This is the first study that employs a materialist framework to discuss the political implications of form in the films of Lars von Trier. Focusing mainly on early films, Politics as Form in Lars von Trier identifies recurring formal elements in von Trier's oeuvre and discusses the formal complexity of his films under the rubric of the post-Brechtian. Through an in depth formal analysis, the book shows that Brecht is more important to von Trier's work than what most critics seem to acknowledge and deems von Trier as a dialectical filmmaker. This study draws on many untranslated resources and features an interview with Lars von Trier, and another one with his mentor – the great Danish director Jørgen Leth.

Angelos Koutsourakis is Professor in Film and Cultural Studies at the Centre for World Cinemas and Digital Cultures, University of Leeds, UK. He is the author of Kafkaesque Cinema (2024), Rethinking Brechtian Film Theory and Cinema (2018), Politics as Form in Lars von Trier (Bloomsbury, 2013) and the co-editor of Cinema of Crisis: Film and Contemporary Europe (2020), and The Cinema of Theo Angelopoulos (2015).