Von Triers Does Art Porno
Just when you thought the bad sex movie posing as art was killed off by the suprisingly superior Shortbus, Lars Von Trier invests in a dirty movie that looks like a 70s skin flick. But he got distribution in the U.S… on DVD… by porn distributor Wicked Pictures. Oy.
The film is called All About Anna and it even has its own MySpace page.
The nice thing is that there is both a very earnest explanation of the film and a Dogma 95 Manifesto specifically for films like this, called “The Puzzy Power Manifesto“. It includes such tidbits as: “It is not enough for four unknown actors to enter stage right, drop their pants and simply get down” and “The films must be based on woman
Directed by a woman, produced by one, written by two. Exec producer by three guys, lensed by one, edited by one, scored by one. I’m not impressed by the romance novel manifesto, the truth every pornographer knows is that woman like gay male porno. Think about it.
Von Trier has been involved in this field for at least eight years as producer, not just investor.
So I’m confused, is Shortbus “bad” or “superior”?
English is not jeffmcm’s first language.
That’s an odd comment coming from you, TH.
This statement, “Just when you thought the bad sex movie posing as art was killed off by the suprisingly superior Shortbus,” contains a contradictory idea. I had already assumed that Shortbus was a ‘bad sex movie posing as art’ but this is the first time DP has alluded to having seen it and formed an opinion about it, which I am intrigued by.
How exactly is that “obscured,” by the way?
von trier just shot his new comedy ‘the boss of it all’ using new software which decides how the camera will pan and what will be in frame. this technique is called ‘automavision’. if you use it you do not need a camera operator. (i’m not kidding – he really used this technique)
anyway, i was thinking that if von trier used automavision to shoot porn it would be called ‘auto-eroticavision’, or maybe ‘auto-eroti-cam’ — you get the idea.
this makes sense. that way, if the camera operator has nothing to do, his hands will be free to pursue other activities. who could argue with that?
I could argue with that if the automavision decided to focus on a hairy nutsuck slamming around…but that’s just me.
I know sometimes its hard to get a consensus on things around here, but can we all agree that the Dogma manifesto is pretentious bullshit that constricts, not liberates, the artform of cinema and is more about the ego and taste of those who adhere to it, then anything worthwhile to film itself as a medium.
Sorry for the longwinded sentence, but damn, Dogma sucks. I was glad when Egoyan even bashed it a few years back.
I am happy to agree with you there, Nicol. It isn’t even constricting, it’s more of a scam pulled on young filmmakers and naive critics, like a get-rich-quick scheme for film art.
“…like a get-rich-quick scheme for film art.”
Well said.
“I’m not impressed by the romance novel manifesto, the truth every pornographer knows is that woman like gay male porno. Think about it.”
The first Puzzy Power film (Pink Prison) actually had one or two guy/guy scenes along with the standard heterosexual couplings. It might be worth noting here that the film bombed (along with all the other Puzzy Power productions to date) and von Trier sold off the company a year or two back.
Other than several excellent films, the best thing to come out of Dogme is simply the fact that countries like Denmark actually have film industries now, and they can be seen around the world.
Von Trier is actually gonna be making a horror movie! A movie that hypothesises that Satan in fact created the world, and not God. Goodo. Controversy is fun.
Celebration and The King is Alive are great Dogme films, know any others?
I really like The Five Obstructions but I’m not sure if it counts.
someone on the web is calling Five Obstructions a metafilm, I know what metadata is, hmmm. Oh hell, there goes my 6 hours of sleep.
That would be a film about a film, TH, just as metadata is data about your data. Another one would be American Movie, to some degree, about Coven. Or in more conventional form, Hearts of Darkness about Apocalypse Now.
think outside your block, mc. von Trier gave Leth rules, or obstructions, by which Leth would have to remake his own 1976 short film, The Perfect Human, five times. Metadata is the glue that links everything. there goes my 5 hours of sleep.
Yes, I saw The Five Obstructions. I don’t know what you mean by ‘glue’ except if you’re being poetic. ‘Meta’ means ‘about’ or ‘above’. Metaphysics is the study of things beyond physics. A meta-narrative is an overarching narrative about everything. A metafilm is therefore a movie that seeks to say grand overarching things about films or filmmaking in general.
I thought THE FIVE OBSTRUCTIONS was kind of the death knell for the whole DOGME 95 movement, which had already been sort of picked apart by the people who created the manifesto. It’s all just a petty attempt to play into the ole Godard line of “we create the rules and then shatter them,” or whatever it was.
THE IDIOTS and THE CELEBRATION were awesome. I love von Trier! MANDERLAY was rather weak though.
Regarding the meta prefix, you’ll probably find it more commonly used to describe any work of art that acknowledges itself and its artiface. Think “Adaptation” and Dave Eggers.