Your opinions on Dogma 95 technique?

J

JJ Alexander

Active member
I'm a big fan of Dogma 95. Not all but a lot of it. Some of it really knocked me out, Breaking The Waves, Dancer In The Dark, Dogville (for the guts to do it).
There is one about a bunch of people stranded in the desert I thought was stunning. Also The Celebration (coming to Broadway in play form called 'Festen')

I find it inspiring and freeing to see how good and watchable these films are.
They must be easier to shoot also.

I did hear they decided rule#8 - no genre films, was a mistake on there part because they realized all films are of one genre or another. Also that they started to break the rules somewhat as the films and directors got more attention.

What do you all feel about shooting that way since it has been proven to work?
 
Dogville doesn't seem to obey Dogma rules. I think Von Trier abandoned Dogma after (and during) Dancer in the Dark.

They are very good movies, but require EXCELENT actors. Dogma seems easy to shoot, but in fact its quite hard. It needs often more than one camera to shoot particular scenes, full set subtile lighting and decor arrangement (often what you get is NOT only "real" lighting), and, once again, very TALENTED actors that can improvise.

But the recording medium is inexpensive.
 
Breaking The Waves, Dancer In The Dark, Dogville


Great films, but none of these films adhere to the Vow of Chastity of Dogma 95.
( http://www.dogme95.dk/menu/menuset.htm )

What I find interesting is the spirit of the idea. That severe limitations can inspire rather than hinder. I for one have enough limitations imposed upon me that I don't need to artificially add any others. Anyway I instinctively reject any dogma, even my owm. But the basic idea that you can make a film with only a camera and actors and that that may in fact free you creatively is inspiring.
 
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Dogma 95. I have my mixed feelings on that, although films that do it well are great. I like Italian neorealism personally. But, my favorite Dogma film is "The Celebration". Wow. And that is COMPLETEY in a genre, the family melodrama. So number 8 rule is sort of one that invetibaly will be broken. And they had to have known for this film, something about that genre. It's totally it.
 
rsbush said:
Breaking The Waves, Dancer In The Dark, Dogville


Great films, but none of these films adhere to the Vow of Chastity of Dogma 95.
( http://www.dogme95.dk/menu/menuset.htm )

What I find interesting is the spirit of the idea. That severe limitations can inspire rather than hinder. I for one have enough limitations imposed upon me that I don't need to artificially add any others. Anyway I instinctively reject any dogma, even my owm. But the basic idea that you can make a film with only a camera and actors and that that may in fact free you creatively is inspiring.
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Anyone seen "The Five Obstructions"? Von got his ass handed to him, but more importantly, it really underlined how a supposed "obstruction" can lead to fantastic creativity. (As a side note, The Perfect Human continues to affect me until this day, I love that art film.)
 
Don't forget the Idiots!
I have always wanted to try my hand, The rules do seem to get bent here and there, I think its a great learning experience for the Director and Actors. having to stick to the rules, natural lighting ect...It would really push you to be creative. It also boils everything back to a terrific script. Maybe we should start our own DvxDogma?
J
 
Some fantastic and inspiring movies came out of that movement. The Celebration, The Idiots etc.. but I always had a feeling that Dogma95 was more about getting international publicity for these films. The fact that you could package these movies together under the umbrella of a ‘movement’ gave them a much higher profile than they probably would have received on their own.

a smart man that Lars is.
 
I really liked "The Celebration" as well. I agree, Kovarova, that some of the Dogme 95 movement was about marketing. But I think the main inspiration was to try to force the filmmakers to try new things creatively. I'm all for trying new things, but I couldn't see sticking to the entire list of rules if I had access to a real budget; especially since like most creative people, I hate rules. The Dogme 95 movement reminds me a bit of Schoenberg's twelve tone composition technique. This led to some interesting developments in composition. And I appreciate the experimentation, but I'd still rather listen to Stravinsky or Shostakovich than Schoenberg.
 
Basically I agree a lot with the Dogma-techniques. But I´m sure Von Trier called it "Dogma" in a thong-in-cheek-way because he´s really seeking to destroy dogmas. He just figured out the most extreme position possible and called it "Dogma". But beyond that extremism the idea is, that nowadays you can tell a story with very little gear and preparation. You can even do it with bad actors - it might be a bad movie, but it´s still a movie. (of course it´s ALWAYS good to have excellent actors) Now, more than a decade after the "Dogma" things look different: A HVX with a fig-rig will provide you a very different, much more filmlike look with a similar effort Von Trier needed to create his Dogma-movies. I fact we are stepping backward rather to something like the "Nouvelle Vague" - but this time it´s digital. In my opinion this is a good development because it makes possible REAL storytelling - something I missed in those "Dogma"- movies and which is important to me.
 
I find the Dogme95 movement to be prententious horseshit. It is not the film's itself but the idea behind them. Movement's should evolve and not be created and this so-called movement was created in 45 minutes and then announced at the gala. I always likened a movement to something that was happening with the undergound and off the path and that inevitably has influence on the popular mainstream. These guys try too hard.

I reviewed the Vows of Chasity before and they just don't make any sense (Those crazy Danish). I can appreciate this style of filmmaking as an excercise but it sounds like half of our films alone by fiat. Low-budget.

I think by creating rules to the filmmaking process you in fact are not creating a prosperous environment for creativity but are stifling the very goals you are trying to achieve; which is to be creative.

Again, I am not saying the films themselves are good or bad, it is just the idea of the movement comes across as an attention getter. Just make films and be honest about your work. One thing I think filmmakers should not do is take themselves too seriously, and this brand of filmmaker obviously is in love with himself.
 
funny how many of lars von trier's films are wrongly identified as dogme films. neither breaking the waves, dancer in the dark, nor dogville are part of the movement. they may share certain qualities, but the truth of the matter is that lars von trier has directed only one film under the guidelines of the dogme manifesto, the idiots.

a list of the actual dogme 95 catalogue can be found here...

http://www.dogme95.dk/dogme-films/filmlist.asp

for me, the dogme 95 movement was not about creating arbitrary rules to stifle the filmmaker. it was about stripping away the artificiality of common filmic conventions to allow a sort of transcendental humanism to emerge. i think cinema as a whole is a wonderful opportunity to explore the mystery of the human experience. i won't dismiss seekers of this artform's tremendous potential as "pretentious". how can it be pretentious to, as the manifesto states, "force the truth out of my characters and settings"? maybe some feel that by inventing a movement, the filmmakers are not organically engaged. i would argue that most movements start this way, with a shared idea between friends and colleagues, making declarations and realizations over a few bottles of wine. german expressionism, soviet montage, the french new wave, italian neo-realism, and swedish realism all started with an idea. and a desire to explore it.

anyway, fans of dogme-esque cinema owe it to themselves to seek out the work of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (The Promise, Rosetta, The Son, The Child). these are transcendental humanism at its finest.
 
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I agree with John on this one. The name says it all. Dogme (dogma) --- in any form or field, not just filmmaking --- is the bane of mankind. It's bad enough to have it infecting religion and politics, but art?!!!! For God's sake, the whole point of "creating" is to think outside the box! Dogma (in general, and Dogme95 specifically) restricts you TO the box, a box that was arbitrarilly defined by some guys (who, I agree, take themselves WAY TOO SERIOUSLY). Why 1.33:1, for instance? Cuz that's what some guys decided?
I think we're all better off thinking for ourselves, thank you very much. John said it best --- pretentious horseshiz!
 
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clearly the intended irony of the dogme95 vow of chastity, with its over the top religious jargon, has been lost on most people. how can you say these guys take themselves too seriously when they've said the "manifesto" was written over drinks and between bouts of laughter?

in lars von trier's own words, "I don't think it's necessarily crucial that the Dogma rules be followed. I think the issue of whether you can gain something by throwing away total freedom in exchange for a set of rules is worth discussing. Part of the Dogma concept has been that nobody has taken it completely seriously. It's been viewed as a bit of a joke. Why would anyone in his right mind impose such ridiculous restrictions on himself?"
 
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Yes Cygnet74! That´s the point. It was rather a cryptoanarcist provocation than a DOGMA. I can imagine all those danish folks getting drunk and writing it all down laughing like hell.
Reading this thread proves that what they did more than a decade ago still works! There are still plenty of people, thoughts and emotions coming up about that topic.:beer::beer::beer:
 
joe 1008 said:
I can imagine all those danish folks getting drunk and writing it all down laughing like hell.
Reading this thread proves that what they did more than a decade ago still works! There are still plenty of people, thoughts and emotions coming up about that topic.:beer::beer::beer:
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I think you are right about this. At the time the first films were released they were all able to receive international attention because of the publicity that surrounded dogme. The Celebration was shot on small sony mini dv cameras and received theatrical release because (I believe) of the boost it got from the publicity. It is an amazing movie IMHO and im glad that it got this boost. I think Lars and the crew wanted to sturr things up, open the debate and bask in the good and bad PR. They probably laughed as they got a number of ‘small’ films standing together on an international platform and distributed.

I never bought into the ‘rules’ but im glad those films were made and seen. I was at the Harmony Korine preview of Julian Donkey Boy in NYC and he was slammed about breaking the rules. It was funny and entertaining and a joke to see how serious people in the audience took it.

I think that these filmmakers take their film making seriously but have several people fooled in thinking that they take themselves too seriously. They must have done something right… we are still talking about it and debating their intentions.

I think I will watch The Celebration again this weekend.
 
John_Hudson said:
I find the Dogme95 movement to be prententious horseshi*. It is not the film's itself but the idea behind them. Movement's should evolve and not be created and this so-called movement was created in 45 minutes and then announced at the gala. I always likened a movement to something that was happening with the undergound and off the path and that inevitably has influence on the popular mainstream. These guys try too hard.

I reviewed the Vows of Chasity before and they just don't make any sense (Those crazy Danish). I can appreciate this style of filmmaking as an excercise but it sounds like half of our films alone by fiat. Low-budget.

I think by creating rules to the filmmaking process you in fact are not creating a prosperous environment for creativity but are stifling the very goals you are trying to achieve; which is to be creative.

Again, I am not saying the films themselves are good or bad, it is just the idea of the movement comes across as an attention getter. Just make films and be honest about your work. One thing I think filmmakers should not do is take themselves too seriously, and this brand of filmmaker obviously is in love with himself.
Click to expand...

The idea behind Dogme95 was to create a new kind of film. Disillusioned with mainstream cinema, Winterberg and Von Triers felt that too much emphasis was being placed on the mechanisms of image creation, to the detrement of storytelling and acting. What Dogme is so successful in doing, is placing the actors at the very heart of the film-making process, whereas in the traditional film process, they are wheeled out after sometimes hours of track laying, light setting, prop positioning and a whole load of other artifice. As an actor, I can tell you, this is not the best way to get a great performance.

I have heard it said that Festen (The Celebration) was just a great script, and that it would have been a great film however it was made. Whilst I agree that it was a superb script, the dynamism, tension and life that was injected into that script was stunning, and it was this film that brought justification to the "rules."

I have made my own set of rules, which to me make more sense. I recommend doing this for yourselves. For me, the rules are to restrict my palatte, and to force me to work almost entirely with my actors in making the film, and to prevent me from getting bogged down in pixel counts, easy high-stakes (guns, bags of loot etc.) and other truly pretentious bullshi*. One of the most important rules for me is the hand-held one - it saves hours and hours, and puts that time directly into the performers hands, as well as giving you the physical freedom to follow actors as they perform, rather than telling them to walk to lines in a system that obscures good acting.
 
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