When a filmmaker's heart begins to fail, something unexpected may also begin: a reckoning with purpose. In the summer of 2023, Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn underwent emergency heart surgery that repaired a broken valve — and, by his own account, repaired something deeper still. Having lost his will to create before the operation, Refn emerged from recovery with a new film, Her Private Hell, and a conviction that mortality, properly survived, is among the most generative forces a human being can encounter.
Near-death heart surgery reignites Refn's creative fire for sci-fi horror 'Her Private Hell'
Refn underwent emergency open heart surgery to repair a broken valve filling his lungs with blood, requiring three months of physical recovery.