He attracted controversy in Denmark after publication of his autobiography Det uperfekte menneske . It included a graphic account of sexual relations with the 17-year-old daughter of his cook in Haiti.[3] This created a media storm in Denmark,[4] partly because of his plan to make a film called Det Erotiske Menneske , funded by the Danish Film Institute, in collaboration with DR and Nordisk Film and TV Commission. The controversy upset several groups in Denmark. In October 2005, due to the controversy, he resigned his post as Danish consul in Haiti and was dismissed as commentator with TV2, but was reappointed in 2009. The film Erotic Man, Leth's homage to his sexual encounters with young women in third world countries, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2010. The film received lacklustre reviews which deemed it "dirty-old-man cinema" and colonialist exploitation.

Leth has had retrospectives at the National Film Theatre, London , in Rouen, France , at the American Film Institute, Washington D.C. , in Mumbai, India , New York , Sao Paulo , Toronto , Florence , Rome , Sao Paulo , Warsaw and Teheran and Athens International Film Festival, Athens .

He lived in Jacmel, Haiti from 1991 to 2010 where the Haiti earthquake destroyed his house.

Books from Jørgen Leth

Det uperfekte menneske /2 - Guldet på havets bund

4/5 ( ratings)

Det bliver ikke væk

3.5/5 ( ratings)

Det er derfor de knepper så meget i dette land

3.2/5 ( ratings)

Den gule trøje i de høje bjerge

3.8/5 ( ratings)

Det uperfekte menneske /3 - Et hus er mere end en ting

3.9/5 ( ratings)

Sportsdigte

4/5 ( ratings)

Spørge Jørgen

3.8/5 ( ratings)

Men jeg er her jo

3.1/5 ( ratings)

Netop gentagelsen er det smukke - samtaler om cykling

3.3/5 ( ratings)

Trivial Everyday Things: Selected Poems (Literature in Translation Series)

3.3/5 ( ratings)

The Five Obstructions [DVD]

3.3/5 ( ratings)

Eventyret om den sædvanlige udsigt. 15 indstillinger

3.3/5 ( ratings)

Det uperfekte menneske. Director's cut

3.3/5 ( ratings)

Film & fin de siècle : essays om 90'ernes film

3.3/5 ( ratings)

En dag forsvandt Duke Jordan i Harlem - Tekster om Jazz

3.3/5 ( ratings)

Billedet forestiller

3.3/5 ( ratings)

Lykken i Ingenmandsland

3.3/5 ( ratings)

Billeder fra Haiti / Images from Haiti

3.3/5 ( ratings)

Fra et sted til et andet - Tour de France 2014

3.3/5 ( ratings)

Haiti. Kuppet - faldet - katastrofen

3.3/5 ( ratings)
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