Dogville
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Dogville is a 2003 experimental arthouse drama film written and directed by Lars von Trier. It features an ensemble cast led by Nicole Kidman, Lauren Bacall, Paul Bettany, Chloë Sevigny, Stellan Skarsgård, Udo Kier, Ben Gazzara, Patricia Clarkson, Harriet Andersson, and James Caan, with John Hurt as the narrator. The film employs an extremely minimal, stage-like set to tell the story of Grace Mulligan (Kidman), a woman on the run from mobsters who finds refuge in the tiny mountain town of Dogville, Colorado, in exchange for physical labor.
The film is the first installment in Trier's incomplete USA: Land of Opportunities trilogy. It was followed by Manderlay (2005), though the intended third part, Washington, was never produced. Dogville premiered in the main competition at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> After screenings at various film festivals, it received a limited release in the US on 26 March 2004.
Dogville received highly polarized reviews from critics upon its release. While some deemed it pretentious, self-absorbed or exasperating, others hailed it as a work of art, spectacular or masterpiece.<ref name="British Film Institute 2003">Template:Cite web</ref> Over time, the film has grown in stature and was included in the 2016 BBC poll of the greatest films since 2000. Filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino and Denis Villeneuve have praised the film.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Plot
Prologue: "Which introduces us to the town and its residents": Set in the isolated Rocky Mountain town of Dogville, near an abandoned silver mine, the film opens with a narrator introducing its 15 residents. Through the perspective of Tom Edison Jr. (Paul Bettany), an idealistic philosopher who organizes meetings on "moral rearmament," the townsfolk are depicted as quaint but flawed. Tom aspires to replace his physician father as the community's moral leader.
Chapter 1: "In which Tom hears gunfire and meets Grace": Tom encounters Grace Mulligan (Nicole Kidman), a fugitive fleeing gangsters. After hiding her in the mine, he convinces her to stay, arguing the mountains are impassable. When gangsters arrive searching for Grace, Tom lies about her whereabouts but accepts a reward card. At a town meeting, Tom proposes sheltering Grace as a test of their morality. The skeptical residents agree to a two-week trial, during which Grace must earn their trust.
Chapter 2: "In which Grace embarks upon physical labor": Grace begins chores for the townspeople: comforting blind recluse Jack McKay, babysitting for Chuck and Vera, and assisting shopkeeper Ma Ginger. Her willingness to help softens initial reluctance, and she gradually integrates into Dogville.
Chapter 3: "In which Grace indulges in a shady provocation": Grace bonds with Jack, who pretends to see. She tricks him into admitting his blindness, earning his respect. After the trial period, the town votes unanimously to let her stay.
Chapter 4: "Happy times in Dogville": Grace continues her work, saving wages to buy porcelain Hummel figurines<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> from Ma Ginger. Tensions rise when police post a "Missing" notice with Grace's name. Though divided on cooperating, the town opts to protect her—for now.
Chapter 5: "Fourth of July after all": During Fourth of July celebrations, Tom confesses his love for Grace, reciprocated warmly. The mood sours when police replace the notice with a "Wanted" poster, accusing Grace of bank robbery. The town insists she's innocent but demands more labor as a Template:Lang. Reluctantly, Grace agrees.
Chapter 6: "In which Dogville bares its teeth": Grace's expanded workload strains relations. Mistakes invite scorn: men sexually harass her, women grow abusive, and Vera's son Jason manipulates Grace into spanking him. The abuse culminates in Chuck raping Grace in his orchard.
Chapter 7: "In which Grace leaves Dogville and sees daylight": Grace confides in Tom, who plans her escape. Vera retaliates for the spanking, while Martha exposes Chuck's assault. Vera smashes Grace's figurines, mocking her Stoic teachings. Tom arranges for trucker Ben to smuggle Grace out, but Ben rapes her and returns her to Dogville. Blamed for Tom's theft of his father's money, Grace is enslaved—chained, raped, and tormented by the town, including children who mock her suffering with church bells.
Chapter 8: "In which a meeting reveals the truth": At a town meeting, Grace details her abuse, prompting residents to vote to hand her to the gangsters. Tom, feigning loyalty, attempts to sleep with her but is rebuffed. Realizing his hypocrisy, he betrays Grace by calling her pursuers. Resigned, Grace mutters, "Nobody's gonna sleep here"—echoing Pirate Jenny's vengeance anthem.
Chapter 9: "In which Dogville receives its awaited visit": The gangsters arrive, led by Grace's father. Revealed as a mob boss's daughter, Grace initially resists his harsh worldview but, after introspection, condemns Dogville. She orders the town's annihilation: Vera must watch her children die unless she stifles tears, echoing her own torment. Dogville is razed, its residents massacred. Tom, applauding Grace's "illustration," is executed by her. Only the dog Moses—whose bone Grace once took—is spared.
The credits roll over Jacob Holdt's stark photos of American poverty, set to "Young Americans" by David Bowie.
Cast
Pilot
Dogville: The Pilot was shot during 2001 in the pre-production phase to test whether the concept of chalk lines and sparse scenery would work. The 15-minute pilot film starred Danish actors Sidse Babett Knudsen (as Grace) and Nikolaj Lie Kaas (as Tom). Eventually Lars von Trier was happy with the overall results. Thus, he and the producers decided to move forward with the production of the feature film. The test pilot was never shown in public, but is featured on the second disc of the Dogville (2003) DVD, released in November 2003.<ref>Dogville: The Pilot. (from Dogville DVD, disc 2). 2003.</ref>
Staging
Template:More citations needed The story of Dogville is narrated by John Hurt in nine chapters and takes place on a stage with minimalist scenery. Some walls and furniture are placed on the stage, but the rest of the scenery exists merely as white painted outlines which have big labels on them; for example, the outlines of gooseberry bushes have the text "Gooseberry Bushes" written next to them. While this form of staging is common in black box theaters, it has rarely been attempted on film before—the Western musical Red Garters (1954) and Vanya on 42nd Street (1994) being notable exceptions. The bare staging serves to focus the audience's attention on the acting and storytelling, and also reminds them of the film's artificiality. As such it is heavily influenced by the theatre of Bertolt Brecht. (There are also similarities between the song "Seeräuberjenny" ("Pirate Jenny") in Brecht and Kurt Weill's Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera) and the story of Dogville.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Chico Buarque's version of this song, "Geni e o Zepelim" [Geni and the Zeppelin], deals with the more erotic aspects of abjection and bears striking similarity to Trier's cinematic homage to the song.) The film used carefully designed lighting to suggest natural effects such as the moving shadows of clouds, and sound effects are used to create the presence of non-existent set pieces (e.g., there are no doors, but the doors can always be heard when an actor "opens" or "closes" one).
The film was shot on high-definition video using a Sony HDW-F900 camera in a studio in Trollhättan, Sweden.
Interpretations
According to Trier, the point of the film is that "evil can arise anywhere, as long as the situation is right".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Film review show At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper criticized Dogville as having a strongly anti-American message, citing, for example, the closing credits sequence with images of poverty-stricken Americans which were taken from Jacob Holdt's documentary book American Pictures (1984), and accompanied by David Bowie's song "Young Americans".<ref name=Ebert>Template:Cite news</ref>
Reception
Critical response
Dogville polarised critics upon its United States theatrical release, with Metacritic giving it a score of 61 ("Generally favourable reviews")<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and the Rotten Tomatoes critics' consensus for it stating simply, "A challenging piece of experimental filmmaking."<ref name="Rotten Tomatoes 2003" /> 70% of critics gave the film a positive review, with an average score of 7/10, based on 168 reviews.<ref name="Rotten Tomatoes 2003">Template:Cite web</ref> Many hailed it as an innovative and powerful artistic statement,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> while others considered it to be an emotionally detached or even misanthropic work. In The Village Voice, J. Hoberman wrote, "For passion, originality, and sustained chutzpah, this austere allegory of failed Christian charity and Old Testament payback is von Trier's strongest movie—a masterpiece, in fact."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film 3.5/4 stars, praising Kidman's performance and dubbing it "a movie that never met a cliche it didn't stomp on."<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Scott Foundas of LA Weekly described it as a work of "boldness, cutting insight, [and] intermittent hilarity", and interpreted it as "a potent parable of human suffering."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In Empire, Alan Morrison wrote that "Dogville, in a didactic and politicised stage tradition, is a great play that shows a deep understanding of human beings as they really are."<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
In the Los Angeles Times, on the other hand, Manohla Dargis dismissed it as "three hours of tedious experimentation."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Richard Corliss of Time argued that Trier lacked humanity and wrote that the director "presumably wants us to attend to his characters' yearnings and prejudices without the distractions of period furnishings. It's a brilliant idea, for about 10 minutes. Then the bare set is elbowed out of a viewer's mind by the threadbare plot and characterizations."<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Roger Ebert, who gave it two out of four stars, felt that the film was so pedantic as to make Trier comparable to a crank, and viewed it as "a demonstration of how a good idea can go wrong."<ref name=Ebert /> In the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Sean Axmaker said, "There's no denying von Trier is visually intriguing. ... But as an artist, his contempt for humanity is becoming harder to hide with stylistic flourish."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Charles Taylor of Salon additionally responded to allegations of the film's anti-Americanism with the charge that it was "anti-human", and said that it was "as total a misanthropic vision as anything control freak Stanley Kubrick ever turned out"—while personally admitting that he felt Trier was as deliberate a filmmaker as Kubrick.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Later, Dogville was named one of the greatest films of its decade in The Guardian,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The List,<ref>Best of a decade: film</ref> and Paste.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2016, it was ranked one of the 100 greatest motion pictures in a critics' poll conducted by BBC Culture.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> It was listed the 37th best film of the same time period by The Guardian critics.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
American director and screenwriter Quentin Tarantino has named the film as one of the 20 best to have been released during the time of his active career as a director; (which was between 1992 and 2009 when he was interviewed)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> he said that if it had been written for the stage, Trier would have won a Pulitzer Prize.<ref>Template:Cite AV mediaTemplate:Cbignore</ref>
Box office
The film grossed $1,535,286 in the US market and $15,145,550 from the rest of the world for a total gross of $16,680,836 worldwide. In the opening US weekend it did poorly, grossing only $88,855. The movie was released in only nine theaters, with an average of $9,872 per theater.<ref name="Box Office Mojo 2004">Template:Cite web</ref> In Denmark, the film grossed $1,231,984.<ref name="Box Office Mojo">Template:Cite web</ref> The highest-grossing country was Italy, with $3,272,119.<ref name="Box Office Mojo" />
"Best-of" lists
Dogville made many 2004 top-ten lists:<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
- 1st – Mark Kermode, BBC Radio 5 Live
- 2nd – J. Hoberman, The Village Voice
- 3rd – Overall, The Village Voice
- 4th – Dennis Lim, The Village Voice
- 5th – Jack Mathews, New York Daily News
- 8th – J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader
- n/a – David Sterritt, The Christian Science Monitor
- n/a – Ron Stringer, LA Weekly
The film received nine votes (with six from critics and three from directors) in the 2012 Sight & Sound polls.<ref name="British Film Institute 2003" />
In July 2025, it was one of the films voted for the "Readers' Choice" edition of The New York TimesTemplate:' list of "The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century," finishing at number 206.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> That same month, it ranked number 60 on Rolling StoneTemplate:'s list of "The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Accolades
Opera adaptation
The opera adaptation Dogville was composed by Gordon Kampe and premiered in 2023 at the Aalto Theatre in Essen. The premiere was postponed two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. The story is compressed to a runtime of 110 minutes.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
See also
References
Sources / Further Reading
- Template:Cite book
- Tiefenbach, Georg (2025). The Lars von Trier Conversations. Volume One. About the Art of Filmmaking: Editing, Sound Design, and Costume Design. Conversations with Molly Malene Stensgaard, Per Streit, and Manon Rasmussen. Königshausen & Neumann. Template:ISBN
External links
- Template:Official website
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- Template:Rotten-tomatoes
- Template:Metacritic film
- Dogville Template:Webarchive at AboutFilm.com: analysis by Carlo Cavagna
- On the Nature of Dogs, the Right of Grace, Forgiveness and Hospitality: Derrida, Kant, and Lars Von Trier's Dogville by Adam Atkinson
- Newsweek review
- BBC Collective review Template:Webarchive
- Dogville, or, the Dirty Birth of Law theoretical essay Template:Webarchive
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