Left alone

It’s the Battle of People Who Haven’t Seen the Movie They’re Battling About!

One of my favorite bloggers, Mr. John Jakala, takes me to task for my bashing of Lars von Trier’s new movie Dogville. He says that it’s not fair to hold the off-screen bad blood between von Trier and Bjork, the star of his last film, against the director’s work itself. He also says:

I suspect that what’s really bugging Sean is the (in his view) “anti-Americanism” that supposedly pervades Dogville. How accurate that label is I really can’t say. Again, I haven’t seen the film yet, nor am I interested in reading any specific reviews or criticism of the film until I have seen it. But in any event, can’t an artist create worthwhile (i.e., challenging, thought-provoking) art even if his politics disagree with ours? Or is it now the case that, in art as well as in politics, you’re either with us or against us?

No, what’s really bothering me is that von Trier is a misogynistic pig who beats up his women characters and calls it art. The kneejerk, ignorance-based anti-Americanism–which isn’t a valid “politics” any more than misogyny or anti-Semitism is–is merely icing on the intellectually and artistic bankrupt cake. And it’s not just me that’s picked up on von Trier’s lazy America bashing–I’ve seen similar views expressed in Slate and The New Yorker (the latter by David Denby!). We’re not exacly in Weekly Standard territory here.

Meanwhile, I mentioned the Bjork thing not because I think behind-the-scenes shenanigans necessarily affect the work itself, but because von Trier’s apparent treatment of his star perfectly mirrors his treatment of his women characters. Hitchcock’s treatment of women in his films is problematic for many, and of course he sent Tippi Hedren to the hospital, yet Hitchcock is terrible to everyone in his films, and Hedren worked with him again and never has anything but nice things to say about him when she’s interviewed. Women are always specially singled out for torment and abuse in von Trier’s work, and Bjork not only won’t work with von Trier again, she won’t work on ANY film again. I think that says a lot more about von Trier than your average backstage spat, particularly since it meshes so well with the fate he appears to think women deserve if his films are any indication. That’s the the thing about artists like von Trier and (to use an example John cites) Dave Sim, as opposed to the typical financial or interpersonal skullduggery evident behind the scenes of many artistic projects–the unsavory aspects of von Trier and Sim’s off-screen personae absolutely are tangible within their art itself.

As an aside, Bruce Baugh wrote to me on the topic of von Trier, saying the following:

Dogme 95 ate his brain. It’s a shame, because his early work _does_

deserve its reputation, I think. I love The Kingdom and The Element Of

Crime, in particular. But whenever someone slides from saying “this is

how I prefer to work” to “this is the only legitimate way to work”,

well, huge sucking vacuum follows. It’s too easy to slip into a

situation where you never get your basic urges checked or questioned.

I absolutely agree with this. In film school I learned very quickly to run away from any filmmaker who’d penned anything close to a manifesto. Their work may have its moments, but aside from one or two genuinely good films at most they’re pretty much useless both as artists and as commentators on the human condition. Von Trier may have abandoned the rules of Dogme 95, but you can’t abandon the the kind of mind that allows you to think writing manifestos is a good idea in the first place. Or as Denby put it in his review, “Like so many revolutionaries, von Trier can