The Drink Tank 103 (2006).pdf

Chris for TAFF!!!

garcia @ computerhistory.org

Convention at the Adelphi in Liver-

pool. I was psyched that I might get

to go to Liverpool and see the sister

hotel to the Titanic. Sadly, they had

to cancell the con due to the fact

that there were several articles run

about thefts and various other is-

sues. They also hadn’t sold enough

memberships to the con itself. Now,

the way it hadn’t really exploded

the way I would expect the news of

a majour annual con calling off an

edition would cause, I igured it’d

happened before. I was wrong, it

turns out, since they’ve never can-

celled one before for any reason.

This is indeed serious.

Now, the issue comes down to

this: where is the TAFF delegate go-

ing to go? They were supposed to be

sent to Eastercon and serve as the

Fan Guest of Honour. That won’t

be happening now. There was talk

of a make-up Eastercon, though

no announcement has been made

of whether or not that’s happen-

ing. Now, there seems to be a lot of

discussion about doing something

on the various LJs, but nothing has

been irmed up.

And that explains the TAFF

race so far: dificult, with things

changing left and right, but ulti-

mately, it really couldn’t be any-

thing else considering that I’m

running...and am in the home

stretch!

The Name of This Article is Dogme

Well, I’m back and working

on another Drink Tank. This one’ll

have to settle you for a while be-

cause there’s a lot going on. I’m ed-

iting the December issue of the N3F

Fan, and that’ll take a little time

away from my precious Drink Tank.

I’ve also got Chris for TAFF stuff,

which would have been out this

week, except there’s been another

snag.

Convoy was going to be the

British National Science Fiction

I’m fairly certain anyone read-

ing this knows that I’m a giant movie

mark. It’s easy to see why growing up

with the movies I did. I saw the Godfa-

ther far too young. I watched Rio Lobo,

The Outlaw Josie Wales, The Man

Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Sons

of Katie Elder, Cross of Iron, Clock-

work Orange, Safety Last, Casablanca,

The Big Sleep, Double Indemnity, all

of hte Hope & Crosby ilms and all the

Universal Monster licks before I was

in high school. Those ilms alone are

enough to make a guy into a ilm nut,

but add Star Wars, The Thing from An-

other World, The Day The Earth Stood

Still and so many other Science Fiction

ilms that I couldn’t list them all with-

out taking up many, many pages and

you’ll understand how I got her.

You’ll see from that list that most

of the ilms I’ve loved are big produc-

tions. Lots of lash, style, cunnign

editing and camera work, special ef-

fects and more. It’s easy to think that

list like that would belong to a guy who

loves the big ‘plosion kinds of ilms,

but really, to me, it’s about smaller,

more direct, more honest ilms.

Hence, I love Dogme.

The Danes are a strange people.

They’ve been making ilms since the

Lumiere Bros. sold a Cinematograph to

a couple of Danish ilmmakers in 1899.

There were

a number of

highly im-

portant and

inluential

ilmmakers

in Denmark

during the

the silent

period, in-

cluding Carl

Theordor

Dreyer who

made the

genius The

Passion of

Joan of Arc.

Denmark wasn’t the most important

ilmmaking nation in Europe, but

it was the one that got attention for

breaking taboos and doing edgy work.

I believe Haxen, the one of the irst of

the Supernatural documentaries, was

made in Denmark.

There was a generation of Dan-

ish ilm students that started to see

the light of day in the late 1970s and

early 1980s. Most of these folks you’d

never hear about unless you were big

into the festival circuit. There was one

guy who really started making waves.

The guy’s name was Lars Von Trier.

They say that every movement

has it’s mad man and Lars has been

the mad man for a couple of them now.

His ilms of the 1980s, the little seen

in the US ilm Epidemic as an exam-

ple, started to get folks talking. He was

shooting almost entirely hand-held and

was using raw material for scripts that

just killed and cut viewers to shreds.

The ilms he made and the TV series

that he did were tough and unyielding

and they made a wider audience take a

look than had ever considered Danish

ilmmakers before. He gained interna-

tional attention when he really began

the Digital revolution with his ilm

Breaking The Waves, a ilm that got so

much notice that Emily Watson man-

aged to get an Oscar nom out of it.

In 1995, Lars was bitter. So

were a lot of his ilmmaking buddies,

notably Thomas Vinterberg, Kristian

Levring, and Søren Kragh-Jacobsen.

They started talking about the essence

of ilm. This is a debate that every

ilmmaker goes through in ther life,

typically while surrounded by a bunch

of friends who think the same way

(unless you’re Oliver Stone, in which

case you’re the only one in the room

who thinks like you do). They thought

about ilm and came up with a list: a

list of what makes great ilms. At a cel-

ebration for the irst 100 years of ilm

The Rules

1. Filming must be done on location.

Props and sets must not be brought

in (if a particular prop is neces-

sary for the story, a location must

be chosen where this prop is to be

found).

2. The sound must never be pro-

duced apart from the images or vice

versa. (Music must not be used un-

less it occurs where the scene is be-

ing ilmed).

3. The camera must be a hand-held

camera. Any movement or immobil-

ity attainable in the hand is permit-

ted. (The ilm must not take place

where the camera is standing; ilm-

ing must take place where the ac-

tion takes place.)

4. The ilm must be in colour. Spe-

cial lighting is not acceptable. (If

there is too little light for exposure

the scene must be cut or a single

lamp be attached to the camera).

5. Optical work and ilters are for-

bidden.

in Paris in 1995, Lars was

asked to give a keynote.

He did, sort of, but mostly

he just passed out a red

pamphlet whcih explained

the rules of Dogme 95.

And new kind of

ilmmaking was born.

6. The ilm must not

contain supericial ac-

tion. (Murders, weapons,

etc. must not occur.)

7. Temporal and geo-

graphical alienation are forbidden.

(That is to say that the ilm takes

place here and now.)

8. Genre movies are not acceptable.

9. The inal picture must be trans-

ferred to the Academy 35mm ilm,

with an aspect ratio of 4:3, that is,

not widescreen. (Originally, the re-

quirement was that the ilm had to

be ilmed on Academy 35mm ilm,

but the rule was relaxed to allow

low-budget productions.)

10. The director must not be cred-

ited.

You see, a little extreme, but the

idea is to come up with a ilm that is

real, as real as you can get. It’s Cin-

ema Verite taken as far as possible.

The idea is that the ilm is actually a

document, not a documantary, but a

recording of ictional events that hap-

pen in a more or less natural way. That

sounds odd, but trust me, it makes

sense. The reality provided by using

handheld and available light makes it

seem like a doc and it would be hard to

pull it off with a genre ilm. There is a

sense of reality that must be present-

ed.

The irst Dogme ilm wasn’t

made by Von Trier, but by Vinterberg.

He made the ilm Festen and it’s a

near-masterpiece. It depicts a party

that a family with deep issues is hav-

ing. It feels like a home video. That’s

one of the impressive things about

Dogme; it allows you to play with rec-

ognisible forms. The ilm was a gi-

ant success, winning the Jury Prize

at Cannes (not the Palme de Or) and

was released internationally. It got the

Dogme ball rolling.

The second Dogme ilm was Von

Trier’s. He did a ilm called The Idiots

which was not nearly as well received.

It’s not that it was bad at all, but it

wasn’t nearly as good and Vinterberg’s

cheats were much nicer than Von Tri-

er’s (which included using porn stars

for sex scenes). The premise was inter-

esting: a bunch of folks decide to play

like they are mentally retarded. It’s sort

of treated like performance art that

takes over their world. It’s a strange

ilm, but one that’s really good.

And number of other ilms

started to pop up in the 1999-2000

time frame. The irst American one

was done by Harmony Karine and was

called Julien Donkey-Boy. It wasn’t

nearly as good as the others, so if you

wanna see one Harmony ilm, see Kida,

which he wrote.

Probably the most accessible

Dogme ilm is the Italian for Beginners

by Lone Scherig. It’s a combination

family drama and romantic comedy.

It’s both touching and funny and has a

great cast. As I understand it, the ilm

wasn’t fully written, only strongly out-

lined, though many of the Dogme ilms

have that in common. What’s incred-

ible is that they make it work so well

with this simple, yet layered ilm.

Italian for Beginners has several

different stories, all of which work.

There’s the minister whose wife has

died (and who spends time “reading

about loss”). There’s the clumsy baker

sister, the sexual hairdresser, the iery

tempered restaurant manager and

more. It’s a great group and the way

they interact

is breathtak-

ing.

There

are many

Dogme ilms

still be-

ing made. I

think they’re

into the

80s in their

numbering.

Once you’ve

completed

your Dagme

ilm, you can

submit it to

the Dogme

Film Au-

thority and

they’ll certify

it was created properly. The reality is

that no ilm has ever done 100% and

they’ll issue a confession saying what

they did that wasn’t within the Dogme

dogma. This started with Vinterberg

and continues on through today. Some

of the confessions are far more inter-

esting than the ilms. Harmony Korine

had to write a pretty spectacular con-

fession since Julien Donkey Boy opens

with a Murder, which they speciically

mention as being uncool.

So you see, I love the rawness,

the reality, the hypersensitivy of Dog-

me ilms. It doesn’t hurt that I’m a big

Von Trier fan either. It’s just the most

real non-doc ilm style there is!

As I’m sure most of you are

aware, I love cons. I’ve been to a couple

over the last few months and I’m really

looking forward to the next one: Lo-

sCon in LA.

I went to my irst LosCon in

2001 and had a really good time. The

next one I went to was 2005 and I met

all sorts of great folks, including run-

ning into my All-Time favourite fen: the

Vegas Bunch.

This year, I’m probably going to

be doing a TAFF auction (got anything

you don’t wanna got anymore? Send it

to be auctioned!) and I’ll have a couple

of panels. I will be carrying my sign

and preparing for the the question...

“So, what’s TAFF?”

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