Dogma Doc
You may have heard there was a documentary about the religious controversy that was sparked by Kevin Smith’s satirical 1999 film, Dogma. You may have also heard it won’t be included on Columbia TriStar Home Video’s special-edition Dogma DVD (due June 26) because lawyers for Disney and Miramax didn’t want it seen out of fear it might stir things up again.
If you did, you heard right. It’s called In Defense of Dogma, and Smith slipped me a copy Wednesday night. It’s a good piece, and it’s a shame it’s been suppressed. But it’ll at least be viewable on Smith’s View Askew site in late June.
Directed by J.M. Kenny, Defense is a smart, passionate, substantive explanation of what the hoo-hah was all about. (In a word? Ignorance.) It certainly rounds out one’s appreciation and understanding of the film. And it sure as hell bitch-slaps Dogma critic and media hyena Bill Donohue, the head of the Catholic League who used the movie’s allegedly blasphemous potshots to get himself loads of press coverage in ‘98 and ‘99.
Anyone reading this column has probably either seen Dogma or read the headlines. The pic is basically an irreverent send-up of religious beliefs that try to separate the essence of God’s message from what the uptight enforcers of Christianity and Catholicism have tried to intimidate people into believing over the years. Donohue said at one point that Dogma was filled with “all kinds of filthy statements.”
The plot is about a pair of banished angels (Matt Damon, Ben Affleck) looking to get back into heaven. The casting of George Carlin as a Catholic cardinal should spell out the tone for you. It’s got Chris Rock, Linda Fiorentino, Salma Hayek, Alan Rickman, Smith, Jason Mewes, Jason Lee, Alanis Morisette, and Bud Cort playing various metaphorical characters.
Dogma was originally developed and produced by the Disney-owned Miramax Films, but was put up for sale when Disney chief Michael Eisner, who didn’t want his company tussling with religious-right leaders, insisted on cutting it loose. Lions Gate eventually picked it up, although Miramax stayed involved with the marketing and publicity. Shot for $10 million, it made over $30 million in the U.S.
Don’t ask me to explain how Disney lawyers managed to prevent a Sony-owned video company from including Kenny’s documentary in the Dogma package, but somehow they did. The version that will go up on View Askew has a “beep” sound on the soundtrack whenever anyone says the word “Miramax” or “Disney,” and you can thank the lawyers for that also.
It’s not like the Dogma DVD doesn’t lack for extra features. It’s got audio commentary by Smith, Affleck, Lee, Mewes, producer Scott Mosier, and Vincent Pereira. 100 minutes’ worth of deleted scenes are included, along with outtakes, “Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash Spot” (whatever the hell that means), “Saints and Sinners Talent Files,” and so on.
The doc’s talking heads include Smith, Mosier, Affleck, Lee, Rock, Hayek, Fiorentino, and a few others. Pastor and religious scholar Ken Stevenson, a bright guy, is interviewed at length.
I wish I could give Kenny more points for his visual coverage. Over and over he cuts to the Dogma crew shooting a scene on the steps of a church. Church steps, church steps, church steps, church steps. Why isn’t there footage from Cannes and the NY Film Festival, where Dogma played? Why weren’t more people who saw it interviewed? Why didn’t we see or at least hear Donohue’s voice? Why weren’t some of the other anti-Dogma fanatics interviewed, or at least shown in clips?
And why wasn’t Eisner’s view of the film at least alluded to? Or, for that matter, Disney’s history of previous hassles with rightist activists? Or statements that ran in the press about Disney’s dropping the film?
This failing is balanced, however, by the eloquence used by Smith and Mosier in discussing their two-year wrestling match.
“I thought I was doing the Lord’s work,” says Smith, who’s a sincere believer on his own time and dime. “I was really naive, I guess.” But in the opening seconds he admonishes Dogma critics by asking rhetorically, “Are you a true Catholic? Then shut the f**k up. Listen to the word of God and turn the other cheek.”
