‘ rats who will build the labyrinth from which they will try to escape? ’, W. says. We are those rats, we agree. We need liberation. But first, we need to build a labyrinth.
We speak of the so-called ‘vow of chastity’ of Dogme95—of Lars Von Trier and his friends—who banned all artifice in the making of their films. No stage sets, no blue screen, no CGI dinosaurs or period pieces of any kind. No score; no weeping violins.
Films have to descend to the everyday, and tell stories about the everyday, that’s what Dogme95 demanded, W. says. Films have to concern themselves with reality. With love. With death.—‘Pathos!’, W. says. ‘It’s all about pathos!’
Dogma: that’s what we should call our intellectual movement, we agree. We should make our own ‘vow of chastity’, our own manifesto. On Magdalen Bridge, leaning over the Cherwell, we cry out our rules over the water.
First rule: Dogma is spartan . Speak as clearly as you can. As simply as you can. Do not rely on proper names when presenting your thought. Do not quote. Address others. Really speak to them, using ordinary language. Ordinary words!
Second rule: Dogma is full of pathos . Rely on emotion as much as on argument. Tear your shirt and pull out your hair! And weep—weep without end!
Third rule: Dogma is sincere . Speak with the greatest of seriousness, and only on topics that demand the greatest of seriousness. Aim at maximum sincerity. Burning sincerity. Rending sincerity. Be prepared to set yourself on fire before your audience, like those monks in Vietnam.
And the fourth rule? Dogma is collaborative . Write with your friends. Your very friendship should depend on what you write. It should mean nothing more than what you write!
W. reminds me of the collection, Radical Thought in Italy . Paolo Virno! Mario Tronti! They’ve always been a touchstone for him. It’s pure Dogma, he says. They’re all friends. Their essays have no quotations, no references, they all have the same ideas and write about them as though they were world-historical . That’s another rule, W. says: always write as though your ideas were world-historical. And always steal from your friends. Steal from everyone! In fact, that should be compulsory: Dogma plagiarises . Always steal other people’s ideas and claim them as your own.
A free man should walk slowly, that’s what the Greeks thought, says W. The slave hurries, but the free man can take all day.—‘Slow down!’, he tells me, as we wander out through the meadows to The Trout . I know nothing of the art of the stroll , W. has always said. I know nothing of the pleasures of the flâneur.
W.’s always had a messianic faith in the walker. No one is more annoyed than he by the channelling that forces the pedestrian through a predetermined route. For this reason, W. has always hated airports. There’s only ever one direction in an airport, he says. And if you’re allowed to wander away, it is only to tempt you to buy things from the innumerable shops.
Doesn’t Newcastle airport channel every traveller through a shop floor? It scandalises him, W. says. He wants to knock every bottle of perfume from the rack. He wants to smash every overpriced bottle of wine. But here, today, in the meadows? Every direction is open to us, he notes. We can walk wherever we like and as slowly as we please.
We remember Mandelstam’s great walks through the streets of St Petersburg, before he was imprisoned for his poem about Stalin, and murdered in the Gulag. He composedpoems in his head as he walked. He wrote them in his head, as he walked along, and then went home to write them out. And when he was betrayed, and his manuscripts destroyed, his wife stowed them in her head. A precious cargo.
W. knew I was a would-be man of culture when he saw her memoir Hope Against Hope on my bookshelf. It didn’t matter to W. whether I’d read it or not, or whether I had any real idea of what it contained. The title itself must
We speak of the so-called ‘vow of chastity’ of Dogme95—of Lars Von Trier and his friends—who banned all artifice in the making of their films. No stage sets, no blue screen, no CGI dinosaurs or period pieces of any kind. No score; no weeping violins.
Films have to descend to the everyday, and tell stories about the everyday, that’s what Dogme95 demanded, W. says. Films have to concern themselves with reality. With love. With death.—‘Pathos!’, W. says. ‘It’s all about pathos!’
Dogma: that’s what we should call our intellectual movement, we agree. We should make our own ‘vow of chastity’, our own manifesto. On Magdalen Bridge, leaning over the Cherwell, we cry out our rules over the water.
First rule: Dogma is spartan . Speak as clearly as you can. As simply as you can. Do not rely on proper names when presenting your thought. Do not quote. Address others. Really speak to them, using ordinary language. Ordinary words!
Second rule: Dogma is full of pathos . Rely on emotion as much as on argument. Tear your shirt and pull out your hair! And weep—weep without end!
Third rule: Dogma is sincere . Speak with the greatest of seriousness, and only on topics that demand the greatest of seriousness. Aim at maximum sincerity. Burning sincerity. Rending sincerity. Be prepared to set yourself on fire before your audience, like those monks in Vietnam.
And the fourth rule? Dogma is collaborative . Write with your friends. Your very friendship should depend on what you write. It should mean nothing more than what you write!
W. reminds me of the collection, Radical Thought in Italy . Paolo Virno! Mario Tronti! They’ve always been a touchstone for him. It’s pure Dogma, he says. They’re all friends. Their essays have no quotations, no references, they all have the same ideas and write about them as though they were world-historical . That’s another rule, W. says: always write as though your ideas were world-historical. And always steal from your friends. Steal from everyone! In fact, that should be compulsory: Dogma plagiarises . Always steal other people’s ideas and claim them as your own.
A free man should walk slowly, that’s what the Greeks thought, says W. The slave hurries, but the free man can take all day.—‘Slow down!’, he tells me, as we wander out through the meadows to The Trout . I know nothing of the art of the stroll , W. has always said. I know nothing of the pleasures of the flâneur.
W.’s always had a messianic faith in the walker. No one is more annoyed than he by the channelling that forces the pedestrian through a predetermined route. For this reason, W. has always hated airports. There’s only ever one direction in an airport, he says. And if you’re allowed to wander away, it is only to tempt you to buy things from the innumerable shops.
Doesn’t Newcastle airport channel every traveller through a shop floor? It scandalises him, W. says. He wants to knock every bottle of perfume from the rack. He wants to smash every overpriced bottle of wine. But here, today, in the meadows? Every direction is open to us, he notes. We can walk wherever we like and as slowly as we please.
We remember Mandelstam’s great walks through the streets of St Petersburg, before he was imprisoned for his poem about Stalin, and murdered in the Gulag. He composedpoems in his head as he walked. He wrote them in his head, as he walked along, and then went home to write them out. And when he was betrayed, and his manuscripts destroyed, his wife stowed them in her head. A precious cargo.
W. knew I was a would-be man of culture when he saw her memoir Hope Against Hope on my bookshelf. It didn’t matter to W. whether I’d read it or not, or whether I had any real idea of what it contained. The title itself must
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