Playing the Waves: Lars von Trier's Game Cinema (Amsterdam University Press - Film Culture in Transition)

256 Pages·2007·1.13 MB·English

by  Jan Simons

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
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nur 
©JanSimons/AmsterdamUniversityPress,
Allrightsreserved.Withoutlimitingtherightsundercopyrightreservedabove,
nopartofthisbookmaybereproduced,storedinorintroducedintoaretrieval
system,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans(electronic,mechanical,
photocopying,recordingorotherwise)withoutthewrittenpermissionofboth
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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-
pretationoftheDogmemovementaseitheracalltorealismorasaresuscita-
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.ThelabelsDogmefounditselfadornedwith,‘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