A Short History of Dogme 95
Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg's Cinematic Challenge
Paris, March 1995. The film world is gathered at the Le cinéma vers son deuxième siècle symposium to celebrate the first century of cinema and ponder its uncertain fate. Invited to discuss the possible future of cinema, Danish director Lars von Trier, already widely known for a series of challenging (and sometimes controversial) feature films, proposes a practical way forward. He presents a manifesto, accompanied by a series of rules aiming to free artists from the shackles of mega budgets and visual excess, a kind of cinematic regression therapy that he - and co-conspirator Thomas Vinterberg - hope will change the face of cinema. Throwing stacks of red flyers into the enthusiastic and bewildered audience, Dogme 95 was the word made flesh: The Vow of Chastity its Commandments.
A Certain Tendency in European Cinema
Presenting itself as a 'rescue action' with the aim of countering 'certain tendencies' in cinema - a deliberate reference to Francois Truffaut's 1954 missive 'Une Certaine Tendance du Cinéma Français' - Dogme 95 vowed, quite literally, to overturn the cosmeticism of modern cinema, the predictability of plot and the superficiality of action. It decried the 'supreme task of decadent filmmakers' as they conspired to 'fool the audience', and aimed to harness the 'technological storm' that von Trier and Vinterberg (rightly) believed would herald the 'ultimate democratisation of the cinema'.
In deference to the manifesto, The Vow of Chastity set out to explain exactly how a Dogme 95 film should be made. It demanded location shooting without artificial props or sets, and the use of hand-held cameras without special lighting. It prohibited sound and music from being produced apart from the images (and vice versa), insisting that the film takes place 'here and now' with temporal and geographical realism. Having clarified that 'genre films are not acceptable' and 'the director must not be credited', The Vow of Chastity also called upon directors to 'refrain from personal taste' and cease being 'artists', in order to 'force the truth out of characters and settings...at the cost of any good taste and any aesthetic considerations'.
Beginnings: From Festen to The Idiots
Despite its clear aesthetic influence on Lars von Trier's 1996 feature Breaking the Waves, the first certified Dogme film was Thomas Vinterberg's Festen (The Celebration, 1998), which traced a family torn apart by suicide and a startling revelation. Vinterberg's film won the Jury Prize at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival, and a whole slate of awards from film critics and festival audiences across the world.
Also premiering at Cannes in 1998 was Lars von Trier's first foray into Dogme, Idioterne (The Idiots). Although markedly less successful than Vinterberg's film, Idioterne gained noteriety around the world for its frank expressions of sexuality and crude treatment of intellectual disability.
The third film of the Dogme movement came the following year with Danish cohort Søren Kragh-Jacobsen's Mifunes sidste sang (Mifune's Last Song, 1999), in which a father's death requires his son to return to the small Danish island of his childhood and care for his intellectually disabled brother. A hit at festivals and award ceremonies worldwide, Mifunes sidste sang remains one of Denmark's most successful box office exports.
Dogme Gains An International Audience
The success of Festen and Mifune, and the notoriety of Idioterne, ensured that Dogme had gained a worldwide audience. In 1999, the movement spread to France (with Jean-Marc Barr's Lovers), the USA (Harmony Korine's Julien Donkey-Boy), Korea (Daniel H. Byun's Interview) and Argentina (Jose Luis Marques' F*ckland), ensuring that Dogme 95 had become a worldwide phenomenon. Dragging cinema into the twenty-first century, latter Dogme highlights included Lone Scherfig's Italiensk for begyndere (Italian for Beginners, 2000) and Susanne Bier's Elsker dig for evigt (Open Hearts, 2002).
Futures: After Dogme 95
In the original Dogme 95 manifesto, Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg referred to the initial promise of the French Nouvelle Vague, claiming that 'the goal was correct but the means were not! The new wave proved to be a ripple that washed ashore and turned to muck.' Of course, over a decade later, the same has been said of Dogme 95. Yet, the legacy of Dogme 95 is much the same as every other 'new wave' before and since; once the concrete ideas have become diluted, the strict rules relaxed and the main protagonists have moved on, we are left with only the films and their influence on future generations of filmmakers. And, for better or worse, Dogme 95 has proved to be nothing if not influential.
Dogme 95 logo
|
What do you think about this article?
More in Film & TV
Latest Articles