If you read the manifesto I think it explains it well. I don’t understand how there isn’t an English translation that the article can link to. I’ve only read the original Danish version.
But yes, your first quote defies the stated purpose of the manifesto (but you could argue that it’s actual purpose was to give the director power)
In essence, the manifesto says it is not the director, but the movie itself that has to “take the power back.”
The director even vows not to be credited.
“Director as artist” means that the film is the work of a particular person.
Do those rules actually cover the writing (it the broadest sense) and it’s just Wikipedia article having a weird focus on production aspects, or it’s like that in the manifesto?
Because I don’t believe either of listed limitations help or hurt the quality per se. Academy 35mm? I think this stuff only matters if someone gets off to filmmaking/production nuances, the casual viewer doesn’t even know what this means.
As a person whose primary focus on a non-primarily-visual movie (i.e. a movie not about special effects or technology demos) is on the story rather than how it was made, this manifesto sounds pretentious yet weird and - most importantly - badly missing the point. I mean, nothing in the rules makes a movie a good one or a bad one. From a viewer standpoint, all those limitations feel just irrelevant.
And writing-related things like “here and now, with no alien props” in my peasant opinion sounds a lot like a poor man’s attempt to say “consistent, well-designed and thought out to the fine detail including the history/lore of the place and characters” (and that’s so obvious and natural to except of any movie that has characters or places I don’t think anyone ever states this, we only blame when movies fail at this to the extent it gets subjectivity noticeable). Just with some extra artificial restrictions that make zero sense to me. It’s like someone doesn’t trust themselves and their QC team, so they decide to do only one particular thing (which is fine, but not pretending that this is The Way). Or, well, maybe it’s like 64KiB demo and aimed on those who are interested in filmmaking rather than movies themselves.
The rules in the manifest are very much about production, and the manifest itself is very high brow in my opinion. It says things like
> The anti-bourgeois cinema itself became bourgeois, because the foundations upon which its theories were based was the bourgeois perception of art. The auteur concept was bourgeois romanticism from the very start and thereby… false!
“Alien props” simply refers to things you bring yourself. It’s not things that would have been out of place in such a scene.
Again, the rules are very production focused.
When you talk about a QC team you are shooting way above what they are talking about. Take Festen.
Basically they tell all the actors “we’ve rented a retreat where a well-off man could reasonably invite his family for his 60th birthday. Here’s the script and this is your character. Pack your suitcase with your own stuff as if you were going to a weekend retreat for you dad/brother/uncles 60th birthday. Production team will bring 1 camera and 1 microphone.” (They did break the rules about lighting for this movie)
It's totally about "production aspects," those specific 10 rules as listed there. At least on its face.
As for it being overly restrictive, or provoking, pointless, irrelevant, pretentious, weird... I mean, yeah. And that's partially the point: it is knowingly referring to itself self-importantly as "dogma," after all.
But look at those rules and they're all about removing choices: aspect ratio, sets, props, lighting, music, color grading. It's all the stuff other than the story and the acting that you might otherwise turn your attention to as a filmmaker (or a viewer). It's not uncommon to find value in being restricted when making art, whether that's for reasons beyond your control like available technology or budget, or something self-imposed.
I'd think of it as something very similar to Oulipo in literature.
But yes, your first quote defies the stated purpose of the manifesto (but you could argue that it’s actual purpose was to give the director power)
In essence, the manifesto says it is not the director, but the movie itself that has to “take the power back.”
The director even vows not to be credited.
“Director as artist” means that the film is the work of a particular person.