By Cole Smithey
Modern cinema's foremost agent provocateur Lars von Trier ("Breaking The Waves") dispatches the second film in his trilogy of movies about America. As the sequel to "Dogville," "Manderlay" shows von Trier learning from the first film's stylistic mistakes to make an ambitious and thought-provoking allegory about the ways in which "slavery" in America was never truly abolished, but rather converted to a different condition of capitalist hegemony. Elder statesman Danny Glover ("Boseman And Lena") gives an outstanding performance in this potent piece of lively cinematic dramaturgy.
Q: How do you perceive Lars’ approach to the American dream, or nightmare as the case may be?
DG: Let’s take purely the example of the fact that this idea of democracy in America was built on the backs of slaves. The whole idea of capital formation and capitalism on the eve of the industrial revolution was built on the back of slavery. So, all of the articles of freedom and democracy come out of that particular context and they remain so. Very little changed for those former slaves after the emancipation of 1864, and the end of the Civil War, in any kind of context until the Civil Rights Movement. So, we’re talking almost a hundred years after the end of the most brutal conflict in American history that things began to mutate to a different kind of relationship.
Lars von Trier’s film takes place in a particular period in the industrial revolution and expansion of capital within the United States where racism, the lynching of black men and the conscription of black men into forced slavery, was still a major part of the labor pool within the South. Lars Von Trier has brought up these issues and asked us to revisit these issues that are not purely indigenous to the United States Of America. They are issues, like racial profiling, that are indigenous to people of Asian decent, Muslim decent, etc.
This film has the courage to bring those questions up and deal with them within a framework, with which we should be comfortable as artists because the realm of our whole existence is our imagination as individuals within our historical and social framework.
The whole idea of art is to elevate the human experience – to create bridges where we can enhance the human experience, where we can elevate people’s ways of accepting ourselves and talk about how we can enhance who we can be – not diminish who we can be.
Q : Why do you think there aren't more movies that address slavery?
DG: That’s a question to ask the many studios and filmmakers that make more than 400 films a year why there are not that many movies about slavery. I would venture to say that part of the reason is that we have no constructive way to have an honest conversation about the aftermath of slavery – what is the historical legacy of slavery?
We're 51 years after the Brown versus the Board of Education, which is the landmark decision by the Supreme Court allowing desegregation. Right now, 70% of African American kids still go to segregated schools – as many, or more, than did 50 years ago. We have a population of African Americans who are incarcerated in jails, which represent more African American men than are in college.
Q: What are the reasons for that?
DG: It would be extraordinary for filmmakers, and for culture, to begin to unravel and ask questions around that phenomenon. But there isn't any kind of comprehensive mechanism, or framework of dialogue to deal with the issue. That’s always been the issue. Those who have tried to prescribe or try to institute a framework for looking at the issue have often been assassinated when they looked at it. Martin Luther King began to talk about the relationship, not only of slavery and its aftermath but also, the political dynamics and framework of materialism, militarism and racism. Upon that effort he was assassinated, and many others who have talked about these issues have been silenced in the process.
So, the question is how do we begin to talk about that issue? The issue is not only happening to African Americans, but it is happening to other poor people of color. That affects not only what happens in my country but also what happens around the world. Only 40% of films in France are French, the other 60% are American films. In Canada, 80% of the films are American, so you see this global dominance of one culture. There are extraordinary movements around the issue of cultural democracy which is happening around the world supported by UNESCO [United Nations Educational, Scientific And Cultural Organization] and many other nations and people who are trying to retain their own identity of who they are as a nation.
We understand that the choices that are being made, as to what stories are being told and why those stories are being told, is because they reinforce certain ideas and reinforce a certain relationship and paradigm.
