fESTEN
...Boy Who Walked Backwards, was written in collaboration with Bo hr. Hansen. Thomas Vinterberg's 'Festen' (The Celebration) went on to win a host of international film prizes (see seperate list). The Finding of the letter The finding of the letter within this scene is very poignant and moving scene, probably the most touching within the entire film. The use of the camera within this scene is very important; the presence of the camera is palpable and unnerving. It creates a sense of eeriness as if the dead sister Linda has not left, she is still with us in the house. The effect of the three parallel scenes shows an odd overview which is quite unsettling. This creates a constant feeling of disjointedness. The position of the camera is a very high ceiling shot in the room, this depicts as if there is a spirit (Linda) watching over all this, which is very creepy. The eerie atmosphere is built up by the documentary vividness throughout the film, silence and the music, the camera again adds to this by taking us right into the action as if we are their like one of the guests. This is to create insecurity with the audience as we do not know at times where we are supposed to position ourselves. Vinterberg’s nervous style like all of the entire film was shot with a tiny, hand-held video camera is both faithful to the no-frills, back-to-basics tenets of Dogma and perfectly suited to his explosive subject matter. Break down of Presentation • Talk about the film’s background. • Talk about the director and typical dogme structure with reference to other parts of the film. • Talk about relevant scene finding the letter using some of notes above and other ideas that director may have been trying to portray sister Helene’s emotions etc Research NEW YORK STATE WRITERS INSTITUTE Film Notes Feston (The Celebration) (Denmark, 1998, 105 minutes, color, 35mm) In Danish and English with English subtitles Directed by Thomas Vinterberg Cast: Ulrich Thomsen . . . . . . . . . . Christian Henning Moritzen . . . . . . . . . .Helge Thomas Bo Larsen . . . . . . . . . . Michael Paprika Steen. . . . . . . . . .Helene Birthe Neumann . . . . . . . . . . Else FESTEN’s English title, "The Celebration," is an appropriate moniker. Tonight’s film is a celebration of amateur filmmaking technology by a small but noisy coven of film luddites who believe not only that less is more, but that a lot less is a lot more. This story of a dysfunctional family is rendered in small brush strokes and a palette of grays, yet its effect is withering and raw. Dogme (Dogma) is a Danish filmmaking group, which rejects special effects and cinematic polish. It doesn’t take a trained cinematographer to notice that the bombast and high gloss of Hollywood blockbusters has led to a precipitous decline in story values and character development. Recognizing Dogme is a group of Danish directors ring-led by Lars von Trier (BREAKING THE WAVES) and Thomas Vinterberg who decided that passive resistance to the effects-driven movie was not enough. They wrote and signed a document called "Dogme 95," a ten-point manifesto they called a "Vow of Chastity" which called for a return to bare bones filmmaking. Films made to Dogme’s rigid specs use hand-held cameras, ‘wild’ sound, available lighting, location filming (there are no sets in FESTEN), and emphatically, no digitized imagery. Even their choice to work with a video master transferred to a 35mm negative seems brash, another opportunity to lose the elegance and gloss of the ‘prestige’ foreign film. Dogme counts among its spiritual forebears the American Cinema Verité movement of the 1960s pioneered by D.A. Pennebaker, and like those provocative documentarians they see themselves as provocateurs for a newly meaningful cinema in a landscape of mediocrity. Dogme calls for a return to the profound simplicity of ‘little films’ such as THE 400 B...