Back to the Basics: ‘Italian’ Shuns Frills of Filmmaking

“If we had known that the film would sell to so many countries,” director Lone Scherfig says with an easy laugh, “we would have shot it on 35-millimeter.”

The film of which she speaks, “Italian for Beginners,” is an unexpected hit all over Europe; it opens today in Los Angeles.

It was shot on Beta video, using a hand-held camera and available light, which no doubt contributed to the rather pasty coloring of her Nordic actors.

Last February it won a major award at the Berlin Film Festival, and it’s estimated that in Denmark, the film’s country of origin, one in five people has seen it.

Of course Scherfig, speaking through a teleconference connection from New York, is being tongue in cheek. After all, the handicaps were deliberate.

Before making the film, she signed the vow of austere filmmaking rules of Dogma 95, which were drafted in 1995 by four Danish directors: Thomas Vinterberg (“The Celebration”), Lars von Trier (“The Idiots”), Soren Kragh-Jacobsen (“Mifune”) and Kristian Levring (“The King Is Alive”).

To them, the focus on the “cosmetics” of filmmaking had become deadening and the auteur theory just bourgeois romanticism. So they went back to basics.

This meant hand-held cameras and only natural light, no added sound, no constructed sets, no special costumes or makeup, and definitely no million-dollar special effects.

“Dogma was a reaction toward films that are overproduced,” says Scherfig, who has made a television series for Von Trier’s production company, Zentropa.

“They wanted to challenge the films that have more equipment and better equipment to tell better stories. It has an element of provocation and it has a lot of fun in it. We are all very pragmatic about it. Basically, it’s let Hollywood do what Hollywood is very good at and let’s see if we can do something else.”

Two years ago, after Scherfig had finished working on the project for Zentropa, she was asked if she would be interested in making a Dogma film, the fifth by a Danish director and the first by a woman.

“I thought about it for a few days, a week, and I decided yes,” says Scherfig, 42. A 20-year veteran of film, television and advertising, she was ready for a challenge.

“They said I could do whatever I wanted to do,” she says. “I just got the money; nobody had to approve of anything. I didn’t even have to stick to Dogma rules.”

Although she signed the vow, there is no policing of the rules, and both Vinterberg and Von Trier have readily admitted to skirting, if not indeed violating, the rules when necessary. Von Trier said as much in an interview published on Dogma’s official Web site. “We are now by definition sinners due to the fact that the rules cannot be kept.”

Scherfig chose actors she had worked with, creating roles with them in mind. .In some cases, she cast against type. Peter Gantzler, for example, a popular Danish leading man, plays a timid chap with no faith in his ways with women.

Dogma films are best known for dealing with heavier dramatic themes. Scherfig’s film is much lighter in tone, although it has dark elements.

In her story, six hapless thirtysomethings are living in a dreary town outside Copenhagen--”actually the town where the production company is located,” says the director--and begin to awaken to the possibility of finding their romantic partners.

Sad-eyed Andreas (Anders W. Berthelsen) has arrived to take over the local church, despite the hostile action of the previous minister, who seizes every opportunity to denigrate him. Jorgen Mortensen (Gantzler), a hotel clerk, is too shy to act on the interest of Giulia (Sara Indrio Jensen), a waitress in the restaurant run by his best friend, Hal-Finn (Lars Kaalund).

Hal-Finn ignites sparks with hairdresser Karen (Ann Eleonora Jorgensen) when he arrives for a hair trim. Meanwhile, Olympia (Anette Stovelbaek), an inept salesclerk at a pastry shop, seems to be drawn to Andreas. They are further entwined when all six--even Giulia, who is Italian--start taking the same Italian class in the evenings.

While the film suggests the light touch of a (low-budget) romantic comedy, most of the characters are suffering from personal tragedy, whether induced by circumstance or by character.

Andreas is still grieving from the recent death of his wife, Olympia lives with an abusive father, Karen must look after a severely alcoholic mother, Jorgen believes he has become impotent and Hal-Finn is the rudest restaurateur on Earth and widely hated. Only Giulia seems untroubled, except for her crush on Jorgen.

“Of course it’s a love film,” Scherfig points out, “but it’s also a film about loss and sorrow and solitude and insecurity.”

But when “Italian for Beginners” was recently shown in Moscow, she was criticized for not depicting the “truth,” the stated goal of Dogma films.

“[They said] that six people can’t become that happy that easily,” she recalls. “In a way they’re right, but this is a story about people that can. I wanted to have all of them to be stuck in a situation and then change their mental curve into a happier direction. This is a film about problems that you can solve. There are many you can’t. But this is a story about people who can move their lives in a more positive direction.”

Making the film was liberating, Scherfig says, for many reasons. Her budget was small--around $1 million--so she felt she could risk experimentation. “Filmmaking is quite anxiety-provoking,” she says. “You spend so much of other people’s time and money.”

There was also less pressure working with a smaller crew. Without the need for many “cosmetics,” she had a crew of 15, as opposed to 75 for her first feature film, “The Birthday Trip.” And she didn’t have to agitate about lighting, sets, costuming or makeup.

“There’s some choices that you make at random,” she says. “For instance, all locations were just the nearest places--the nearest hairdresser, the nearest hospital.

“There were so many choices that I usually have to make that I didn’t have to make, which gave me much more time to work with the actor and concentrate with the actors and scene. And they’re acting in their own clothes: no makeup, no props.”

Although she is usually given to meticulously plotting out her shots, for this film she accepted improvisation and happenstance.

“It was helpful for me to sign this vow of chastity saying that I promise to trust the moment rather than the dramaturgy,” she says. “So I didn’t feel obliged to be a perfectionist, but just shoot and improvise and to be open and spontaneous to whatever occurred on the set, or rather location, since there are no sets.”

Thus, occasional ad-libs worked themselves into the script. Or one day, for example, when Gantzler showed up with a scarf around his neck, saying that he was too sick to work, Scherfig simply insisted that he play his character as being sick. For her, it worked, because the scene added to the character’s fussiness.

“It’s a completely different way of working; it’s much more intuitive,” Scherfig observes. “I would not have dared to do that if I hadn’t promised that.”

Scherfig says making a Dogma film has helped her move in a more positive direction. “I felt I finally found my own vision of how I want to make films,” she says.

First, she feels more comfortable about indulging in her penchant for comedy. And although her next film, “Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself,” is a full-scale 35-millimeter non-Dogma feature with lighting, costuming and the rest of the baggage, it will mix humor with descents into the dark side of life. “I use the comedy as a tool for being serious,” she explains.

“The films are never only funny because I take the audience seriously.” “Wilbur,” to be shot in Scotland, is about how one man tries to dissuade his brother from killing himself.

As for shooting style, Scherfig would like to adopt a more relaxed attitude, being open to incorporating improvisations or happenstance, a pleasure learned from “Italian for Beginners.”

Would she consider making another Dogma film? “Maybe in 10 years, if I need to sharpen the instrument or find a story good for Dogma,” she says. “Yes, I think I’ll miss it if I don’t do it again.”