Affiliation:
1. Université Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne
2. Universidad Bernardo O’Higgins
Abstract
Abstract: I argue in this article that Lars von Trier’s Dogville (2003) is a film that prolongs a philosophical tradition of critique of reification. Making use of Marx and Lukács’s work, I highlight the concept of calculation for analyzing the story of the protagonist, Grace, as a tale of exploitation based on mechanisms of labour exchange. My aim, however, is not only to describe this process in terms of Dogville’s storyline, but to ontologically characterize the cinematographic language and devices of the film as a visual allegory of the problem of calculation in contemporary capitalism. By making transparent the “limits” of everything (Dogville’s architecture, the exchange rates in Grace’s labour-power, and the limits of the film’s diegesis, for instance), von Trier creates in Dogville what I call “calculative cinema.” Following the Kantian notion of “critique,” I propose that Dogville explores the limits of the mechanisms of calculation in cinematic terms.
Publisher
University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress)
Subject
Visual Arts and Performing Arts
Reference32 articles.
1. A version of this article was presented at the Australian National University in 2013. I wish to thank the audience on that occasion. I am grateful to Anthony Hayes for organizing the reading group on Karl Korsch and György Lukács after which this article was first drafted. Thanks also to Yanina Wojcik and Maria Hynes for their helpful comments on early drafts of this piece. I thank the editors of theCJFS/RCÉCand two anonymous reviewers as well; their careful suggestions proved very useful to improve this article.
2. Maximilian de Gaynesford, “Integrity and Grace,” inDekalog 5:On Dogville, ed. Sara Fortunata and Laura Scuriatti (London: Wallflower, 2012), 81–96.
3. Film Review: Dogville: A parable on perversion