PlayingtheWaves Playing the Waves Lars von Trier’s Game Cinema Jan Simons ThepublicationofthisbookismadepossiblebyagrantfromTheNetherlands OrganisationforScientificResearch(NWO). Frontcoverillustrationfrom:thefiveobstructions/defembenspænd, JørgenLeth,Denmark Photo:DanHolmberg;courtesyofZentropa Coverdesign:KokKorpershoek,Amsterdam Lay-out:japes,Amsterdam Translation:RalphdeRijke isbn (paperback) isbn (hardcover) nur  ©JanSimons/AmsterdamUniversityPress, Allrightsreserved.Withoutlimitingtherightsundercopyrightreservedabove, nopartofthisbookmaybereproduced,storedinorintroducedintoaretrieval system,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans(electronic,mechanical, photocopying,recordingorotherwise)withoutthewrittenpermissionofboth thecopyrightownerandtheauthorofthebook. Table of contents Introduction  1 Manifesto andModernism  TheManifestoasapostmodernparody  TheManifestotakenseriously  TheManifestoandmodernism  From‘essence’togame  TheManifesto:Reiterationanddifference  2 TheNameofthisGameisDogma95  Filmmakingasagame  Filmandformalism:Theparametricfilm  Aestheticsanddramaturgy  Filming:storyasreconstructionandasrepresentation  Enterthematrix:Game,simulation,rulesandart  Complexart:Psykomobile#:TheWorldClock  ‘ThereissomethingdigitalinthestateofDenmark’  3 Filming the Game  Therulesofthegame  Thegameoffilming,andfilmsaboutgames  Idioterne()  Idioterne()  4 VirtualExplorations:JourneystotheEnd oftheNight  RulesandManifestos  Virtualexplorations:TheEuropatrilogy  Virtualworlds  Virtualfilm  5 The Leaderof the Game  Manyfilms,onegame  The‘vonTrier’gameworlds  Nuancesandsubtleties  6 Between Cinema and Computer  Filmingthevirtual  Spiritualityandvirtuality  6 PlayingtheWaves Registrationsofsimulations  Virtuality  Virtualrealism  Thevieweraslurker  The‘vonTriersystem’revisited  7 Between Hollywood andCopenhagen  Dogma,filmandgaming  EntertheMatrix:VirtualHollywood  TheMatrixunloaded:Virtualrealism  Dogma:NouvelleVagueII?  BetweennewHollywoodandoldEurope  Today’sHollywood,today’sEurope  8 The Name ofthe Game: Punish or Perish  Cinematicgames:Gamesormovies?  Gametheoryandgamesstudies  Narrativeandgametheory  Punishorperish;exploitorbeexploited  Storiesandgamesreconsidered:Probabilitiesandtragicendings  Endgame  Notes  Bibliography  Index of Names  Index ofFilmTitles  IndexofSubjects  Introduction IttooklongertogetthisbookpublishedthanittookLarsvonTriertoproduce andreleaseManderlayand,bythetimethisbookwillbepublished,TheBoss ofitAllandWasington(sic).Thisdifferenceinpacebetweenthetwomedia is, of course, to the disadvantage of the slower medium of print, which can hardlykeeppacewiththemuchfasteraudiovisualmedia.However,asformer soccer player and coach Johan Cruijff always says, ‘With every disadvantage comesanadvantage’.Thetimeittooktogetthemanuscriptpublishedprovided theopportunitytoincludeafinalchapteronManderlayinthisbook.Though this film did not raise any new issues since Dogville, it confirmed the major claim of this book that von Trier’s movies are best approached as cinematic games. Whereas the preceding chapters dealt with the stylistic, structural and formal aspects of von Trier’s films, Manderlay offered the opportunity to see whether the claim that von Trier’s films are a cinematic version of contempo- rarycomputergamescanbesubstantiatedbyatheoreticalgameanalysisofthe contentofthestoriesofhisfilms. This book grew out of a certain dissatisfaction with the reception and inter- pretationoftheDogmemovementaseitheracalltorealismorasaresuscita- tion of the modernist film movements from the s. It seems hard to believe thatin,inthemidstofpostmodernismandatapointinhistorywhencin- ema was already rapidly moving into the digital age, a filmmaker as sophisti- cated, knowledgeable and provocative as Lars von Trier could seriously pro- pose returning to the aesthetics and politics of Italian neo-realism and Nouvelle Vaguemodernism. Afterall,theexhaustionoftheEuropeanauteurandartcin- ema was generally considered to be a major cause for the decline of European cinema.ThelabelsDogmefounditselfadornedwith,‘neo-Bazinianrealism’, ‘DVD-realism’, or ‘prescription for low-budget filmmaking’ did not seem very appropriateforamanifestothatshunnedeveryreferencetocontentandsubject matter, and filmmakers who produced movies like The Celebration (Festen) andTheIdiots,whichwereneitherrealistnorlowbudget. These labels seemed to reflect the limits of classical film theory and what is nowadays called ‘critical theory’ as well as a certain ignorance of von Trier’s earlier movies and production practices. The Dogme  Manifesto is only one ofthemanymanifestosthataccompaniedvonTrier’sfilms.Mostoftheseman- ifestosdidnotaddressthethemesorproblemsthefilmsdealtwith,butdefined 8 PlayingtheWaves the constraints von Trier set for himself with each film production. As the author of these manifestos and ‘production notes’ von Trier took on the same rolewithregardtohimselfasthefilmmakervonTrierashedidwithregardto the filmmaker Jørgen Leth in the film The Five Obstructions: he acted as the masterandthearbiterofthegame. As this book argues, in von Trier’s earlier films, in his Dogme  film The Idiots and in the films he made after Dogme , von Trier plays with a new cinematicconceptthatistooradicallyinnovativeforclassical,contemporaryor criticalfilmtheorytograsp.Ratherthanbeingacontinuationorresuscitationof the political, stylistic and thematic concerns of earlier film movements, von Trier’scinemaisfirmlybasedinanemergentnewmediacultureofvirtualrea- lities and, even more importantly, games. The book consequently takes a per- spective from the aesthetics of new media, games studies, and game theory to cometotermswithvonTrier’scinematicgamesappropriately.Thismightcome as a surprise since von Trier has repeatedly stated his aversion to the use of computer-generated images and digital special effects in cinema. As this book willtrytoshow,thisdoes notmeanthat vonTrierbelievesthatcinemashould capture and represent a ‘pure’ and non-manipulated real. Instead, if von Trier can be called a ‘neo-Bazinian’ filmmaker at all, it is because, in his view, the virtualisnota‘specialeffect’oratechnologicalartefact,butbecausethevirtual and the real include and presuppose each other, and cinema is the medium mostsuitedforcapturingthevirtualintherealortherealaspartofthevirtual. Without the religious undertones of an André Bazin, and as a filmmaker of ‘CinemainitsSecondCentury’(astheconferencewascalledwherehefirstan- nounced the Dogme  Manifesto), von Trier is closer to Deleuze than to the ‘godfather’oftwentiethcenturyfilmrealism. Von Trier was already experimenting with aspects of the aesthetics of new media and video games before ‘the digital revolution’ actually took place and new media genres and formats were still in their infancy. Von Trier’s cinema representsaninterestingexampleofwhatonemightcall‘synchronousremedia- tion’,or,inashortcutneologism,‘symmediation’,aprocessinwhichonemed- ium incorporates and develops features of another new medium at the same time the latter is coming into being and still looking for its own distinguishing characteristics, genres, and formats. These features are virtual realities in his pre-Dogme films, modelling and simulation in his Dogme film, virtual realism anddistributedrepresentationinhispost-Dogmefilms(someofwhich,surpris- inglyenough,sharetechniqueswithHollywoodblockbusterslikeTheMatrix, but use them for opposite ends). The overarching principle and common ground in all of his films is gaming: Von Trier defines the practice of filmmak- ing as a game, he performs the founding of a film movement as a game, he builds the story worlds of his films as game environments, he models film Introduction 9 scenes like simulation plays, and he treats stories as reiterations of always the same game (which went unnoticed by film theorists and critics, but which is quitefamiliartogametheorists). The most important point this book wants to make is that, contrary to an often heard post-modern maxim that states that ‘everything has already been done’ in the arts in general and film in particular and that artists and film- makerscanonlyrecyclebitsandpiecesfromthepast,therearestillfilmmakers capableoflaunchingagenuine‘newwave’infilmmaking.Allittakesisanew perspectivetobeabletoseethat. New perspectives always need to be sharpened, adjusted and fine-tuned. I ammuchobligedtomycolleaguesattheNWO-fundedresearchgroup‘Digital Games’ for discussing chapter drafts from the book, also my Department for MediaStudiescolleaguesandstudentsattheUniversityofAmsterdamfortheir patience and comments in seminars and lectures and Thomas Elsaesser for makingtheEnglishlanguagepublicationofthisbookpossible. Amsterdam,March