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Lars Von Trier is one of the few important filmmakers working today. He is self-involved as any great artist should be. He experiments without getting too noncommercial and he is expressive without becoming too personal. He matters beyond taste and enjoyment for he creates discussion. How many other directors can split audiences down the middle so distinctly that publications must offer opposing reviews as his Dancer in the Dark had done?
The negative criticism partially resulted in the responsive Dogville. Von Trier has worked quite a defensive argument for his art with this film. It could be misread as anti-American, but those who see it as such are in fact the very people attacked here. Dogville is against the aristarchy with its seriousness and ignorance. Admittedly, I am among the cynical and pretentious when it comes to film appreciation, but I have always been an admirer of the director. Regardless of my dedicated appreciation, though, is my respect for the isolated audacity.
Dogville is such an artificial film, noteworthy coming from a man who helped found the naturalistic movement Dogme 95. Set on one soundstage with only chalk outlines defining buildings and locations within the title town, much of the action is transparent and theatrical. There are a few props and set pieces: a desk in one home; a bed in another; a bell floats above the chapel. Everything visible on the stage is vital to the narrative. In film school, we were instructed to have an explanation for every inch of the frame we shot, for all that was seen on the screen. Von Trier’s shots leave little for distraction or attempted evaluation of the irrelevant.
Sometimes a distraction comes from the other actors, though, seen through the nonexistent walls behind the focal subjects. It makes sense then how much extreme close-up is used, reminiscent of those televised stage plays which utilize that intimacy not achievable in conventional theater. Other times, the openness of shots becomes tremendously effective as when certain iniquitous events are seemingly ignored by those in the foreground.
Nicole Kidman plays the token Von Trier heroine, Grace, reflective of himself as a foreigner to Dogville who is first shunned, then accepted and eventually done wrong by the town. The usual misandry is here and though the filmmaker features of himself a representative male character, Tom Edison (Paul Bettany), there is apparently much gender based self-loathing involved there. The rest of the townsfolk include Stellan Skarsgard, Jeremy Davies, Lauren Bacall, Blair Brown, Chloe Sevigny, Patricia Clarkson, Siobhan Fallon, Phillip Baker Hall and Ben Gazzara. I cannot think of a situation which actors would be begging to be a part of since Wayne Wang and Paul Auster made Blue in the Face. Thankfully, this exercise actually works on screen.
There is a lot of voice over supplied by narrator John Hurt giving the film, also separated into chapters with title cards, a bookish quality. I attempted to categorize the story and project as being more suitable as a novel, play or film. No medium is quite right. There is a lot which is not cinematic and contradicts a lot of film’s purpose, yet because it is stylistically and thematically not just a film but a Lars Von Trier film, Dogville works and shows the encompassment of storytelling tools available through motion pictures.
It is interesting to compare a film like Dogville with another recent movie featuring Nicole Kidman, Cold Mountain. Both films are, on the surface, clearly opposites with separate objectives. Still they both feature the talented actress in similar roles of survival in small towns unaccustomed to their lifestyles and times of dark desperation in men. They are both vital to cinema. One is ambitious and progressive. The other is more familiar and aesthetically pleasing. I can only dream that Dogville might reach the same amount of people as Cold Mountain. There must be room in people’s lives for both the conventional and the unique sides of the cinematic spectrum.
Robert Altman’s The Company is a delicious indulgence. It is a light dessert of a film for those few who have the room to enjoy it. Not for everyone, it is not a feature I recommend so much as revel in my own experience of it.
The wonderful thing about the movies is that enthusiasts of one thing or another can passionately display their worlds to us, the audience. It matters not that I have never seen a ballet or taken a dance class. As a film lover I can attend a showing of The Company with someone who is knowledgeable with the subject matter and we can discuss and appreciate the picture from different perspectives. The associations intersect as I can relate other experiences, with acting or film production for instance, to the workings of the company; my companion recognizes and wonders about the antiquated look of the film, wondering if Altman is attempting timelessness.
The look is that of Andrew Dunn’s soft-focus cinematography shot on high definition video. The result is classically and romantically cliché. I have often associated soft-focus with ballet for some reason. It resembles many pictures and movies from the late ‘70s/ early ‘80s cultural obsession with dance and dance fashion. If it weren’t for a few obviously modern props and settings, I might have mistaken it for that period.
Neve Campbell was the ballet enthusiast who got The Company made and were it not for her, the expressively quiet James Franco and the wonderfully cranky Malcolm McDowell, the film would be a lot more subtle, without the distraction of their celebrity. Shot in the voyeuristic Altman fashion, eavesdropping on moments in time, the film otherwise achieves a documentary feel. We are shown a predictable world of talented individuals and their craft, through success and failure, injury and backstabbing, all you might expect from behind the scenes. There is often uncertainty, however, regarding whether the film lacks enough story or employs too much. The greatest instances arrive when Campbell, obvious to my friend more than I a lesser dancer than others featured, is not the center of attention and the fluidity of the company, off stage or on, plays out more naturally.
Still I loved watching most of what The Company has to exhibit. A sequence involving an outdoor performance as a storm brews is one of the edgiest this year, not because there is care for any characters’ lives, but because the situation is so commonly real. How many of us have ever been in the same nerving situation during any outdoor activity?
The Company may not be entertaining or exciting as a whole, and as much as I hate to think this, a great deal of people would be severely bored. A great deal of people may not be able to relate to a film about a ballet company. They would rather watch a picture like Honey which supplies a recognizable plot instead of one that evokes a familiar feeling. Because this isn’t among the director’s greatest work, I can’t be too sorry for them. As for my own digestion of the film, beside someone of pertinence, The Company went down smooth and filling.
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