LARS VON TRIERS on DOGVILLE and MANDERLAY
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LARS VON TRIERS ON DOGVILLE and MANDERLAY Used with permission of The Writing Studio www.writingstudio.co.za "Dogville" is, above all, a film and as a film, I'm satisfied with the form and the content and the acting. I know it's not hip-hop, but I'm quite proud that I'm not, in my mind, as old as I feel. The inspiration Two things inspired me to write "Dogville". First of all, I went to Cannes with "Dancer in the Dark" and I was criticized by some American journalists for making a film about the USA without ever having been there. This provoked me because, as far as I can recall, they never went to Casablanca when they made "Casablanca". I thought that was unfair so I decided then and there that I would make more films that take place in America. That was one thing. Then I was listening to "Pirate Jenny", the song by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill from "The Threepenny Opera". It's a very powerful song and it has a revenge theme that I liked very much. The film needed to be set in an isolated place because "Pirate Jenny" takes place in an isolated town. I decided that Dogville would be in the Rocky Mountains because if you have never been there, that sounds fantastic. What mountains aren't rocky? Does that mean these ones are particularly rocky? It sounds like a name you might invent for a fairytale. And I decided that it would take place during the Depression because I thought that would provide the right atmosphere. The old, black and white US government photographs taken during the Depression were certainly inspiring, but I never entertained the idea of making the film in black and white. It's another way of putting a filter between you and the audience, another way of stylizing. If you're making a film where you go 'strange' in one direction (you only have outlines of houses on the floor, for instance) then everything else should be 'normal'. If you put too many layers on, it takes the audience further and further away from the film. It's important not to do too many things at the same time or you scare people away. I work a bit like you do in a lab, I experiment. When you're making an experiment, it's important not to change more than one factor at a time. I've been told that Americans might be reminded of "Our Town" and someone gave me the Wilder play to read while we were filming. I don't think, however, that there are any similarities in the story. This isn't to say that I wasn't inspired by anything, of course I was. I was inspired, for example, by some of the televised plays I saw in the seventies, and in particular, by the Royal Shakespeare Company production of "Nicholas Nickleby". It was extremely stylized, with audience participation and all these very seventies things, but when you see it today, it still works very well. In general, I was inspired by the fact that I miss theater on television. It was very popular when I was young. They'd take a piece from the theater and put it in other surroundings or it was very abstract sometimes. I'm not so crazy about theater in the theater but on television or on film, it's really something you want to see. I was also inspired to a degree by Bertolt Brecht and his kind of very simple, pared-down theater. My theory is that you forget very quickly that there are no houses or whatever. This makes you invent the town for yourself but more importantly, it makes you zoom in on the people. The houses are not there so you can't be distracted by them and the audience doesn't miss them after a time because of this agreement you have with them that they will never arrive. … views on cinema What do I say to those who say it's not cinema? I say they might be right. But of course I wouldn't say that it's 'anti-cinema' either. At the beginning of my career, I made very 'filmic' films. The problem is that now, it has become too easy - all you have to do is buy a computer and you have filmic. You have armies rampaging over mountains, you have dragons. You just push a button. I think it was okay to be filmic when, for instance, Kubrick had to wait two months for the light on the mountain behind Barry Lyndon when he was riding towards us. I think that was great. But if you only have to wait two seconds and then some kid with a computer fills it in… It's another art form, I'm sure, but I'm not interested. I don't see armies going over mountains, I only see some youngster with a computer saying, "Let's do this a little more tastefully, let's put some shadows in, let's bleach the colours out a little". It's extremely well done and it doesn't move me at all. It feels like manipulation to a degree that I don't want to be manipulated. Maybe it's because I'm older now. When I was younger, I probably would have thought all this computer-generated stuff was fantastic. Now that I'm older, I have to be stubborn. That's why I started going back to the old virtues and the old values. If you're stubborn enough, then anything can have its own aesthetic. There's a limit to how nice a film should look. If it looks too nice, I throw up. I actually see it a little bit like watching a magician. When a magician does little things. with coins for instance, you're completely fascinated. But when he moves the Eiffel Tower then you say, "So what?" ...America as seen from my point of view "Dogville" takes place in America but it's only America as seen from my point of view. I haven't restricted myself in the sense that I said, 'Now I have to research this and this and this'. It's not a scientific film and it's not a historical film. It's an emotional film. Yes, it's about the United States but it's also about any small town anywhere in the world. I wrote the script in Danish but I asked the English translator to try to keep the Danish language in somehow, not to make it too perfect. That's my Kafka thing, I suppose - I'd like to keep this foreign eye. I'd be interested, for example, to see a film about Denmark by someone who had never been there. A Japanese person, for instance, or an American. This person would then be a mirror of what Denmark stood for without ever actually having been there. In my 'American' films, I mirror what information comes to me and my feelings about that information. Of course, it isn't the truth because I've never been there (although I must say, I am better informed about the USA than the people who made "Casablanca" were about Casablanca). Obviously, a Japanese person making a film about Denmark wouldn't have the same kind of information at his fingertips that I have because 90% of what you see on Danish television is American productions, but then he'd have to do some research and that, for me, would make it an interesting film. In addition to the countless American programmes on Danish television, there is also a lot of news because America is the biggest power in the world. There's a lot of criticism, too. In my youth, we had some big demonstrations against the World Bank and the Vietnam War and we all turned out to throw rocks at embassies. Well, at one embassy… But I don't throw rocks anymore. Now I just tease. I learned when I was very small that if you are strong, you also have to be just and good, and that's not something you see in America at all. I like the individual Americans I know very much, but this is more of an image of a country I do not know but that I have a feeling about. I don't think that Americans are more evil than others but then again, I don't see them as less evil than the bandit states Mr Bush has been talking so much about. I think that people are more or less the same everywhere. What can I say about America? Power corrupts. And that's a fact. Then again, since they are so powerful, it's okay to tease because I can't harm America, right? The idea behind Grace's treatment at the hands of the townspeople was that if you present yourself to others as a gift, then that is dangerous. The power that this gives people over the individual corrupts them. If you give yourself away, it will never work. You have to have some limits. I think that the people of Dogville were okay until Grace came along, just as I'm sure that America would a beautiful, beautiful country if there were nothing there but millionaires playing golf. It would be a wonderful, peaceful society but that's not how it is, as far as I'm told.