Abstract

In what follows, I wish to use the circumstances and dynamics of the nocturnalscene of destruction at the Old Mill and the subsequent scene of carnage at the house of Chuck and Vera in Dogville as a springboard for developing some reflections on the‘politics of gift-giving’, and the relationship between friendship and hostility in theexchange of social goods. The term ‘springboard’ is no doubt too vague, here, because Iintend to approach the two scenes, and the film as a whole, as a radical provocation, thusdistinguishing my approach from the traditional methodology of ‘application’, in which awork of art is used in order to exemplify a certain theoretical construction. As it happens,‘provocation vs. illustration’ in itself constitutes one of the key ‘moral’ antagonisms of vonTrier’s film and, as I shall argue, it is the dogged determination of Tom Edison Jr. , the town’s amateur-philosopher, moral lecturer and self-crowned “miner of thehuman soul”, to illustrate the human problem and his failure to be provoked which bringsunrest to the township of Dogville and which finally makes it go to the dogs