“establish a good-hearted main character who is mostly pleasant and helpful and let a lot of depressing things happen to her”.
I’d go further than this. The misleading halo that Von Trier deliberately adorns his protagonists with is usually tempered quite quickly by an equally serious flaw in their character. In Breaking the Waves, Dogville and Manderlay there is an unpleasant self-consciousness about the female protagonists’ goodliness. There is an abject lack of pragmatism in their aspirations which smacks of the worst sort of over-confidence. There is a blissful lack of awareness of the trouble they are setting themselves up for which belies a prideful indulgence in their behaviour. By the time the horrible foibles of the clannish yokels begin to kick in, the equally sickly righteousness of the victim has already established itself as conceit. This tension between the two is what makes the dramas effective. We dislike the quiet arrogance and obdurateness of Bess and Grace almost as much as the ignorance, meanness and cruelty of their simple-minded and not so simple-minded oppressors.
Lars von Trier is a director I loved, then hated, and now tolerate. At the moment when Dogville came out, I had already turned on him as Dancer in the Dark is one of my top hated films by a director I formerly admired. I hated Dancer in the Dark for a variety of reasons but my largest problem with it was thematic. Von Trier gets sadistic pleasure in envisioning scenarios in which innocent yet noble women are forced into positions of great suffering and degradation. I had loved Breaking the Waves but seeing the same scenario replayed in Dancer in the Dark made me nauseous and made me retroactively revise my opinion of Breaking the Waves. Why is this relevant here? Because Dogville, before I saw it, seemed like the exact same story again. So hence why I was reluctant to see it. And, in fact, it is the same film with a twist. The ending redeems the film for me and made me actually like it. Why? Because the pointless suffering and humiliation is avenged at the end in a way that I found immensely gratifying. Of course, Von Trier wants the ending to be gratifying and is probably criticizing viewers for finding it so (some grand commentary about the violence in American culture, I’m sure) but fuck him, I don’t care what he thinks.
Carl Cross, not sure if I was as irritated with Grace as I was with the townspeople raping and chaining her but your argument is logical and I will attempt to hate Grace more if I spend rewatch Dogville. What did you think about Dancer in the Dark though. I felt that Bjork’s character had no flaws at all and even if she was naive in “keeping her word” it was not because she was a bad person by our moral standards but because Lars von Trier just likes to torture viewers.
Any recommendations on where to go after Dancer in the Dark and Dogville?
“I will attempt to hate Grace more if I spend rewatch Dogville.”
Law, I wrote the word “hate” the first time around and then substituted it for “dislike” because the protagonists didn’t instil anything as strong as hate in me. I just saw immediately the flaws I’ve described in their characters and the egoistical elements which underpin those flaws. Neither do I hate the locals. I pity their ignorance at times and I of course condemn their treatment of the visitors. I’d like to be really pompous myself for a moment and say that I think I understand this sort of situation better than von Trier does. My sister moved to rural America from a European metropolis when she married her husband and had an experience uncannily similar to the one depicted in Dogville. My emotional attachment at the time saw me firmly sided with my sister and I developed a complete antipathy towards her neighbours. After a while I began to see the situation in a different light. My sister, a lovely, generous spirited woman, had taken into her new environment a misguided sense of her own superior education. And though she isn’t the sort to patronise, rather than integrate quietly she was a little too vocal a little too soon. Nothing she said was malicious or mean-spirited – she’s not that sort of person – but indirectly it made the egos of the people she was living around deflate and smart. I’m not for one moment supporting the kind of yokel, urban or suburban ignorance that makes groups of people behave and act inappropriately and then gang together afterwards to try to camouflage their indiscretions. But neither would I support the supercilious attitudes many urban individuals I’ve met extend towards the existences of their rural counterparts – or for that matter that many well-educated urban individuals extend towards less well-educated folk in poorer urban wards. Von Trier tried to wrap all this up as some sort of glib comment on American society which is such a European thing to want to do. You can almost feel his smugness when Young Americans plays at the end of Dogville. Europeans are wont to do this on occasion because they don’t want to look at the shit in their own back yard and find they can avoid doing so by focusing on the even bigger pile in the back yards Stateside. On the whole I think that the majority of Europeans understand almost as little about America as many Americans do about life outside their mainland. After a decade of spending long periods of time on the Eastern seaboard I myself have witnessed a very different America to the caricaturish version so often perpetrated by the European media. Von Trier clearly pressed a lot of emotional buttons with his powerful, if superficial drama; my view of the film was subjective and I hope a little more subtle. The local people in the rural part of America my sister moved to treated her at times with a generosity of spirit and kindness she never received from neighbours in the European metropolitan environment she left. And yes, there was a period when they treated her very badly. But the two need to be balanced. And my sister made her own mistakes. Von Trier is a consciously emotive filmmaker; aesthetically-speaking a very interesting one. And Breaking the Waves is one of my favourite films for a variety of reasons, mostly stylistic. But von Trier isn’t a great filmmaker. His films to me often feel “spiritual” but soulless. I think he’s an enormously gifted artist; I just don’t think he understands enough about life.
Dancer in the Dark I’ll have to watch again. It’s been so long since I saw it. All I can remember are Bjork’s spectacles and some big song ‘n’ dance numbers.
“His films to me often feel “spiritual” but soulless.”
Yes, soulless. An accurate word to describe how I feel about the two Lars von Trier films I have seen. I do not have much left to say about Dogville’s content unfortunately but Carl, thank you for the very informative and interesting insights on Dogville you offered. Hopefully others will chime in on their opinions of Dogville too.
The only Von Trier film I’ve seen that I’ve not enjoyed watching is Dear Wendy which was pretty average. Dogville’s American angle worked terrifically well and even if you don’t agree with his viewpoint he presented a great personal interpretation of how he sees certain aspects of American society. I would love him to turn his cynical eye on Britain.
Dogville is hit and miss with me. I also felt the artificial look was a gimmick because it’s not necessary to present the story this way, the film would be perfectly fine just set in a small town in the woods or whatever. It does make you focus more on the story and the characters, but there’s not really a lot of depth going on anyway so it may not have been Trier’s wisest decision to focus on an already lacking aspect of the film.
Lars Von Trier is an interesting director and I very much agree with the point made in an earlier post about the goodliness of Trier’s female leads being ironic/self-aware depictions of the devout. The Grace character is not as wholesome as the film attempts to make her out to be. The reason Dogville is one of Trier’s lesser films is because he feels he has to drive this point home by * SPOILER * having her exact her revenge in the form of a massacre instead of implying Grace’s flawed character in a more subtle way.
In Breaking the Waves for instance, the character is extremely flawed and delusional, taken advantage of, yes, but she is not the typical Hollywood caricature in that, like all humans, she has ‘good’ and ‘bad’ qualities. I don’t think it’s Trier’s intention to “torturing viewers” necessarily (while I’m sure that’s probably part of it) but it is certainly a favourite subject of his; flawed protagonists
I like this thread — it’s great hearing people who are knowledgeable about a certain director discuss his works like this.
He was only the writer in Dear Wendy… but yeah it’s hit and miss with Von Trier, i did enjoy Dogville, Dancer in the dark i couldn’t finish, no specific reason, i own it, i’ll finish it one day… but i think that was his peak, Dancer in the Dark and Dogville…his approach in dogville is totally pretentious, i think it would have worked with real settings and all that but in doing so he got more cred i think… i mean i felt the claustrophobia, the hate for the characters although he laughs in our fave at the end with the twisted character which was pretty fun, i really liked the movie until the end, don’t plan to see it again any time soon.. but i would dare to call it his masterwork…
I think Trier is manipulative, but I don’t mind. I think he’s insanely sadistic to his characters, but I don’t mind. I disagree with EVERYTHING he thinks about cinematic form, but I don’t mind. I hate Dogme 95 (not the directors, but just the idea). I don’t usually like movies that lay their themes so out in the open, that only have characters for the sake of theme…but, fuck, I don’t mind… All I know is that I cried my fucking eyes out during several of his movies and he has gotten some of the greatest performances out of actresses than any other director in a pretty long time. His movies are so polarizing and open to endless discussion (and fist fights) – and I’m sure that’s something he loves… Anyone that can get what he got out of someone like Nicole Kidman is certainly…someone to watch. …there’s a reason she was in the remake of Stepford Wives.
I’m taking a break from watching Dogville, and I just want to say that I’m really liking it. It might be the best von Trier I’ve seen. I like the artificial quality of it, mainly because von Trier’s restlessly moving camera seems to work against the static backdrops. I love the way he uses a hand-held going back and forth between two people in conversation to signify their uncertainty. The whole thing is like a child’s game of make believe, like when the backyard would be a battleground and a tree would be The Fort, and everything had a kind of mythic identity. That’s how I feel about the blatant labeling of places on the set of Dogville — it’s how children think of their world. And von Trier seems to be saying, Don’t upset people who are essentially childlike, don’t betray their forced-innocent view of the world, or they’ll hate you. He seems to suggest all Americans are like this. Which is kind of accurate in a lot of ways.
Rather than see Grace as good or falsely good, I see her as being like the woman in Breaking the Waves in one important way — she becomes the tool and victim of a man’s need to prove some pet theory of his correct. She becomes a kind of experiment — Grace is Tom’s experiment in how to get the town to open up, whereas Emily Watson is her husband’s experiment in “healing through promiscuous sex.” Or something like that. It’s important that both men are impotent — the husband through being paralyzed, and Tom because he’s a writer who can’t write. The woman as the victim of an impotent male who’s high on his own idea of what the world needs.
But how cool to see Lauren Bacall, Ben Gazzara, Philip Baker Hall, “Marcy” from Magnolia, and even the dweeby guy from Gangs of New York all in one film (and of course von Trier stalwart, Udo Kier).
Harriet Andersson is part of the all-start townspeople ensemble too.
Justin, report back after you have finished Dogville. The end has much potential to be discussed.
I have to say I loved this film. The end credits (outrageous and perfect) had me laughing hysterically and muttering “god almighty” under my breath in admiration.
The whole conclusion is genius. I loved the kooky rambling bitch-fight between Kidman and Caan about who’s arrogant in the back of the Caddy. And then when Caan leans toward the window and says “Shoot them, burn down the town” like he’s ordering wine in a chi-chi restaurant from the waiter! Perfection.
Two things came to mind for me toward the end. This film is in some ways a tribute to the song “Pirate Jenny” from Threepenny Opera, in which an oppressed maid in a hotel who’s treated like shit by all the customers daydreams that she’s a pirate captain and one day the black freighter with skull and crossbones will come into the harbor and kill everyone and take her away. The song is a ferocious piece of anticapitalist nightmare, and was turned into a civil rights protest anthem by Nina Simone. Like Jenny, there’s a moment where Grace is making up a bed and she says to herself, “No one’s going to sleep here tonight.” The other thing that came into my mind when the town is welcoming the gangsters is High Plains Drifter, where Eastwood as the martyred ghost prepares the cowardly town of Lago to welcome home the outlaws who are coming back to kill everyone. The use of red during the massacre also recalls High Plains Drifter.
Anyway, all three are about the revenge of the exploited. Dogville is a great fable about how capitalism works on people’s basest instincts. Grace initially seems to represent luxury — the town is so poor and proud that they say they don’t “need” anything they haven’t already got. Grace comes in and enriches their lives. But valuing something means they have to possess it in some way; they’re too insecure and too oppressed themselves to not become extremely possessive of Grace. And all through it, even when they are behaving really awfully toward Grace, they have to continue to see themselves as morally good people. This is how religion intersects with capitalism, because in a society where people’s bodies and labors are stolen from them, people can’t accept that they will one day die. It’s too much of a final insult, so they invent heaven, and salvation, and they pretend that no one can judge them. Because that’s what they’re most afraid of — that there’s really no reward waiting for them in the end, that it just drops away like the stage set itself into nothingness.
So Grace becomes exploited labor, chattel. When they feel they’ve overworked too much, they give her two days off — i.e., the weekend. Hysterical. And on this weekend she realizes she doesn’t even want to be Tom’s muse, because that’s just another form of exploited labor.
I also want to say that a cheap film would have had Chloe Sevigny’s character reveal jealousy toward Grace, secret love for Tom, although she professes otherwise. But it’s true to the high mindedness (and respect for women) which von Trier shows here that she isn’t just putting on an act when she complains about being the only pretty girl in town — she really does want relief from being a sex object. And that becomes how she exploits Grace in her own way.
I want to listen to the director’s commentary soon. I wish I had broken down and seen this film years ago!
The film was taken as anti-American and indeed it does attack narrow-minded religious bigotry in an obviously American setting, so i’m not sure we needed the song to rub that in. But if there is European condescension in Von Trier he would be making a big mistake. I saw it as very relevant to Britain and other European countries where immigrants are scapegoated and abused. In Britain the tabloid press hound immigrants mercilessly. In Northern Ireland recently a large number of Romanies from Romania had to leave the country after being attacked and persecuted by the racist mob. Britain is more insular and also Americanised than others in Europe, but more liberal European countries are far from perfect. It is true that right-wing Christian fundamentalism is strong in the US, and we saw the results politically, so Von Trier would naturally be drawn to target that powerful force, but i think the film can and should be applied well beyond the US. But just as each country should look at itself and its failings honestly, that also includes the US. There is a (mutual) huge gulf between self-perception and the perceptions of others. And what may appear high-minded and innocent can have its flaws too, as Carl points out.
I’m usually quite immune to Von Trier, he does seem often cruel and also full of himself, but I thought Dogville was an excellent daring film, the artificial sets worked extremely well, bringing out the sense of parable and we were no less involved than if it was a real setting. Nicole Kidman gives one of her best performances, and politically it suited me.
Kenji, I wonder if Britain ad Europe aren’t more self-aware when they behave badly than the U.S. — in other words, whether they feel the same need to cloak themselves in a mantle of “we’re still the good guys.” That seems like what von Trier is singling about America, that particular form of moral blindness that allows us to oppress people “for their own good.” “Because if they went anywhere else, they’d see what monsters there are out there and they’d realize we aren’t so bad” — that kind of extreme xenophobia coupled with American exceptionalism.
I enjoyed the movie but not as much as I did Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark. In the best tradition of neo-realism he is very manipulative but he does extract very primal emotions from the viewers and I absolutely love that. He is very clear in his intents and he sets up the downfalls of the characters in such a shameless way that I feel absolutely disarmed. Cinematographically is also very talented which makes any of these three movies very easy to watch.
Regarding the anti-Americanism of Dogville, I think that it is was so heavily handed and dogmatic that it was hard for me to take that as anything more than a fantasy of Von Trier’s preconceived ideas. He clearly has no idea of what he is talking about and I agree what Kenji and Carl said. So far I have lived for more than a couple of years in three continents (North America, South America, Europe) and by far the most intolerant and bigot of them all was Europe.
The camerawork is brilliant, isn’t it, and he uses editing here, and similarly in Breaking the Waves, to jump from the middle to the end of a scene, so we see someone getting browbeaten by someone else, for instance, and becoming quiet, and then in a cut, the quiet person is now totally alone. Von Trier has a good feel for characters’ isolation, and where I used to think “cruel” I don’t think that here, with Dogville, because of the liberating agency and empowerment Grace is given at the end. It’s sophistication, cultivation, a taste for the good life, that makes life worth living, von Trier seems to be saying, not the grubbiness that comes from squeezing the life out of something because you’re afraid you won’t have it anymore tomorrow. The beggar on horseback syndrome. Grace tries to defend the dogs of Dogville as “doing the best they can under hard circimstances.” And Dogville is oppressed as well — but it’s the idea of critical mass, safety in numbers, that interests von Trier here, as it did in Breaking the Waves and probably Dancer in the Dark. I think it’s always harder to stand alone and live an unstructured, “weird” sort of life in America precisely because all there is to cling to here, in troubled times, is a trumped-up sense of “we are all the same.”
Some great insights into a powerful and disturbing film. Loved your own analysis, Justin, with the comparisons to Three Penny Opera and High Plains Drifter – great stuff, guy!
I liked the early use of the ‘stagey’ mechanisms that were used to help ‘distance’ us (in the Brechtian sense) from the cruel drama unfolding before us. Unlike many others on site, I am a huge Kidman fan and will watch her in anything. She is always willing to take on difficult or complex roles and bring her own insights to them. Because I have some problems with von Trier’s own heavy-handedness and bending the story into the form of a moral parable, I tend to watch his films with a dose of skepticism. However, I thought the fact he continually emphasized the stage mechanism made it seem like we were seeing a heavy, heavy stage play – ala the darkest O’Neill, Tennessee Williams, or Edward Albee – tempered with Brechtian irony (if any of this makes any sense – which I doubt!).
I thought von Trier couldn’t resist the need he seems to have to turn this into yet another Christian allegory – ala Virgin Spring. The comparison of Grace (what a loaded name if there ever was one) with Emily Watson’s character in Breaking the Waves (thank you Carl for defining these characters for us) is painfully obvious. Yet, here we have the ravished woman exacting a very heady revenge on the whole town’s population. Wow!
I know that von Trier was initially thinking of this as part of a trilogy on ‘life in America’. Perhaps that is why he used the gangster motif and the ultra-violent ending. I have no problem with that – in the context of the hyper-real story and the inherent melodrama of the plot. I read on the wiki site that this film was panned by American critics – such as Ebert and Roeper – for being ‘anti-American’. The film was basically denied distribution in the U.S. This is the part of the story I find most disturbing. To deny a film adequate distribution or to rate it as per its political correctness is appalling. It shows how far we need to still go to advance beyond the narrow provincialism that this film so adequately exposes. I found it a daring and a thought-provoking film, regardless of whatever take one has on the story. To condemn it with the blinkers of political correctness is absurd. Von Trier was trying to show the underlying violence and antipathy of any society that is too in-grown. If this struck too close to home for certain ‘respected’ American critics, so much the better for von Trier. My respect for von Trier has grown. Also, what a cast!
Thanks, Bob. I think this was made in the wake of Abu Ghraib.
Justin: That is very interesting – and really puts Ebert/Roeper’s own criticisms in a sharp light. Why are societies – in this case American – so reluctant to look their own violent pasts – or presences – in the eye? Perhaps this film hit too close to home? Just another point in its favour, eh.
I think von Trier nailed something about American pride in this movie. It’s the pride of the townsfolk that is their big downfall. Ben Gazzara, who is reluctantly brought to admit to his weakness (he’s blind) which everyone has known about, is an obvious marker of that. Grace, we are told, is “a shady provocateur” when she traps him into admitting his blindness — she’s actually bored going through this routine of pretending he can see. For a while he seems to accept what she does and even benefit from it. In a deeper way, Tom is also hiding behind pride — he has to be seen as the moral compass of the town. When Grace endangers his standing, he turns on her. So everyone is desperately afraid of being caught out of their masquerade. As nations go, I can’t think of another one other than the U.S. who has built into its identity such an inflated sense of goodness. “The bright and shining city on the hill.” “The beacon of hope.” I think this is why so many other countries sneer at us, since they see that we have all the same problems they have, and we’re just human, and yet it’s so important that we be seen always as saviors and heroes. True goodness shouldn’t have to be advertised in that way. I’m not saying we’re not good, or never good, or that we aren’t better to live in than many countries; I’m talking about that sense of identity which becomes very vicious when questioned or challenged. But then, I distrust most forms of nationalism.
Some great posts here, particularly Justin and Bob’s. Really enjoying this thread. Back to Von Trier’s perception of America and the point about tolerance and bigotry in Europe. I don’t believe that Dogville attempts to bring any sort of discussion to the table about immigration, its concern is more about exploitation of humans and in particular its relationship to American society. We might say that he’s ignoring Europe’s own sections of society that are bigoted, however I think he’s as much concerned with provoking debate about American society because all too often American mainstream media (be that cinema, news, television) fails to do the same sort of thing. European art has never been afraid to turn its attention towards its own societies and institutions which is why I think Von Trier gives the universal tale of Dogville an American slant.
An important note which I just realized — Kidman begins the film with her standard American accent, but in the scene where she outs Ben Gazzara as a blind man, she slips into her native Australian and keeps it up for the rest of the film, so that by the time she’s reunited with James Caan, she’s a full fledged foreigner in this “America.” Which is exactly the point — she’s not like them, and her Australian accent is an “alienation effect” reminder of this. In its direct and unrealistic way, it brings the point home more than any kind of well-acted piece of naturalism ever could.
And thanks Mike for reading my posts. What does your name mean, by the way? Why are you “9.5 miles from Leigh” — I assume you mean Mike Leigh the director…
Justin, I had not noticed the accent, thanks for pointing it out, and Bob and Justin, great posts on the whole. This is the thoughtful and informative kind of discussion The Auteurs deserves. Unfortunately, I have little to add.
I assume that Mike is in England and literally lives 9.5 miles from Leigh, some place near Manchester.
Justin, I had not noticed the accent, thanks for pointing it out, and Bob and Justin, great posts on the whole. This is the thoughtful and informative kind of discussion The Auteurs deserves. Unfortunately, I have little to add.
I assume that Mike is in England and literally lives 9.5 miles from Leigh, some place near Manchester.
Thanks Law. It was a great thread — you prompted me to finally get this film and watch it. This movie lends itself to discussion more than most. I’m planning to watch more von Trier, The Boss of It All and Manderlay. Would love to see Antichrist.
One Lars Von Trier’s best films but not up to Dancer in the Dark or the truly sublime Breaking the Waves.
Law
Spoilers ahead.
I finished this film just moments ago, some thoughts I took away from it:
Firstly, I was very impressed with the set design that lends a very stage-y, artificial and claustrophobic feel to the film. Although it seemed like a gimmick initially, as the film zips through its 2.7 hour running time, Lars’ intentions come to light and if anything, the set only enhances the experience. One scene that immediately comes to mind for me is when Grace tries to escape Dogville and awakens to find the same old artificial sky and the town folk waiting for her. Due to the tight framing of the shot, viewers are left fervently hopeful that after her payment to Bob she will get somewhere but Lars funny-games (yes, I invented a verb) us and delivers a tragicomic end, that reminded me of Brazil, to her escape sequence.
Secondly, the chapters and inter titles just screamed Vivre sa vie to me.
Thirdly, the only other Lars von Trier I have seen is Dancer in the Dark. From both films, I draw the early conclusion that Lars is a strong figure in the “establish a good-hearted main character who is mostly pleasant and helpful and let a lot of depressing things happen to her”. Europa is next on my list, hopefully early Lars is less harsh in this one.
Fourthly, the camerawork did not make me feel like puking my guts out. Although shot in Lars von Trier’s much beloved hand-held-jump-cut style, it is much less nauseating than a film that revolves around a certain dancer in the dark. I was meaning to watch Breaking the Waves but I have heard similar complaints about it.
I would like to know your thoughts on Dogville and Lars von Trier whether you agree or violently disgaree with me. In troll-ish times like this, we need some calm discussion, what more suitable than the most divisive Danish director around?