At the start of the 1990s, the international film industry was a hegemony, with Hollywood dominating the market. It was a process year into the making, but this decade saw it come into full. Popular filmmakers from countries outside the USA would regularly find employment directing, writing and producing films for a massive conglomerate inside LA, with many notable creators from this time; Scott, Cameron, Emmerich and Polanski for a few, creating works that assimilate into the big budget Hollywood aesthetic and production style. Similarly, many international markets became flooded by American produced films, and countries even started to produce their own films that adhered to this Hollywood aesthetic. It was this backdrop in which the Dogme 95 manifesto was first signed, a document meant to, “purify,” the art of filmmaking.
The Dogme 95 Manifesto seems almost comedic in its self-importance, becoming a postmodern pastiche that indulges in the movement's own arrogance in an attempt to parody contemporary cultural views. In many ways, this both became a way to promote the movement in the eyes of the public, but also parody this sense of decadence and prestige the film industry presented to the public held through institutions such as the Academy Awards or Cannes and Venice film festivals giving the industry a luxury appeal. The conference the manifesto was first signed at, that being the Odeon Theatre in Paris, was the same one that sparked revolts by French students in 1968. Not only was the place significant, but also the time, with the year 1995 being the anniversary of a century of Danish cinema. The manifestos close proximity to these events was purposeful, a provocative action that reinforces a historical importance to the movement. Language throughout the manifesto also echoes similar self-important statements, with the document making explicit references to significant pieces of literature including the Communist Manifesto and Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto of 1909. In many ways, this arrogance is framed as a sense of self-consciousness on the part of its signees, a point also contradicting the emphasis on immersion that the Hollywood aesthetic captures. This parodying aspect of the movement is brought into the films too, as they regularly explore a darker underbelly to a seemingly luxurious or innocent topic. Thomas Vinterberg’s first film for the movement, 1998’s, Festen , explored themes of deception both aesthetically, with the luxurious set of Skjoldenæsholm Castle, that is portrayed as murky through the saturated colours and use of handheld camera. But too, narratively, through the film's uncovering of a wealthy fathers’ crimes against his children. These themes of uncovering the truth that hides underneath aspects of everyday life are present in many other Dogme 95 films, Lars von Trier’s, The Idiots (1998) , analysis of regular people moonlighting under an act that shows them as developmentally disabled, or Korine’s, Julien Donkey-Boy , which puts symbols of Christianity under a more menacing context through the film’s narrative.
Festen Dinner Scene, 1999, Nimbus Film.
An important piece to note is how the filmmakers see their own movements, seeing it not as a artistic and stylistic change, but rather a, “call to arms,” for a cultural shift, a sentiment made clear through the documents many attempts to call for film to be, “purified,” a phrase that basically boiled down to shifting the film industry away from the excess of Hollywood and rather putting the focus on the craft of the filmmaking. Rules such as having all films be within the Academy 35mm format, the banning of filters or colour grading not native to the set filmed. This purification even extends to the narrative, with the rules encouraging a move away from what they deem as, “superficial action,” namely murders or weapons being used. These were all under the aptly named, “Vow of Chastity,” a promise each filmmaker must take in order to become part of the movement. It is important to note that the “Vow of Chastity,” was not critically against the aesthetics that Hollywood championed, that mainly being aesthetically excess and luxury, but rather sought to combat the cinemas exclusion of filmmakers outside of the Hollywood system. As such, many of the promises made in the, “Vow of Chastity,” were made in an effort to, “democratizing,” the cinema screen, pushing against Hollywood domination by creating a more diverse filmmaking space. For example, the focus on using digital cameras is not just a visual quality that pushes against the glamorous Hollywood stylings with instead an amateurish aesthetic. But, too, does it also force many filmmakers to work on a smaller budget, a massive deviation from the ever-inflating budget of American filmmaking. Similarly, a removal of credits from the film builds upon this point of accessibility, as not only does this mean audiences are forced to judge a film by its own quality rather than the star power on display, but also allows for filmmakers to be cleared of any expectations of conventions that their previous works may establish. Hjort referencing this in her 2005 paper titled, “Small Nation, Global Cinema: New Danish Cinema.” As she argues, the manifesto is meant to, “articulate and circulate a stripped-down and hence widely affordable concept of filmmaking… an all-important ambition to unsettle an increasingly dominant filmmaking reality characterised by astronomical budgets and by marketing and distribution strategies.” As such, this push for cheaper production techniques, along with the removal of the credits, could be seen as attempts to shift the status quo of Hollywood domination by making the entry for worldwide distribution and notice much lower for outsider filmmakers.
Unlike other film movements that would regularly take this event and expand its influence, Dogme 95 had its manifesto as not just a starting point, but the centre itself. Everytime a film wished to join the movement, it was first screened to the regulators, who would assess if the film would be part of the movement or not. Moreover, the creator of Dogme 95 expanded their reach by encouraging international filmmakers to take part, whereas many other film movements seemed to mainly be influenced domestically. As a result, by the time the movement had its last film in 2005, the film had much foreign influence, with films under the Dogme 95 wave coming from countries such as Switzerland, France and South Korea. The low budgets that were characteristic of Dogme 95 films allowed even poorer countries with smaller domestic film scenes to be noticed on the world stage; Chile’s, Residencia (Artemio Espinosa, 2004) , and Argentina’s, Fuckland (José Luis Marquès, 2000) , being the most prominent examples of this. This became even a point of pride for these films, with Residencia featuring the phrase, “Dogme 33,” followed by the certificate at the start of it’s own trailer. Most significantly, however, is that by naturally combining all these different countries into the Dogme 95 movement, it inadvertently introduces foreign audiences to a collection of international films, encouraging the viewers to explore further.
Poster for Residencia, 2004.
Years after the 2005 disbandment of the manifesto, Dogme 95 ended with 35 different films participating in the movement. Some movements that followed seem to carry a bit of the spirit of the Dogme 95, with the mumblecore and appropriately named subgenre mumblegore being a popular example. The movement has even seen great financial and professional success, with films such as V/H/S (MBO DB TG, 2012) making large box office hits, while filmmakers such as the Duplass Brothers becoming critically loved for their films such as, Creep(Patrick Brice, 2014) , in 2014 and, Baghead (Duplass Brothers, 2008) , in 2008. Yet, none of them have become nearly as prominent, prolific and, most importantly, theatrical about their success. While not every filmmaker who made a Dogme 95 film retained their international success, the two of the founders of the movement, Lars Von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, have become Denmark’s most recognised directors, with both still creating productions today. Yet, possibly the greatest recognition of this movement is how it signalled a change in the cinema stage, opening a small, but not insignificant space for international films on the same stage as massive Hollywood productions. Whether the movement directly contributed to this fact, or it was simply a result of this shift is arguable, but the movement's place in cinema history is all the more distinguished because of this.
by Fionn Morris, June 2023.