Dogme

Dogme is a way of film-making that began (and kind of ended) with Lars von Trier. The idea is not to use unnecessary extras in the film-making process, even including lighting and music that's not part of the scene. I wondered why Italian for Beginners was so dark. That, and Festen, are probably the most famous films made in this way. The movement (which was called Dogme 95) seems to be formally over, but I think there are still people working in this way.

It's spread to EFL, in an attempt to make teaching English less cheesy, and materials-heavy, and allow learners to shape what happens in the classroom more. The idea at its most extreme is that the teacher goes into the classroom with nothing prepared and the class proceeds from there. The main guy in Dogme ELT is called Scott Thornbury if you're interested. He's said that he doesn't know if it has anything to do with Dogme 95, although to me it seems evident that it does. I think to a large extent it's an attempt to bring ELT into the present day and resolve some of the problems that there are in the field.

Anyway, I really like Dogme. I think it's about trying to get realness, a kind of qualia that really appeals to me. It's not for everyone - this afternoon I went to a knitting session in a park where they had sofas, a lamp and cucumber sandwiches. That's definately not dogme. But I think it has a lot to offer, and not just in the two areas where it's been explored up to now. I don't exactly have any interesting suggestions or thoughts, I just thought I'd write about it.