Craig D. Lindsey
Welcome to Harvey’s Hellhole, a monthly column devoted to spotlighting the movies that were poorly marketed, mishandled, reshaped, neglected or just straight-up destroyed by Harvey Weinstein during his reign as one of the most powerful studio chiefs in Hollywood. This month, let’s talk about the big-screen return of a divisive comedy that ol’ Harvey tried to hold on to for dear life.
Even though it was heavily steeped in controversy before and during its release, Kevin Smith’s Dogma has unfortunately become one of the forgotten films of 1999, aka The Greatest Movie Year in the History of the World Holla If You Hear Me! And, of course, Harvey Weinstein is mostly to blame for that.
The New Jersey filmmaker’s R-rated religious opus had been in Weinstein’s possession ever since he bought it, after his former bosses at Disney demanded that he get rid of it. (He later sold theatrical rights to then-young upstart Lionsgate and home-video rights to Sony.) Still smarting from the Priest shitstorm a few years prior, Disney didn’t want to deal with another movie that made Christian advocacy groups like The Catholic League froth at the mouth. The League condemned the film, even before they caught one frame of it (they claimed they read the script, which was floating around online). This prompted other God-fearing folk to follow suit. Legend has it that Weinstein showed Smith about ten thousand letters’ worth of hate mail. One so-called Christian group sent Miramax a threatening anti-Semetic missive that began, “You Hollywood Jewish sons of bitches…”
Released during a time when multiplexes were actually filled with provocative, shit-stirring cinema (Fight Club? Three Kings? Boys Don’t Cry? I can keep going), Dogma was Smith’s most ambitious, anarchic project to date. He rounded up an all-star cast for this farcical, foul-mouthed commentary on organized religion. Then-It Boys Matt Damon and Ben Affleck star as Loki and Bartleby, two ex-angels who were banished from Heaven by God for insubordination and sent to live for eternity on Earth – Milwaukee, specifically. When they learn that a New Jersey cardinal (George Carlin, amusingly opportunistic) is rededicating his church and offering a plenary indulgence (read: all sins will be forgiven) for those who enter its doors, the pair sees this as their opportunity to return home.
Meanwhile in Illinois, cynical, faith-questioning abortion clinic counselor Bethany (‘90s screen siren Linda Fiorentino) gets called on by God’s spokesperson Metatron (Alan Rickman – RIP) to hit the road and stop them. She won’t be alone on her journey; Metatron informs her that she’ll be joined by two “prophets,” who turn out to be recurring Smith regulars Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Kevin Smith, of course). Along the way, they also get help from Rufus (Chris Rock), the 13th apostle, coming back to Earth to clear up that whole was-Jesus-really-Black thing; and Serendipity (Salma Hayek), the famed muse who’s now on Earth working as a stripper.
By melding low-brow humor with moments of critical, theological commentary, Dogma is Smith at his most crass and most cerebral. It’s the only God-related movie out there where one of the villains is a “shit demon,” made up of the pain, misery and human excrement of those who were crucified (along with Jesus) at Golgotha. Scatalogical monsters aside, Smith gives nearly everyone in the cast a show-stopping monologue where they rant on how mankind — and man-made religion — has screwed up the whole love-thy-neighbor vibe God (played very briefly by a quiet, kooky Alanis Morrissette) was going for when She made us pesky humans. (With most of her role consisting of her listening and reacting to these monologues, this may explain why Fiorentino — who butted heads with Smith during filming — gives such a snotty, petulant performance.)
Not only did Smith dare to go all raunchy on religion, he also took some potshots at the entertainment conglomerate that almost released the movie. During their trip to Jersey, the angels make a vengeful visit to the headquarters of a Disney-like empire (their mascot is a golden calf named Mooby) where former angel of death Loki plans to wipe out its morally reprehensible executives. (How much are you willing to bet that the Disney brass was more pissed about that than the God stuff?)
The $10 million Dogma grossed a respectable $43.9 million worldwide. Many critics sang its praises; in his glowing Entertainment Weekly rave, Owen Gleiberman wrote, “This deliriously audacious, one-of-a-kind satirical passion play is as rascally in its glee as anything in Mad magazine, yet it’s also a searching and obsessive meditation on faith in our time.” According to Gleiberman, the only obscene thing about the picture is how cruddy it looks. He does have a point; Smith may be a master at crafting clever, down-to-Earth dialogue, but the man has a notoriously lazy eye, mostly filming everything in shot/reverse shots and calling it a day. (Despite having longtime Wes Anderson cinematographer Robert Yeoman DP this thing, Smith and producer/co-editor Scott Mosier chop this up to a visually clunky finish.) It also made a killing on home video, where it sold a whopping million DVDs. In Peter Biskind’s Down and Dirty Pictures, Smith complained how he didn’t see a gotdamn dime of that box-office/home video money. “Harvey and [little bro] Bob made out like fuckin’ bandits on Dogma,” he griped.
Over the years, Smith has been predictably vocal about trying to get what he calls his most personal film away from Weinstein’s withering, nasty-ass grasp. A year ago, during one of his “An Evening with Kevin Smith” shows at a California resort and casino, he said that Weinstein was basically holding the film hostage, opting for a heavy paycheck to cover his legal fees. Smith made an offer for a million dollars (Affleck and Damon chipped in), but Weinstein wouldn’t budge. “I think he’s waiting for five million bucks,” he told the audience, ”and I don’t have that and none of my friends want to give that to him.”
He may have failed to buy back what he calls his most personal film, but Kevin Smith fan (and Jersey girl) Alessandra Williams not only got Dogma away from Weinstein, but she also scooped up the 1995 powderkeg Kids (another controversial film Disney forced Weinstein to dump that we’ll get into next month) and several other titles that were also in Weinstein purgatory. “At age 10 she watched Dogma – her mom let her watch Dogma and she fell in love with the movie,” Smith recently said on The Mike Calta Show. “She convinced somebody to buy that tranche of films away from that dude, sold off all the movies just to hold on to Dogma, just to bring out into the world again.”
Now that the film will have its long-overdue, week-long 25th anniversary rollout on 2,000 screens starting this Thursday (Williams helped set that up too), audiences can finally see how Smith’s insightful, irreverent mind made loudmouthed, sanctimonious fundamentalists lose their shit back in the day. Since we’re living in a time when everything seems damn near apocalyptic, our leaders are more morally bankrupt then those Mooby execs and no one wants to love thy neighbor, I’m glad Dogma is back to show audiences how keeping the faith can also keep you from turning into an asshole. We also get different people of different colors and backgrounds coming together for the good of humanity – and defeating a shit monster along the way.
