Playing the waves : Lars Von Trier's game cinema PDF
Preview Playing the waves : Lars Von Trier's game cinema
Dogma 95 has been hailed as the European renewal of FFIILLMM FFIILLMM independent and innovative film-making, in the tradition of Italian neo-realism and the French nouvelle vague. P Critics praised the directors’ low budgets and team work, L and film fans appreciated the bold look at contemporary CCUULLTTUURREE A CCUULLTTUURREE Y life. Lars von Trier – the movement’s founder and guiding I N spirit – however, also pursued another agenda. His G approach to filmmaking takes cinema well beyond the IN TRANSITION IN TRANSITION T traditional confines of film aesthetics and radically trans- H PPLLAAYYIINNGG E poses the practice of film making and film itself right into W what has become the paramount genre of new media: A games and gaming. Dogma 95, this book argues, is not V E an exceptional phase in Von Trier’s career – as it was for S TTHHEE WWAAVVEESS his co-founders – but the most explicit formulation of a cinematic games aesthetics that has guided the concep- J tion and production of all of his films. A Even the launching of Dogma 95 and the infamous N Dogma Manifesto were conceived as a game, and ever S since Von Trier has redefined the practice of film IM making as a rule bound activity, bringing forms and O N structures of games to bear on his films, and draw- S ing some surprising lessons from economic and evolutionary game theory. This groundbreaking study argues that Von Trier’s films can be better understood from the per- spective of games studies and game theory than from the point of view of traditional film theory and film aesthetics. Jan Simonsis Associate Professor of New Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam. LLAARRSS VVOONN TTRRIIEERR’’SS GGAAMMEE CCIINNEEMMAA 9 789053 569917 JJAANN SSIIMMOONNSS AAmmsstteerrddaamm UUnniivveerrssiittyy PPrreessss AAmmsstteerrddaamm UUnniivveerrssiittyy PPrreessss WWW.AUP.NL PlayingtheWaves Playing the Waves Lars von Trier’s Game Cinema Jan Simons ThepublicationofthisbookismadepossiblebyagrantfromTheNetherlands OrganisationforScientificResearch(NWO). Frontcoverillustrationfrom:thefiveobstructions/defembenspænd, JørgenLeth,Denmark Photo:DanHolmberg;courtesyofZentropa Coverdesign:KokKorpershoek,Amsterdam Lay-out:japes,Amsterdam Translation:RalphdeRijke isbn (paperback) isbn (hardcover) nur ©JanSimons/AmsterdamUniversityPress, Allrightsreserved.Withoutlimitingtherightsundercopyrightreservedabove, nopartofthisbookmaybereproduced,storedinorintroducedintoaretrieval system,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans(electronic,mechanical, photocopying,recordingorotherwise)withoutthewrittenpermissionofboth thecopyrightownerandtheauthorofthebook. Table of contents Introduction 1 Manifesto andModernism TheManifestoasapostmodernparody TheManifestotakenseriously TheManifestoandmodernism From‘essence’togame TheManifesto:Reiterationanddifference 2 TheNameofthisGameisDogma95 Filmmakingasagame Filmandformalism:Theparametricfilm Aestheticsanddramaturgy Filming:storyasreconstructionandasrepresentation Enterthematrix:Game,simulation,rulesandart Complexart:Psykomobile#:TheWorldClock ‘ThereissomethingdigitalinthestateofDenmark’ 3 Filming the Game Therulesofthegame Thegameoffilming,andfilmsaboutgames Idioterne() Idioterne() 4 VirtualExplorations:JourneystotheEnd oftheNight RulesandManifestos Virtualexplorations:TheEuropatrilogy Virtualworlds Virtualfilm 5 The Leaderof the Game Manyfilms,onegame The‘vonTrier’gameworlds Nuancesandsubtleties 6 Between Cinema and Computer Filmingthevirtual Spiritualityandvirtuality 6 PlayingtheWaves Registrationsofsimulations Virtuality Virtualrealism Thevieweraslurker The‘vonTriersystem’revisited 7 Between Hollywood andCopenhagen Dogma,filmandgaming EntertheMatrix:VirtualHollywood TheMatrixunloaded:Virtualrealism Dogma:NouvelleVagueII? BetweennewHollywoodandoldEurope Today’sHollywood,today’sEurope 8 The Name ofthe Game: Punish or Perish Cinematicgames:Gamesormovies? Gametheoryandgamesstudies Narrativeandgametheory Punishorperish;exploitorbeexploited Storiesandgamesreconsidered:Probabilitiesandtragicendings Endgame Notes Bibliography Index of Names Index ofFilmTitles IndexofSubjects Introduction IttooklongertogetthisbookpublishedthanittookLarsvonTriertoproduce andreleaseManderlayand,bythetimethisbookwillbepublished,TheBoss ofitAllandWasington(sic).Thisdifferenceinpacebetweenthetwomedia is, of course, to the disadvantage of the slower medium of print, which can hardlykeeppacewiththemuchfasteraudiovisualmedia.However,asformer soccer player and coach Johan Cruijff always says, ‘With every disadvantage comesanadvantage’.Thetimeittooktogetthemanuscriptpublishedprovided theopportunitytoincludeafinalchapteronManderlayinthisbook.Though this film did not raise any new issues since Dogville, it confirmed the major claim of this book that von Trier’s movies are best approached as cinematic games. Whereas the preceding chapters dealt with the stylistic, structural and formal aspects of von Trier’s films, Manderlay offered the opportunity to see whether the claim that von Trier’s films are a cinematic version of contempo- rarycomputergamescanbesubstantiatedbyatheoreticalgameanalysisofthe contentofthestoriesofhisfilms. This book grew out of a certain dissatisfaction with the reception and inter- pretationoftheDogmemovementaseitheracalltorealismorasaresuscita- tion of the modernist film movements from the s. It seems hard to believe thatin,inthemidstofpostmodernismandatapointinhistorywhencin- ema was already rapidly moving into the digital age, a filmmaker as sophisti- cated, knowledgeable and provocative as Lars von Trier could seriously pro- pose returning to the aesthetics and politics of Italian neo-realism and Nouvelle Vaguemodernism. Afterall,theexhaustionoftheEuropeanauteurandartcin- ema was generally considered to be a major cause for the decline of European cinema.ThelabelsDogmefounditselfadornedwith,‘neo-Bazinianrealism’, ‘DVD-realism’, or ‘prescription for low-budget filmmaking’ did not seem very appropriateforamanifestothatshunnedeveryreferencetocontentandsubject matter, and filmmakers who produced movies like The Celebration (Festen) andTheIdiots,whichwereneitherrealistnorlowbudget. These labels seemed to reflect the limits of classical film theory and what is nowadays called ‘critical theory’ as well as a certain ignorance of von Trier’s earlier movies and production practices. The Dogme Manifesto is only one ofthemanymanifestosthataccompaniedvonTrier’sfilms.Mostoftheseman- ifestosdidnotaddressthethemesorproblemsthefilmsdealtwith,butdefined 8 PlayingtheWaves the constraints von Trier set for himself with each film production. As the author of these manifestos and ‘production notes’ von Trier took on the same rolewithregardtohimselfasthefilmmakervonTrierashedidwithregardto the filmmaker Jørgen Leth in the film The Five Obstructions: he acted as the masterandthearbiterofthegame. As this book argues, in von Trier’s earlier films, in his Dogme film The Idiots and in the films he made after Dogme , von Trier plays with a new cinematicconceptthatistooradicallyinnovativeforclassical,contemporaryor criticalfilmtheorytograsp.Ratherthanbeingacontinuationorresuscitationof the political, stylistic and thematic concerns of earlier film movements, von Trier’scinemaisfirmlybasedinanemergentnewmediacultureofvirtualrea- lities and, even more importantly, games. The book consequently takes a per- spective from the aesthetics of new media, games studies, and game theory to cometotermswithvonTrier’scinematicgamesappropriately.Thismightcome as a surprise since von Trier has repeatedly stated his aversion to the use of computer-generated images and digital special effects in cinema. As this book willtrytoshow,thisdoes notmeanthat vonTrierbelievesthatcinemashould capture and represent a ‘pure’ and non-manipulated real. Instead, if von Trier can be called a ‘neo-Bazinian’ filmmaker at all, it is because, in his view, the virtualisnota‘specialeffect’oratechnologicalartefact,butbecausethevirtual and the real include and presuppose each other, and cinema is the medium mostsuitedforcapturingthevirtualintherealortherealaspartofthevirtual. Without the religious undertones of an André Bazin, and as a filmmaker of ‘CinemainitsSecondCentury’(astheconferencewascalledwherehefirstan- nounced the Dogme Manifesto), von Trier is closer to Deleuze than to the ‘godfather’oftwentiethcenturyfilmrealism. Von Trier was already experimenting with aspects of the aesthetics of new media and video games before ‘the digital revolution’ actually took place and new media genres and formats were still in their infancy. Von Trier’s cinema representsaninterestingexampleofwhatonemightcall‘synchronousremedia- tion’,or,inashortcutneologism,‘symmediation’,aprocessinwhichonemed- ium incorporates and develops features of another new medium at the same time the latter is coming into being and still looking for its own distinguishing characteristics, genres, and formats. These features are virtual realities in his pre-Dogme films, modelling and simulation in his Dogme film, virtual realism anddistributedrepresentationinhispost-Dogmefilms(someofwhich,surpris- inglyenough,sharetechniqueswithHollywoodblockbusterslikeTheMatrix, but use them for opposite ends). The overarching principle and common ground in all of his films is gaming: Von Trier defines the practice of filmmak- ing as a game, he performs the founding of a film movement as a game, he builds the story worlds of his films as game environments, he models film Introduction 9 scenes like simulation plays, and he treats stories as reiterations of always the same game (which went unnoticed by film theorists and critics, but which is quitefamiliartogametheorists). The most important point this book wants to make is that, contrary to an often heard post-modern maxim that states that ‘everything has already been done’ in the arts in general and film in particular and that artists and film- makerscanonlyrecyclebitsandpiecesfromthepast,therearestillfilmmakers capableoflaunchingagenuine‘newwave’infilmmaking.Allittakesisanew perspectivetobeabletoseethat. New perspectives always need to be sharpened, adjusted and fine-tuned. I ammuchobligedtomycolleaguesattheNWO-fundedresearchgroup‘Digital Games’ for discussing chapter drafts from the book, also my Department for MediaStudiescolleaguesandstudentsattheUniversityofAmsterdamfortheir patience and comments in seminars and lectures and Thomas Elsaesser for makingtheEnglishlanguagepublicationofthisbookpossible. Amsterdam,March
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