It’s been almost seven years since Dogme95. In March of that year, at a French cinema conference, a collective of Danish filmmakers headed by Lars Von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg released a manifesto, sometimes called the “Vow Of Chastity.” In it were ten simple rules for making independent films, such as filming must be done on location, the camera must be hand-held, no artificial lights, the finished product must be a square aspect ratio, and so on. All those rules had to be followed to get Dogme95 certification. The penalties for using artificial lights or bring props to the set were mostly limited to winning the disapproval of Lars Von Trier. Mr. Von Trier’s most recent work was Dogville, a widescreen film which was shot on a sound stage.

Well, screw Lars Von Trier. I want in on that action. I want filmmakers seeking my approval. With that in mind I present here the Dogme07 manifesto. You can be making a huge-budget blockbuster, a scrappy independent of a 6-hour Bollywood musical; if you follow my rules, I will beam down upon you with approval. And ultimately, all movie-making is about me, isn’t it?

Here are the rules.

1. Any sequels to Jim Carrey movies MUST star Jim Carrey. Jaime Kennedy, Steve Carrell and Eric Christian Olson are not Jim Carrey. If Carrey asks for too much money to do the sequel, then you shouldn’t do the sequel - you should be looking for a movie that will give you the next Jim Carrey.
2. No market research about endings. Pick an ending, shoot it. Then do market research to figure out how to hide the ending when you’re advertising.
3. Do not pick a property solely on your belief that it will win you an Oscar. I’ll give you an example - Stanley and Iris, a movie from the eighties starring Robert DeNiro as an adult who can’t read and Jane Fonda as the brave woman to tries to teach him. No one involved in that movie had any belief that people would want to pay money to see it. Everybody thought they’d be showered with Oscars. Well, Oscars don’t buy tickets baby. If you want something more recent as an example, can I suggest The Painted Veil?
4. No man is an island, but the land-bridge to Tom Cruise is crumbling fast.
5. I’m down with any musical based on a Broadway hit from the seventies, unless it involved Andrew Lloyd Webber. In other words Chicago and Dreamgirls, great! Phantom of the Opera and Evita, not so great.
6. Less Aniston, more Kudrow.
7. No matter how you make your movie, if the first words you hear in the trailer are “in a world…” then you’re disqualified.
8. If you name any lead character Spurgeon Tanner, then you’re disqualified.
9. There is to be an expiration date on action sequels. If 10 years passes between action movies, than you no longer have the right to make a sequel. I’m talking to you, Stallone. And you, Willis. Oh, and you especially Ford.
10. Your movie must not be populated entirely by young attractive people. Some speaking parts have to go to someone the producer doesn’t want to sleep with. And you can’t use this as an excuse to give the producer a cameo.

Let the submissions begin!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007 at 2:47 am and is filed under General, Motion Pictures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.