Hacker Cinema
Dogville
2003 · Film · 178 min
Directed by Lars von Trier
A woman on the run from the mob is reluctantly accepted in a small Colorado community in exchange for labor, but when a search visits the town, she learns that their support has a price.
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10 comments on Hacker News
For the same reason it was searched for in painting for so long, and for the same reason movies and plays often meticulously recreate (or film in) real locales and use period-appropriate attire: people, by and large, love looking at reality way more than stylized images.
There are exceptions, but the general public will almost always prefer a photo-realistic renaissance painting to a Picasso portrait, a lavish period piece like Titanic to an experimental set design like Dogville.
> A bit like watching a (good) silent movie.
A bit off topic but in this context I found “Dogville” to be interesting.
I'm not really into experimentalism, I want to be entertained and that's about it. So said, I watched Dogville and appreciated it as an experiment, though I'd not want to watch it again.
If you like pushing boundaries then Dogville, and may I also suggest Russian Ark; an odd film done in one take.
I have been thinking about this for a while, and came to the conclusion that the main weakness of progressivism is its arrogance. A progressive simply thinks that she is more educated, virtuous or simply better than others. This manifests subtly, from "helping poor immigrants", to not so subtle implementations, like knowing better what Google queries you actually meant to type, to censoring "fake news", because people do not have the faculty to decide for themselves, to downright auto-correction of people's speech. A progressive copes with this implied superiority by casting it as her goodness.
One of the best films on this subject is Dogville by Lars von Trier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogville , with Grace as its main character.
> Is that a good criteria for whether a film is good or not.
I don't rewatch films as a rule but I do sometimes rewatch films with people who have not seen that film.
There are films like Dancer In The Dark, Grave Of The Fireflies, or Dogville that I simply cannot watch a second time because of the precise, agonising emotional turmoil they create. I will recommend this experience to everyone, and they too will watch it only once and recommend it to others.
Then there are films like Taken that I would never watch because they are dreadful, hateful trash.
I would consider the former list to be beautiful, painful exceptions to the idea that a film that can be watched endlessly is a great work. And even then I might be persuaded to watch them with someone I really loved. Perhaps. Though I'd have to love someone a lot to willingly watch through the end of Dancer again.
I would not be so enthusiastic about spending time with anyone who joyfully rewatches Taken.
Except they didn't build the road or own it or live in it. They go over a vast land, attack caravans, do some damage, and then approach a day later and ask for money for "protection". Exactly what everyone called a gang or bandits in the Americas.
For crying out loud "raiding" is listed in the Bedouin Wikipedia page under "traditions". (Again not the only practice, but it is what it is).
Also note that raiders are not generally also herders or traders and don't act in some common good and share their loot with the formers. (they share with their own close family) (most Bedouin families suffer from the raiders)
If you still have issues with seeing this as bandits also note that these tribes come with child abuse and women slavery bundled, but hey who are we to judge.
This all thread now reminds me of the movie Dogville. Highly recommend.
And don't get me wrong. They could have easily formed an autonomous territory and collect passage taxes. They didn't. The raiders, "protectors", were exactly, literally what we call gang or bandits anywhere else. Now you can go philosophical about how raiders and gang families are just tiny states, but use general terms please, these raiders are generally not different than others
Hot Fuzz, U-Turn, Dogville (others already mentioned them).
Deliverance (of course)
The Lottery ( https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116924/ tv movie, based on a great short story)
The Wicker Man
Twin Peaks
Cold in July
> I notice in Ebert's reviews an appreciation of films as mere entertainment in cases where is what they intend to be, and an appreciation of films as art if that is what they aspire to. In fact, one of my annoyances at his (often excellent) reviews is that he seemed to apply consciously lowered standards when he thought that a film wasn't aiming too high, which led to him recommending films that were close to mediocre, because they hit the mark they were aiming for. There is a certain integrity in this, of course.
I think he did a great job voicing his own standard, which I think makes a lot of sense, in his review of Shaolin Soccer (https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/shaolin-soccer-2004):
> "Shaolin Soccer" is like a poster boy for my theory of the star rating system. Every month or so, I get an anguished letter from a reader wanting to know how I could possibly have been so ignorant as to award three stars to, say, "HIDALGO" while dismissing, say, "Dogville" with two stars. This disparity between my approval of kitsch and my rejection of angst reveals me, of course, as a superficial moron who will do anything to suck up to my readers.
> What these correspondents do not grasp is that to suck up to my demanding readers, I would do better to praise "Dogville." It takes more nerve to praise pop entertainment; it's easy and safe to deliver pious praise of turgid deep thinking. It's true, I loved "Anaconda" and did not think "The United States of Leland" worked, but does that mean I drool at the keyboard and prefer man-eating snakes to suburban despair?
> Not at all. What it means is that the star rating system is relative, not absolute. When you ask a friend if "Hellboy" is any good, you're not asking if it's any good compared to "Mystic River," you're asking if it's any good compared to "The Punisher." And my answer would be, on a scale of one to four, if "Superman" (1978) is four, then "Hellboy" is three and "The Punisher" is two. In the same way, if "American Beauty" gets four stars, then "Leland" clocks in at about two.
> And that is why "Shaolin Soccer," a goofy Hong Kong action comedy, gets three stars. It is piffle, yes, but superior piffle. If you are even considering going to see a movie where the players zoom 50 feet into the air and rotate freely in violation of everything Newton held sacred, then you do not want to know if I thought it was as good as "Lost in Translation."
Thanks for your thoughtful posts on this topic. I can only agree when you say that "copyright is a key part of many forms of commercial activity whose nature is not changed by the Internet and whose deep-seated roots require the continuation of copyright" - however, it seems this begs the question whether society wouldn't be as likeable without those forms of commerce, and with others in their place?
I think you're right that in a world of weaker IP, Pixar wouldn't have happened, for want of capital. However, Toy Story might still have happened - perhaps it would have taken a few years more, until the cost of making it would have dropped enough to make it worthwhile investing in even though you'd only get a few weeks of box-office revenue?
Perhaps, also, many movies would be closer to "Dogville" (shot on a bare film set) than to "The Wolfman" (last year's remake, costing ~150M dollars). But, as Boldrine and Levine argue in their book "Against Intellectual Monopoly", maybe actors would compensate for their lower income by making more films per year (they look to the adult film industry to back up this suggestion, arguing that that is a reasonable model for a world of weak copyright). That is, creative output would not necessarily drop.
> ... whose livelihood in the economy as currently structured depends on it.
Your careful wording here tells me that we don't really disagree: certainly a reform that brings weaker copyright laws would cause a lot of pain to many established trades. With a well-designed transitional period though, I suspect that in the long term they would adapt, rather than simply cease to be creative.
Apart from those already mentioned by others, some challenging classics:
Zorba the Greek Ikiru (Living), by Akira Kurosawa Babette's Feast La Strada La double vie de Véronique Lawrence of Arabia It's a Wonderful Life Jakob the Liar Citizen Kane Deliverance Dogville
Worth noting that none of these are "feel-good" american movies. They're "kick you in the balls and get you busy living" movies. I much prefer those to simple feel-good movies. If you want feel-good, just go watch some reruns of Friends (I'm not saying that like it's a bad thing; I do it quite often; but those are not the best inspirational movies by a long shot).