DOGMA 95 MANIFESTO and the ORDINARY ACT OF FILMMAKING by İBRAH İM CANSIZO ĞLU Submitted to the Graduate School of Faculty of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Visual Arts and Visual Communication Design Sabancı University September 2007 © İbrahim Cansızo ğlu 2007 All Rights Reserved ii ABSTRACT From the beginning of its conception Dogma 95 manifesto incited several debates related with cinema and other realms of culture. The manifesto became a motivation for a series of internationally acclaimed Danish films alongside it spurred many independent filmmakers from all around of the world. Analyzing the emergence, institutionalization and expansion of the Dogma concept offers many possibilities in understanding the zeitgeist of the last decade of the longest century of history. Politics and aesthetics always went hand in hand in the Dogma program. The main concern of the manifesto was the political economy of filmmaking. Dogma 95 manifesto definitely offered a new filmmaking strategy apart from Hollywood whose visual ideology is determined by the oligopolistic market and international capital structures. Also within the context of the European cinema the Dogma movement was different since it did not closeted itself within a debate between globalization and national cultures. Following Lefebvre's ideas one may argue that Dogma 95 manifesto proposed to construct a new social space for filmmaking which is more inclusive and democratic. Even though the film aesthetics seems to be denied in the manifesto, an analysis based upon the premises of the performance theory shows us the fact that Dogma 95 manifesto proposed a frame within which the political criticism is included, and this frame is not exempt from the realm of aesthetics. Lars von Trier's Idiots can be considered as a critical account on the utopian Dogma project. Through its self reflexivity, inclusive yet provocative nature Dogma 95 manifesto spurs an intellectual interrogation about the very basics and the future of cinema. Keywords: Dogma 95 manifesto, Filmmaking, Trier, Lars von, film, film criticism, Denmark iii ÖZ Ortaya çıkı şından bu yana Dogma 95 manifestosu sinemayla ve kültürle ilgili pek çok alanda çe şitli tartı şmaların do ğmasına sebep oldu. Manifesto ba şta uluslararası ba şarılar kazanan Danimarka filmleri olmak üzere pek çok ba ğımsız filmin üretilmesinde de önemli bir ilham kayna ğı olageldi. Dogma kavramının ortaya çıkı şı, kurumsalla şması ve yayılmasıyla ilgili bir analiz tarihin en uzun yüzyılının son on yılını anlamakta bize büyük ölçüde yardımcı olacaktır. Dogma programında politika ve estetik her zaman birlikteydi. Manifesto'nun temel problemi filmin ekonomi politi ğiydi demek mümkündür. Dogma 95 manifestosu açık bir biçimde Hollywood'un oligopolistik pazar ve uluslarası kapital tarafından belirlenen görsel ideolojisine alternatif bir film üretim stratejisi öneriyordu. Dogma hareketi Avrupa sineması ba ğlamında da farklıydı çünkü kendini küreselle şme ve yerel kültürler arasındaki tartı şmaya hapsetmiyordu. Lefebvre'in fikirleri ı şığında Dogma 95 manifestosunun film üretimi için, daha kapsayıcı ve demokratik bir yapıya sahip, yeni ve taze bir sosyal alan kurgusu önerdi ğini söyleyebiliriz. Dogma 95 manifestosu her ne kadar film estete ğini göz ardı ediyor gibi görünse de, performans teorisinin öngörülerine dayanan bir analiz bize Dogma 95 manifestosunun kendi politik duru şunu da içine alan bir çerçeve önerdi ğini gösteriyor ve bu çerçeveyi estetikten ba ğımsız olarak dü şünmek mümkün de ğil. Lars von Trier'in Gerizekalılar isimli filmi ütopik Dogma projesinin bir ele ştirisi olarak okunabilir. Dogma 95 manifestosu kendine dönü şlülü ğü, kapsayıcılı ğı ve provakasyonu öne çıkararak sinemanın temelleri ve gelece ği ile ilgili bir entellektüel sorgulamanın yolunu açıyor. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank those who were with me during my studies. To Hasan Bülent Kahraman for all his patience, trust and guidance for the past three years. My parents and my dear brother Ömer who believed and supported me in my hardest times. I also would like to thank the jury members of my thesis, Defne Tüzün and Selçuk Artut for their friendly approach and understanding. And lastly I would like to thank Eser Selen for her support, criticisms and encouragement. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract……………………………………………………………...…………………iii Öz…………………………………………………………………………………….…iv Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………..v Table of Contents……………………………………………………………………....vi 1. Chapter 1 1.1 Introduction……………………………………………………………..…1 1.2. Dogma 95 Manifesto and its Possibilities……………………………...…2 1.3. The Absent Organs of the Dogma Body………………………………… 7 2. Chapter 2: Dogma 95: Through a New Political Economy of Cinema? 2.1. Notes on the Methodology of Analysis……………………..…………...11 2.2. Contemporary Hollywood: Discreet Charm of Oligopoly…..……...…14 2.3. European Question on film: Hollywood Candy or Euro-Pudding?......23 2.4. Dogma’s Fabric, Lefebvre’s Skeleton: A New Outfit for Cinema?.......32 3. Chapter 3: Dogma Frame 3.1. Althusser’s Break……………………………………………………….49 3.2. Reading the digital image, reading the film with the digital………….51 3.3. Dogma Frame and Performance: Filmmaking as an Ordinary Act....58 4. Chapter 4: Idiots 4.1. Idiots and Utopia: Bullying, ressentiment and catastrophe…………66 4.2. Von Trier and Fuit Hic………………………………………………...72 5. Chapter 5: Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….75 Appendix I……………………………………………………………………….....79 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………..82 vi CHAPTER 1 1.1 Introduction On March 20, 1995 in the Odéon cinema in Paris at the venue for a conference held on centenary of the film Lars von Trier have read aloud the Dogma 95 manifesto and left the salon after he threw the copies of the red leaflet to the audience without giving any further explanation. Even though it was suspected that this event was only another Trier scandal, the manifesto was followed by a series of films committed to it. The films made by the three signatories of the manifesto gained considerable international success. In 1998 first two Dogma films were released and they generated considerable interest in Cannes film festival. First Dogma film, Thomas Vinterberg’s The Celebration was awarded the Jury Special Prize. 1 Von Trier’s Idiots was nominated for the Golden Palm and it won the FIPRESCI prize at the London Film Festival. Third Dogma film by Søren Kraugh Jacobsen, Mifune won the Silver Bear in Berlin alongside many other awards in several festivals. The international success and recognition of Dogma in international film festivals continued at a diminishing pace afterwards. Lone Scherfig’s Italian for Beginners and Susanne Bier’s Open Hearts are examples of these late successes. Dogma concept became a motivation for a series of internationally acclaimed Danish films alongside it spurred many independent filmmakers from all around of the world. Following its success in cinema Dogma was turned into a label in many diverse fields. Not only the international successes of several Danish films and the concept’s influence on independent cinema but also an array of approaches that declared themselves committed to the movement in several arts like dance and theatre were effective in this process. The Dogma label is even broadened through areas like computer programming and business. Therefore, Dogma was not only a film movement occurred in the last decade of the twentieth century but also a label attached to several media, or a concept used to decipher a certain attitude. Analyzing the emergence, 1 Hjört&MacKenzie (eds), Purity and Provocation: Dogma 95 , (London: British Film Institute, 2003), 3 1 institutionalization and expansion of the Dogma concept offers many possibilities in understanding the zeitgeist of the last decade of the longest century of history. International character of the manifesto and its ability to diffuse into many different areas other than cinema indicates the importance of Dogma as an artistic and cultural movement. Since this thesis confined to cinema studies I will mainly discuss Dogma around the issues related with filmmaking and film aesthetics rather than analyzing the Dogma concept in general. 1.2. Dogma 95 Manifesto and its Possibilities In his essay Manifest Destinies: Dogma 95 and the Future of Film Manifesto MacKenzie puts forward that internationalization of Dogma 95 manifesto makes it relevant for a wide array of debates in cinema studies. He argues that: “Not only does Dogma 95 raises salient questions about national cinemas, film aesthetics and the role of film manifesto in cinema culture, it also functions as a focal point for the debates surrounding the history of the cinema in its 100 th year. Questions about the relationship between the avant-garde and the popular cinema, the role of ‘minor cinemas’ and the dominance of Hollywood, and the history and future of art cinema as a means of cultural exchange between national cultures are all relevance to the debates surrounding Dogma.” 2 Therefore, institutionalization of Dogma at a conference concerned with the future of the cinema was by no chance. Indeed, Dogma 95 manifesto offered a re-evaluation of the current situation of cinema and it marked itself as a new beginning in the history of film. One may claim that this attempt was spurred by the apocalyptic discourse of the nineties. The last decade of the twentieth century was coincided with the dawn of a new millennium and this historical moment posed or produced questions