Dogme Britain: Après le Surréalisme
'All we see and all we seem, is but a dream within a dream.' Edgar Allan Poe
If we are not happy with the illusion that is fostered upon us, we must not only attack this illusion but also those whose own lives and actions sustain it (starting with oneself). Every artist is by vocation and temperament the enemy of society. The reason for this is that he or she threatens, promises, is compelled (if true to hir calling) to subvert, undermine and eventually explode the Status Quo. Just as the Poet must overcome his rational faculties in order to access her creative, irrational potential, so art, or Surrealism, intends to destroy the existing order, to allow for another, greater order to emerge from the resulting chaos.
Winter 2002. Our declaration of intent as individual artists who nonetheless belong to a social body (albeit one we are opposed to) is as follows: to merge two distinct movements--that of Surrealism and Dogme--with the end of both exploiting and intensifying the crisis of consciousness which humanity now finds itself in. Both Dogme95 of Denmark and Surrealism of Paris were concerned with this crisis of consciousness. They were designed and directed at confronting and exposing the bourgeois hypocrisy of middleclass values, values that sustain and uphold the illusion. This illusion appears to protect us from the crisis of consciousness we are facing, but in actuality it only denies us the opportunity of using it for self-transformation.
'It is no accident that the phrase "avant-garde" has military connotations. Discipline is the answer.'
Beyond discipline, however, is strategy. The moment Art becomes (or is recognized as) political, it becomes (is recognized as) a form of social warfare. Therefore it must, like all warfare, be disciplined, organized, and highly strategic. It must have specific and precise goals, and the method and means of its expression must be directed exclusively towards these goals.
If 'predictability [is] the golden calf around which we dance,' then unpredictability, or spontaneity, impulse, must be the One True God of Dogme/Surrealist cinema.The instant is not more important than the whole: the instant IS the whole. Movies are snapshots of the Illusion. As such, they are windows to Reality. Dogme Britain Après le Surréalisme will provide a template and a strategy for moviemakers to adhere to, in order to find their own means, method, and goals of expression. They must be true to the spirit of Trojan Horse moviemaking, but not necessarily to the letter. By upholding the Spirit, they will transform the letter to their own ends. The letter is idiosyncratic; the Spirit is absolute.
There are seven principles to the methodology of Dogme Surrealism.
1. Choose your battleground. Select the location for a given scene: know it intimately, and develop your creative and practical approach to the scene accordingly. This principle also has a more esoteric meaning, as applied to the subject of the film itself. Movies shall in some manner deal with social or psychological Taboos and provoke an attack of conscience. A movie is a spell or prayer; in which case, ask yourself, what is this prayer for?
2. Discard all that is not necessary. Keep it simple. Frugality and economy are of the essence. Both scenes and characters should consist of as few components as needed, in order to produce their effect. This rule of course also applies to the method of shooting (i.e., camera, crew, etc) and to finished film itself, regarding the editing process. Logistically, movies are to be shot on DV or video, using natural lighting and sound, save in special cases, and natural settings where possible. Actors will be paid basic wage or given 'points,' as requested. Crew is to be kept to the absolute bare minimum.
3. Be ready to make your last stand here and now. Every act is an act of war. Every scene is crucial and central to the whole; no one moment is any more 'important' than any other. All Players, both behind camera and in front, must be ready to push themselves to their own limits and beyond. Art is a weapon brought to bear upon the evils of society. There should be terror to balance out the beauty. As Dogme Surrealists, our intent first and foremost is to confront viewers with (largely unpleasant) home truths about themselves. For this we must be prepared (even eager) to be despised and shunned by the mass audience.
4. Abandon 'self' and let the 'Spirit' take over. Filmmakers' personal vision must be subservient to the greater Vision of the film itself. Let go and move on. No script, just strategy. A director's job is to preside over a series of accidents. The essence of dogme surrealism, then, is spontaneity: letting go and allowing 'accidents' to happen. The subject itself must determine the final form of the movie, which is a living thing. Every artist is the midwife to his inspiration. To this end we replace the 'director' credit with 'initiator.' All films must incorporate improvisation and allow for spontaneity and the unexpected. The script is loose, only strategy must be tight. Repeat takes are to be kept to a minimum.
5. When overwhelmed, let the mind wander. When shooting a given scene, never become fixated on any specific end or intention, thereby twisting both the performers and the subject out of shape. Besides distorting the means to achieve the end, you are probably missing an opportunity for a more interesting moment to arise of its own accord. Never force a scene; filmmaking is play, not work. So be spontaneous, playful. Focus on the details when the overall picture becomes unclear.
6. Compress time. Time is of the essence. Time is the medium of movies, and like movies time is plastic, mutable. Be efficient, economical, but never hurried. Use time imaginatively, sparingly, creatively. Movies are made of light. Light is the substance of souls. Each movie is a testament to the time in which it was made. The testimony must justify the expense, of time and money, on the one hand, and the exploitation/violation of the players involved, on the other. To this end, every movie should take not only the players but also the audience on a journey, a journey into themselves.
7. Remain a mystery to everyone and to yourself. This is the most esoteric principle and requires a non-linear, ambiguous, and impartial approach to filmmaking and to the subject itself. In the spirit of surréalisme, there should be in the movies no clear distinction between reality and dreams, documentary and drama, truth and fantasy. The world is a mystery. As filmmakers we dedicate ourselves to unraveling this mystery without ever hoping to succeed in doing so. In the process, we take our place alongside the mysteries, as mysteries unto ourselves. Film, therefore, is an investigation into the mystery of being.
A Word About Dogme95.
Seven years after the original Dogme95 manifesto was composed by Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, we have come up with our own version of a cinematic 'revolution.' In the last seven years DV moviemaking has come into its own and the time is now ripe for the lunatics to take over the asylum. 'Hollywood,' the power rather than the place, now belongs to anyone with the courage and conviction to storm it. Danish Dogme95 did not take Hollywood (i.e., global moviemaking) by storm for two reasons: one it was Denmark-based, and so severely limited in the public eye to 'weird, subtitled art movies.' And two, the Dogme95 manifesto itself was deliberately 'chaste' and ascetic in nature: it was 'dogmatic,' exclusionist, alienating. It reduced integrity to a series of inviolable rules. This is understandable, since it is a simple matter to maintain the letter of a movement but almost impossible to uphold the spirit. Yet it is the spirit which concerns us here.
The first and only truly political artistic movement was le surréalisme of Paris in the '20s and '30s, devised and practiced by luminaries such as André Breton, Jean Cocteau, Magritte, Salvador Dali, and Luis Buñuel. Surrealism had its manifestos, but no hard and fast rules. Nonetheless, the spirit of Surrealism was plain enough so that any work that merely dabbled with or skirted around it was immediately identifiable as a sham. Genuine Surrealist works attempted certain things (mainly to shock and challenge the perceptions of the experiencer), and even when they were unsuccessful they could at least be recognized and acknowledged as genuine experiments. It is this spirit of Surrealism, then, and the sparseness and simplicity (and integrity) of Dogme95, that we intend to combine into a specifically English (language) movement, here and now, in London, the Winter of 2002/3.
The idea of Dogme95 which interests us the most is its bid to inspire artists and filmmakers by restricting them. It gave them a framework in which to work that would free them up, just as all limitations provide challenge: necessity being the mother of invention. The idea that interests us the least is its dogmatic, reactionary quality, its attempt to counteract the Hollywood virus with a rigid aesthetic that potentially stripped movies not only of their schmaltz but also of their magic. We see no reason to deny movies their magical, spellcasting, escapist function, provided this be combined with the purer and more subversive ends of art (and specifically Surrealist art): to deliver an attack of conscience. Indeed, the more audiences can be lulled and seduced by the beauty of image and sound, the more profound the attack may be (since the audience defenses will be that much lower when the attack finally comes). The only way to attack, after all, is to appear not to be attacking. This is the Trojan Horse principle of Dogme Britain, après le surréalisme.
Briefly, then, let us address the original Dogme95 rules in order to adapt them to our current undertaking:
1. Shooting must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in. As a principle this is acceptable. As a rule it is not. Rules are made to be broken, but only when there is sufficient reason to do so.
2. The sound must never be produced apart from the images, or vice versa. (Music must not be used unless it occurs where the scene is being shot.) This rule is to be discarded entirely, even the principle of it. However, music will not be used for the gratuitous and sentimental manipulation of audience emotions. Music like language, like everything, is there for man to make surrealist use of. Music will generally be opposed to the images rather than enhancing or complementing them. Put more simply, music should never do the audience's work for it.
3. The camera must be handheld. Again, good principle, but as a rule vaguely gratuitous. To film long takes with a camera on a stand or tripod on occasion is acceptable and facilities naturalistic or documentary cinema.
4. The film must be in color. Special lighting is not acceptable. First rule is arbitrary and summarily rejected. Some people dream in black and white, after all. Some people are color blind. Second rule is a good principle and will be adhered to save in special cases (such as black and white sequences!).
5. Optical work and filters are forbidden. Nothing is forbidden save banality. Filters and optical effects must be used sparingly for dramatic/thematic purposes, and not for merely aesthetic ones.
6. The film must not contain superficial action. (Murders, weapons, etc, must not occur.) This is the most arbitrary and eccentric rule of them all, and seems to be leveled specifically at Hollywood generic drek. In Festen, Christian is beaten up and tied to a tree. The father is beaten and for a moment his death seems a definite possibility. That was Dogme1. Where is the line between superficial and profound action to be drawn?
7. Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden. (That is to say that the film takes place here and now.) Although a dogme period movie sounds like a fascinating challenge, this is a fair principle to adhere to.
8. Genre movies are not acceptable. A fair principle but not a strict rule. Let's say any excursions into genre moviemaking must subvert and transform the genres they pertain to, and never be restricted or contained by the rules of the genre itself. E.g.: The Wicker Man uses certain generic devices of the horror movie, but is not a horror film per se. Ergo it is 'acceptable.'
9. Film format must be Academy 35 mm. No. Movies must be shot on DV or video; film is now obsolete as a wasteful and cumbersome method. Whether they are later transferred to 35mm for cinema distribution is another matter.
10. The director must not be credited. Not at least as director, but rather as Initiator, or any other appropriate designation he or she may wish to assume, provided it adhere to the understanding that 'a director's job is to preside over a series of accidents.'
Jake Horsley 2002
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