Contemporary World Cinema
dogme95
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Danish film movement
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Scandinavian cinema was known in the 50's predominantly for it's silent cinema, but with the advent of sound, Scandinavian cinemas international prominence declined, and it became most known for it's art cinema. In the 1990's, Scandinavian cinema came back into the international limelight with Dogme95; the danish film collective launched by Lars Von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg.
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Dogme95 started as a collective involving four Danish Directors: Lars Von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg, and Kristian Levring. It was launched with a manifesto in 1995, although the films announced by Danish TV station Danmarks Radio in return for broadcasting rights after Von Trier's arrangement with the Danish Film Institute fell through, did not appear until a few years later. The manifesto sets ou ten filmmaking rules known as the 'vow of chastity'. These stipulate:
Location shooting using only props and sets found found on site; diegetic sound; handheld shooting using only props and sets found on site; diegetic sound; handheld cameras, with the camera following the actors rather than actors moving to where the camera is; colour film stock and natural lighting; academy 35mm format; and contemporary stories set in the here and now. They prohibit optical work and filters, 'superficial' action involving guns and murders, and genre movies. Most provocatively, they insist that 'the director must not be credited'; according to Von Trier, this is 'a punch in the face to all directors'.
So far there have been two waves of Danish Dogme films. The first consisted of films made by the founding directors; Vinterbergs Festen (1998), Von Triers The Idiots (1998), Kragh-Jacobsen's Mifune, and Levring's The King Is Alive (2000). The second wave, currently ongoing, includes Lone Scherfig's Italian For Beginners, Susanne Bier's Open Hearts (2002). Ole Christian Madsen's Kira's Reason (2001), and Åke Sandgren's Truly Human (2001).
Non-danish Dogme films have not equalled the Danish Films success, either critically or commercially. This inevitably leads to speculation that Danish Dogme films are 'founded in a specific location and sensibility' which the foreign films lack. John Orr, for example, sees Dogme's emphasis on restrictions as recalling Lutheran denial and suffering.
Dogme95 claims to be a 'rescue action' designed to counteract;certain tendencies' in cinema today. According to some reports, Contrier and Vinterberg drew up the manifesto in 'a mere 25 minutes amid gales of laughter'. Both solemn and playful, the rules are designed to provoke the film establishment and to give filmmakers fresh inspiration through the creative use of limitations. the idea that creativity can flourish when one has constraints rather than complete freedom has a long history and is shared by other filmmakers working under completely different circumstances including Abbas Kiarostami who's films must comply with strict Iranian state censorship. Removing the directors credit however, has done little to shake the auteur concept which remains attached to all dogme films.
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Dogme has become known for it's 'back to basic' realism. The Dogme filmmakers despite to force 'the truth' out to their charachter and settings, swearing to so do 'at the cost of good taste and any aestheric considerations'. Dogme's emphasis on contemporary stories, location shooting, and handheld cameras recalls Italian Neoralism, while the idea of the camera following the actors, and not vice versa, evokes American independent filmmaker John Cassavetes, whose 16mm Arriflex cameras achieved an intense intimacy with actors in films like Faces (1968). With even more flexible camera technology, Dogme takes on emotional closeness with actors yet further. Dogme also subverts 'fly on the wall' documentary film conventions, where the cameraman is a passive observer, and makes the cameraman a participant in the action. Shaky, hyperactive camerawork and abrupt jump cuts abound in the early films, 'conveying raw, truth telling qualities' but also emphasising confusion and highlighting the limits of their 'truth capturing potential'.
Peoples idea of a legitimate film is defined by high production values, expensive special effects, established genres like science fiction, disaster movies, or thrillers involving violent, 'superficial action'. As Von Trier asserts, films like Festen lend incentives to filmmakers in other small nations, who can see that 'if that's a film, then we can make films too'.
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When Christian reveals the family secret in he guise of a celebratory toast, the guests attempt to take it for what it pretends to be and carry on with the festivities. The effectiveness of these scenes is due partly t the casting of henning moritz, a well known danish star, against type as helge. The extras playing the guests were not told about his role as child abuser in this film, so they reveal genuine surprise or fail to register Christians news altogether. This establishes the pattern of response to his revelations: as christian opens up cracks in the polite dinner party façade, the rest of the family and the german toastmaster use dinner paty rituals - further toasts, coffee, after-dinner cigarettes, music and dancing next door - to reseal the façade and sustain appearances. When Christian makes his second charge that his father murdered his sister, his brother michael and some other guests forcibly eject him from the house. Vinterberg understand that, in this respect (of keeping a lid on things) his film has really 'touched something Danish, and that people have felt...provoked by it'. The ritual of manners only ceases to work when christians other sister Helene agrees to read lindas suicide note, which she had hidden in a pill bottle.
When Gbatokai, Helene's African American boyfriend, arrives at the party, in a taxi driven by vinterberg playing a cameo role, we learn more about the family's insularity by their attitudes to him. Michael starts up a racists danish dong to taunt him, a childrens song, which everybody know, evoking the swing toward the xenophobic far right in den marks contemporary political climate. In addition to race, Festen foregrounds class issues. The impetus for change comes from the servants, who steal the guests car keys to stop them from leaving and to ensure they hear christian out.
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With it's country house and upper middle class dinner party, festen contains more than shades of bergman, as well as lii brunels nature of bourgeois dinner rituals. It also draws heavily on Scandinavian Kammerspiel traditions. However, festens handheld home-camcorder style, with it's restless, jerky camerawork, gives it an edgy quality, introducing an amateurish desperation into the scrutiny of intimate lives. the dizzy camerawork underlines the sense of disorientation, unease and moral chaos - the loss of control in a setting where behaviour is supposed to be controlled. Operating a small digital camera, cameraman Anthony Dod Mantle mingles with the actors like an extra guest at party, sometimes physically intervening in the action. This explains the first scene when michael orders his wife, Mette and his children out of the car to make room for christian; there would indeed not be enough room with the cameraman too. Moreover, the cameraman knowledge of narrative events appears to be just as restricted as ours - he is often taken by surprise, as when the angry Mette jostles the camera.
Festens style is very confrontational. Shock cuts abound, as in the abrupt could cut when Helene screams, hits the wall and then is sick in the bathroom after her quiet decorum at the dinner table. Vinterberg comments that, in the absence of other means such as dramatic music or lighting effects, 'you just have your actors, so you have to make them faint, or puke or fight'. Fester is widely accredited as an acting triumph, but that doesn't mean other stylistic devices are redundant. For example, Dod Mantle's cinematography makes use of available light to convert the storys darkening mood. As the evening wears on and light diminishes, the pixels become increasingly visible, suggesting that the image is disintegrating just as the family falls apart. The interior scenes after christian is ejected from the house are all shot in low light conditions - as is the films psychological nadir, when michael beats up his father. Michael reacts to news of his fathers incest in the only way he knows - by assaulting him and thereby assuming his legacy.
The film also manages to tell a ghost story within the confines of the rules, thereby exceeding narrow conceptions of realism. when helene finds linda's suicide note, the film cuts to shots of Christians girlfriend Pia submerged in the bath, suggesting the drowned sisters ghostly presence. Slow motion shots and static overhead shots indicate that we are not outside the agitated viewpoint of the camerman/ guest who dominates the rest of the film. Slow motion announces linda presence again when christian collapses and hallucinates. Yet, because dogme rules forbid special effects and flashbacks, we never actually leave the here and now. A persistent ringing phone punctuates this hallucinating sequence, existing both as a reality within the hallucination - linda call to christian from the spirit world - and as the reality that wakes him, an actual telephone call from helene. Dogme does not allow superimposed titles, hence opening and closing credits must be conveyed by other means. Festen uses pieces of paper floating in water, another allusion to linda's presence outside the film.
When Christian reveals the family secret in he guise of a celebratory toast, the guests attempt to take it for what it pretends to be and carry on with the festivities. The effectiveness of these scenes is due partly t the casting of henning moritz, a well known danish star, against type as helge. The extras playing the guests were not told about his role as child abuser in this film, so they reveal genuine surprise or fail to register Christians news altogether. This establishes the pattern of response to his revelations: as christian opens up cracks in the polite dinner party façade, the rest of the family and the german toastmaster use dinner paty rituals - further toasts, coffee, after-dinner cigarettes, music and dancing next door - to reseal the façade and sustain appearances. When Christian makes his second charge that his father murdered his sister, his brother michael and some other guests forcibly eject him from the house. Vinterberg understand that, in this respect (of keeping a lid on things) his film has really 'touched something Danish, and that people have felt...provoked by it'. The ritual of manners only ceases to work when christians other sister Helene agrees to read lindas suicide note, which she had hidden in a pill bottle.
When Gbatokai, Helene's African American boyfriend, arrives at the party, in a taxi driven by vinterberg playing a cameo role, we learn more about the family's insularity by their attitudes to him. Michael starts up a racists danish dong to taunt him, a childrens song, which everybody know, evoking the swing toward the xenophobic far right in den marks contemporary political climate. In addition to race, Festen foregrounds class issues. The impetus for change comes from the servants, who steal the guests car keys to stop them from leaving and to ensure they hear christian out.
49
With it's country house and upper middle class dinner party, festen contains more than shades of bergman, as well as lii brunels nature of bourgeois dinner rituals. It also draws heavily on Scandinavian Kammerspiel traditions. However, festens handheld home-camcorder style, with it's restless, jerky camerawork, gives it an edgy quality, introducing an amateurish desperation into the scrutiny of intimate lives. the dizzy camerawork underlines the sense of disorientation, unease and moral chaos - the loss of control in a setting where behaviour is supposed to be controlled. Operating a small digital camera, cameraman Anthony Dod Mantle mingles with the actors like an extra guest at party, sometimes physically intervening in the action. This explains the first scene when michael orders his wife, Mette and his children out of the car to make room for christian; there would indeed not be enough room with the cameraman too. Moreover, the cameraman knowledge of narrative events appears to be just as restricted as ours - he is often taken by surprise, as when the angry Mette jostles the camera.
Festens style is very confrontational. Shock cuts abound, as in the abrupt could cut when Helene screams, hits the wall and then is sick in the bathroom after her quiet decorum at the dinner table. Vinterberg comments that, in the absence of other means such as dramatic music or lighting effects, 'you just have your actors, so you have to make them faint, or puke or fight'. Fester is widely accredited as an acting triumph, but that doesn't mean other stylistic devices are redundant. For example, Dod Mantle's cinematography makes use of available light to convert the storys darkening mood. As the evening wears on and light diminishes, the pixels become increasingly visible, suggesting that the image is disintegrating just as the family falls apart. The interior scenes after christian is ejected from the house are all shot in low light conditions - as is the films psychological nadir, when michael beats up his father. Michael reacts to news of his fathers incest in the only way he knows - by assaulting him and thereby assuming his legacy.
The film also manages to tell a ghost story within the confines of the rules, thereby exceeding narrow conceptions of realism. when helene finds linda's suicide note, the film cuts to shots of Christians girlfriend Pia submerged in the bath, suggesting the drowned sisters ghostly presence. Slow motion shots and static overhead shots indicate that we are not outside the agitated viewpoint of the camerman/ guest who dominates the rest of the film. Slow motion announces linda presence again when christian collapses and hallucinates. Yet, because dogme rules forbid special effects and flashbacks, we never actually leave the here and now. A persistent ringing phone punctuates this hallucinating sequence, existing both as a reality within the hallucination - linda call to christian from the spirit world - and as the reality that wakes him, an actual telephone call from helene. Dogme does not allow superimposed titles, hence opening and closing credits must be conveyed by other means. Festen uses pieces of paper floating in water, another allusion to linda's presence outside the film.
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