The Dogma Movement
Reality taken to the big screen
In the midst of the peak of commercial cinema and the start of VFX, I first heard about the DOGMA movement, back in the late 90s. What’s that, DOGMA cinema? To show reality as it appears on screen, without any artifice and with real locations, I thought it was a totally crazy idea. Amateur cinema? Experimental cinema? Low cost cinema?
Researching, a name appeared, Lars Von Trier. Amongst his slim filmography at the time, it was worth to stand out, Dancer in the Dark (2000). Then, while I researched more, I realized that film wasn’t considered part of the Dogma movement.
My brain just collapsed. I was used to big, epic soundtracks, scenes full of action, impossible sequences, elaborate costumes and very charismatic characters.
The Dogma cinema was an avant-garde, film movement, started in 1995 by Danish directors Lars Von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, who wrote the Dogma 95 Manifest and the Chastity Vote. Next is the decalogue they wrote for the movement:
- Film shoots must be in real locations. Nothing can be decorated nor created on a set. If an article or object is needed for the development of the story, a location must be found which has those objects.
- Sound can’t be mixed separately from images or viceversa (music can’t be used, unless it is recorded in the same place where the scene is being shot).
- One will shoot camera in hand. Any movement that can be made with the camera in the hand, is allowed. (The film shouldn’t be where the camera is; on the contrary, the shoot must occur where the story of the film is happening).
- The film must be shot in color. No special or artificial form of light is allowed (if light isn’t enough in a certain area where a scene is going to be shot, that scene must be erased from the story or, rigurously, one simple light can be turned on for the camera).
- Any optical effect or filter is prohibited.
- The film can’t have an action or development that is superficial (guns nor crimes can occur or be shown in the story).
- Temporal or spacial alienation is prohibited (this corroborates that the movie is happening here and now).
- Genre movies are not accepted.
- The format of the film must be the academic one of 35mm (1:1.85).
- The name of the director shouldn’t appear in the title credits.
These rules and the Dogma movement were written down to give a wake up call to the then present film industry in 1995. Von Trier and Vinterberg gave a press conference announcing this new artistic current. Soon, the first results of the Dogma movement and style of filming came to live.
Celebration (1998) by Thomas Vinterberg shows us the story of a family which is in the midst of the celebration of the family’s father 60th birthday. During the dinner, held at a hotel property of the family, some truths that remained hidden for many years are revealed by the eldest son.
The film is considered to be the first big Dogma movement piece and many others would follow by directors like Lars Von Trier, Jean-Marc Barr, Harmony Korine, Lone Scherfig, Kristian Levring and Soren Kragh-Jacobsen. After several interviews, Von Trier and Vinterberg confessed that they modified their films in a way that they’d adapt to the shooting plan. They had broken the Dogma chastity vote.
The usage of prepared music, hiding windows or using materials on shoot which weren’t on location, made them not to be taken seriously by anyone, at least within the movement. With distrust built towards this sort of puritanism of film, they started giving out diplomas to those films and directors who achieved to comply with the decalogue, but all got to an end in 2005.
The movement, more than a critique to the system, was an intellectual temper tantrum, a sort of swindle on the part of some European filmmakers. This snobbism fell into disuse, and reason illuminated filmmakers again. It is ok to avoid using too many effects and embellishments to make up for deficiencies in the script or the characters, but in the end, film is made to tell incredible stories under a credible points of view.
Maybe, Dogma is nothing else but to take film to its minimal expression. Characters and their performances are the fundamental thread for the narration of the story to the audience. Austerity was established, again, by Lars Von Trier with Dogville (2003) in the form of an imaginary village on a studio set, where Nicole Kidman tries to escape from gangsters, and takes shelter in an almost ghost town.
It still doesn’t comply with all the decalogue, as much avant-garde as it might look like on screen. The closest thing to Dogma and its movement, its classic theatre. A monologue with a few actors on a stage with a minimal set. Everything is focused on the story.
Spanish Dogma Cinema?
Juan Pinzás (Vigo, 1955), achieved to make three films which obtained the sought after diploma: Once upon another time (2000), Wedding Days (2002) and The Outcome (2005).
After many hurdles, a jury at last gave Pinzás the diploma for having shot all three films following the Dogma precepts. Probably purer than the ones shot by the founders of the movement.
In 2005, the movement became sort of mainstream in such a way that it completely distorted the original idea. A lot of filmmakers wanted their Dogma title to brag about it, so they’d try with any form: short films, documentaries, monologues, even performances. With a total of 35 “confirmed” films as part of the Dogma seal, the movement finished at the end of that year.
In the present moment, nothing like that is being done, except experimental films or guerrilla films. The closest to it would be Birdman (2015), by Alejandro G. Iñárritu and photography by Emmanuel Lubezki. This film tries to show the whole story in one single sequence, where the centre of it all is a theatre and its actors.
The film is incredible and has many scenes with amazing sequence shots, like this one of Times Square, but careful, don’t be fooled. Iñárritu is a genius and knows how to sneak in 35 different cuts in it. Even then, it is a film worth studying in all its fields.
Be it as it may or write whatever you write, centre on dialogue, scenes and the development of character. The truth will come out by itself on behalf of actors. Dogma isn’t dead, but it isn’t the ultimate truth of cinema.
