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Why was Dancer in the Dark not received well? Emily Watson was nominated for Breaking the Waves in ‘96 (deservedly), but Bjork was snubbed for an equally deserving performance less than four years later.
This was way before Von Trier’s Nazi comments.
The performance holds up.
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Dunno, maybe a combination of insufficient campaigning, bias towards more established movie stars, and the movie just not appealing enough to their tastes. She was nominated as a songwriter, I suppose they considered it better than nothing.
Lars von Trier was polarizing in the US long before the Cannes scandal. This was the first of his films that heavily criticized US society so it's not quite comparable to Breaking the Waves. Making films that are critical of the US as an outsider didn't make you an academy darling back then, quite the opposite. He was seriously criticized that one can't make movies about a country they never visited (he suffers from aerophobia) which was quite fresh coming from Hollywood of all places. The song nomination is actually the bigger surprise than missing actress. Guess many voters who didn't watch the film just liked the song itself lol.
Good summarization.
Just about every Lars von Trier movie is a room-splitter. I suppose Breaking the Waves and Melancholia were more broadly liked. But Dancer in the Dark is a divisive film. It has a dark storyline and it was shot on ugly-ass digital video. My movie theater actually put a sign up saying they weren't going to refund anyone's money if they left the theater. It's worth remembering that it won the Palme d'Or in a very competitive year (over In the Mood for Love and Yi Yi). There was the perception that Dancer in the Dark only won because von Trier was owed. From day one, there was question about its actual merit. I think it's quite good.
I think Bjork could've been nominated for Best Actress if 2000 wasn't as competitive a field as any I've ever seen. Also missing from Best Actress that year was Gillian Anderson (The House of Mirth), Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger), and Renee Zellweger (Nurse Betty).
It was a beyond polarizing film when released. A lot of people found it shallow, lazy, and manipulative. Bjork's performance was the one thing that was generally well recieved but it was harder to overcome polarization back then and Bjork was also at the time still seen as quirky alternative pop star who was weird cause she was from Iceland (dancer in the dark is kind of the start of the mainstream shift in how Bjork is scene) so people might not have taken her seriously
At least she got a best song nod out of it....given von trier was also given a fraudulent nomination
Regardless of the polarizing film, Bjork was also extremely polarizing as a figure generally at the time.
Because she snatched that lady bald headed?
Honestly even more broadly, just as an artistic figure.