Dogma is a 1999 American fantasy comedy film written and directed by Kevin Smith, who also stars with Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, George Carlin, Linda Fiorentino, Janeane Garofalo, Chris Rock, Jason Lee, Salma Hayek, Bud Cort, Alan Rickman, Alanis Morissette in her feature film debut, and Jason Mewes.
In a newspaper article that arrives anonymously, the angels discover a way home: Cardinal Ignatius Glick is rededicating his church in Red Bank, New Jersey, in the image of the "Buddy Christ."
Donations are solicited for a campaign to stop a Red Bank hospital from disconnecting life support on John Doe Jersey, a homeless man who was beaten into a coma by the triplets.
Now a target, Bethany is attacked by the triplets, who are driven off by the two foretold prophets, drug-dealing stoners Jay and Silent Bob.
Azrael summons the Golgothan, a vile creature made of human excrement, but Bob immobilizes it with aerosol air freshener.
In Red Bank, Bethany asks why she has been called upon to save the universe; why can't God simply do it himself?
Metatron admits that God's whereabouts are unknown; he disappeared while visiting New Jersey in human form to play skee ball.
God, Metatron, Rufus, and Serendipity return to Heaven, leaving Bethany, Jay, and Silent Bob to reflect on the past and the future.
During his brief period in film school, he essentially wrote the scene introducing Rufus, but this version did not feature Jay and Silent Bob.
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.
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.
[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.
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.
"[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."
"[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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
[22] In 2022, while promoting the release of Clerks III, Kevin Smith publicly commented on his efforts to reacquire rights to the film, claiming he had made two offers that were turned down, and quipping, "My movie about angels is owned by the devil himself.
The site's critical consensus reads, "Provocative and audacious, Dogma is an uneven but thoughtful religious satire that's both respectful and irreverent.
"[29] On Metacritic, the film received a score of 62 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
I mean, now I've gotta think about more than my own safety and well-being, but regardless – yeah, a Dogma follow-up's been swimming around in my head for some time now.
In a fourth-wall breaking monologue, he explains after the events of Dogma God once again banished him to Earth, this time to the Mediterranean Sea where he was rescued by Italian fishermen after getting amnesia, describing the plot of Damon's film The Bourne Identity: he remarks that would make his current form his "reborn identity".