Moving Away From "Dogme"

Picking up on where I left off yesterday, I just wanted to offer some comparisons to the whole use of the Dogme 95 ideology and the case of Dogville, a film directed by Lars von Trier, who championed Dogme 95, and then did a significant about face with this offering, much to the chagrin of his colleagues still loyal to the movement. 

It should be noted that none of the original proponents necessary espoused the view that the Dogme 95 way was the only valid way to make a film. The purpose was more to, well, to borrow a phrase from A Tribe Called Quest, "rectify" film "from its rectalness". These set of rules offered some guidelines, perhaps better thought of as challenges, to find new ways of making movies. For one, to make them more accessible to every maker by simplifying the process and opening up the possibilities for low, or no budget films, and also by forming constraints that would emphasize the story and the performance of the actors, over more superfluous (in their view) aspects of mis en scene (which we'll talk more about this later in the semester).

Dogville eschews these rules to a large extent in order to explore the story in a different way, though it seems that von Trier set up a new set of rules to follow in this case. For one, the entire film is shot on a rather conspicuously contrived set, a big no-no under Dogme 95 rules, which state that a film should be shot on location with no added props. The aim is a conceptual one, where the trappings of a small town exist only through chalk outlines on the dark stage floor. We are introduced to this staging through a aerial view accomplished by mounting the camera to a crane high above the set, showing the entire "town", which breaks another rule of Dogme, which states that scene should shot only handheld. Though most of the rest of film is shot handheld, von Trier returns again and again to this aerial view to great effect.

The performances are indicative more of a theater performance than film, with actors mimicking actions, such as opening invisible doors (complete with sound effects, breaking another Dogme rule). And pervasive throughout is the voiceover narration (Dogme specifically states that no sound recorded separate from images shall be added), which comments on the unfolding narrative. 

There are many other examples, but the point seems to be that von Trier purposely created a new set of rules and constraints, to stretch not only his abilities as a filmmaker and storyteller, but the audience's conventional perceptions as well. The piece is quite conceptual in its approach, and as a result, carries with it a certain amount of intrigue purely from the perspective of filmmaking craft. I found it to be at times, too stylized, almost to the point of distraction from the storyline. And as seems to be a trend with many foreign films, the result is rather dark and disturbing, certainly not for the faint of heart. But the perspective that I gain from watching these films relates to the notion that while a strict ideology is not always a good approach to any endeavor when it shuts out the possibility for other points of view, it can be a useful exercise to adhere to a certain set of rules or obstacles in order to stretch one's creativity and problem solving ability.