Dogme 95 (1 Viewer)

[Bellatrix]

I was just wondering if anyone cares about the Dogme movement anymore apart from film students and avant-garde-ophiles.

Has anyone seen any of the movies apart from Festen and Julien Donkey-Boy?

Would any film-types on Thumped be interested in making a collaborative movie that complies with the Vow of Chastity?

These are the things I ponder at 11.20pm of an evening, when I should be doing my homework.

 

[nlgbbbblth]

Have seen the two you mentioned plus The Idiots. Just looked at the list on wikipedia and the vast majority I haven't heard of.

Festen is my favourite of the three.

 

[Bellatrix]

Festen is my favourite of the three.

Festen is incredible. And harrowing.

It's interesting how quickly one zones out the potentially distracting production techniques when there's an excellent script and a really strong cast.

 

[Mitchum]

Dogma 95 is a load of ol' bollx.

Didn't John Cassavetes do this style of extreme cinema verité many years previously?

The interesting thing about Festen (or soi-disant DOGME #1) is that Vinterberg broke his own rules by using props.
I quite enjoyed the movie nonetheless.

I just think Dogme is another PR stunt, really.

 

[Nate Champion]

I still haven't seen 'Festen' (the play is explosive, wretched theatre). I think 'Julien Donkey Boy' is an incredible work of raw cinema. I like the way he shot it all on video. Economical.
Always wanted to see 'the king is alive', interesting premise, seasoned cast.

Why is 'A woman under the influence' considered a dogme? It was out in the 70s before the term was ever coined. Great film mind. I would say that though!

There's an awful Scottish film that's not on the list - 'Wilbur wants to kill himself'. He wasn't the only one...

Yeah, I like what it's about.

There's a film called 'Fuckland' there - best title ever. I'm taking that for a band name some day.

That 'Gypo' film was out here last year. Characters seemed too stereotypical so I gave it a miss.

 

[Mitchum]

Aye, Gypo was utter baws.
Works on the premise of a Czech illegal immigrant 'struggling' in UK despite the fact the Czechs are in the EU. Shoddy.

 

[Ferox13]

I like Idiots alot...

 

[Bellatrix]

Dogma 95 is a load of ol' bollx.

I completely disagree. I am strongly in favour of movements like this and Nouvelle Vague that emphasise the fact that the key components of good filmmaking are good writing, acting and directing. Nothing that went into the production of Festen would be inaccessible to a film student or anyone else, which, considering how good it is, is pretty inspiring.

Also, I really couldn't care less about the fact that, at some point in the shoot, Vinterberg covered a goddamn window.

 

[taubstumm]

i went to see this film last night. i thought it was great (though i also felt completely exhausted afterwards). it was the raw, dreary, depressing and grim story of a single mother adapting to life again, with her five (!) children, after her release from jail for some unspecified crime. (lots of staring out windows, silent crying, bad sex, grey towerblocks and rain, which finishes with credits rolling over the ambient sound of cars driving on a rainy day - no music).

as far as i could see, it generally fits with the dogme rules. however, there was no mention of dogme in the blurbs, so perhaps the people behind it might not want to have it be considered dogme, i don't know. so, if only to go by this one film, people still certainly seem to be taking the ideas of dogme seriously, even if - understandably enough - they don't necessarily want to be put in the dogme pigeonhole.

 

[Mitchum]

Also, I really couldn't care less about the fact that, at some point in the shoot, Vinterberg covered a goddamn window.

Exactly my point!
Why draw up artistic constraints as a guide-line if you're not going to follow them...with your very first film?
It's moving the goal-posts innit?

It smacks of shameless self-aggrandizing to me-announcing to the world your stipulations in DOGME 95-then ignoring them AND refusing to acknowledge that other film-makers have been using 'natural' techniques for YEARS previously.

Not that Lars Von Trier and Harmony Korine need DOGME when it comes to self-publicity of course ;-)

 

[Hector Grey]

load of utter wank, for tossers.

 

[RSJ]

1. Filming must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in (if a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found).
2. The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. (Music must not be used unless it occurs within the scene being filmed, i.e., diagetic).
3. The camera must be a hand-held camera. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted. (The film must not take place where the camera is standing; filming must take place where the action takes place.)
4. The film must be in colour. Special lighting is not acceptable. (If there is too little light for exposure the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera).
5. Optical work and filters are forbidden.
6. The film must not contain superficial action. (Murders, weapons, etc. must not occur.)
7. Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden. (That is to say that the film takes place here and now.)
8. Genre movies are not acceptable.
9. The final picture must be transferred to the Academy 35mm film, with an aspect ratio of 4:3, that is, not widescreen. (Originally, the requirement was that the film had to be filmed on Academy 35mm film, but the rule was relaxed to allow low-budget productions.)
10. The director must not be credited.

Sounds like the JANER school of film production.

 

[Mitchum]

load of utter wank, for tossers.

Apt tag-line there, non?

 

[Bellatrix]

Exactly my point!
Why draw up artistic constraints as a guide-line if you're not going to follow them...with your very first film?
It's moving the goal-posts innit?

I thought that the very fact that Vinterberg actually "confessed" to having covered a window with a bag for one shot demonstrated just how committed to the guidelines they were.

As a transgression, it's hardly worth mentioning. He didn't really break any of the rules.

 

[Mitchum]

There weren't really any rules to break though. Everyone from The Lumiere Bruvvaz to Rosselini to Godard, Cassavetes, Loach and beyond have employed similar guerrilla-making techniques without such fanfare.
DOGME just used technique as raison d'etre to publicise their films.

 

[Bellatrix]

Godard, Cassavetes, Loach and beyond have employed similar guerrilla-making techniques without such fanfare.
DOGME just used technique as raison d'etre to publicise their films.

Godard, Truffaut et al were never done heralding/discussing/publicising their techniques.

In fact, most of the nouvelle vague directors used [SIZE=-1]Cahiers du cinéma [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]like primary school kids use those copies with the space at the top for the picture. To announce their "news".

Today is Monday.
I make movies.
I use location sound and natural lighting.
Studios = bad.

[/SIZE]

 

[Mitchum]

That's not strictly true and somewhat facetious and misleading. Cahiers Du Cinema was a film journal that Godard and Truffaut wrote for. They wrote articles on many, many film-makers and film-making before they got behind the lens themselves.
What is the Nouvelle Vague anyway but a vague term for post-War French film-makers. There's little in common among the films of Bresson, Melville, Rohmer or Trauffaut fr'instance.

What I'm trying to say is that DOGME 95 is little more than an extreme cinema verité which has thrown up at most three or four films of note in twelve years (one of which broke it's own rules) and that the film-makers would have been better employed getting on with the business of making a movie rather than alluding to the process and mechanics in such a gradiose self-mythologizing way.

 

[Bellatrix]

That's not strictly true and somewhat facetious and misleading. Cahiers Du Cinema was a film journal that Godard and Truffaut wrote for. They wrote articles on many, many film-makers and film-making before they got behind the lens themselves.

I don't really know what point you're trying to make here. Truffaut, Godard, Rohmer etc. all used [SIZE=-1]Cahiers du cinéma[/SIZE] to disseminate their views about how films should and shouldn't be made (arguing for a move away from the studio system in favour of neo-realism etc). They were established critics before they began to direct but Von Trier was an acclaimed director before he founded Dogme. Dogme wasn't about furthering the careers of the directors involved, it was about making film production accessible. The self-congratulation that the directors engaged in came later.

Incidentally, just because nouvelle vague wasn't an organised movement with rules and guidelines doesn't mean the films have nothing in common (apart from the period in which they were made) - the films all share similar (low-budget) production techniques.

 

[Mitchum]

Cahiers Du Cinema sought to re-evaluate big Hollywood movies by Hitchcock etc too. It wasn't strictly a Modernist/Marxist polemic with Godard the driving force. Wasn't Rivette and Chabrol editors during the Sixties? Both quite 'conventional' film-makers.

There's nowt low-budget about Le Mépris, Day For Night either fr'instance. When they had money, they spent it.
Not for them the pretentious hair-shirts of the DOGME lot.

 

[Yurn!]

Cahiers Du Cinema sought to re-evaluate big Hollywood movies by Hitchcock etc too. It wasn't strictly a Modernist/Marxist polemic with Godard the driving force. Wasn't Rivette and Chabrol editors during the Sixties? Both quite 'conventional' film-makers.

There's nowt low-budget about Le Mépris, Day For Night either fr'instance. When they had money, they spent it.
Not for them the pretentious hair-shirts of the DOGME lot.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! CLASSIC!!!!!!