BJORK VICTORY ICELANDIC SINGER-MUSICIAN INVESTS HERSELF FULLY IN EVERYTHING SHE DOES, EVEN IF IT'S JUST 'DANCER IN THE DARK'.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Writer

Contrary to some people's belief, Bjork is not a pixie. Nor is she nuts, as dubious reports about the production of ``Dancer in the Dark,'' the eclectic musicmaker's movie-starring debut, have suggested.

Nor is she an actress, she says, despite having been awarded the prestigious Cannes Film Festival's top award for her performance earlier this year. It's easy to see why the demanding, English-language role - in which Bjork plays a factory worker who, while losing her sight, retreats into an inner world of bizarre musical production numbers - impressed the judges. And while she's glad that they liked it, Bjork never expects to appear in a movie again.

Petite yet surprisingly elegant (for those familiar with her wacky music video getups, anyway) in a gray, crushed velvet dress and flowingly coiffed black hair, Bjork will, in conversation, accept the label ``Icelandic Viking punk.'' And she is certainly not ashamed of displaying eccentricity, as her accessories - a construction-paper-and-cowrie-shell corsage and sequined polar bear purse - confirm.

But the main impression Bjork leaves is of a 100 percent committed artist. It's what made her play ``Dancer's'' star-crossed Selma, and what made her behave a little, ah, different from the norm on the film's Swedish shooting location. And it's certainly what made her an indispensable element of what is - love it or hate it (and there are plenty of people on both sides of that divide) - one of the most significant movies of the year.

``I've been doing my own, solo albums since 1993,'' says the 34-year-old Bjork (rarely used last name: ``Gudmundsdottir''), a classically trained composer who first came to international prominence fronting the pop/punk band the Sugarcubes. ``The biggest attraction of doing this film was, after doing that work which I felt was very narcissistic, I could use this academic education I had to make music about somebody else's feelings for a while.''

Although originally hired by Danish director Lars von Trier (``Breaking the Waves'') to compose the songs for his radical anti-musical, after spending a year identifying with the doomed, self-sacrificing heroine in the script, Bjork acceded to von Trier's entreaties to portray the woman on camera.

It was a role that most professional actresses would likely give their eyeteeth - or, more in keeping with the spirit of the thing, their eyesight - to play. Selma is a Czech immigrant who operates a punch press in some semi-rural part of Washington state, circa 1962. She is slowly going blind and saving every penny she can to provide her only family preadolescent son, with the operation that will save him from the same inherited condition.

Outside of her soul-deadening job and sacrificial mission, Selma's only pleasure comes from stage and movie musicals, which her deteriorating vision is taking away from her. In response, Selma starts imagining production numbers inside her head, informed by the common sounds she hears at work and in nature. These are poignantly unlovely flights of fancy from her even drearier reality; von Trier filmed each musical sequence with 100 locked-down video cameras, giving them both a drab look and a weird sense of claustrophobia that's totally antithetical to the lush, fluid fantasyscapes of escapist Hollywood dance shows. Then that reality takes alarmingly melodramatic turns more appropriate for tragic opera than light operetta.

And it's all from Selma's increasingly constricted point of view. But while the overwrought contrivance of the poor woman's predicament would be viewed by most pros as a scenery-chewing smorgasbord, Bjork plays Selma with a naturalness so affecting and specific that you can't imagine anybody else even thinking of doing it that way.

Maybe it works so well because Bjork, well, didn't think about it at all.

``The only way I can do things is very instinctively,'' she explains. ``I mean, I can do things with my brain, for sure; when I was arranging most of this music (which can also be heard on the just-released ``Selmasongs'' album), I did it with that side of my brain. But with the acting thing, it was definitely my instinct side. I was lucky because Lars was very encouraging. He was like, 'Please don't act, I hate acting; feel yourself through it.' So, I guess, I just kind of became her.''

While Bjork now describes the demanding von Trier as encouraging, their long, deep and complicated collaboration on ``Dancer in the Dark'' hasn't always looked that way to outside observers. Bjork went missing from the film's set for a few days during production; later, rumors spread that she was so upset she ate her clothes and took to living in the woods. For many months after production wrapped, she refused to speak publicly about the movie. And at the Cannes festival in may, animosity was evident between actress and director until the closing ceremonies, when, besides her acting award, ``Dancer'' won the best film prize.

The legendary French actress Catherine Deneuve, who plays Selma's best friend in the movie and became a good friend of Bjork's in the process, puts some realistic perspective to the scandalous reports.

``There were never arguments on the set, never,'' Deneuve recalls. ``She was very much, in fact, always listening to Lars and saying, 'Yes, OK,' and always trying to do what he wanted her to in the scene. I think they had problems that they discussed among the two of them, but they were mostly about the music. She did disappear for two days, but I suppose she needed the rest and had to get things settled her way. I cannot say that I agree with her on that - people were on the set, waiting to shoot - but I am not her.''

Bjork has her own set of explanations.

``I did, once, actually walk off set - very calmly. I did not eat any clothing,'' Bjork says. ``I wrote on a piece of paper that I wanted to be able to mix my songs for the film, have a final say in post-production and determine which versions of the songs would go on the soundtrack album. It had only to do with things about my music; I don't know anything about film and had no intention of making demands about anything like that. I came back with that piece of paper; they first said no, but in the evening they said yes. The next day we continued the filming.

``It was never like I was really going to walk off the picture because, obviously, I had so much invested in the whole thing myself. But at that stage, that was all I could do to defend my music.''

Bjork claims that many of the rumors came from uncomprehending crewpeople and the film's producers, who wanted to drum up interest in a picture they had heavily invested in. But von Trier, too, has variously expressed as much frustration as affection for his novice star.

``Lars and I are both very straightforward, stubborn and honest, so whenever we have problems, we always talk about it,'' she says. ``We never thrust anything under the carpet. But usually, if we didn't agree about something at 10 o'clock, we worked it out and by 11 were shooting. This film was finished before schedule; that's how fast we worked. But I think the people on set did not understand what was going on when me and Lars did, and everything was really fine. But then, that went really well with the film, because nobody in the movie understood Selma, and it was good that nobody knew what I was going through except Lars and me.''

It's not a feeling Bjork is unfamiliar with, although she is more accustomed to being supportively misunderstood. The daughter of an Icelandic labor activist and a hippie mother who divorced when she was a toddler, Bjork grew up amid a large, loving Reykjavik family and a communal environment that nurtured both her individuality and creative bent.

``I was the odd, eccentric child, walked around singing all of the time,'' she recalls. ``But I could always do whatever I wanted. In the hippie commune, I was my own boss, which was even better. I just had a key around my neck and went around in my own bubble, all the way until I was a teen-ager.''

Now the mother of a 14-year-old son herself, Bjork maintains that she can only follow her own unique path in life and art. Painful as the process of playing Selma was (which was partially why she didn't want to talk about the movie until seeing the final cut of it), that isn't the reason why she expects never to act again. Much as she keeps exploring new musical forms on each succeeding album, she simply can't imagine herself doing the same thing more than once.

``Anything that turns out good is difficult,'' she reckons. ``But that's especially the case with me, because I thrive better when I'm melting from one thing into another. I think I have a sort of pioneer element in me; that's when I'm at my best, and when it comes to repeating something I'm terrible at it. Personally, I love very traditional and conservative music; but in my own creativity, once I've sussed out what's going on, I get very bored very quickly.''

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) `Dark Vision' Pop goddess Bjork makes acting debut in controversial `Dancer in the Dark' (2) ``Dancer in the Dark,'' Bjork plays a woman going blind whose only escape is in vivid, bizarre, imaginary musical numbers.

(3) BJORK THE SINGER: ``I was the odd, eccentric child, walked around singing all the time.