Charlie Chaplin: A Figure of Performative Mimesis in Modernity

It has been noted by cultural theorists, including Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno and others of the Frankfurt School, that the cinematic figure of Charlie Chaplin can be considered as a reflection, embodiment and expression of modernity in its most volatile and hyper-stimulated state.[1] Chaplin is the 20th century everyday man who experiences modernity in twofold; on the one hand, the physical and perceptual shocks to the sensory-motor schema as owing to the sudden appearance of new technologies (i.e. the streetcar, telephone, film apparatus) in the urban milieu, and on the other hand, the laborious and repetitive industrial work that mechanises and capitalises time (of which, one must be subjected to so as to earn a living). These two disparate aspects of modernity have a contradictory and imbalanced effect on the human sensorium. The former, similar to that of shell shock, overloads the sensory-motor and excites the impulses, meanwhile, the latter numbs these senses to the point of oblivion. Yet, in another way, Chaplin is also the exception. He is able to endure and transcend these experiences via the mimetic faculty alive in his performance mode. Chaplin is not traumatised by the hyper-stimuli and responds to it in a (comical slapstick) manner that is guided by his mimetic sensibility; likewise, he is also able to uncover stimuli in the mechanical ‘dead’ time of the Taylor factory. In effect, Chaplin’s body and performance become a kind of therapeutic vortex through which the shocks and traumas of modernity are absorbed and, later, absolved. This essay, as it has already begun to do so, will first explore the esoteric concept of mimesis and its existence in human performative acts, such as acting. These concepts will then form the framework through which an analysis of Chaplin’s 1916 short Behind the Screen (The Bewildered Stage Hand) will be conducted. Such an analysis aims to reveal how a kind of mimetic acting, like the one that Chaplin adopts, is the most effective form of acting. Here's access to the film via YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJp1JD8O1aA

The human performance of mimesis, as Laleen Jayamanne explicates, involves a certain difference; a difference located in a constitutive agon between an emerging sense of “self” and the other, posited as nature.[2] What do these broad terms of ‘self’ and ‘other’/‘nature’ really denote in this context? Is it ‘nature’ as in the human nature of one’s intrinsic bodily impulses? And ‘self’ as in the conscious and reflective ‘ego’ or identity, akin to sociability, that one presents to oneself and the world? If so, then this mimetic mode of performance imbues within itself the ongoing conflict of unabashedly succumbing to one’s instinctual impulses (i.e. libido, eros, thanatos) and society’s prescribed remedy for them. This performance mode permits the actor to delve into his character and consider which behaviours and (impulse-)responses are universal and which are individualistic. This exercise will come to expose, on a larger scale, the societal forces that dominate the milieu in which the character resides, illuminating the kinds of impulses and responses that are socially pious, and those that are deemed as deviant.

Benjamin writes that the mimetic faculty has its genesis in the compulsion to “become and behave like something else.”[3] This description is key to pinpointing the appearance of a mimetic performance. Gunter Gebauer and Christoph Wulf explain that “mimesis originally denoted a physical action … with attention turning repeatedly to the gestural;”[4] emphasis is placed upon the exteriority of the other, of the other’s bodily attributes and behaviours as being the entry point into its interior life. This is pertinent to Chaplin’s Tramp persona, who possesses the iconic lateral duck-miming walk, thick moustache, and peculiar costuming of baggy pants, oversized shoes, tight blazer, cane and derby hat. Chaplin himself even acknowledged, in his autobiography, the mimetic metamorphosis that costuming and other exterior physical transfigurations can bring:
“[In] my get-up … I wanted everything to be a contradiction … I had no idea of the character. But the moment I was dressed, the clothes and the makeup made me feel the person he was. I began to know him, and by the time I walked on stage he was fully born.”[5]

By all means, the exterior set-up affects the actor’s-character’s movements, gestures and overall presence on screen. His response to internal impulses and stimuli can only be expressed through the physicality of his character’s prescribed body. Jennie Lightweis-Goff notes the continual relevance and applicability of this exteriority-towards-interiority mimesis in contemporary film as she remarks how “Nicole Kidman wears elaborate prosthetics to look as much like Virginia Woolf as possible in The Hours (Stephen Daldry, 2002) and Phillip Seymour Hoffman is filmed in an elaborate trench system to make him look as short as Truman Capote in Capote (Bennett Miller, 2005).”[6] This ties in with the notion of copy and contact, whereby the two are “different moments of the one process of sensing.”[7] This process endows Chaplin to “live as neither subject nor object of history but as both, at one and the same time.”[8] The mimetic faculty sees Chaplin lose his own form and being, and acquire attributes of the (human or non-human) object in which he was initially imitating on a superficial level. This subject-object configuration along with Chaplin’s affinity with the child-clown figure empowers him to respond to stimuli and his internal impulses in unusual ways that give birth to comedy and slapstick.

In the scene of Behind the Screen where the other stage hands come to invite Chaplin (as David, the ‘assistant’) and his superior, Goliath (the virtual stage hand), to join in their workers strike, a medium shot captures Goliath napping on his stool in the centre of the frame and Chaplin hammering rampantly away in the far left. The workers seamlessly walk into the frame from their last scene, and Chaplin (with hammer still in hand) and Goliath shift their attention to the mob. An intertitle of “Are you with us?” is flashed across the screen, and the pair respond to it by spastically striking a defiant pose. The mob then exit the frame, walking towards the right hand side of the camera. What follows is a mimetically charged spasm/protest-dance by Chaplin that concludes with a side view pose reminiscent of the communists’ hammer and sickle symbol. Next, Chaplin dances/stamps from the left of the screen to the right, making wild gestures with his hammer before hitting the cap off Goliath’s head and abruptly falling onto the impeccably placed stool behind him. The scene is then briefly paused as the film cuts to a scene of a girl, in the lunchroom, crawling out of her hiding place among the unused props. It returns to Chaplin and Goliath in the exact same positions as the film had left them. The producer walks on to thank the pair for staying but Goliath pushes Chaplin away before he can accept his congratulatory handshake. The scene is then disturbed again by another cut to the girl, this time dressing up as a boy. Coming back to Chaplin, he is ordered by Goliath to continue setting up.

This scene is continuously affected by the inflows and outflows of bodies, which change the spatial dimension and sparseness of the shot. And apart from the parallel montage edits, it plays out in one long take with the camera being immobile in its shot scale, angle and movement. Chaplin’s pivotal evocation of the communist hammer and sickle seems to be predominantly stimulated by the other workers’ decision to strike, and ironically, after turning them down, his movements begin to mimetically assume a protesting style and spirit. Chaplin dances in a manner that’s akin to marching, stamping the ground with the full weight of his small body and gesturing wildly for an anonymous political movement. Moreover, the background music with its diegesis sound effects adds to the faintly comedic yet forceful tone of his movements. These movements are, of course, only the first step in Chaplin’s mimesis; what culminates is the pie throwing fight and chase between Chaplin and Goliath. The pie sequence begins as a harmless rehearsal of a new comedy sketch with the pair as stand-in actors, but through the simulated violent slapstick that Chaplin is ordered to engage in (as well as the earlier mimetically charged evocation of the communist struggle), he starts to fight back. Chaplin abandons all reservation and expresses both the oppression that he’s suffered from Goliath as well as the repression of his impulses (necessary for the completion of his work). Chaplin lets all of his child-like clown tendencies upsurge, creating havoc throughout the studio. A hilarious slapstick gag arises when Goliath’s pies constantly miss Chaplin’s face and instead hit the unexpected faces of actors performing a regal drama in the next soundstage. Chaplin’s revenge is further supplemented by the narrative twist of the strikers planting a bomb underneath the tramp door, of which Goliath falls into when he pushes Chaplin into its lever.

One other noteworthy example of the mimetic prowess in Chaplin’s performance is in the scene where he notices the charming boy. Chaplin becomes all flustered at the sight of him and imitates the affectations of a nervous little girl. It is as though Chaplin, due to his mimetic sensibility, already knew her anatomical gender despite her masculine outer appearance. The two gently peck each other like rabbits, but then Goliath catches them and, thinking the girl is a boy, mocks them by prancing around and insinuating Chaplin’s non-hetero-normative, homoerotic allegiances. This passing gesture by Goliath has relevance to the controversy surrounding the historical reception of Chaplin’s body and (mimetic) performance. Rather than perform as a desexualised comic clown, Chaplin aggressively performed his comic play with sexuality and anality, to the point where the National Board of Censorship (USA) in 1915 was forced to denounce his “suggestive wriggling.”[9] Such openness to the possibilities of the body’s sexual impulses is just another symptom of human mimesis.

Chaplin’s mimetic mode of performance and the freedom that it renders is at the heart of his appeal to modernist audiences. He is empowered enough to endure and respond to the hyper-stimuli of modernity in a way that engages and enthrals his neural synaptic networks, drawing on all the senses that the stimulus arouses. And even without external stimuli, Chaplin is adept at exploring his pre-existing internal impulses and seeing them reach their mimetically enhanced conclusions. This performance mode comes to reveal the societal forces that dominate the milieu in which the character resides, illuminating the kinds of responses-impulses that are accepted and privileged, and those that aren’t. Therefore, it is the most effective form of acting with regards to an examination of society. Again considering the aforementioned examples of contemporary mimetic acting, Kidman along with her co-stars Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep use their acting to highlight society’s perceptions of mental instability, likewise, Hoffman’s metamorphosis comes to reveal the homophobia rampant in Capote’s society. Mimesis, however, in Chaplin’s peculiar case just happens to create comedy and slapstick. His behaviour is in contrast to that of the other characters who are unable to negotiate between the hyper-stimuli of modernity and their bodily impulses.

This essay has argued that a performance mode, which engages with the process of mimesis, is the most effective form of acting when it comes to an examination of the constraining forces of a particular milieu. It has adopted Chaplin’s performance in Behind the Screen as a sample through which divergent concepts of mimesis and modernity are explicated. Chaplin’s mimesis sanctions his body to become a kind of therapeutic vortex through which the shocks and traumas of modernity are absorbed and, later, absolved. This, in effect, was a part of his appeal to modernist audiences, allowing them to vicariously experience the perils of the period from a safe distance afar.

Bibliography

Behind the Screen. Dir. Charles Chaplin. 1916.

Benjamin, Walter. ‘On the Mimetic Faculty.’ in Reflections, Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings. New York: Schocken Books. 1986.

Chaplin, Charles. My Autobiography. New York: Penguin. 1964.

Demers, Michael. ‘Mimesis.’ http://www.michaeldemers.com/mimesis.htm. Last accessed: 07/09/09.

Jayamanne, Laleen. ‘A Slapstick Time: Mimetic Convulsion. Convulsive Knowing.’ in Towards Cinema and Its Double: Cross-Cultural Mimesis. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 2001.

Lightweis-Goff, Jennie. ‘Sins of Commitment: Adorno, Chaplin and Mimesis.’ http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/06/40/adorno-chaplin-mimesis.html. Last accessed: 07/09/09.

Taussig, Michael. ‘The Eye as Organ of Tactility: The Optical Unconscious.’ in Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses. New York: Routledge. 1993.

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[1] Laleen Jayamanne, ‘A Slapstick Time: Mimetic Convulsion, Convulsive Knowing,’ in Towards Cinema and Its Double: Cross-Cultural Mimesis, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001, p. 182.

[2] Laleen Jayamanne, op. cit.

[3] Walter Benjamin, ‘On the Mimetic Faculty,’ in Reflections, Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings, New York: Schocken Books, 1986, p. 333.

[4] Laleen Jayamanne, p. 182.

[5] Charles Chaplin, My Autobiography, New York: Penguin, 1964, p. 154.

[6] Jennie Lightweis-Goff, ‘Sins of Commitment: Adorno, Chaplin and Mimesis,’ http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/06/40/adorno-chaplin-mimesis.html, last accessed: 07/09/09.

[7] Michael Taussig, ‘The Eye as Organ of Tactility: The Optical Unconscious,’ in Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses, New York: Routledge, 1993, p. 21.

[8] Michael Demers, ‘Mimesis,’ http://www.michaeldemers.com/mimesis.htm, last accessed: 07/09/09.

[9] Jennie Lightweis-Goff, op. cit.

Dancer in the Dark vis-à-vis Hollywood

Dancer in the Dark[1] is the final instalment of Lars von Trier’s Golden-Hearted Trilogy. The other two films of this trilogy are Breaking the Waves[2] and The Idiots[3]. The Golden-Hearted Trilogy was inspired by a children’s story about a girl who gives away her possessions to needy passers-by until she has nothing left; still, she believes, everything will be all right.[4] The three films also centre on the theme of filmmaking under the restrictions of Dogma95. Von Trier was one of the instigators of the Dogma95 school of filmmaking with its ambitions of facilitating, legitimising and empowering the cinemas of small European nations to compete with and counteract Hollywood and its global market dominance.[5] According to its Manifesto, Dogma95 achieved this anti-Hollywood goal through its promotion of technology and the ‘Vow of Chastity,’ both of which, when adopted successfully, were to emphasise the democratic possibilities of filmmaking.[6] Dogma films aimed to stand in stark contrast to the industry driven nature of Hollywood. Dancer in the Dark, however, is a post-Dogma design and represents von Trier’s partial and experimental movement away from the anarchic and organic rules of Dogma. The film illustrates how this Danish director is not completely willing to subject his work to the Vow of Chastity “at the cost of any good taste and aesthetic considerations.”[7] Subsequently, Dancer in the Dark has become a bridge between two disparate forms of filmmaking; a hybrid that combines the organic verisimilitude of European Dogma95 with Hollywood’s conventions and hyper-realism. It is on these terms that Dancer in the Dark can be considered as a contemporary European film that meets Hollywood ‘face-to-face’. Furthermore, this meeting has also permitted von Trier to proficiently address two filmic-political issues; the first is Hollywood’s global hegemonic deliberation of cultural-political values, and the second pertains to the meaning of stereotypes in transnational cinemas. Accordingly, this essay will first delve into the rules of Dogma95 and examine the extent to which Dancer in the Dark still conforms to this contemporary European method of filmmaking. This will then be followed by an analysis of the film’s Hollywood conventions. The essay will conclude with a discussion of the two aforementioned filmic-political issues.

The Dogma95 school of filmmaking was initiated in 1995 by Danish directors Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg. The Dogma rules, also known as the ‘Vow of Chastity,’ stipulated location-shooting, direct sound, hand-held camera, colour film stock, available lighting and Academy 35mm format; the rules were also against the director being credited, optical work and filters, superficial action, genre movies, and temporal and geographical alienation.[8] The Dogma rules in theory aimed to pioneer, empower and legitimise the relatively minor cinemas of small, particularly European, nations. It celebrated the anarchic, organic and minimalist method of film production and evokes similar liberal ideals to that of the 1970s Punk ‘Do-It-Yourself’ movement, 1950s Auteur Theory and 1910s Dadaists.[9]

Dogma’s restricted means of filmmaking meant that its stylistics centred on “an instability and obscurity of the image,”[10] this assertion is often interpreted as an honouring of realist aesthetics. As follows, Dogma films are expected to generate an impression of authenticity and present their audiences with the ‘truth’ through a stylised form that appears to be an ‘untampered’ record of events.[11] Moreover, the early Dogma works also had a distinctively masculinist bent to its provocations which was highlighted through the films’ stark treatment of gender and sexuality; this is pertinent within von Trier’s repertoire as he explores female martyrdom in Dancer in the Dark, debasement in Breaking the Waves, servitude in Dogville and maternal guilt/grief in Antichrist.[12] [13]

The critical response to Dogma 95 has been bipolar – it has been dismissed as a mere publicity stunt and a ‘gimmick,’ seeing that both von Trier and Vinterberg have not consistently followed their own rules.[14] In contrast to this marketing interpretation, Dogma has also been recognised for its artistry as it alludes to the notion that limitations enhance creativity, especially those that the artist self-imposes. Mette Hjort seeks a more cohesive answer, and critiques Dogma as a small European nation’s response to ‘the inequities of globalising processes.’[15] By the same token, Shohini Chaudhuri considers the Dogma rules to be carefully framed in opposition to Hollywood’s for the purpose of challenging the ever-narrowing conception of what constitutes viable or legitimate filmmaking; whereby, just as the manifesto states, “for the first time, anyone can make movies.”[16] [17]

Dancer in the Dark is a post-Dogma design and can be essentially interpreted as von Trier flirting with the enemy, however though, the film still largely adheres to and draws on Dogma’s ‘Vow of Chastity’ – for the possible and expected purpose of ‘forcing the truth out of its characters and setting;’[18] constructing ‘realism’ from contrived verisimilitude. Thus, in this sense of utilising the Dogma rules and also being the product of a Danish director, Dancer in the Dark is a contemporary European film. Dancer was predominately filmed with a Sony VX-1000 Digital Handycam and through this doing von Trier persistently blurs the boundaries of documentation and fiction-creation.[19]

The film’s opening illustrates this point as the audience abruptly enters into the action without a typical Hollywood establishing long-shot to buffer their expectations (that is, if they disregard the abstract paintings of the overture). The documentary-feel of The Sound of Music rehearsal presents the characters in a very ordinary light and induces the impression that they are just as; real people existing in their own worlds who happen to be captured on film. Of course as the story progresses, this initial ‘real’ impression collapses against the film’s generic, narrative and other textual constructed elements (principally the musical genre). Nevertheless, von Trier’s Dogma-abiding decision to use hand-held cameras sustains an initial impression of verisimilitudinous realism.

Another directorial stylistic that is also the result of the Dogma rule of hand-held cameras is what I consider to be as von Trier’s signature aesthetic. This ‘fragmented reality’ aesthetic effect is created from the astute manipulation and combination of cinematographic direction (the camera lens’ focus, depth of field, framing, lighting and movement) and editing. This stylistic first presents a scene in the hand-held format, and then continuously cuts back and forth among its focal subjects; with each cut, the camera instantaneously switches between that of a close-up, medium and long shot, as well as modifying the shot’s perspective – a kind of organic montage, but one which doesn’t leave the scene. This stylistic often disjoins the flow of action but not so immensely that it disorientates the viewer’s sense of cause and effect. The stylistic provides new perspectives on the action as often the immediate transition into a new camera shot and angle forces the viewer to re-evaluate what they see on screen. In addition, this stylistic is also used to move the action into the future – sometimes by a few seconds, others by minutes or hours – and allows von Trier to heighten the crucial moments of a scene. Likewise, he frequently places awkward silences into these sequences as they often speak volumes about character relations.

The film’s opening scene capably demonstrates the effect of this ‘fragmented reality’ stylistic. The montage sequence begins with Björk’s Selma and Catherine Deneuve’s Cathy rehearsing ‘My Favourite Things,’ this is then followed by the producer whispering to the choreographer that “she sings funny and her dancing is not all that great either,” next the choreographer teaches Selma how to move her head, then a sudden cut to the second singing of ‘My Favourite Things,’ followed by Cathy commanding Selma to not call her ‘Cvalda,’ and finally with the director’s congratulatory de-briefing. This scene, which plays out in less than 3 minutes, opens up, in an unceremonious manner, the film’s dynamic characterisation and overarching thematic concerns; the audience senses Selma and Cathy’s comradeship, their immigrant status and the inherent racial discrimination that they face – in essence, the space that they hold in the society that the film depicts.

Von Trier employs this stylistic technique again to document the private endearing relationship between Selma and her son Gene. This is portrayed through the evening dinner ritual where Selma disciplines Gene and compels him to help with her play. The two discursively converse on banal subjects that often lead to dead ends – such is demonstrated by Selma’s question “Are you tired?” and Gene, in response, pointing out the awkwardness of their bantering “Why should you always ask me so stupid questions?” There are moments of the scene which typically present Selma in a low shot to connote her status as mother and Gene with a high shot to denote his childishness, but often the mobile nature of the hand-held camera and the cut-editing distorts these conventional cinematic signifiers. This distortion is appropriately used when considering the generalisation that for most immigrants their children hold more cultural capital than the parents, as the children have been properly socialised to the culture and customs of their adopted country; this is directly illustrated through Selma’s smirking but helpless facial response to Gene’s “It’s your damn musical” comment. In effect, this stylised manipulation of the hand-held efficiently presents the film’s melodrama in a documentary-like ‘realistic’ light.

Apart from the fervent use of the hand-held, Dancer also conforms to the Dogma 95 rules of using colour film stock and available lighting. Von Trier’s use of naturalistic available lighting has resulted in the film’s drab washed-out tones; so much that the film’s stock seems to have been filtered. Filters and optical work are forbidden under the Dogma means of production, but here von Trier adopts it tastefully for the purpose of establishing two distinctive spaces that Björk occupies within the film. The first space belongs to Selma and is of the melodrama genre; the second is that of the musical where Björk’s extra-textual persona seeps through seamlessly. Dancer in the Dark, however, is primarily a drama and the musical aspect, although crucial to its meaning, is secondary. On the film’s website, von Trier even personally explains the necessity of creating “little tricks” so that the musical numbers were able to fit textually into the film; the musical aspects exist in Dancer on the premise that Selma has musical fantasies and the ability to hear music in everyday sounds.[20] Von Trier didn’t want “the music to suddenly pour down from the sky” because he thought that would take some of the pain and danger away from the overarching melodramatic aspect of the film.[21] This split between the two genres seems to be in part inspired by Bob Fosse’s Cabaret.[22] In Cabaret, Fosse distinctively places the musical numbers on the Kit Kat Club stage and away from the narrative’s drama. The musical numbers were created with one hundred static cameras and similar to the hand-held provide some interesting shots and angles (“gifts” as von Trier calls them).[23] This camera technique with its inclusive editing induces the impression of a ‘live’ Broadway performance, while the film stock, drenched in bright colour, generates the musical sequences’ ethereal, almost Hollywood hyper-real atmospherics. The most surreal example of this is the song that occurs after Selma shoots Bill.

Another one of von Trier’s subversions of the Dogma conventions is the inclusion of his full name at the film’s beginning. Dogma 95 discourages this self-crediting as it claims to be anti-auteur (“The auteur concept was bourgeois romanticism from the very start and thereby …false![24]), however this rule is ironic as ideologically Dogma very much follows the auteur theory of promoting the director’s vision beyond the point of Hollywood. Moreover, Dancer was also not shot on location in the sense that the narrative is set in Washington, USA but filmed and produced in Denmark (von Trier has a phobia of flying); this aspect contributes to film’s simulated Gothic America. Likewise, Breaking the Waves although set in Scotland was filmed in one of the largest studios in Copenhagen.[25] This involuntary subversion against location-shooting is transparently made voluntary in Dogville whereby von Trier abandons the entire notion of naturalistic location, be it simulated or authentic, for a black studio stage with white chalk lines drawn to indicate relevant brinks and boundaries. These two subversions, although undermining the Dogma ‘Vow of Chastity,’ do not yield the work towards the aesthetics and ideology of Hollywood films either.

Dancer in the Dark’s inclusion of the musical genre, irrevocably, represents its ‘face-to-face’ meeting with Hollywood on an aesthetic and generic level. Together with the film’s other Hollywood attachments of character simplification and celebrity appearances, they help to complement and sustain the emotional poignancy of the maternal melodrama. In her essay Mum’s the Word, Brenda Austin-Smith explains that the musical and the melodrama are staples of classical Hollywood production, and how their unorthodox mixture in Dancer in the Dark interrogates the meaning and intent of each genre.[26] She sees this to climax in the Trial scene and refers to the notion of an actor’s celebrity status in shaping the audience’s perception of his character to elucidate this argument. Austin-Smith recognises how Selma’s idiosyncrasies are transparently linked to Björk’s inelastic extra-textual identity as alternative-pop diva and Joel Grey’s representative role as an ambassador of the musical genre is formed through his inter-textual identity as the master of ceremonies in Cabaret. [27] She realises a symbolic significance to this connection: Grey, who portrays Oldrich Novy, is Selma’s supposed father and his public genealogical rejection of her in court allegorically signifies Dancer as a rejected child of the musical film tradition; whereby Selma’s death sentence comes to represent not only her court-perceived wrongdoings but also the film’s violation of the ‘law of genre’.[28] Von Trier seems to be punishing his protagonist for his own flaw of kowtowing to not only one but two Hollywood genres and transgressing against the Dogma vow of no genre movies. Additionally, this punishment is made all the more tragically frustrating by the character simplification of Selma as the heroic, yet naïve, maternal martyr and Bill as the self-absorbed traitor. Thus, even with these three face-to-face meetings with Hollywood conventions – the musical genre, the celebrity appearances and the character simplification – Dancer in the Dark still does not convey the impression of being ‘Hollywood’. Rather, these conventions are subverted, and contribute to a European sense of the maternal melodrama – one where the tragedy is heightened. This ‘European’ sense of the maternal melodrama is affected through the film’s anti-Hollywood ending where the main character is hanged; this ending fulfils the expectation of ‘realistic’ realism typically present within Dogma films and, in effect, takes away from the impact, tone and ideology of the film’s Hollywood conventions.

Nevertheless, von Trier’s sheer adoption of Hollywood conventions and his ambition of working, in part, within that framework better allows his work to address certain filmic-political issues regarding transnational cinemas. Dancer in the Dark illustrates von Trier’s willingness to experiment with, and artistically validate, the aesthetics of Hollywood filmmaking, and subsequently through this process transforms it into a Hollywood production – one that happens to have Dogma95 elements. If we take the logic behind the Essentialist approach to National Cinema whereby it is assumed that films produced in a particular country ‘reflect’ something essential about the country as a ‘nation’;[29] then, one can borrow this logical and equally surmise that a film created with particular conventions can ‘reflect’ something essential about the school where these conventions come from. In this case, it is von Trier using Dancer to examine Hollywood’s global hegemonic deliberation of cultural-political values and the concept of stereotyping in transnational cinemas.

Thomas Elsaesser, in his book European Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood, remarks how Hollywood films propagate and advertise very specific tastes and attitudes in their deliberation of national values such as democracy, freedom, and open exchange of people, goods and services.[30] These essentially national and American values are, however, construed as ‘universal’ because of Hollywood’s hegemony and dominance over the global film industry. These values and goals have served America well insofar as have, until the end of the last century, been widely endorsed by peoples who neither share territorial proximity with the United States nor language, faith, customs or a common history.[31] In contrast, the European values of solidarity, pacifism, the welfare state and the preservation of the past commonly conveyed in European cinemas have been less inspirational and have certainly not translated into the same kind of global recognition as in the case of Hollywood.[32] Von Trier is clearly aware of this form of manipulation, and uses Dancer’s Americanism, to undermine these values. Selma comes to represent the typically naïve immigrant with communist tendencies who idealises America for the movies that it produces: “In Czechoslovakia I saw a film and they were eating candy from a tin just like this. I thought to myself how wonderful it must be in the United States.” Meanwhile, Bill, the lawyers and the jury come to depict America’s inherent xenophobia and hypocrisy regarding the aforementioned American values. Conceptually, von Trier seeks to make the viewer aware and conscious of Elsaesser’s thesis – seeing that Hollywood’s values are essentially a construction, be it national or cultural, and thereby should not be construed as being applicable to all.

Furthermore, Elsaesser also observes how set ideas about the national character or cultural stereotyping (of the ‘other’ and the ‘self’) are most likely to thrive within popular culture and the media; he diagnoses these stereotypes as “accurate, if regrettable ‘reflections’ of widely held views.” In Dancer, this works twofold as the film comes to concurrently support and challenge the preconceived notions of both American and European audiences; for example, the film confirms the American stereotype of the seemingly unappreciative communist Eastern-European migrant, while for a European audience, the stereotype of the ‘McCarthy’ anti-foreign prosecutor and judicial system. Moreover, when considering the Essentialist approach to National Cinema it can also be said that Dancer in the Dark reveals how the Danish perceive America; this is made even more blatant as von Trier critiques the film’s theme of capital punishment on its website: “I think that most people in Denmark find the death penalty very foreign. I’m not saying that Danish people are more humane than others; just that it’s a tradition foreign to Scandinavians … The death penalty doesn’t seem like a punishment, however, it’s more like revenge and it’s dangerous to allow the state to have anything to do with revenge. I’m deeply against the death penalty.”[33] With this personal remark, it seems that von Trier chose to employ Hollywood conventions in Dancer for the prime purpose of being able to socially critique America; in other words, using the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house.

In this essay, I have argued that Dancer in the Dark can be considered a contemporary European film because of its alliance to certain Dogma95 rules such as the use of hand-held cameras, colour film stock and available lighting. The film also exhibits subversions of the Dogma rules like its crediting of the director, use of filters and non-compliance to filming on location. The Dogma features of the film contribute to Dancer’s verisimilitude, which aims to present the overarching melodrama in a realistic light. Dancer in the Dark also meets Hollywood ‘face-to-face’ through its adoption of certain Hollywood conventions such as the musical genre, the celebrity appearances and the character simplification; these contribute to the film’s partial hyper-real musical sections, but also, as a form of contrast, help to heighten the tragic melodramatic aspect of the film. Moreover, von Trier’s usage of Hollywood conventions facilitates and legitimises him to address the filmic-political issues of Hollywood’s global hegemonic deliberation of cultural-political values and stereotypes in transnational cinemas. In practice, von Trier has demonstrated that a filmmaker can adopt Hollywood conventions without having to succumb to its implicated ideologies.

Bibliography

Breaking the Waves. Dir. Lars von Trier. October Films (USA). 1996.

Cabaret. Dir: Bob Fosse. ABC Pictures. 1972.

Dancer in the Dark. Dir. Lars von Trier. Fine Line Features (USA). 2000.

Dogville. Dir: Lars von Trier. Columbia Tristar. 2003.

The Idiots. Dir: Lars von Trier. Umbrella Entertainment Pty. Ltd. (Australia). 1998.

Tranceformer: A Portrait of Lars von Trier. Dir: Stig Björkman. Umbrella

Entertainment Pty. Ltd. (Australia). 1997.

Austin-Smith, Brenda. ‘“Mum’s the Word”: The Trial of Genre in Dancer in the Dark’.

Post Script. 26/1. Fall 2006.

Chaudhuri, Shohini. ‘Dogma Brothers: Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg’. New

Punk Cinema. Ed: Rhombes, Nicholas. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

2006.

Elsaesser, Thomas. ‘ImpersoNations: National Cinema, Historical Imaginaries’.

European Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood. Amsterdam: Amsterdam

University Press. 2005.

von Trier, Lars. ‘Lars von Trier on Making Dancer in the Dark’. Dancer in the Dark

website. http://www.dancerinthedarkmovie.com/lars_int.html Last accessed:

11/06/08.

von Trier, Lars and Vinterberg, Thomas. Dogme 95 Manifesto.

http://www.dogme95.dk/menu/menuset.htm. Last accessed: 11/06/08.

von Trier, Lars and Vinterberg, Thomas. Dogme 95 Vow of Chastity,

http://www.dogme95.dk/the_vow/vow.html. Last accessed: 11/06/08.

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[1] Dancer in the Dark, dir. Lars von Trier, Fine Line Features (USA), 2000.

[2] Breaking the Waves, dir. Lars von Trier, October Films (USA), 1996.

[3] The Idiots, dir: Lars von Trier, Umbrella Entertainment Pty. Ltd. (Australia), 1998.

[4] Shohini Chaudhuri, ‘Dogma Brothers: Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg’, New Punk Cinema, Ed: Rhombes, Nicholas, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006, p. 164.

[5] Op. cit., p. 155.

[6] Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, Dogme 95 Manifesto, http://www.dogme95.dk/menu/menuset.htm, last accessed: 11/06/08.

[7] Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, Dogme 95 Vow of Chastity, http://www.dogme95.dk/the_vow/vow.html, last accessed: 11/06/08.

[8] Chaudhuri, Op. cit., p. 153.

[9] Chaudhuri, Op. cit., p. 155.

[10] Chaudhuri, Op. cit., p. 157.

[11] Chaudhuri, Ibid.

[12] Dogville, dir: Lars von Trier, Columbia Tristar, 2003.

[13] Chaudhuri, Op. Cit., p. 158.

[14] Chaudhuri, Op. Cit., p. 154.

[15] Chaudhuri, Ibid.

[16] Chaudhuri, Ibid.

[17] von Trier and Vinterberg, Dogme 95 Manifesto, http://www.dogme95.dk/menu/menuset.htm, last accessed: 11/06/08.

[18] von Trier and Vinterberg, Ibid.

[19] Chaudhuri, Op. Cit., p. 163.

[20] Lars von Trier, ‘Lars von Trier on Making Dancer in the Dark’, Dancer in the Dark website, http://www.dancerinthedarkmovie.com/lars_int.html, last accessed: 11/06/08.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Cabaret, dir: Bob Fosse, ABC Pictures, 1972.

[23] von Trier, Ibid.

[24] von Trier and Vinterberg, Dogme 95 Manifesto, http://www.dogme95.dk/menu/menuset.htm, last accessed: 11/06/08.

[25] Tranceformer: A Portrait of Lars von Trier, dir: Stig Björkman, Umbrella Entertainment Pty. Ltd. (Australia), 1997.

[26] Brenda Austin-Smith, ‘“Mum’s the Word”: The Trial of Genre in Dancer in the Dark’, Post Script, 26/1 (Fall 2006).

[27] Austin-Smith, Ibid.

[28] Austin-Smith, Ibid.

[29] Thomas Elsaesser, ‘ImpersoNations: National Cinema, Historical Imaginaries’, European Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2005, p 64.

[30] Elsaesser, Ibid., p. 60.

[31] Elsaesser, Op. cit.

[32] Elsaesser, Op. cit.

[33] Lars von Trier, ‘Lars von Trier on Making Dancer in the Dark’, Dancer in the Dark website, http://www.dancerinthedarkmovie.com/lars_int.html, last accessed: 11/06/08.

'Mother and Child' ... Oscar-Buzz for Mrs. Warren Beatty?

I am completely impartial to Annette Bening. I think she is an actress with potential (despite her youthful age of 52) but have only seen her in a few things.

My close friend, Claudie, absolutely hates her, attributing most of the hatred to her hammy performances in Being Julia and American Beauty: two of her most famous and celebrated performances, along with The Grifters; from the three, she won her three Academy Award Nominations (former two for Best Actress 2004, 1999, and latter Best Supporting Actress 1990). It is quite a shame that she had lost all three bids, but even more embarrassingly so, twice losing to the unconventional but formidable Hilary Swank.

Don't get me wrong, but Hilary is great, and absolutely hands-down deserved her first Oscar for Kimberly Pierce's Boys Don't Cry (1999). No argument there. But for 2004? I completely disagree with the Academy's pick. Million Dollar Baby is a solid film, though very much Hallmark-flavoured in terms of the narrative and script, but the performances and direction are solid. Clint Eastwood is a mesmerising director, whom always brings a subtle, sophisticated charm to his films. And Swank's performance is solid and hits all the right notes; it's a hark back to sporting flicks of the '70s and '80s, such as and Raging Bull and Rocky. But Swank is very much a limited actress, though she definitely has the androgyny element as her niche, and indeed, what an exciting niche to own. But was she Oscar-worthy in 2004?

I don't think so.

My rankings of the nominated performances that year are:

1. Imelda Staunton in Mike Leigh's Vera Drake: heartbreak perfection. Staunton won the Venice Film Festival's Best Actress Volpi Cup prize, and the BAFTA.

2. Kate Winslet in her cult-ish beloved Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

and 3. Catalina Sandino Moreno in the raw Maria Full of Grace, for which she won the Berlin Film Festival Best Actress prize.

Those three should have been the front-runners, but instead it was Annette and Hilary.

Regardless, considering that you generally have to be a "front-runner", winner of the Globe to become Oscar champion, for 2004, Annette along with Hilary were in the lead, and considering both are quite limited ranged actresses (with Annette being slightly more diverse), it should have gone to Annette.

But now with 2010's magnificent, The Hours-esque female heartbreak melodrama, Mother and Child (Rodrigo Garcia, 2010), I am hopeful and wishing that she'll win the Oscar, come January 2011. All of this sudden passion for Mrs. Bening, arose from a viewing of Mother and Child.

Annette gives a restrained and thought-out performance; one which is far from her typical (sometimes effective, sometimes fanciful, sometimes disingenuous) histrionics. I think she may have it in the bag - with more chances arising from The Kids are All Right. Naomi Watts is, as always, remarkably stellar in the film too - she will probably get a supporting actress nomination and hopefully win (and like Annette, has other films in contention this year: namely, Fair Game (Doug Liman, 2010) and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (Woody Allen, 2010). I'm also hoping, above all, that Julianne Moore will also be nominated and wins the Oscar. I've always loved Moore, but feel that she and Annette will be splitting the votes with The Kids are All Right, and for some reason, I don't see this 'dramedy' doing that well - maybe taking the token "independent, art-house, Americana" slot at the Oscars, but other than that? I'm turned off of that film because in the trailer, we see Moore's character falling for Mark Ruffalo, I thought she was a lesbian with Bening? I despise cheap, hetero-normative depictions of lesbianism.


Annette, Julianne and Naomi are three greatly talented actresses, whom I've felt as though there was a thread running through the three of them, primarily due to their acting styles that tend towards histrionics (and restrained histrionics). All three deserve an Oscar in my books.

Moreover, I am also waiting with bated breath for Leigh's Another Year, which I hear has a spectacular heartbreaking performance from Lesley Manville. Also Juliette Binoche in her Cannes Best Actress winning performance in Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami, 2010). However, I still feel that Manville and Bening have better chances at being nominated. I doubt that Manville will win because Leigh's ladies are, sadly, never triumphant, with even the 'powerhouse' Sally Hawkins (who you'd think Oscar-voters would love because she's young and attractive) being horrifically snubbed for a Best Actress nomination in 2008.

So, all in all, I am hoping for Annette to carry the label of "Academy Award Winner" as of 2011. I am now a fan of her work, and will intently revisit American Beauty. I don't mind histrionics at all, but only if they are done 'tastefully' or 'appropriately' that they are effective.

For Your Consideration:

Annette Bening, Mother and Child, Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role, 2010.
Naomi Watts, Mother and Child, Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, 2010.

Re-Vitalisation of my Cinema Blog

Please let me kindly introduce myself.

My name is Matthew, and I am thoroughly fascinated by film. I am currently a student at the University of Sydney, appropriately majoring in Film Studies and English, amongst other things.

I previously had the joyous experience of writing a blog for one of my courses, entitled: Cinematic Modernism. From that experience, has now seen the birth of this new blog: "Oh Cinema, look what you've done to it."

Basically, the premise of this blog will be that of me writing a 'reading' of a film that I've recently viewed. The reading will be ecclectic and attempt to engage you, the reader; or rather it will be a means by which I will have the opportunity to express my feelings about a film on paper. So yes, as you may have guessed, this is very much an exercise in self-indulgence, but please feel free to read my opinions and comment, or yell back, telling me how wrong my thinking is.

Oscar 2009 Predictions

Best Original Screenplay:

Will Win: Inglourious Basterds [incorrect]
Possible Upset: The Hurt Locker
(I think) Should Win: Inglourious Basterds
Another Worthy Winner: A Serious Man

Best Adapted Screenplay

Will Win: Up in the Air [incorrect]
Possible Upset: Precious
(I think) Should Win: An Education or Up in the Air
Another Worthy Winner: Up in the Air

Best Supporting Actor

Will Win: Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds [correct]
Possible Upset: Christopher Plummer, The Last Station
(I think) Should Win: Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds
Another Worthy Winner: Woody Harrelson, The Messenger

Best Supporting Actress (My Favourite Category, only not this year!)

Will Win: Mo’Nique, Precious (Unhappy Jan! All she does is scream, yell and swear… firstly talk about black ghetto stereotypes… jeez louise) [correct]

Possible Upset: Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air (At least she acts, and is the only one who has managed to steal a pre-cursor award from the Mo. I don’t know why people are also suggesting Maggie Gyllenhaal as an upset… instead I’ve heard a lot of backlash against Maggie… but I’d rather Maggie win it, even though she is mediocre in Crazy Heart.)

(I think) Should Win: Up in the Air girls: Vera Farmiga or Anna Kendrick

Another Worthy Winner: Maggie Gyllenhaal for her work in Secretary and SherryBaby.

Not Nominated but A Very Worthy Winner: Samantha Morton, The Messenger. Julianne Moore, A Single Man. And of course, the best… Melanie Laurent for Inglourious Basterds. Damn.

Best Actor:

Will Win: Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart [correct]
Possible Upset: Colin Firth, A Single Man
(I think) Should Win: Colin Firth, A Single Man
Another Worthy Winner: Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart

Best Actress (My favourite category, again, not this year)

Will Win: Meryl Streep, Julie and Julia (the lesser of 2 evils) [incorrect]

Possible Upset: Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side (the odds are for her)
(I think) Should Win: BAFTA-winner Carey Mulligan, An Education (at least she is a versatile actor, unlike Gabby)

Another Worthy Winner: Gabourey Sidibe, Precious or Helen Mirren, The Last Station (but those 2 have no chance in hell).

Not Nominated but A Very Worthy Winner: critics darling Tilda Swinton in Julia, Cesar-winner Yolande Moreau in Seraphine, Cannes Best Actress winner Charlotte Gainsbourg, and Aussie Abbie Cornish for Bright Star.

Best Director:

Will Win: Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker [correct]
Possible Upset: Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
(I think) Should Win: Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
Another Worthy Winner: Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
Not Nominated but A Very Worthy Winner: Michael Haneke, The White Ribbon

Best Picture

Will Win: The Hurt Locker [correct]
Possible Upset: Inglourious Basterds
(I think) Should Win: Inglourious Basterds
Another Worthy Winner: Avatar

Score: 5/8