VON TRIER'S LARD
Danish filmmaker Lars Von Trier, the enfant terrible of the Dogma movement of European cinema that began in 1995 (a movement sprung by a group of filmmakers' pledges' to inject more "realism" into their films by, among other things, using hand-held cameras, rejecting the use of expensive special effects, sets, props, encouraging a minimalistic style, and so forth), has just come out with a new film, Manderlay.
Well, not really. The film premiered at Cannes last year in May, and is finally in theaters in limited release. This film is the second in a promised Von Trier trilogy about America. The first film in this trilogy was 2004's "Dogville."
"Dogville" was the story of a seemingly pleasant young woman who takes shelter in a small town in the Rockies to avoid being captured by gangsters. Three hours after Grace arrives in this town, practically each and every one of the townspeople have committed some unpardonable kind of sin or crime against her - acts of rudeness, coldness, robbery, physical violence, assault, battery, rape, stealing, and I'm sure I'm leaving many things out. Grace avenges herself upon the townspeople by literally burning the town to the ground as the movie ends. The movie's ending title is played over the strains of David Bowie's "Young Americans," with images of brutal acts of violence that have been perpetrated throughout this country's history (lynchings, beatings, and so forth) juxtaposed against symbols of American pride (the flag, apple pie, hateriots and so forth).
The film provoked a huge controversy. Many viewers saw the film as a savage attack upon America, which they saw Von Trier as depicting as consisting as a bunch of savage beasts who cynically and mercilessly prey on strangers and each other, lying, cheating, and faux-moralizing away their no-good deeds in the process. Others claimed that Von Trier had merely shed light on some uncomfortable truths about this nation, and that we are a country more aptly titled "The Darkness and the Light" than "Morning in America."
On a few things, pretty much everyone agrees: Von Trier has never visited the United States. He virulently hates this country - its people, its leaders, its culture, its existence. The hatred was manifestly evident in "Dogville."
So, too, this hatred is evident in the second film of the U.S. trilogy, "Manderlay." In this film, Grace finds herself in Alabama, where, in the 1930's, she discovers a well-hidden town (whose name is the title of the film) in which slavery is still practiced. She, along with her ganster father's assistance, quickly dispatches the white people responsible for maintaining this legal anomaly, and then takes it upon herself to "bring democracy" to the former slaves, who, as she finds out to her consternation and frustration, do not appreciate her meddling and have grown so accustomed to living as slaves that her efforts prove counterproductive and foolhardy.
Von Trier has stated that Grace's failed experiment is a parable, meant to represent the U.S.'s folly in Iraq. Both the fable and the real thing point to the same truth, he says: democracy cannot be imposed - it must be learned; good (or not so good) intentions detached from reality bring suffering instead of stability; people should not relieve their guilt (or exact vengeance) by conducting social experiments.
All good and well. Yet, all the reviews I have read for this film, positive and negative, note that the anti-U.S. vitriol is not only again present, it is even more coarsely abundant than it was in Dogville, so much so that the film simply cannot be watched as a story; one must accept the fact that one is watching an allegory, and the movie succeeds or fails on the strength of its allegorical content.
A filmmaker, I believe, who makes films for public viewing, has entered into a contract with his audience, one which he cannot break. This contract requires that the filmmaker engage the audience in some way. Merely boring the audience, shouting at it, patronizing it, or lecturing it, does not count as "engagement."
Von Trier is entitled to his opinion of the U.S. (as are filmmakers who have lived here who have made films critiquing it; these filmmakers have seen the bitter as well as the sweet and thus bring a perspective to their stories that he lacks), and is entitled to weave that opinion into a narrative.
At some point, however, the audience must be considered. When a director is unable to prevent his ideology (hypocritical, naive, what have you) from becoming a fictional film, instead of informing the film, the director has lost his way, and the audience has been treated. The essence of drama is using characters, story and situation to illustrate themes, morals, and to evoke emotional responses. If one cannot see the characters as characters because the director has chosen to make them walking agitprops instead of human beings; then the "fourth wall" has proverbially been torn down, so to speak, but in a bad way: we are no longer watching a drama, but are merely watching someone screaming at us. Why would someone want to see a work of fiction to experience this?
Especially when the hectorer is in no position to cast stones? (Not that a hectorer ever is). Von Trier's point in the two films seems to boil down to this: America is evil. Americans are evil. Well-meaning people are evil. ad-meaning people are evil. Slavery is evil. Liberals are evil. Conservatives are evil. War is evil. Peace is evil. ad is evil. Good is evil. Von Trier sees this country as an undifferentiated mass of filth and therefore for him, attacking it is a straw man. What dramatic insights are we to gain -or he - to gain from such an approach? Perhaps if he did visit (he says he cannot because he is afraid of flying and traveling by boat) he would see even the tiny amount of good in this country that would put his cynical view of it in some kind of context. But, context tends to taint the purity of ideological hatred. And that's a bad thing for the hater.
Also, though Von Trier tends to pride himself on his knowledge of history (and no one denies that he has read, and seems to have studied, with at least superficial profit, a few U.S. history books), that knowledge is selective to say the least. It was in his home country of Denmark where the slave trade originated, and it was in "Mother Europe" that the American attitude toward colonization developed and exported itself. For Von Trier to recognize these things would force him to recognize the concept of...... well, it would force him to figure out how to perform the mature act of conceptualizing itself. Many adults are not capable of this - they are only capable of seeing the world in black and white, and any information that does not fit into this view is rejected as garbage.
Ironic, isn't it? This man is (properly) attacking a President who is incapable of seeing the world other than in black and white, but, in making the attack against that President and this country, is making the same reductive arguments. Pity.
Well, not really. The film premiered at Cannes last year in May, and is finally in theaters in limited release. This film is the second in a promised Von Trier trilogy about America. The first film in this trilogy was 2004's "Dogville."
"Dogville" was the story of a seemingly pleasant young woman who takes shelter in a small town in the Rockies to avoid being captured by gangsters. Three hours after Grace arrives in this town, practically each and every one of the townspeople have committed some unpardonable kind of sin or crime against her - acts of rudeness, coldness, robbery, physical violence, assault, battery, rape, stealing, and I'm sure I'm leaving many things out. Grace avenges herself upon the townspeople by literally burning the town to the ground as the movie ends. The movie's ending title is played over the strains of David Bowie's "Young Americans," with images of brutal acts of violence that have been perpetrated throughout this country's history (lynchings, beatings, and so forth) juxtaposed against symbols of American pride (the flag, apple pie, hateriots and so forth).
The film provoked a huge controversy. Many viewers saw the film as a savage attack upon America, which they saw Von Trier as depicting as consisting as a bunch of savage beasts who cynically and mercilessly prey on strangers and each other, lying, cheating, and faux-moralizing away their no-good deeds in the process. Others claimed that Von Trier had merely shed light on some uncomfortable truths about this nation, and that we are a country more aptly titled "The Darkness and the Light" than "Morning in America."
On a few things, pretty much everyone agrees: Von Trier has never visited the United States. He virulently hates this country - its people, its leaders, its culture, its existence. The hatred was manifestly evident in "Dogville."
So, too, this hatred is evident in the second film of the U.S. trilogy, "Manderlay." In this film, Grace finds herself in Alabama, where, in the 1930's, she discovers a well-hidden town (whose name is the title of the film) in which slavery is still practiced. She, along with her ganster father's assistance, quickly dispatches the white people responsible for maintaining this legal anomaly, and then takes it upon herself to "bring democracy" to the former slaves, who, as she finds out to her consternation and frustration, do not appreciate her meddling and have grown so accustomed to living as slaves that her efforts prove counterproductive and foolhardy.
Von Trier has stated that Grace's failed experiment is a parable, meant to represent the U.S.'s folly in Iraq. Both the fable and the real thing point to the same truth, he says: democracy cannot be imposed - it must be learned; good (or not so good) intentions detached from reality bring suffering instead of stability; people should not relieve their guilt (or exact vengeance) by conducting social experiments.
All good and well. Yet, all the reviews I have read for this film, positive and negative, note that the anti-U.S. vitriol is not only again present, it is even more coarsely abundant than it was in Dogville, so much so that the film simply cannot be watched as a story; one must accept the fact that one is watching an allegory, and the movie succeeds or fails on the strength of its allegorical content.
A filmmaker, I believe, who makes films for public viewing, has entered into a contract with his audience, one which he cannot break. This contract requires that the filmmaker engage the audience in some way. Merely boring the audience, shouting at it, patronizing it, or lecturing it, does not count as "engagement."
Von Trier is entitled to his opinion of the U.S. (as are filmmakers who have lived here who have made films critiquing it; these filmmakers have seen the bitter as well as the sweet and thus bring a perspective to their stories that he lacks), and is entitled to weave that opinion into a narrative.
At some point, however, the audience must be considered. When a director is unable to prevent his ideology (hypocritical, naive, what have you) from becoming a fictional film, instead of informing the film, the director has lost his way, and the audience has been treated. The essence of drama is using characters, story and situation to illustrate themes, morals, and to evoke emotional responses. If one cannot see the characters as characters because the director has chosen to make them walking agitprops instead of human beings; then the "fourth wall" has proverbially been torn down, so to speak, but in a bad way: we are no longer watching a drama, but are merely watching someone screaming at us. Why would someone want to see a work of fiction to experience this?
Especially when the hectorer is in no position to cast stones? (Not that a hectorer ever is). Von Trier's point in the two films seems to boil down to this: America is evil. Americans are evil. Well-meaning people are evil. ad-meaning people are evil. Slavery is evil. Liberals are evil. Conservatives are evil. War is evil. Peace is evil. ad is evil. Good is evil. Von Trier sees this country as an undifferentiated mass of filth and therefore for him, attacking it is a straw man. What dramatic insights are we to gain -or he - to gain from such an approach? Perhaps if he did visit (he says he cannot because he is afraid of flying and traveling by boat) he would see even the tiny amount of good in this country that would put his cynical view of it in some kind of context. But, context tends to taint the purity of ideological hatred. And that's a bad thing for the hater.
Also, though Von Trier tends to pride himself on his knowledge of history (and no one denies that he has read, and seems to have studied, with at least superficial profit, a few U.S. history books), that knowledge is selective to say the least. It was in his home country of Denmark where the slave trade originated, and it was in "Mother Europe" that the American attitude toward colonization developed and exported itself. For Von Trier to recognize these things would force him to recognize the concept of...... well, it would force him to figure out how to perform the mature act of conceptualizing itself. Many adults are not capable of this - they are only capable of seeing the world in black and white, and any information that does not fit into this view is rejected as garbage.
Ironic, isn't it? This man is (properly) attacking a President who is incapable of seeing the world other than in black and white, but, in making the attack against that President and this country, is making the same reductive arguments. Pity.
posted by EnterCenter at 4:31 PM
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