![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bironic
How about some more Paul Bettany movies?
Previously:
Post 5: Transcendence, After the Rain, Creation, Kiss Kiss (Bang Bang) (not that one, the other one)
Post 4: Firewall,* The Heart of Me, The Da Vinci Code, The Tourist, Blood
Post 3: A Knight’s Tale, Margin Call,* The Secret Life of Bees, Mortdecai
Post 2: Wimbledon,* A Beautiful Mind, Legion
Post 1: The Reckoning, Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World,* Inkheart,* Priest
*includes fic recs
Every Woman Knows a Secret
Oof, we really scraped the bottom of the barrel with this one. And yet it had some of my favorite sexy scenes of this marathon.
From the opening music, film quality and credit typography, it became immediately clear that this was made for (British) TV. The plot summary further clarified that we were in for the equivalent of a Lifetime movie. A middle-aged divorced mother, Jess (Siobhan Redmond), loses her son in a drunk driving accident, then has a torrid affair with the son's friend (baby Paul Bettany), who'd been the driver. Family chaos and soul-searching ensue, and decades-old secrets are revealed.
synn: "just reading that summary made me feel like I was watching a lifetime movie."
Let's be honest: I just wanted to see some makeouts and sexing. Both of which the movie delivered.
First and best of these scenes, as described to synn:
Whole swathes of the movie were painful and/or dull. Jess' little-girl voice was strange and off-putting. I did not like the ending; it made sense in a way (although the opposite would have made equal sense) but the change in their relationship happened too abruptly. Most of the acting went over the top. Yet I resist calling the movie terrible, because it is what it was meant to be.
In fact, I wish the original three-hour miniseries were easily available—Netflix only had the 90-minute movie version—so I could scan through in search of extended or additional frisky scenes. Maybe the ending had more context, too.
What didn't occur to me at the time but did in the ensuing week is what Paul Bettany might have gone through during the filming, if the premature loss of his character's young best friend recalled—as it must have, it must have—the devastating loss of PB's eight-year-old brother when PB was 16. In which case he had some seriously raw grief to channel in that portrayal. Too bad the overall product wasn't of higher quality to let that shine.
Hey, what's that over there? *quickly rips DVD for favorite ogling scenes while no one's looking*
The Young Victoria
Thought we were done with the Bad Period Hair films? Thought wrong!
PB and his prosthetic eyebrows/sideburns/wig played Prime Minister/Lord Melbourne, advisor-slash-puppeteer to the titular young Victoria (Emily Blunt) when she first ascended the throne. His acting was fine. Character was a bit sleazy, a lot manipulative, ultimately put in his place but not too cruelly, and the hair at least wasn't as bad as in Creation or Master & Commander.
What bugged me about the movie was how half of it seemed to have gone missing. This Victoria was brought up by an overprotective, power-hungry mother (Miranda Richardson) and stepfather figure (Mark Strong), so when she came into her crown, she was hopelessly naïve. In what might have been the best scene of the movie, visiting suitor Albert (Rupert Friend) advised her over a chess board to learn to play the game better than those who sought to use her as a pawn, and to seek a husband who wanted to play alongside her rather than for her. By the end, we were shown a queen who'd grown into great confidence. Yet IMO we never saw her master politics, become a good judge of character, forge smart alliances or make savvy decisions. Just a few mistakes here, a couple of good decisions there, a successful attempt or two at shutting someone down.
There was one other disappointment. Victoria looked so happy after her wedding night that I chuckled to think about the piercing that probably made it even better for her. Then wondered whether Albert had gotten it already or if it was later in life. Looked it up and discovered that LONDON TOUR GUIDES LIED TO ME and Prince Albert almost certainly did not have the piercing named for him after all. The things I've learned in the course of this movie project!
However, surprise Thomas Kretschmann as King Leopold made up for it.
Dogville **major spoilers**
Plot summary: Grace (Nicole Kidman) arrives in the small, poverty-stricken, literally dead-end mountain town of Dogville while running from gangsters for unknown reasons. Pretentious young philosopher Thomas Edison Jr. (Paul Bettany) hides her until the gangsters go away. Edison convinces townsfolk (incl. Stellan Skarsgard, Lauren Bacall, Patricia Clarkson, Zeljko Ivanek, Chloe Sevigny) to harbor Grace until it's safe for her to leave. She gets a two-week trial period, during which, at Tom's suggestion, she volunteers to help people out to prove her worth. At first they say they don't need anything. Then they start to let her in.
As police activity around Grace's disappearance increases, the townsfolk grow more fearful and treat her with intensifying cruelty, until she's run ragged, emotionally and sexually abused, and shackled by her neck to a heavy wheel. Before and after an escape attempt, she absorbs it all and excuses everyone their weaknesses. In the end, the one man in town she thought she could count on and who claims to love her, Tom, calls the gangsters. Turns out the leader (James Caan) is her father; she'd run away all those months ago in distaste of his business practices. He asks whether she's ready to come home and begin to inherit his power—and what she wants to do about the people of Dogville.
And they asked me which heads should fall, and the harbour fell quiet as I answered 'All'. (src)
This movie made a lot more sense after I learned that Lars von Trier based it on Pirate Jenny's song from Threepenny Opera. It seems he wanted to explore the protracted cruelty that led the heroine—in that case, Jenny; in this case, Grace—to exact such extreme revenge on the townsfolk who'd wronged her.
On the one hand, it would have been useful to have known that going in. The final scene where Grace debates morality with her father, and her decision to burn the town to the ground, felt jarring to me and not fully explained even after what we'd seen in the previous two and a half hours. Knowing where we were headed would have cast a different light on all that transpired before. Now I feel I need to watch a second time to determine whether Grace's vengeance makes sense. I mean, objectively it does, given what was done to her, but I'm not sure it makes sense for her character. Except obviously it does, because she chose it. Aah, my brain.
On the other hand, I'm glad I didn't know. When Grace stepped out of the car to try to figure out what to do, I wasn't sure what she'd choose, and that provided some of the most effective suspense of the film. Would she leave quietly, her dignity intact? Would she choose to stay and endure the town's escalating abuse, espousing von Trier's favorite themes about semi-voluntary female masochism, suffering and sexual degradation? I really thought she'd decide to stay, as I imagine the heroine of von Trier's Nymphomaniac would have done, and I was all set to be irritated about it. Instead, I was left a bit baffled that the woman who'd suffered and forgiven like a saint (which itself was difficult to understand) would suddenly embrace killing everyone, down to a physically handicapped young woman who'd done her no harm and, if that didn't make it clear enough that Grace had turned 180, a baby.
You can understand her anger. You can understand why she'd be drawn to wielding her father's power after spending most of a year utterly at the town's mercy. And believe me, I'm not against characters changing. It could have been a beautiful character arc. But like I said above, the switch was so strange and so abrupt and so… not depicted well in the script or in her face, as far as I remember… that I didn't even feel the shock of the magnitude of her decision—didn't feel the catharsis—didn't feel pain or joy at the townspeople's demise, nor at the fact that Grace saved Tom especially for last—didn't even laugh at the absurdity, if, as some critics hold, the whole thing was meant to be a von Trier-style joke, poking fun at viewers for taking any of the preceding story seriously. Perhaps I was meant to analyze the meaning of that apathy itself: the realization that vengeance brings no relief. Mainly I felt confused at the decision—hers and von Trier's. I ought to have remembered his trademark nihilism.
And then the credits rolled with David Bowie's "Young Americans" over photographs of desperately poor people during the Depression (when the story took place) and after, and I was left going ????. Is this supposed to be funny? Ironic? Is von Trier outright claiming that everyone in a poor town would do or at least is capable of doing what the citizens of Dogville did to Grace? Is he arguing for compassion for people in dire situations, which by most accounts sounds like it would be out of character?
.
This all probably sounds like I hated the movie. I actually didn't. My head has been aswim with thoughts about the ending and various parts that came before and about what the point of the film might have been, and I've enjoyed that. It's challenging, and even though it's frustrating because it's hard to tell what the message was supposed to be and whether I ought to be angry about it or even whether there was a message or whether von Trier was just messing with us, it's also fun to ponder.
I read a bunch of articles and found myself agreeing with parts of these:
New Statesman | SF Gate | NYT | The Guardian 1 | The Guardian 2 | Salon
The second Guardian review gets at a question I've been turning over, which is: Does the film have anything deep to say? It felt like there was something, but I can't grasp what. I felt a little better about my atrophying analytical skills when it occurred to me to ask: Is that a failing of mine or of the movie's?
One possibility: Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Another possibility, akin to Lynch and Tarantino: Scratch the surface of any normal-seeming, all-American town and encounter deep and varied moral corruption. Neither possibility is profound or new, but if you'd announced a contest for films that explored the latter thesis, for example, Dogville would have won a prize.
There are more possibilities, of course. A searing critique of capitalism. A twisted Christian allegory. Etc. I also found myself chewing on the enduring question of whether Dogville supports the argument that von Trier's movies are misogynist. Woman gets abused; woman quietly puts up with abuse; woman forgives those who abuse her; woman expresses opinion that vengeance is unkind, is morally weak. And yet the people who treated her badly were not excused, either. The rapists and the traitors and those who couldn't believe uncomfortable truths about themselves or their loved ones were not depicted as good people. So I'd say the opposing force of von Trier's misogyny in his narrative is not feminism but misandry. A better label than "misogynist" would be "misanthropic."
Critics also complain that von Trier's work is anti-American. I didn't get that sense from Dogville so much as, again, I thought it was universally misanthropic and just happened to be set in the U.S., where he could apply his views in the context of the Depression. Although there was that scene where we watched the children sing "America the Beautiful"...
.
Look at this! Over a thousand words and I've barely mentioned Paul Bettany!
His performance was fine. The whole movie was so stylized that it's hard to compare this role to others of his. He did a sort of odd rural American accent, which I later learned was a result of him not being sponsored a vocal coach despite requests—he borrowed Nicole Kidman's and says his accent got better as the film went on—and played everything understated.
His character, Tom, intellectualized and rationalized everything. The results of that ranged from amusing—look at that kid, wants to be a writer but hasn't written a word, gathers the townsfolk for lectures about moral uprightness while they roll their eyes behind his back, says he loves Grace but can barely admit it and then talks about how interesting it is instead of engaging with her socially or physically—to sobering—talking himself into betraying Grace, referring to Grace's ultimate comeback as an effective illustration. He also ended up suffering from Nice Guy syndrome. He didn't touch her when she didn't want to be touched, but as she lay in bed post-assault or just flat exhausted and responded to his advances with a request to postpone, he would complain about things like 'Everything I've done has been to help you' and 'Everyone's had your body but me.'
It was hard to get a read on him and even more so on her and on their relationship. Was this really Grace's true self that she presented to the town? It was clear Tom loved her, but did she really love Tom, or did she need the lifeline? It sounds like he had a miserable time on set—see below—so maybe that came through in the performance.
.
Can't talk about Dogville without talking about the staging. von Trier used a stage-like set with chalk markings for the houses and a few key pieces of furniture, props and landmarks. This made the whole movie feel like a play, which was cool. (There were also chapter headings and a whimsical narration by John Hurt, which made it feel like a demented fairytale.) No doors, no walls: nice symbolism for the lack of privacy in Dogville. A few shots used the lack of walls extremely well, most notably the scene where Stellan Skarsgard's Chuck raped Grace in his house while police were searching for her. You watched the townspeople go about their business, ignorant of what was happening behind those walls; you watched Tom approach the front door, then change his mind and stroll away, not knowing that a few feet beyond, Grace was curled up sobbing. Well acted, of course, as well; there were no walls to not-look through.
One possibly funny anecdote. I'd ripped the DVD to my computer because the first time I tried to watch I couldn't get past the first few minutes and the disc was due back to the library. When I finally settled in to watch, I got to the third or fourth VOB file (July 4 celebration after Grace had been making herself of use amongst the townspeople) and discovered the audio was the director's commentary. So I skipped to the next one, and bam, Chuck's bare ass while Grace cried "No!" And I was like: Well, that escalated quickly.
Two VOBs later, the audio turned into Spanish. So I re-borrowed the DVD and watched it straight through properly.
Anyway. I guess one last thing. I came across a Tumblr post with script excerpts entitled, in Italian, "The Arrogance of Grace." That would have made as good a film title as Dogville. At least, it would have provided a filter through which to consider Grace's actions and indicated what the ultimate argument would be about. But "Dogville" was good too. It resonated when Grace's father talked about human vs. animal natures and when Grace debated what to do with the town dog at the end.
.
Afterwards, I watched Dogville Confessions on YouTube: part making-of documentary, part rumination by von Trier on himself and his method, part venting session for the worn-down cast.
Quite interesting! I do enjoy behind-the-scenes stuff. And funny, in a trainwreck sort of way. Some of the actors, including Lauren Bacall and Paul Bettany, had wonderfully sarcastic or bitter sentiments to share. Wish there'd been more of that. Select thoughts PB shared in von Trier's confession booth: "Interesting… experience. Oh, God." "Five of us last night had an hour-long conversation about squirrels." "I just want to go home." Here are a dozen screen shots.
Google "bettany von trier" if you want a laugh. Or try the anecdotes in these articles from The Guardian and The Village Voice.
Oh, you know what impressed me re: Paul Bettany here? I'd imagined that he stuck to his American accent throughout filming because it was difficult to do, but Confessions showed that he switched right back to his natural accent between takes.
It was a great meta concept for Dogville, having the actors and von Trier talk about one another, rarely flatteringly, largely behind the others' backs but in front of cameras: mirroring what the townsfolk were doing. It made me want to know more about the context. Whether things really were as bitter and miserable and trying as the documentary indicated, or whether the director disproportionately selected those clips to portray the filming experience as having been that way. Or whether the whole thing was staged like a second movie in which everyone was pretending to be bitter and tired and backstabby, except Nicole Kidman, who was a class act like Grace, because it supported the themes of Dogville. Subsequent interviews suggest otherwise, but not having been there, we may never know.
Variety did an article about it.
Aaaand, those are my thoughts on Dogville. Whew.
Previously:
Post 5: Transcendence, After the Rain, Creation, Kiss Kiss (Bang Bang) (not that one, the other one)
Post 4: Firewall,* The Heart of Me, The Da Vinci Code, The Tourist, Blood
Post 3: A Knight’s Tale, Margin Call,* The Secret Life of Bees, Mortdecai
Post 2: Wimbledon,* A Beautiful Mind, Legion
Post 1: The Reckoning, Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World,* Inkheart,* Priest
*includes fic recs
Every Woman Knows a Secret
Oof, we really scraped the bottom of the barrel with this one. And yet it had some of my favorite sexy scenes of this marathon.
From the opening music, film quality and credit typography, it became immediately clear that this was made for (British) TV. The plot summary further clarified that we were in for the equivalent of a Lifetime movie. A middle-aged divorced mother, Jess (Siobhan Redmond), loses her son in a drunk driving accident, then has a torrid affair with the son's friend (baby Paul Bettany), who'd been the driver. Family chaos and soul-searching ensue, and decades-old secrets are revealed.
synn: "just reading that summary made me feel like I was watching a lifetime movie."
Let's be honest: I just wanted to see some makeouts and sexing. Both of which the movie delivered.
First and best of these scenes, as described to synn:
He was all lanky (but only half in a sexy way, he was also in English-boy underwear and like 25 which is about 10 years before men generally become attractive says me) and a head taller than her, and his hand spanned practically her entire lower back. And then there was premature ejaculation, heh, but this was soon followed by a second round in which she said, "Oh, that's right, you're 22, of course you can."I enjoyed the kissing and the tumbling around in bed and PB's dark sweaters and jackets and the way the movie was shot for the female gaze, the way the movie was framed from a woman's point of view. Jess was struggling not only with grief but with her own aging and loneliness, so we got dialogue about her self-consciousness about her wrinkles and sags, guileless assertions from Rob that she was sexy, and lingering, appreciative shots of her youthful lover with little to no clothing on.
Whole swathes of the movie were painful and/or dull. Jess' little-girl voice was strange and off-putting. I did not like the ending; it made sense in a way (although the opposite would have made equal sense) but the change in their relationship happened too abruptly. Most of the acting went over the top. Yet I resist calling the movie terrible, because it is what it was meant to be.
In fact, I wish the original three-hour miniseries were easily available—Netflix only had the 90-minute movie version—so I could scan through in search of extended or additional frisky scenes. Maybe the ending had more context, too.
What didn't occur to me at the time but did in the ensuing week is what Paul Bettany might have gone through during the filming, if the premature loss of his character's young best friend recalled—as it must have, it must have—the devastating loss of PB's eight-year-old brother when PB was 16. In which case he had some seriously raw grief to channel in that portrayal. Too bad the overall product wasn't of higher quality to let that shine.
Hey, what's that over there? *quickly rips DVD for favorite ogling scenes while no one's looking*
The Young Victoria
Thought we were done with the Bad Period Hair films? Thought wrong!
PB and his prosthetic eyebrows/sideburns/wig played Prime Minister/Lord Melbourne, advisor-slash-puppeteer to the titular young Victoria (Emily Blunt) when she first ascended the throne. His acting was fine. Character was a bit sleazy, a lot manipulative, ultimately put in his place but not too cruelly, and the hair at least wasn't as bad as in Creation or Master & Commander.
What bugged me about the movie was how half of it seemed to have gone missing. This Victoria was brought up by an overprotective, power-hungry mother (Miranda Richardson) and stepfather figure (Mark Strong), so when she came into her crown, she was hopelessly naïve. In what might have been the best scene of the movie, visiting suitor Albert (Rupert Friend) advised her over a chess board to learn to play the game better than those who sought to use her as a pawn, and to seek a husband who wanted to play alongside her rather than for her. By the end, we were shown a queen who'd grown into great confidence. Yet IMO we never saw her master politics, become a good judge of character, forge smart alliances or make savvy decisions. Just a few mistakes here, a couple of good decisions there, a successful attempt or two at shutting someone down.
There was one other disappointment. Victoria looked so happy after her wedding night that I chuckled to think about the piercing that probably made it even better for her. Then wondered whether Albert had gotten it already or if it was later in life. Looked it up and discovered that LONDON TOUR GUIDES LIED TO ME and Prince Albert almost certainly did not have the piercing named for him after all. The things I've learned in the course of this movie project!
However, surprise Thomas Kretschmann as King Leopold made up for it.
Dogville **major spoilers**
Plot summary: Grace (Nicole Kidman) arrives in the small, poverty-stricken, literally dead-end mountain town of Dogville while running from gangsters for unknown reasons. Pretentious young philosopher Thomas Edison Jr. (Paul Bettany) hides her until the gangsters go away. Edison convinces townsfolk (incl. Stellan Skarsgard, Lauren Bacall, Patricia Clarkson, Zeljko Ivanek, Chloe Sevigny) to harbor Grace until it's safe for her to leave. She gets a two-week trial period, during which, at Tom's suggestion, she volunteers to help people out to prove her worth. At first they say they don't need anything. Then they start to let her in.
As police activity around Grace's disappearance increases, the townsfolk grow more fearful and treat her with intensifying cruelty, until she's run ragged, emotionally and sexually abused, and shackled by her neck to a heavy wheel. Before and after an escape attempt, she absorbs it all and excuses everyone their weaknesses. In the end, the one man in town she thought she could count on and who claims to love her, Tom, calls the gangsters. Turns out the leader (James Caan) is her father; she'd run away all those months ago in distaste of his business practices. He asks whether she's ready to come home and begin to inherit his power—and what she wants to do about the people of Dogville.
And they asked me which heads should fall, and the harbour fell quiet as I answered 'All'. (src)
This movie made a lot more sense after I learned that Lars von Trier based it on Pirate Jenny's song from Threepenny Opera. It seems he wanted to explore the protracted cruelty that led the heroine—in that case, Jenny; in this case, Grace—to exact such extreme revenge on the townsfolk who'd wronged her.
On the one hand, it would have been useful to have known that going in. The final scene where Grace debates morality with her father, and her decision to burn the town to the ground, felt jarring to me and not fully explained even after what we'd seen in the previous two and a half hours. Knowing where we were headed would have cast a different light on all that transpired before. Now I feel I need to watch a second time to determine whether Grace's vengeance makes sense. I mean, objectively it does, given what was done to her, but I'm not sure it makes sense for her character. Except obviously it does, because she chose it. Aah, my brain.
On the other hand, I'm glad I didn't know. When Grace stepped out of the car to try to figure out what to do, I wasn't sure what she'd choose, and that provided some of the most effective suspense of the film. Would she leave quietly, her dignity intact? Would she choose to stay and endure the town's escalating abuse, espousing von Trier's favorite themes about semi-voluntary female masochism, suffering and sexual degradation? I really thought she'd decide to stay, as I imagine the heroine of von Trier's Nymphomaniac would have done, and I was all set to be irritated about it. Instead, I was left a bit baffled that the woman who'd suffered and forgiven like a saint (which itself was difficult to understand) would suddenly embrace killing everyone, down to a physically handicapped young woman who'd done her no harm and, if that didn't make it clear enough that Grace had turned 180, a baby.
You can understand her anger. You can understand why she'd be drawn to wielding her father's power after spending most of a year utterly at the town's mercy. And believe me, I'm not against characters changing. It could have been a beautiful character arc. But like I said above, the switch was so strange and so abrupt and so… not depicted well in the script or in her face, as far as I remember… that I didn't even feel the shock of the magnitude of her decision—didn't feel the catharsis—didn't feel pain or joy at the townspeople's demise, nor at the fact that Grace saved Tom especially for last—didn't even laugh at the absurdity, if, as some critics hold, the whole thing was meant to be a von Trier-style joke, poking fun at viewers for taking any of the preceding story seriously. Perhaps I was meant to analyze the meaning of that apathy itself: the realization that vengeance brings no relief. Mainly I felt confused at the decision—hers and von Trier's. I ought to have remembered his trademark nihilism.
And then the credits rolled with David Bowie's "Young Americans" over photographs of desperately poor people during the Depression (when the story took place) and after, and I was left going ????. Is this supposed to be funny? Ironic? Is von Trier outright claiming that everyone in a poor town would do or at least is capable of doing what the citizens of Dogville did to Grace? Is he arguing for compassion for people in dire situations, which by most accounts sounds like it would be out of character?
.
This all probably sounds like I hated the movie. I actually didn't. My head has been aswim with thoughts about the ending and various parts that came before and about what the point of the film might have been, and I've enjoyed that. It's challenging, and even though it's frustrating because it's hard to tell what the message was supposed to be and whether I ought to be angry about it or even whether there was a message or whether von Trier was just messing with us, it's also fun to ponder.
I read a bunch of articles and found myself agreeing with parts of these:
New Statesman | SF Gate | NYT | The Guardian 1 | The Guardian 2 | Salon
The second Guardian review gets at a question I've been turning over, which is: Does the film have anything deep to say? It felt like there was something, but I can't grasp what. I felt a little better about my atrophying analytical skills when it occurred to me to ask: Is that a failing of mine or of the movie's?
One possibility: Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Another possibility, akin to Lynch and Tarantino: Scratch the surface of any normal-seeming, all-American town and encounter deep and varied moral corruption. Neither possibility is profound or new, but if you'd announced a contest for films that explored the latter thesis, for example, Dogville would have won a prize.
There are more possibilities, of course. A searing critique of capitalism. A twisted Christian allegory. Etc. I also found myself chewing on the enduring question of whether Dogville supports the argument that von Trier's movies are misogynist. Woman gets abused; woman quietly puts up with abuse; woman forgives those who abuse her; woman expresses opinion that vengeance is unkind, is morally weak. And yet the people who treated her badly were not excused, either. The rapists and the traitors and those who couldn't believe uncomfortable truths about themselves or their loved ones were not depicted as good people. So I'd say the opposing force of von Trier's misogyny in his narrative is not feminism but misandry. A better label than "misogynist" would be "misanthropic."
Critics also complain that von Trier's work is anti-American. I didn't get that sense from Dogville so much as, again, I thought it was universally misanthropic and just happened to be set in the U.S., where he could apply his views in the context of the Depression. Although there was that scene where we watched the children sing "America the Beautiful"...
.
Look at this! Over a thousand words and I've barely mentioned Paul Bettany!
His performance was fine. The whole movie was so stylized that it's hard to compare this role to others of his. He did a sort of odd rural American accent, which I later learned was a result of him not being sponsored a vocal coach despite requests—he borrowed Nicole Kidman's and says his accent got better as the film went on—and played everything understated.
His character, Tom, intellectualized and rationalized everything. The results of that ranged from amusing—look at that kid, wants to be a writer but hasn't written a word, gathers the townsfolk for lectures about moral uprightness while they roll their eyes behind his back, says he loves Grace but can barely admit it and then talks about how interesting it is instead of engaging with her socially or physically—to sobering—talking himself into betraying Grace, referring to Grace's ultimate comeback as an effective illustration. He also ended up suffering from Nice Guy syndrome. He didn't touch her when she didn't want to be touched, but as she lay in bed post-assault or just flat exhausted and responded to his advances with a request to postpone, he would complain about things like 'Everything I've done has been to help you' and 'Everyone's had your body but me.'
It was hard to get a read on him and even more so on her and on their relationship. Was this really Grace's true self that she presented to the town? It was clear Tom loved her, but did she really love Tom, or did she need the lifeline? It sounds like he had a miserable time on set—see below—so maybe that came through in the performance.
.
Can't talk about Dogville without talking about the staging. von Trier used a stage-like set with chalk markings for the houses and a few key pieces of furniture, props and landmarks. This made the whole movie feel like a play, which was cool. (There were also chapter headings and a whimsical narration by John Hurt, which made it feel like a demented fairytale.) No doors, no walls: nice symbolism for the lack of privacy in Dogville. A few shots used the lack of walls extremely well, most notably the scene where Stellan Skarsgard's Chuck raped Grace in his house while police were searching for her. You watched the townspeople go about their business, ignorant of what was happening behind those walls; you watched Tom approach the front door, then change his mind and stroll away, not knowing that a few feet beyond, Grace was curled up sobbing. Well acted, of course, as well; there were no walls to not-look through.
One possibly funny anecdote. I'd ripped the DVD to my computer because the first time I tried to watch I couldn't get past the first few minutes and the disc was due back to the library. When I finally settled in to watch, I got to the third or fourth VOB file (July 4 celebration after Grace had been making herself of use amongst the townspeople) and discovered the audio was the director's commentary. So I skipped to the next one, and bam, Chuck's bare ass while Grace cried "No!" And I was like: Well, that escalated quickly.
Two VOBs later, the audio turned into Spanish. So I re-borrowed the DVD and watched it straight through properly.
Anyway. I guess one last thing. I came across a Tumblr post with script excerpts entitled, in Italian, "The Arrogance of Grace." That would have made as good a film title as Dogville. At least, it would have provided a filter through which to consider Grace's actions and indicated what the ultimate argument would be about. But "Dogville" was good too. It resonated when Grace's father talked about human vs. animal natures and when Grace debated what to do with the town dog at the end.
.
Afterwards, I watched Dogville Confessions on YouTube: part making-of documentary, part rumination by von Trier on himself and his method, part venting session for the worn-down cast.
Quite interesting! I do enjoy behind-the-scenes stuff. And funny, in a trainwreck sort of way. Some of the actors, including Lauren Bacall and Paul Bettany, had wonderfully sarcastic or bitter sentiments to share. Wish there'd been more of that. Select thoughts PB shared in von Trier's confession booth: "Interesting… experience. Oh, God." "Five of us last night had an hour-long conversation about squirrels." "I just want to go home." Here are a dozen screen shots.
Google "bettany von trier" if you want a laugh. Or try the anecdotes in these articles from The Guardian and The Village Voice.
Oh, you know what impressed me re: Paul Bettany here? I'd imagined that he stuck to his American accent throughout filming because it was difficult to do, but Confessions showed that he switched right back to his natural accent between takes.
It was a great meta concept for Dogville, having the actors and von Trier talk about one another, rarely flatteringly, largely behind the others' backs but in front of cameras: mirroring what the townsfolk were doing. It made me want to know more about the context. Whether things really were as bitter and miserable and trying as the documentary indicated, or whether the director disproportionately selected those clips to portray the filming experience as having been that way. Or whether the whole thing was staged like a second movie in which everyone was pretending to be bitter and tired and backstabby, except Nicole Kidman, who was a class act like Grace, because it supported the themes of Dogville. Subsequent interviews suggest otherwise, but not having been there, we may never know.
Variety did an article about it.
Aaaand, those are my thoughts on Dogville. Whew.
