Dogville Analysis

[Prince Aboubakar]

Forthe rest of you lovelies, I want to talk about this movie, because it demands talking about. The first time I watched it was a year ago, early in the morning, with my filmmaker buddy AJ, and by the last twenty minutes, I was sitting up on my bed with my hair in my hands in shock.

And much of the situational drama that nuances the movie begs the question as to whether community accountability is the best treatment for such selfishness. Because ultimately, these crimes in the movie are at their essence selfishness. Self-justified acts on selfishness inflicted on Nicole Kidman as Grace.

The town agreed on these things as a collective, and in so doing were acting with a kind of collective perversion, but I think his emphasis was more on the source behind that kind of collective evil. If that makes sense?

Grace comes to town but all her goodness really achieves is to illustrate the latent evil that was in the people all along. The towns people believe they are good, but how they deal with Grace plainly illustrates the reality. Indeed, as Grace works harder and harder, their wickedness becomes more and more apparent. They quite literally tread grace underfoot.

I want to commend you on a very thorough analysis and dissection of a film that deals with such complex subject matter in such a simplified way. I will say that I think you may have focused a little much on selfishness as the vice that motivated the atrocious actions of the men. Sexually motivated crimes are more about a sense of power and an inherent need to feel in control than they are about a conscious desire that one is aware of needing to fulfill, but this is a subject that as I stated earlier is so complex and multifaceted that small discrepancies in interpretation are inevitable.

As an artist, I've found that there's an indistinct line between the supernatural and creative practice, and that the deeper I delve with each passion presses further into a darker corner, into an unknown to find, if I'm lucky, a meaning, a pair of eyes looking back out at me.

But rather than approach these films in my typical, sterile way, why not get down to some analysis? What exactly does it all mean? The auteur made this film to make Americans angry 9which he did), but what could have made them so angry?

This is what von Trier is trying to say, trying to prove throughout the entire film. It is a biting commentary he provides, but the worst part is arguably the fact that he is, essentially, correct. Harsh though he may be, he is not wrong in evaluating the United States as a country that tries to present itself as more than willing to be helpful, but is at heart intolerant and xenophobic. He, like Jean-Luc Godard in Pierrot le Fou, has seen the United States bare its teeth.

One could say that Manderlay might be a happier (well, no) or more merciful story or execution of similar ideas and themes in comparison to Dogville, because, again in comparison, there does not seem to be as much to talk about. There still is, regardless, it just does not overflow with ideas the way its predecessor did.

Von Trier makes very powerful statements about race in this film, also using the theme of tolerance, or lack thereof, which was prevalent in Dogville. The film is dry, cutting, and fascinating and eerily accurate once again. Once again, he pushes the button of America evoking a stunning response.

Thank you, I appreciate your constructive criticism and that you read the article! Perhaps ironically, my English teacher says I have the same problem you pointed out; that I apply meaning too much. But, thank you, I shall work on that.

However, what impressed me most about the films is how the actors and actresses truly had to carry the film. There are no fancy sets or computerized imagery. The film is raw; it focuses your attention on the story and the actors/actresses pull you into that story. You feel and live the story. Ultimately, it was a great artist work.

The Very Reverend Archimandrite John Panteleimon Manoussakis is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the College of the Holy Cross (Worcester, MA), and the co-editor of the Journal for Continental Philosophy of Religion (Brill). He is the author of God After Metaphysics: A Theological Aesthetic (Indiana, 2007, translated into Russian and Romanian), For The Unity of All (Cascade, 2015, translated into Italian), and the editor of six volumes. He has published over thirty articles in English, Greek, Italian, French, Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, and Ukrainian. The analysis of Dogville is based on his most recent book The Ethics of Time (Bloomsbury, 2017).

Throughout the film, Amelia tries to hide the book and even burn it at one point, only to have it and the monster latched on to it reappear. Denying a traumatic memory and pretending it never happened to avoid dealing with grief only works for so long, before it eats you from the inside out, and you release it all in the form of a mental breakdown.

Found this after posting my own analysis of The Babadook. Great article you have here! Loved your connections to German Expressionism and classic cinema too. Check out my review when you get the chance. -babadook-2014-and-further-musings-on-mind-body-and-disease/his review after posting one for myself

Remember when she visualized the scene of the mother who killed her son on his 7th birthday and the cops and reporters are there, and the cops had to shoot the mom? It was her in the window of the place this happened.

I didnt like the ending maybe because I am a psychiatric nurse but I read the movie primarily focused on mental illness, untreated, and others attitudes towards it.The movies strongest segment was when she becomes floridly psychotic suffering from visual hallucinations and the threat you feel towards the son due to her behaviour in the house.

The reason I didnt like the ending was i felt it was obvious she killed her son and probably herself .Not to show this was abit of a cop out but of course these type of ambiguous endings can help sharpen debate and

The mother stabbed the son killing him and is living in a crazy hospital. Reasons I say this is yes this all has to do with greif and coping but the part that convinced me was when she was watching the tv and it talked about the mother that stabbed her son and then showed the mother in the window. This was her watching a report in the hospital where reporters managed to film her. You have the drug aspect from medications the doctors give her. The rape victim aspect from the vibrator scene. She can be seen in her daily life while she is doing the bingo but she tells herself she works there not that she is a patient. The community workers are actually doctors. They got uneasy when the kid talked about a broken nose because she has split personalities. The list goes on. Think of the movie suckerpunch.

The white lines represent the walls, doors and windows, and it is actually that the police and Chuck are in two different spaces separated by the walls; however, due to the transparent visual effect set on the stage, the audience is presented with two simultaneous scenes: one is Grace's pain, she is threatened and raped by Chuck; on the other side, the police are questioning the villagers.

Koutsourakis(2013, p.167) argues that in the rape scene, von Tier manipulated the limited space and arranged a variety of body postures and attitudes, revealing the collective dimension of an individual's behavior. Firstly, the camera follows Chuck as he approaches Grace and begins a sexual flirtation (figure 1). As Chuck puts his body on top of Grace, the camera moves away to capture a police officer questioning and searching for Grace's information. The camera then cuts to the rest of Dogville as they chat or conduct their daily routines. It is shown by panoramic lens that the other people are doing various things "outside", while the rape going on "inside" in the same frame (figure 2). The transparent stage scenery makes the audience feel that the other people in the story seem to be able to see what is happening in Chuck's house, but just choose to ignore and be indifferent, which strengthens the drama of the scene and its emotional guidance to the audience.

This highly dramatic scene is actually attributed to the use of "stage" throughout Dogville. The film is three hours long, but what is surprising is that the whole story takes place on one stage. The stage represents a "dogville" that is flat rather than three-dimensional. The stage is divided into large and small areas by lines (figure 3). The film uses panoramic shots to present the whole picture of the Dogville to the audience. Aerial photography of the town not only gives full view to the social structure as the setting of the film, but also reflect the biblical implications of the film that can be interpreted as the perspective of God (Jovanovic, 2017, p. 195). The closed square represents the houses of the villagers. The places decorated by the brush are currant fruit showers. Except for some props that have to be used on the stage, such as clocks, benches, mines, etc., other props are turned into abstract lines. Even the dogs in Dogville are shown in front of people in the outline drawn (figure 4). Therefore, on this stage, the performers need to complete the actions and convey the information without the help of props. The expression of the movie picture completely depends on whether the actors' performance is vivid or not.

It is such a perspective-stage setting that makes Dogville unreservedly present. Although it can fit several scenes that are happening into one shot, the story plot doesn't interfere with each other, and the characters are doing their own things in their own space; while what it shows the audience is a straight forward revelation of good and evil. In real life, through a door or a wall, a person can disguise or become someone else. Because a door or wall is a barrier between people and the outside world, closed the door, people can do whatever they want in the enclosed indoor space, while the people outside know nothing about it. Without these objects, however, one would appear naked before the eyes of others. Indeed, the dogville in the film has no doors or windows,breaking the line between public space and the private world. The scene that shocked the audience is Chuck raping Grace in public and in full view, and then go out as if nothing had happened after raping Grace. Dogville makes possible a perspective that is impossible in real life, exposing the ugliness that the characters try to hide.

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