A really decorated Vietnam War veteran, in 1975 he initiated Operation Baby Lift, which evacuated 2.800 oiphaned Vietnamese chil- dren. To get into the ideal mood just before filming began, both Dafoe and Gainsbourg have been shown Andrei Tarkovsky's The Mirror from 1975. Dafoe was also proven Von Trier's own 1998 film The Idiots, and Gainsbourg The Night Porter to research Charlotte Rampling's character.