>Dogme 95 is at this point either an exquisite joke or a
>played-out farce, depending on your point of view. I think
>most of the participating directors have lukewarm commitments
>at best. No matter how many people say it (ahem, Roger Ebert),
>"Dancer In The Dark", the Bj�rk/Deneuve musical Palme d'Or
>winning film, is *not* Dogme compliant. Did anyone see Bj�rk
>accepting her award? Luc Besson embarassed himself, but she
>was charming.
Bjork was indeed very charming at Cannes, watching her acceptance
made me want to see Dancer in the Dark even more. I always find the
ceremony confusing to watch in the U.S., though, because Roger Ebert
and his cohost from Columbia are trying to translate and explain while
it's going on. I've learned to take Roger Ebert's comments with a grain
of salt; he's probably my favorite reviewer but he does introduce quite
a few inaccuracies into his reviews. Nothing major, but he'll mix up plot
details from time to time.
As for Dogme 95, the impression I got from watching
the danish directors explain it was that it's more of an exercise,
laying out ground rules to see what happens. Maybe like putting
someone in a room with a canvas and only two colors of paint to see
what they can come up with. Nobody's saying that you have to make
Dogme films exclusively, but if you're going to go into that room there's
not much point in using 10 colors of paint. It makes your work
incomparable to the other paintings. Apparently the first two non-Danish
Dogme films (Julien Donkey-Boy and Lovers) were subjected to detailed
scrutiny by the four original Dogme directors in order to receive permission
to use the Dogme logo, but all further films simply needed to have a
confessional signed by the director saying that he followed the rules of
Dogme. To me it's not so much a matter of trust as it is recognition of the
pointlessness of putting a Dogme label on a film that doesn't follow the
Dogme vow of chastity. I remember that when they were discussing Julien
Donkey-Boy they were concerned with the fact that Chloe Sevigny wasn't
really pregnant in the movie. Korine's response was that he sure as hell
tried to prevent her from having to use a prop (he's dating her), but it just
didn't work out. The Dogme directors decided that was more than a good
enough excuse.
jeff b
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+-------------------- new york, london, paris, tokyo ----------------+
+------------------ everybody talk about... popjourno! -------------+
+------------------- http://www.pulped.co.uk/popjourno --------------+
+--------- to send a message to the list, please address it to ------+
+----------------------- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------+
+--------- declarations of love, presents, and otherwise saucy ------+
+-------- e-correspondence should be sent directly to the list ------+
+------------------- mummy at [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------+
+------------- popjourno currently has over 150 subscribers ---------+
+------------------------ (most of them lurkers). -------------------+
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
