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Playing with Our Emotions: Genre, Realism and Reflexivity in the Films

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Playing with Our Emotions: Genre, Realism and Reflexivity in the Films Playing With Our Emotions: Genre, Realism and Reflexivity in the Films of Lars von Trier by Tamar Ditzian A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of The University of Manitoba in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Department of English, Film and Theatre University of Manitoba Winnipeg Table of Contents Acknowledgements...............................................................................................................i Abstract................................................................................................................................ii Introduction........................................................................................................................1 Chapter I: Mixed Feelings About Dancer in the Dark..................................................13 Chapter II: Dogville as Brechtian Melodrama?............................................................57 Conclusion......................................................................................................................108 Works Cited.....................................................................................................................113 Acknowledgements First and foremost, I wish to extend my deepest gratitude to my advisor, Dr. Brenda Austin-Smith, for her patience and infinite optimism, particularly in the face of those embarrassing early drafts. Her critical questioning and challenging of my ideas and of their expression, from which (thankfully) I had no respite throughout the process of writing, undoubtedly made this thesis something that I believe I can be proud of, if only in fleeting spurts. In addition, although I discussed my thesis with him rarely, my ruminations about the imagination and about feelings in response to literature and film have been guided by my classes and conversations with Dr. George Toles. My interest in discussing the emotions with which I respond to von Trier’s films likely stems from both Dr. Toles’ and Dr. Austin-Smith’s infectious interests in such matters, and for that I surely owe them a great debt. I would also like to thank my committee members, Dr. Bill Kerr and Dr. Katherine Starzyk. Their suggestions were of immeasurable assistance in clarifying difficult concepts outside of my major field of expertise. Even more importantly, however, they provided me with alternative perspectives from which to look at “the problem of von Trier.” Perhaps the greatest thanks, however, should go to my partner Scott Marshall, who managed to live with a complete basketcase as I wrote and defended this thesis, and who did an amount of laundry for which I will never be able to repay him. Thanks also to my friends and family, many of whom deserve honorary degrees in cheerleading. i Abstract According to reviewers, bloggers, and scholars, Lars von Trier’s films, particularly Dancer in the Dark (2000) and Dogville (2003) tend to evoke multiple intense, often contradictory, emotional responses from viewers. The films’ dialectical effects can perhaps be explained by the fact that they broadcast their artifice, which results in a seeming break in the audience’s emotional immersion. The question that this thesis seeks to explore is how the films can simultaneously distance and engage viewers. Generic theories, as well as theories on emotion and film reception, are useful in exposing von Trier’s emotive strategies. In the end, it might be that von Trier endeavours to evoke emotions in viewers while also making us aware of his manipulations in order to suggest that as spectators we must constantly question the film and its creator. More troublingly, he implies that there might be something fundamentally perverse about our desire to watch films. ii Introduction Emotion resulting from a work of art is only of value when it is not obtained by sentimental blackmail. ~ Jean Cocteau My love is like a storybook story But it's as real as the feelings I feel ~ William Goldman (The Princess Bride) As its title suggests, the catalyst for this project was a feeling. It was not only the sorrow, pity, excitement, frustration, anger, and ambivalence that I experienced watching Lars von Trier’s films Dancer in the Dark (2000) and Dogville (2003) for the first time that drew me back to explore these films again and again. Rather, it was the embarrassment I felt over having such profound emotional responses to what are perhaps best described as cliché characters and formulaic narratives. I was a university-trained film viewer, and still von Trier could manipulate me so completely that I could not hold back my own tears (especially when those of the protagonists flowed freely). I became suspicious. He had fooled me into crying for these characters—characters that I saw only through a projection of actors on a screen. Of course, many films can make us cry. My real concern was this: how could I be moved to tears when I was aware of the ways in which von Trier was pulling me in? And furthermore, how could von Trier manipulate me this way using a musical, which is in many ways blatantly artificial, and even 1 fantastical? How could I be consistently moved to tears watching characters act on a bare Brechtian set which loudly broadcasts its artifice? At the same time that I pondered these troubling questions, I also felt a hint of admiration for the filmmaker who had manipulated me so openly, without releasing his hold on me until the very end. He had somehow managed to simultaneously reveal the ways in which films elicit emotions from us and successfully employ these tactics. Yet this immediately made me suspicious once again—suspicious that I was playing right into the hand of this acclaimed Danish filmmaker, a man whose arrogance was as well-known as his films. Granted, not everyone experiences the films in the same way that I do. When I began my research, I was anxious to find responses similar to my own that would validate my emotional reactions to von Trier’s films. However, I also wanted to seek out divergent reactions to the films which I hoped would broaden my understanding of exactly what von Trier was up to and help me to figure out how exactly the famous “provocateur” was provoking viewers. Of particular interest to me here were responses contradictory to my own, or those that either explicitly or implicitly described ambivalent feelings towards the film. For example, I became interested in responses from viewers in which ambivalence seemed to be partially concealed by anger and frustration at characters or events depicted onscreen. I was interested in ambivalence because it is an emotion which can arise when one is not sure how to feel about something. I began reading articles on von Trier, reviews of his films, and interviews with him. Then, in search of still more responses from viewers who were not necessarily engaged in writing professionally about their opinions of film, I turned to the internet, and to online discussion groups, especially those focused on von Trier, to learn more about how other 2 viewers have responded to his emotionally provocative films. As I read and thought “how do you solve a problem like von Trier,” to borrow from Rodgers and Hammerstein, my methodology began to take more definite shape. I decided to recruit a number of responses, from a number of “audiences,” in the service of finding answers to my questions. Thus, in order to explore von Trier’s strategies and their effects in the two films I have chosen to study, I make use of online discussion group contributions, reviews, and articles written by amateurs, professional film critics, and scholars. Each of these groups of writers offers distinct viewpoints helpful to a well-rounded discussion of the films’ emotional effect on viewers. Professional reviews and scholarly articles are usually the most well-written, articulate, insightful, and considered responses to the films. The use of scholarly articles in research on film topics is obviously expected, and typical. Such writers can offer great insight into the films, at the same time as clearly (or at times obliquely) articulating their own thoughts and feelings about them. Scholars also write primarily for other scholars, and so it is interesting to see how the sense of a certain kind of audience can shape the scholarly discussion of emotion in film. Professional reviews have also been used in scholarly work, in order to discuss different readings of or approaches to a film, for example. These are useful because, while they are still often well thought-out and eloquent, they tend to focus on the reviewer’s more immediate reaction to the film, and often emphasize an element of the viewing experience that the reviewer thinks will be interesting or relevant to other would-be viewers. Again, the reviewer writes for another 3 kind of audience, the kind that expects a pointed evaluation of the film, and uses this when deciding whether or not to go see the film under review. However, the apparent spontaneity and general anonymity of online reviews and discussion group contributions adds another important dimension to my research. The contributions of online bloggers offer a wealth of film responses that often go unstudied. These reactions also give other online readers the impression of unmediated access to the thoughts and feelings of the poster, an impression that tends to be stronger in these on- line contributions than it is in the writing of either professional film reviewers or film scholars. It is this impression
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