Celebrating 'Dogma's' second coming
Kevin Smith's best film returns to theaters after years of being unavailable.
Note: A few years back, I did a miniseries on Kevin Smith’s View Askewniverse films. This was early in the newsletter’s history, so the views are pretty low, and I’m trying to occasionally re-share these older pieces for those who missed them the first time around. This week, Smith’s Dogma returns to theaters for a limited time — the first time in years the film has been available to be rented, purchased or viewed on screen because the rights had been tied up for so long with Harvey Weinstein (and Smith, wisely, didn’t want him to get any more profit from this). So, in honor of that, I’m sharing the piece I wrote about Dogma back then, which I still hold to (it’s only been lightly edited, to accommodate for developments in its release and clean up my typos). I also recently wrote more specifically on the film’s use of the Buddy Christ. Enjoy!
Because the right have been long tied up with Harvey Weinstein, finding a copy of Dogma to rent has been near impossible on any digital platform, and the only copies I’ve found for purchase are used copies at exorbitant rates. It’s pretty easy to get your hands on Clerks, Chasing Amy and even the much-maligned Yoga Hosers. But Kevin Smith’s controversial fourth film, until now, has been nigh impossible to locate.
I’m glad the writer/director was able to get the rights back and is now all-in on bringing the movie back to theaters and, eventually, home video. The one-two punch of Chasing Amy and Dogma remains the peak of Smith’s career. The former is still an insightful and progressive sex comedy, and its follow-up is Smith’s most ambitious and smartest work, an irreverent and very funny tweak of Catholicism fueled by a serious and affectionate theological curiosity.
It also has a poop monster, because Smith gonna Smith.
A skewed view
Coming just a few years after the foul-mouthed but sweet-hearted Chasing Amy won critical acclaim, Dogma was Smith’s most ambitious film to date — it still is. Where Clerks, Mallrats and Amy were confined to only a few locations and dealt largely with the messiness of interpersonal relationships (albeit with a more cartoonish spin for Mallrats), Dogma is a sprawling comedy featuring angels, demons, theological deep dives and Christ’s forgotten 13th apostle. Its stakes aren’t rooted in a romantic relationship or in surviving the day shift at a convenience store, but rather in the continuation of all existence and the infallibility of God.
No wonder Smith created a shit demon to lighten things up.
Linda Fiorentino plays Bethany, a depressed Catholic on the verge of losing her faith. One evening, she is awakened by an angel (Alan Rickman) who charges her with a holy quest: Travel from Illinois to New Jersey to stop two fallen angels (Matt Damon and Ben Affleck) from entering a church where, because of a loophole in Catholic dogma, they can have their sins forgiven and waltz right through the Pearly Gates — which would, of course, prove God fallible and negate all existence. She’s aided in her quest by Rufus (Chris Rock), the 13th Apostle, who was left out of the Bible because he’s Black; she’s also joined by two “prophets,” Smith’s View Askew mascots Jay and Silent Bob (played by Jason Mewes and Smith himself).
Dogma was deeply controversial upon release. Representatives of the Catholic League were particularly incensed, picketing the film and calling Smith’s ribald comedy blasphemous (in one of many classic Smith stories, the director actually joined the picket line). And you can understand their concern on the surface. Smith’s trademark is scatological and raunchy humor. Bethany is not just the film’s Catholic hero; she works at an abortion clinic. One character, an opportunistic cardinal (George Carlin), seeks to change Catholicism’s dark and guilt-tinged persona to something more poppier, so he “retires” the crucifix and creates The Buddy Christ, a statue of Jesus giving a thumbs-up. The film is full of F-bombs and crude sexual references. It’s not what you’d watch on a church movie night.
But for all its irreverence, Dogma takes issues of faith extremely seriously. Yes, there are poop monsters and hockey stick-wielding demons, but the plot is driven by Smith’s knowledge of Catholic minutiae and a frustration with the church’s seeming inability to change to meet the needs of a modern culture. The plot hinges on a Catholic doctrine called “plenary indulgence,” and the film stops for long discussions about questions of God, faith, tragedy and spirituality. Smith might be dressing the entire thing up in the shaggy attire of an R-rated indie comedy, but his knowledge of the faith is genuine, to the point where this film is probably incomprehensible without a little bit of a catechism in your background.
Smith’s strength has always been his writing, and Dogma is one of his strongest and most insightful screenplays. There’s a sequence in which Affleck’s character laments the free will given to humans as opposed to the subservience he’s endured for eternity, and it’s a fairly compelling and serious theological argument. And Bethany’s struggles with faith carry real weight and emotion. Sure, Smith goes off on tangents about Rufus being written out of the Bible and how all religions just need to get along, and his combination of theology and comic book interests is at times a bit too cute for its own good. But this is the most ambitious Smith has ever been; his subsequent films have too often suffered from a willingness to retreat into his own comfort zone. Here, Smith’s writing feels curious and even dangerous. I wish he’d do something this risky again.
Sinners and no saints
Dogma isn’t just one of Smith’s most intelligent films; it’s also tied with Chasing Amy as his best. Where his scrappy relationship comedy is probably his most focused and personal work, Dogma feels like a filmmaker understanding his own strengths and exploring his limits.
He’s definitely working with his most accomplished cast. Smith has made it clear that Fiorentino wasn’t the easiest actor to work with, but she brings a depth and intelligence to the View Askewniverse. Fiorentino’s not the funniest member of the cast, but she’s largely reacting in the film’s comedic moments. She captures the emotional complexity of someone whose faith ignited a sense of wonder, which was snuffed out in the hardness of life. Other actresses may have treated the material with too much snark; when Bethany laments God’s absence in her life, Fiorentino suggests real sadness.
She’s backed up with an ensemble that any director would kill for. Affleck and Damon are both very funny; both were coming off their Good Will Hunting Oscar win, and they have no problems throwing themselves back into Smith’s world, bringing a sheen of respectability to their vulgar quips. There are few actors more respectable than Alan Rickman, who was two years away from his iconic work in the Harry Potter films, and the thespian has a great time as the curmudgeonly angel (1999 was a good year for Rickman, who is also fantastic in Galaxy Quest). Chris Rock was at the height of his standup career, George Carlin was already legendary, and Salma Hayek’s presence (she’s the Muse) makes any film better. Smith mainstay Jason Lee is also at his smug best as the demon Azrael.
The cast is game for whatever Smith’s theological shenanigans and, yes, it’s probably a bit too much. The shaggy screenplay feels close to bursting as it peppers in Loki and Bartleby’s side mission to murder the heads of a blatant Disney stand-in, the road trip to New Jersey, and the case of a missing deity/skeeball enthusiast. But everyone seems energized to be working on something so unique that the film coasts over these problems. Smith doesn’t quite overcome his visual handicaps, but he tries new things, peppering in fight scenes and an apocalyptic ending that suggest growth as a filmmaker.
If there’s one area where the film stumbles, it’s the inclusion of Jay and Silent Bob. Dogma is already a packed movie, and the stoners’ inclusion feels obligatory. For the first time in the Askewniverse (but not the last!), their presence is obnoxious and grating.Mewes’ constant dirty jokes and sexual riffs are funny for a bit and then grow by turns distracting and aggravating. The characters also seem to lead the film into its most problematic areas. Jay and Bob’s leering over Bethany feels skeevy in a post-#MeToo world, and there’s a sequence where they encounter some gang members that is pretty racially regressive. I get it; there was a period where I showed up for anything Jay and Silent Bob appeared in. But their routine grows quite a bit less adorable with time.
And yet, one of Dogma’s themes is God’s penchant for using the most unlikely to accomplish the extraordinary. He can use a Planned Parenthood employee to save existence and the state of New Jersey as the location for the universe’s most crucial battle. Why not a couple foul-mouthed stoners as prophets?
Dogma was a film I loved deeply in my twenties, when I was a sheltered Baptist kid learning to love movies. It told me it was okay to laugh at the weirder aspects of my faith, and that film could be a venue both for extreme silliness and theological imagination. I’m glad to see that the film holds up. I also wish Smith would do something this daring again (he’s been on a career upswing; Clerks 3 was surprisingly sweet, and last year’s The 4:30 Movie was a microbudget charmer). He’s hinted at a Dogma 2, and there’s surely good fodder to poke at regarding American Christianity — perhaps he shifts his sights to Evangelicalism? — that there could be a good story there. But right now, I’m just glad we have this one back.
(This is the same comment that I posted on your original essay of Dogma.)
As a devout Catholic Christian, I feel the need to briefly talk about plenary (or total) indulgences. I don't know if Kevin Smith purposely misrepresents it or if he genuinely misunderstands (to be fair, a lot of people both Catholic and non-Catholic do). This is from an online tract on Catholic Answers (https://www.catholic.com/tract/myths-about-indulgences):
Myth 3: People can "buy forgiveness" with indulgences.
The definition of indulgences presupposes that forgiveness has already taken place: "An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has ALREADY BEEN FORGIVEN (Indulgentarium Doctrinal 1, emphasis added). Indulgences in no way forgives sins. They deal only with punishments left after sins have been forgiven.