Dogville quotes

View Quote Tom: Bingo Grace! Bingo! I have to tell you, your illustration beat the hell out of mine. It's frightening, yes, but so clear. Do you think that I can allow myself to use it as an inspiration in my writing?
Grace: Goodbye, Tom.

View Quote Tom's father had been a doctor and now received a modest pension so it was no great disaster for Tom to drift about not doing anything in particular. Tom was a writer... at any rate by his own lights. Oh, his output as committed to paper was so far limited to the words "great" and "small", followed by a question mark, but nevertheless meticulously archived in one of his many bureau drawers... In order to postpone the time at which he would have to put pen to paper in earnest, Tom had now come up with a series of meetings on moral rearmament with which he felt obliged to benefit the town.

View Quote You think they're fine? I don't think so, I think there is a lot this country has forgotten. I just try and refresh folks memory by way of illustration. Tom

View Quote In which Tom hears gunfire and meets Grace.
It wasn't long before his thoughts were back on his favorite subjects again, and in the midst of the storm they metamorphosed into articles and novels and great gatherings that'd listen in silence to Tom after the publication of yet another volume that scourged and purged the human soul. And he saw men — and among them even other writers — throw their arms round one another as, through his words, life had opened up for them anew. It hadn't been easy. But by his diligence and application to narrative and drama his message had gotten through, and asked about his technique he would have to say but one word: "Illustration".

View Quote A simple tale, told so well while being so revealing. There are many reasons why it shouldn't work, but because it does, it feels magical. Jeffrey Chen in Window to the Movies

View Quote I think I've done a pretty good analysis of the folks in this town and I think I understand them in a meaningful way. But when I come to decipher you, I get absolutely nowhere. You know Liz. Liz is easy to read. And there was some attraction between us, but as I can see right through her, intellectually I mean, I can see right through her, my desire is purely of a physical nature. But with you, it's more... it's more complicated. Tom

View Quote Is there another way? Grace

View Quote Grace opened her eyes after an almost unconscious sleep, and was confused... Judging by the light coming through the cracks in the walls, it had to be nearly midday... "The grey hour" as Jack McKay for some reason called noon in Dogville, being a man of many ideas and proclivities, quite a few of which Grace would prefer to remain ignorant of!
But why had nobody roused her? Nobody had hammered furiously at her door. Not a child had thrown mud into her bed or broken her remaining windowpanes. Now she remembered. She recalled the meeting the previous day, and puzzled still more. Why had she not been confronted with the outcome of that meeting? Or even killed? It was quite unlike Dogville to restrain its indignation at any point. Perhaps things had turned out well after all?

View Quote Tom: The people of this town they surprise me again and again. I might even have to revise my theories a little bit. You know how much I hate doing that kind of thing. You know, Grace, last night when I came back and I saw you lying there asleep so sweetly, I was suddenly inspired. I wrote the first chapter of a story. A story about a small town. Guess where I got the inspiration? But I haven't come up with a name for the town yet.
Grace: Why not just call it Dogville?
Tom: Wouldn't work. No, it wouldn't work. It's got to be universal. Lot of writers make that mistake, you see. Hey, do you want me to read it to you? If there is any love in it, it comes from you...

View Quote For passion, originality, and sustained chutzpah, this austere allegory of failed Christian charity and Old Testament payback is von Trier's strongest movie — a masterpiece, in fact. J. Hoberman in The Village Voice

View Quote As Grace hastened to the garage, she grew more and more pleased with the decision to keep her departure under wraps. There was actually quite a bit of work Dogville didn't need doing that its residents would have to carry out for themselves in future.

View Quote Hey Lady! I wouldn't go up there if I were you. I know the mountain well, I doubt if I'd get away with my life. It's a very nasty drop. Tom

View Quote Grace paused. And while she did, the clouds scattered and let the moonlight through and Dogville underwent another of those little changes of light. It was if the light, previously so merciful and faint, finally refused to cover up for the town any longer. Suddenly you could no longer imagine a berry that would appear one day on a gooseberry bush, but only see the thorn that was there right now. The light now penetrated every unevenness and flaw in the buildings... and in... the people! And all of a sudden she knew the answer to her question all to well: If she had acted like them, she could not have defended a single one of her actions and could not have condemned them harshly enough.

View Quote Whether Grace left Dogville or on the contrary, Dogville had left her (and the world in general) is a question of a more artful nature that few would benefit from by asking and even fewer by providing an answer. And nor indeed will it be answered here.

View Quote It would take a true knucklehead not to understand that Dogville isn't so much Anywhere, U.S.A., as anywhere. It really is a masterpiece — von Trier's first, as it happens. Glenn Kenny at Premeire magazine