Dogme95 Essay

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Intro:

Danish Director Jørgen Leth has stated that it is in restriction that filmmakers can often find the greatest source of inspiration, which is why in 1995, the Danish film directors Lars von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg, Kristian Levring, and Søren Kragh-Jacobsen, created the film genre of Dogme95. In an effort to save filmmaking from over stylized ‘Hollywood bourgeois’, Dogme95 had a set of strict rules that any director undertaking the genre had to adhere to, in an effort to keep the film pure, and bring filmmaking back to what they believed it was supposed to be about: storytelling. Lars von Trier is famous for creating both Dogme95, and co-creating The Five Obstructions, which both are based around restricting filmmakers from using varies techniques, technologies, …show more content…

Hjort points out in Purity and Provocation (2003), by constraining oneself, the filmmaker may destroy the illusion of film; bring it back to a purer art form.
Dogme95 was a reaction to big budget Hollywood, and its spread throughout the globe. It reduced film to a cheaper, and more accessible art form, which levelled the playing field, so not only just big budget companies could create. By self-imposing the Dogme95 rule set on oneself, they gain a sense of liberation, whereby certain monetary obstacles are no longer a major restriction.

Elster, in Rules and Conventions (1992), defines innovation as ‘a change in conventions relative to the immediately preceding period’, and he claims that by purposefully breaking away from an ideology that one has been moulded by, one might find inspiration. Dogme95 seems to be more about forcing creators out of habit or comfort, just like how if a filmmaker was brought up on Dogme95, they would most likely find great inspiration through access to Hollywood

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