Lars Von Trier is perhaps most renowned as one of the key contributers to the Dogme cinema movement. Together with Thomas Vinterberg he drafted up the “vow of Chastity”, a list of 10 rules which they intended to adhere to in the production of “Dogme” films. They hoped that by following this code that they would be able to break away from cliched film practice and produce films which are more refreshing and true. Although of Von Triers work only “The Idiots” (1998) is a certified Dogme film, the form and content of both “Dancer in the Dark” (2000) and “Breaking the Waves” (1996) are similar enough to be considered as part of a homogenous trilogy which exhibits a unique style permeated by Von Trier’s realist sensibility. In my analysis of the realist techniques of this trilogy I will be assessing to what degree Von Trier’s methods are in accord with the theorising of Andre Bazin, one of the most recognised figures in the history of realist film criticism.
The thematic similarity of these films is most evident in their use of prominent female characters, usually the lead, who is in conflict with society or reality. In “Breaking the Waves” (1998) we have Bess McNeill who upsets her patriarchal Calvinist society by marrying a foreigner who works on an oil rig. After he becomes ill she suffers from a delusion that, by having sex with other men, she is able to cure him. This results in her expulsion from the community. With “The Idiots” we have the character Karen who we learn is grieving after the death of her child. She finds friendship or indeed love from a group of radicals who like to feign disability in search of what they call their inner idiot. The climax of the film sees her return home to “spazz out” in front of her family and effectively reject them and her old life in favour of her new friends. It seems that she can not return to the reality of her old family life.
With Dancer in the Dark (2000) our protagonist is a Czech immigrant to America called Selma, played by Bjork, who won best actress at Cannes for her performance. Selma is forded to commit a murder to retrieve money which has been stolen from her in order to pay for an operation to stop her son from going blind. She is failed by the American legal system as she cannot afford to pay enough for good legal representation. She is unable to defend herself against the legal reality of the prosecution and is sentenced to death. Throughout the film Selma frequently disappears into a dream world of song and dance as though sheltering from the harsh reality of her predicament. So It seems that even the content of the Golden Heart trilogy investigates notions of reality itself.
Just from reading the “Vow of Chastity” it is clear that there is a strong inclination towards realism embedded in the ethos of the dogme movement and in the mindset of Lars Von Trier. The first of the rules state that “shooting must be on location. Props and sets must not be brought in”1 (Fowler 2002, pg.83). in accordance to this rule “The idiots” was shot entirely on location and, although he was not dogmatically bound to do so, Von Trier also chose to shoot Breaking the Waves largely on location in Scotland. The only exception to this is “Dancer in the Dark” (2000) which despite it’s Amercan setting, was filmed in Sweden and Denmark. This was due to Lars Von Triers dislike of flying and it can be presumed that if not for this problem it is likely that a genuine American location would have been sought.
The clip below from “Breaking the Waves” demonstrates that, despite adverse weather conditions and intrusive location sound, Von Trier has persisted with filming on location. In some scenes the wind can be heard buffeting the sound recording equipment which would be considered unacceptable in most hollywood film productions.
Indeed it is very common for no location sound to be used with hollywood films due to such difficulties. It would seem though that Von Trier finds a charm in the extra sense of reality which location filming can provide. This is very much a choice often preferred by directors of the realist tradition. In Andre Bazin’s 1948 essay “An Aesthetic of Reality: Italian Neo-Realism” he notes his appreciation of location filming. In discussing the work of Orsen Welles he suggests that due to his complex artistic techniques he has ruled out “all recourse to nature in the raw, natural settings, exterior, sunlight, and non professional actors”. Bazin believes that there are no substitute for these qualities which “being part of reality, can themselves establish a form of realism”2 (Fowler 2002 pg.57). I believe that the choice of such dramatic locations does confer onto this film a greater sense of realism. Furthermore the often vividly turbulent weather adds a sense of innate drama to the images. The location gives the impression of a very inhospitable and uncaring environment. The characters are often seen struggling against the wind which, rather poetically, gives a metaphorical expression of their inner turmoil and emotional strife. So, although Von Trier cannot dictate the weather on his shoots, his choice to accept the adverse weather conditions adds not just to his works strong sense of realism but also adds a greater artistic appeal to the film at the same time.
Perhaps the most overt of realist techniques employed by Von Trier throughout this trilogy is the use of hand-held cameras. This is also embedded in the Dogme “Vow of Chastity” which ensures that all of “The Idiots” is handheld. The same camera technique is employed through almost the entirety of “Breaking the Waves” and all but the dream sequences of “Dancer in the Dark”. This is yet another instance where the Dogme rules can be seen as an expression of Von Trier’s own personal taste and style of realism as he seems to adhere to the rules for the majority of the trilogy even though only one of the three films was bound to do so.
The clips below are typical of the shaky hand held camera style of the trilogy.
This has long been established as a realist technique. As long ago as 1981 hand-held camera was used routinely on the American police drama “Hill Street Blues”. Although that whilst Andre Bazin was alive (he died in 1958 at the age of 40) this technique wasn’t prevalent, evidence suggests that he would have approved of this stylistic choice. At the time of Italian Neorealism, which Bazin regarded very highly, although cameras were portable enough to use for location shooting, they were not conducive to handheld footage. Furthermore it is unlikely that this would have been accepted by contemporary audiences. The audiences of the 1950’s would not have been familiar with handheld cameras and it is likely that such a technique would have detracted from the perceived sense of realism. We do not perceive the world through a shaky lens, we generally perceive our own vision as being smooth. It is entirely because of the association of handheld camera with documentary film making, news reports and even home movie footage that it is able to give this extra sense of reality. We accept the illusion that the events on screen are not set up and rehearsed as otherwise the camera would have been set up more carefully. This is not a literal, conscious thought process by the viewer but this is what is covertly signified by the camera style, aided by a small leap of willing self delusion. This helps to remove the sense of artifice in terms of the dramaturgy of film.
One of the aspects of the Nero-Realist style that Bazin approved of was a similarity in appearance to newsreel footage. He writes “the Italian camera retains something of a human quality of the Bell Howard news reel camera, a projection of hand and eye, almost a living part of the operator instantly in tune with his awareness”3 (Fowler 2002 pg.60). So the approximation of a visual style close to that of documentary has been a cornerstone of realism since at least the Neo-Realist movement.
There is however a paradox with this in that the shaky camera movements make it plainly obvious to the audience that they are watching a film which would traditionally have been against the unwritten rules of film making. It seems however that, given the proliferation of affordable cameras, being aware of the artiface is no longer a crime against realism. Robin Wood states that “the criterion by which realism is assessed is our own experience of life, besides which we place the work in a straight ‘one to one’ relationship” (Wood 1976 pg.80)4. In this respect it is clear that techniques of realism must change as societies change and although the shaky camera style of Von Trier may not have been used in the inception of realist film practice, it has evolved to be a key technique as it has become more apparent in factual media. It is likely that handheld cameras will remain a common stylistic choice for realist directors as more and more people carry a recordable device with them in the form of their mobile phones. The more familiar people become with shaky hand held images from their own reality the more the shaky handheld image will signify a credible source of reality in the eyes of viewers.
Lars Von Trier does a lot more with his camera technique than eschew the stability of fixed cameras though. It is clear that Von trier’s camera is as though a “living part” of himself. He Films from inside the action, not looking at it from a distance but in the middle of the dramatic fray. The reason why this style is so effective is that Von Trier does not plan the scene until the moment he is actually filming. Although there are clearly script considerations and a certain direction a scene needs to reach, he leaves a lot of room for the actors to improvise. This means that rather than directing the actors and dictating to them where to position themselves so they are within an intended shot, Von Trier follows them. The subtle effect of this permeates the whole film and is evident throughout this trilogy. This certainly heightens the sense of reality. By constantly reacting to the actors rather than dictating their performance we feel a sense that anything could happen, the camera is merely passively documenting the action.
Von Trier’s close proximity to the actors during filming lends itself to frequent use of close-ups. As an audience, throughout this trilogy, we are asked to closely examine the features of the actors. Under such scrutiny the slightest change in expression seems to offer greater emotional depth to the performances. In the clip below we see how, even just at the very beginning of the Idiots the close-up is used immediately. This restaurant scene shows our “golden hearted” female lead character Karen (played by Bodil Jorgensen) merely ordering some food. Apart from the fact that she is alone and says she doesn’t have much money, we have no reason to expect anything might be troubling her. Von Trier instantly shoots her from very close-up though, encouraging the viewer to scrutinize her face and emotional state and the performance tells us that she is a troubled character.
In some respects you could argue that this technique departs from realism. In reality we would not be welcome to scrutinize someone’s face so closely and for so long. It is the length of these shots that encourages this level of invasive enquiry by the viewer. This gives us a greater sense of subjective reality. By focusing so closely on his subjects, Von Trier is inviting the audience to empathise with them and to care about them, and it has to be said that he is very successful at this. This inadvertantly causes a loss of objectivity. Whereas with Italian Neo-Realism we are encourage to care about the working class society at the films heart, as in Luchino Visconti’s “La Terra Trema” (1948) for example which features a large ensemble cast. This trilogy does not ask us to consider the plight of a socioeconomic group but rather an individual particularly with Bess in “Breaking the Waves” and Selma in “Dancer in the Dark”. Von Trier focuses the audiences emotional investment in one female character. This detracts somewhat from the relevance of his films as a realist document. Whereas with “La Terra Trema” a ‘real’ Sicilian community are our concern, this trilogy is mainly concerned with individuals. So although Lars Von Trier does share many stylistic similarities to the progenitors of realist cinema, there is quite a difference in what you could consider to be his films ideological concerns which in turn affects the extent of ‘realism’ in his work.
Von Triers departure from aspects of realist tradition can be contextualised by Andre Bazin’s admiration for deep focus filming. According to the film theorist Andrew Dudley Bazin was impressed with the added sense of realism gained by Greg Tolland’s use of deep focus and wide angle lenses which could capture 146 degrees of action . The importance of this innovation being that it offers the audience a greater choice in where to focus their attention, they are being less obviously manipulated by the director 5 (Dudley 1976 pg.147). In contrast Von Trier’s very restricted framing throughout most of this trilogy could not be much more manipulative.
It is easy to see why Von Trier makes this concession though, the truth he is more concerned about exists within the character, as though he is searching for their soul. It is the internal life of his main characters that he seeks to portray rather than fixating on the settings and physical relations of scenes. This departure from a more objective and spatially realistic style can be noted if we look again at the second clip in this essay which shows Selma and her son in her neighbors/landlords kitchen. A combination of tight framing and jagged cutting makes this scene grammatically challenging in a way that would have been unthinkable during Bazin’s era. If we were not to suspend our disbelief we would be disorientated by the way that selma seemingly jumps around the kitchen. If we were concentrating solely on trying to figure out the spatial relations of the scene we might have some difficulty.
It could be argued that the work of the French New Wave in the 1960’s broke this ground already with much of Godard’s “A Bout De Souffle” (1960) exhibiting the use of jump cuts. This film in turn also seems to have inspired Scorcese’s “Mean Streets” (1973) which uses jump cuts during a bedroom scene. However, in these examples this style of cutting is an exception to the main body of the film whereas it is a constant throughout this trilogy. This flies in the face of conventional continuity editing principals and it is almost surprising that these films are so successful despite this disregard for traditional film language. It seems that this is just a matter of carefully chosen priorities on behalf of Von Trier. Award winning film editor Walter Murch states that “the ideal cut satisfies six criteria at once: emotion, story, rhythm, eye trace, two dimensional plane of screen and finally three dimensional space of action. If the emotion is right and the story is advance the audience will be forgiving and unconcerned about the other four criteria that relate to chronological continuity”6 Glebas 2009 pg. 263). It would seem that Lars Von Triers innovative style makes a calculated risk with realism that pays off. Von Trier himself argues that “there is no grammar of film making. each film creates it’s own language”7 (Tirard 2002 p.187). Certainly this trilogy seems to prove his point. Although initially a little uncomfortable and potentially disorientating, It is easy enough for the audience to acclimatise to the jumpiness of the editing as the penetrating camera work holds the audiences interest and facilitates emotional involvement.
The emotional intensity and subjective use of close-up, it could be argued, gives his work an added expressionism which is often considered to be an opposing method to realism. On the use of close-up in cinema the prominent formalist film maker and critic Bela Balazs states that “The close-up can show us a quality in a gesture of the hand we never noticed before when we saw that hand stroke or strike something, a quality which is often more expressive than any play of the feature”8 (Braudy and Cohen 1999 pg.304). This below clip shows Von Triers understanding of this.
The first part of the clip shows one of the more emotionally charged segments of the film. Von Trier chooses to fill the frame with Bjork’s face, amplifying the potency of her emotive performance. The second part of the clip shows how Von Trier captures the nuance of the guards sympathetic hand movements. although she is putting cuffs on selma, just from this gesture we can read the sympathy that the character has for Selma’s situation. This is not an objective realism, we are shown the underlying emotion at work in the scene. This adds a level of expression which is often missing from realist cinema. Bela Blalasz also states that “close-ups are the pictures expressing the poetic sensibility of the director”9 (Braudy and Cohen 1999 pg. 305). It is clear that Von Trier understands the poetic potential of the close-up, however we might expect a poetic style of film making to show a more expressionistic or formalistic appearance. It seems that Von Trier manages to add this element to his films whilst still using techniques which are of or influenced by the realist tradition. I would argue that this adds greatly to the impact of this trilogy. Without this more ‘poetic’ style it is hard to imagine that he would manage to manipulate the audience to feel so much for his female lead characters.
This does not make Von Trier less realist but it does show him to be a realist with a very subjective style which set him apart from the social realist tradition. Indeed there are clearly incidences in “Breaking the Waves” and “Dancer in the Dark” that embrace formalism to a degree. It is clear that Von Trier isn’t completely dogmatic about his approach to realism unless he is working on an official “Dogme” film. Below are two clips, the first showing the opening sequence of “Dancer in the Dark”, the second showing an example of the chapter headings which Von Trier uses in “Breaking the Waves”.
The first clip is a very indulgent opening sequence which clearly revels in the emotive potential of vibrant colour animated to a powerful score. It is as though Von Trier deliberately gives the audience a starter of lush formalism before jolting the audience with the grainy, washed out look of the main body of the film. Similarly with the chapter headings in the second clip we see a manipulated landscape image which, although in motion, resembles an idealised artists painting which is in sharp contrast to the emotionally turbulent trajectory of the film. Also the use of 1970’s contemporary music is very much at odds with the dour representation of the god fearing local community in the film.
The effect of this playful attitude to the use of dramatically conflicting styles is two fold. Firstly is breaks up the narrative expectations of the audience much in the way that a Shakespearian tragedy might have a more comedic scene to provide a dynamic range of emotion, keeping the audience receptive to the more upsetting scenes. Secondly these moments can be seen as being expressive of the main characters own subjectivity and their conflict with society in general.
The chapter headings in “breaking the waves” according to Von Trier “represent an artificial or god’s point of view”10 (Lumholdt 2003 pg.148) which, as Bess is very religious, we can consider it to be the point of view of her god or her interpretation of god. Her appreciation of music is noted in the opening scene which would explain why music accompanies the chapter headings: it is her subjectivity. Throughout the film we feel that Bess is slipping further and further from sanity and falling deeper and deeper into a delusion that she must sleep with other men in order to save her ill husband. As a viewer we understand that Bess has had a history of mental health problems and we do not believe that her reality is anything but a fantasy. However Von Trier subverts the audience expectations and Bess’ husband is miraculously cured whilst she is sacrificed as a result of a sexual escapade too far. The film closes supernaturally with bells seemingly sounding from heaven, seemingly as a signal of Bess’ ascension. Von Trier welcomes into this film opposing realities and allows them to compete with each other.
This toying with the very notion of reality is most evident though in the conflict between the “real” and dream segments of “Dancer in the Dark”. Here Selma flees the harsh truths of reality for an imaginary world constructed from her childhood love of musicals as seen in the clip below
Von Trier not only uses these segments to manipulate an emotional response from the audience but also to investigate the very nature of reality. The projection of optimism, hope and self delusion in the dream sequences serve to heighten the sensitivity of the audience to the horror of Selma’s predicament. This also serves to express a conflict between the ideological projection of America as a land of opportunity through capitalism and the reality experienced by Selma in which she is too poor to get adequate legal representation. Ideed Von Trier himself states that “the films I have made have all to do with a clash between an ideal and reality”11 (Lumholdt 2003 pg. 148).
Likewise the Idiots focuses on a group of people who question the value of being ‘normal’ and reject the reality around them by “spazzing out” in a most anarchic fashion. However, as the clip below show (which coincidently is another typical example of Von Triers more expressive use of close-up) the characters and audience alike often seem not to know where the boundary between reality and fantasy is. Here we see two characters pushing the boundries of their “spazz” act by having sexual intercourse however underneath the act they are falling in love.
There can be no doubt from looking at this trilogy that Lars Von Trier has a passion for realism. He states in the “Vow of Chastity” “my supreme goal is to force the truth out of my characters and settings. I swear to do so by all the means available and at the cost of any good taste and any aesthetic considerations”12 (Fowler 2002 pg.83). His form of realism is very idiosyncratic in that, although he bears many of the formal signifiers of realism he tends to portray a very subjective realism. He focuses on bringing the reality of his lead characters to life rather than looking at wider society in general. From his style you may well feel that Von Trier does not actually care for objective reality, as in essence it can not be experienced as truth. The focus of his “Golden Heart” trilogy shows a preoccupation with underlying realities particularly the emotional life of his characters. Throughout these films there is a theme of the rejection of reality itself. Von Trier is not merely a realist film maker but a maker of films concerned with our very understanding reality and truth.
Bibliography
'Film Theory and Criticism' Oxford University Press by Braudy and Cohen, 1999
“The European Cinema Reader” by Catherine Fowler, Routledge (2002)
“Personal Views: Explorations in Film” by Robing Wood, Gordon Fraser (1976)
“The Major Film Theories” A. Dudley, Oxford University Press (1976)
“Directing the Story: Professional Storytelling and Storyboard Techniques” by Francis Glebas, Focal Press (2009)
“Moviemakers Master Class: Private Lessons from the World’s Foremost Directors” by Laurent Tirard Faber & Faber (2002)
“Lars Von Trier: Interviews” by Jan Lumholdt, University Press of Mississippi (2003)
"Breaking the Waves" Lars Von Trier (1996)
"The Idiots" Lars Von Trier (1998)
"Dancer in the Dark" Lars Von Trier (2000)
"La Terra Trema" Luchino Visconti (1948)
"Mean Streets" Martin Scorcese (1973)
"A Bout De Souffle" Godard (1960)
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