“the contention that ‘to Dogme 95 the movie is not an illusion’ remains unexplained. Dogme reaction against the illusory technological gadgetry of commercial cinema remains a paradox” (1).
“The paradox that Professor Schepelern addresses not only points to the unresolved dilemma between two inseparable entities, cinema and technology, but more crucially, the tension between the fictional and the factual inherent in the film image” (1).
“In sum, the usage of the lens, the framing and its motion in the act of filming is a contrived exploitation of what is being filmed. The entire irony of the Dogme’s claim: ‘a Dogme movie is not an illusion’ is that Dogme 95 falsely assumes that there is a filmed ‘human fact’ that exists that is not itself fictionally devised and contrived” (2).
“Dogme 95 claims to be more truthful than Hollywood. This claim is acceptable yet subject to dispute. However, what is not acceptable is the Dogme manifesto’s claim that a Dogma film provides a more truthful approach to reality itself. In doing so, the Dogme group ends up with an inextricable and insoluble dilemma. That is, Dogme’s intended realism to counteract Hollywood’s illusion, ends up reinventing a new fiction” (2).
“The entire effort to bring about a spontaneous cinematic experience as it seeks to capture the essence of what is in front of the camera lens is a calculated controlled effort, which is entirely subjective” (3).
“That is, it is assumed that the camera’s eye ‘sees’ what ‘is.’ This is taken as a fact. However, the very use of a camera’s lens is itself an artificial device (i.e. fictional intrusion)” (3).
“The camera’s eye is merely a mechanism and not a living, animated organism. When the human eye ‘sees’ a red object, it ‘sees’ a substance because its sight is animated with the person’s intelligence. When the camera’s eye captures the same scenario it cannot ‘see’ a red object. It merely visualizes a succession of ‘happenings’ which are placed together (as frames in a filmstrip) as an ‘event’ that ends when we place the lens cap in front of the lens” (3).
“If we were to ask Andre Bazin about the artificiality of film, he probably would have answered a categorical No to artificiality, since he states that the essence of the film image is essentially objective in nature. He bases his position on the assertion that the film image is formed without the intervention of any human agent. That is, a film image is a mechanical reproduction without human participation . . . He goes even further by pointing out that even the very name of the lens, in French called ‘objectif’, is reminiscent of such objectivity” (4).
“Photography affects like a phenomenon in nature, like a flower or snowflake whose vegetable or earthly origins are inseparable part of their beauty’. Later on in the same chapter (‘The Ontology of the Photographic Image’), Bazin again underscores the objective essence of photography, adding: “Only the impassive lens, stripping its object of all whose ways of seeing it, those piled-up preconceptions, that spiritual dust and grime with which my eyes have covered it, is able to present it in all its virginal purity to my attention and consequently to my love’. Therefore, Bazin’s view is that the objective quality of the photograph is what ‘gives the medium its privileged relationship with the real” (4).
“With the very same lens, Rudolph Arnheim rejects Bazin’s notion of objectivity as he goes on at length talking about how an image is creatively formed. He provides a long list of properties (depth, size of an image colour/B&W, motion, camera angle, etc.) that the film image acquires in the process of transforming a three dimensional reality into a two dimensional plane” (4).
“For Arnheim then, the film image cannot escape from subjectivity since the angle, distance, the type of lens and so on are decisions the filmmaker takes being entirely optional and arbitrary. Therefore, the process is more mental than factual. The film image cannot take place apart from a contextual significance which issues from the author/director’s own frame-of-mind, a frame-of-mind that is entirely prejudicial” (4).
“Arnheim’s rejection of Bazin’s objectivity is based on ‘the assertion that film is nothing but the feeble mechanical reproduction of real life” (4).
“In sum, the result of Bazin and Arnheim’s positions are two views of reality which are entirely subjective even though one claims to be objective (realistic) and the other subjective (expressionistic)” (4-5).
“Therefore, Dogme’s manifesto falsely assumes “to Dogme 95 the movie is not illusion” that there is a photographic “human fact” that the camera can grasp that is not itself artificially (i.e., fictionally) devised. Again, underlying this false assumption is the tension between factualism and fictionalism. David Bordwell in his book, “Narration in the Fiction Film,” deals with this paradox by stating that the modern realism of the European Art Cinema is not more real than that of Classical Hollywood’s representation of reality rooted in late nineteen century realism” (5).
“Ironically enough, each “preferential” side can make the other appear to be what itself is not, since both sides are diametrically opposed to each other. For example, the subjectivity of the Expressionist film (traditionally a film descended from the European Art Cinema) can make the realism of classical Hollywood (i.e., the Realist film) appear to be “fictional” while the objectivity of the Hollywood film can make the Expressionist appear fictional. How is that so? To the Expressionistic film everything begins with what is perfectly conceivable and logically rational. What is not, is illogical and outside of the rational grasp. On the other hand, to the Realist or Classical Hollywood film everything begins with what is empirically observable and what one experiences with one’s senses. Therefore, for the Expressionist “reality” is mental, (i.e. intellectual) and elusive. For the Realist “reality” is visceral. The entire complex is one of paradox in a “have/have-not” situation. That is, if one emphasizes the Expressionistic or illusory mindset, one misses out the Realistic mindset, and vice versa. But, paradoxically, one cannot pursue one without bringing the other into attention” (5).
“… the whole point of Dogme 95 is not to emulate documentarism, since this would make it appear conventional rather than innovative. Dogme aims instead to challenge the conventions of the fiction film in order to create a dialectic relationship between fiction and the search for truth. In this respect, it is expressing the same tendencies evident as far back as neo-realism, a movement that also sought to banish the art of illusion and replace it with a truthful portrayal of reality within the bounds of fiction”
Dogme’s representation of “reality” challenges Hollywood’s realism in terms of narrative and praxis. Technically speaking, Dogme 95 interest is to highlight what the average American film overlooks. Therefore, Dogme’s narrative aligns itself with the European Art Cinema discourse rooted in authorial expressivity, narrative ambiguity and self-reflexivity.(18) That is, if the characters in the Hollywood structure are the main motivators of change in the narrative and have well defined traits, goals, and objectives, in the Dogme structure, the character’s objectives are obscure and their traits do not have a particular function in the plot” (6).
“Similarly, the Hollywood structure is based primarily on cause/effect relationships propelling the story action forward in a definite direction to meet specific goals. In the Dogme structure, the cause/effect relationship of the events is suppressed. Instead, the Dogme narrative is motivated by two principles: realism and authorial expression. Realism means that the narrative deals with actual contemporary life issues as it criticizes and questions social, political and ideological aspects of life. Authorial expressivity means the author plays an integral part in the formulation of meaning in the film’s narrative” (6).
“In terms of praxis, Dogme accomplishes its objective of being the antithesis of Hollywood by producing low budget, highly creative narrative films stripped of the sanitized gloss of the mainstream production code which is entirely subjugated to the high-tech cinema spectacle. Dogme certainly defies the Hollywood expectation of how a film should look. However, in spite of its commitment to strip from the production process all kinds of mainstream stylistic conventions, the Dogme film scarcely breaks new ground” (6).
“Dogme’s cinematic practice rests its foundation on Italian Neorealism’s basic principles, which reject artificial sets for location shooting, use natural lighting, and focus interest on contemporary, true-to-life subjects with open-ended plots, active viewer involvement, implied social criticism, etc.(20) In the same manner, Dogme’s shared relationship with the French New Wave rests on its subversive character a film stripped of any sense of perfectionism and seamlessness.(21) Dogme, like the New Wave, deconstructs the traditional Hollywood iconography of establishing shots, three-point-lighting and continuity. They replace the seamless editing style with the jump-cut as an alternative to continuity editing, and on-location shooting as opposed to the Studio with occasional hand-held camera work. It is this informal approach to filmmaking, the sense of freedom and playful camera work, that the Dogme filmmaker borrows from the French New Wave and incorporates into their work to the extreme” (7).
“As Richard Falcon puts it, Dogme’s cinematic discourse “mimics a revolutionary stance that pretends to want to revive a modernist transgressive cinema within a sceptical post-modern climate”(22) (7).
“Finally, what Dogme has been exploring with the “Vow of Chastity” and other narrational devices is the irony and paradox that is inherent in the technology and the production process itself. Even if the film was totally stripped of all production to a bare minimum, leaving it to just an improvised silent pantomime, even here everything would be artificially staged and not spontaneous. In the final analysis, there is no “candid camera.” There is no “truth” since it is impossible for the camera lens to attain the very “substance” of things. The camera itself constitutes the very framework from which subjectivity emanates. Cinema by its very nature remains subjective. Therefore, the irony inherent in Dogme 95 as it tries to separate itself from the illusion of the mainstream cinema, is that it attempts to capture a completely “natural” scenario and drama (i.e., a factual event) by “artificially” (i.e., a fictional contrivance) viewing it through a man-made lens. Yet, its very endeavour is in some measure successful since it does succeed in bringing home to the audience the idiocy, paradox, and futility of such an endeavour” (7-8).
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