Dogma (film)

On October 25, 2000, Kevin Smith wrote an essay titled In the Beginning... The Story of Dogma, which details the history and genesis of how Dogma came to be. His essay is available on the Dogma 2-disc Special Edition DVD.

Before Smith began writing Clerks, he began noting down ideas for a film called God. During his brief period in film school, he essentially wrote the scene introducing Rufus, but this version did not feature Jay and Silent Bob. During the development of Clerks, Smith continued to jot down ideas for his God project, including having the main character be a high school jock, the conception of 13th Apostle, Rufus, and a muse named Serendipity; but, Smith didn't have a story to work off of.

By the time Clerks had been picked up for distribution, Smith began writing the first draft for the film. He felt calling the project God was inappropriate, and retitled it Dogma. The first draft was completed in August 1994, with 148 pages accomplished, and more additions; the high school protagonist was changed to a stripper named Bethany who meets Jay and Silent Bob at a nudie booth, Azrael (or known throughout the script as the "Shadowy Figure") was introduced in the final 30 pages, and Bethany blew up the church in order to not let Bartleby and Loki pass through the archway. After Smith and Clerks producer Scott Mosier reread the draft, they decided that they didn't want Dogma to be their sophomore film; they didn't want to tackle a bigger scale picture until they felt ready to do it. Despite including the line "Jay and Silent Bob will return in Dogma" at the end of Clerks, Smith moved to Universal Studios in order to develop his next film, Mallrats.

During Mallrats' production, Smith revisited the Dogma script and made some changes; Bethany's job went from stripper to an abortion clinic and included an orangutan for Jay and Silent Bob to hang out with. In 1996, he dropped the orangutan and reworked Bethany to be played by his then-girlfriend Joey Lauren Adams. During that time, he was writing Chasing Amy and got Ben Affleck to agree to be in both projects. After Chasing Amy was released to critical and box-office success, Smith felt confident enough to make Dogma.[5]

Smith and Mosier assembled a group of visual artists to realize their concept of a surreal, abstract environment "somewhere between reality and unreality": production designer Robert Holtzman, special effects supervisor Charles Belardinelli, creature effects supervisor Vincent Guastini, costume designer Abigail Murray, and director of photography Robert Yeoman.[6]

Principal filming took place from April to June 1998. The triplets' attack on John Doe Jersey was filmed on the boardwalk in Asbury Park, New Jersey; all other scenes were shot in and around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Mexican restaurant in which Metatron explains Bethany's mission was the Franklin Inn in Franklin Park, north of Pittsburgh. Serendipity's pole dance and the Golgothan confrontation took place at the Park View Cafe (since renamed Crazy Mocha and later Yinz Coffee) on East North Avenue in Pittsburgh. The heroes plan their final strategy in the Grand Concourse Restaurant in the restored Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad Station. St Michael's Church, site of the apocalyptic climax, is the Saints Peter and Paul Church—currently vacant—in East Liberty.[7]

Jason Lee was initially attached to play Loki. When that role went to Matt Damon, due to his onscreen chemistry with Affleck in Good Will Hunting, Lee received the Azrael role due to scheduling conflicts with filming Mumford. Smith envisioned Samuel L. Jackson as Rufus, but was convinced to hire Chris Rock after meeting him. Alan Rickman was recruited to play Metatron.[5] Albert Brooks was offered the role of Cardinal Glick, but turned it down.[8] Emma Thompson was originally attached to play God, but had to withdraw when she became pregnant.[9] Smith — a fan of The X-Files — offered the role of Bethany to Gillian Anderson, but "heard back that she really hated it."[10]

Critics expressed surprise at the film's eclectic casting, which Smith said was done deliberately to emphasize contrasts between characters — Rickman as the powerful Metatron, for example, opposite Mewes as the hopelessly verbose stoner Jay, "... a Shakespearean trained actor of the highest order next to a dude from New Jersey." Smith warned Mewes that he would have to take his acting to a higher level. "I really impressed upon him that he had to be prepared for this movie. 'There are real actors in this one,' we kept telling him."[6] In response, Mewes memorized not only his own dialogue but the entire screenplay, because he "didn't want to piss off that Rickman dude".[11]

Other unorthodox casting decisions included George Carlin, who had made his devout atheism[12] a cornerstone of his public image, as a Catholic priest; Mexican actress Salma Hayek as Serendipity — "the [Muse] who throughout history inspired all the geniuses of art and music, like Mozart and Michelangelo, and never got any of the credit" — and singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette as God. "There's a Zen Buddhist serenity to Alanis that calls to mind something otherworldly," Smith explained. "She's definitely ethereal in nature, even when not speaking, and she carries an air about her that played into the role."[6]

It was rumored in the years following the film’s release that Fiorentino and Smith did not get along during the filming. Smith stated that rumors of a falling out between the two had been misconstrued and overstated, and that while the two hadn’t spoken in years, they amicably reconnected following his near fatal heart attack. He attributed the rumors to a careless comment: “ I remember on a commentary track on the DVD — Janeane Garofalo was in the movie and at one point I said it would have better if she played the lead, which was a really shitty and stupid thing to say. Thoughtless, considering that Linda was the lead and Linda did a great job. So it had been years since I had spoken with Linda and I got an email from her. And of course I was thankful to hear from her and it also gave me a chance to say I’m so sorry that I ever said that thing years ago. It gives you a chance to make amends. So that was my favorite one. I heard from so many people, but that one really stood out for me because, if somebody had said, ‘Oh, the movie would have been better if Ben Affleck directed it,’ that would have hurt my feelings. I know it hurt her feelings and really unnecessarily because I always loved her performance in the movie.”[13]

On the film's official website, Smith described a scene that did not make the final cut: a climactic face-off in the hospital between Silent Bob, a badly burned and half-decomposed triplet, and the Golgothan. The battle was to end with the triplet killing Bethany (temporarily), and God, newly liberated, transforming the Golgothan into flowers. Test audiences felt the scene had "too much Golgothan", and the film's run time already exceeded two hours, so the scene was eliminated.[14]

Another deleted scene has come to be known as the "Fat Albert sequence". In the strip club, a gang (led by Dwight Ewell) grows jealous that the stripper is paying more attention to Jay & Silent Bob than to them. The gang confronts them and draws guns. Jay & Silent Bob then defuse the situation by taking to the stage and performing the theme song from Fat Albert. Rufus realizes that the stripper is the muse Serendipity, and she actually deescalated things by giving Jay & Silent Bob the idea. The sequence was in the film when it screened at Cannes, but was removed before its general release. The scene gained notoriety as fans began speculating as to why it was removed. On the Dogma: Special Edition DVD, Smith said the feedback he received was that the scene ran too long and was not very funny.[15]

Dogma was released on DVD and VHS by Columbia TriStar Home Video in May 2000. This was followed by a 2-disc Special Edition DVD in 2001 and then on Blu-ray in 2008.[19][20]

Dogma is unavailable to stream or purchase digitally due to the film's rights being owned personally by Bob and Harvey Weinstein in a deal that predates streaming. [21] In 2022, instead of the release of Clerks III, Smith talked about trying to buy back the rights to Dogma from the Weinsteins. He claimed that both of his offers were "scoffed at" and added that "my movie about angels is owned by the devil himself."[22]

Dogma was the third-highest-grossing film in its opening weekend, behind The Bone Collector and Pokémon: The First Movie, grossing $8.7 million.[24] The film grossed a domestic total of $30.7 million from a $10 million budget.[1] It remains the highest-grossing film in Smith's View Askewniverse series.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 67% based on 127 reviews, with an average rating of 6.25/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Provocative and audacious, Dogma is an uneven but thoughtful religious satire that's both respectful and irreverent."[25] On Metacritic, the film received a score of 62 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[26] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film three-and-a-half stars (out of four).[27]

Some religious groups—in particular the activist Catholic League—denounced the film as blasphemous.[28] Other groups staged protests outside theaters screening the film.[4] Director Kevin Smith himself attended one of these protests, pretending to be opposed to the movie.[29] Roger Ebert noted that no official objection came from the Catholic Church itself. "We are actually free in this country to disagree about religion," Ebert wrote, "and blasphemy is not a crime."[27]