From the earliest times, one of the strongest indicators of a society’s level of development has been its road system, or the lack of one. Increasing populations and the advent of towns and cities brought with them the need for communication and commerce between those growing population centres. In Egypt, in around 2500 BC, the Pharaoh Cheops built a construction road 1,000 yards long and 60 feet wide that led to the site of the Great Pyramid, and this is believed to be the earliest paved road on record. Since it was used only for this one job and was never used for travel, Cheops’ road was not truly a road in the same sense that the later trade routes, royal highways and impressively paved Roman roads were.

The various early trade routes developed where goods were transported from their source across terrain such as mountains and deserts to a market outlet, and were often named after the goods which travelled upon them. For example, the Amber Route travelled from Afghanistan through Persia and Arabia to Egypt, and the Silk Route stretched 8,000 miles from China, across Asia, and then through Spain to the Atlantic Ocean. However, the overriding drawback of these early overland trade routes was that carrying bulky goods with slow animals over rough, unpaved roads was a time-consuming and expensive proposition. As a general rule, the price of the goods doubled for every 100 miles they had to travel.

Without doubt, the champion road builders of them all were the ancient Romans, who, until modern times, built the world’s straightest, best engineered and most complex network of roads. At its height, the Roman Empire maintained 53,000 miles of roads, which covered all of England to the north, most of Western Europe, radiated throughout the Iberian Peninsula and encircled and crisscrossed the entire Mediterranean area. Most renowned for their straightness, Roman roads were composed of a graded soil foundation topped by four foundation courses: first sand, and then large, flat stones. On top was some gravel and then a thin surface of flint-like lava. The roads were then topped with cambered stone slabs. Typically they were three to five feet thick and varied in width from eight to 35 feet, although the average width for the main roads was from 12 to 24 feet. This design allowed heavy loads to be transported repeatedly for many years with minimal maintenance work. The Roman design remained the most sophisticated one until the advent of modern road-building technology in the very late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Many of their original roads are still in use today, although they have been resurfaced numerous times. Under Roman law, the public had the right to use the roads, but the district through which a road passed was responsible for the maintenance of the roadway. This system was effective as long as a strong central authority existed to enforce it. Unfortunately, as the Roman Empire declined, so did most of its roads, and their work fell into disrepair all across Europe and Great Britain.

Since its inception in the 1890s, cinema has seen many technical changes and advances and, as with any art form, there have been many different movements and styles associated with it. In 1995, a collective of Danish film directors wished to change the direction of filmmaking and reinforce the importance of cinematic truth. At the time, Hollywood blockbusters dominated the market. The “Dogme 95” movement was created in order to prove that a big budget did not necessarily equate with quality in filmmaking.

The avant-garde movement was publicly launched at a film conference by two directors from Copenhagen: Lars Von Trier, later known for Melancholia (2011), and Thomas Vinterberg, director of the 2015 film Far from the Madding Crowd. The two directors created a manifesto which outlined certain rules for filmmakers, with the aim of directorial and editorial simplification. These ten rules of filmmaking were later jokingly dubbed the “vow of chastity” by the directors. The first rule stated that all shooting must be done on location. Furthermore, no props and sets could be brought in. If a specific prop, such as a piano, was needed in the plot, a location which already contained the said prop had to be selected.

The second rule of the manifesto concerned music and sound, asserting that these should be recorded while the film was being shot. If the directors wished to have music in a particular scene, then it had to originate from the characters, such as someone singing or playing a musical instrument on screen. Sound of this type is classified as diegetic; other forms of sound, such as voiceovers, or atmospheric music, are non-diegetic and were therefore not in accordance with the manifesto.

The third rule stated that all filming should be done with a hand-held camera. Usually in filmmaking, cameras are placed on cranes or jibs in order to create a less shaky image and capture all angles. The fourth and fifth rules permitted only the use of colour film and natural lighting in Dogme films. Special lighting and filters were not allowed. The vow of chastity stated explicitly that should there be an unsatisfactory amount of light, a single lamp might be attached to the camera.

The sixth, seventh and eighth rules related to the plot. The film had to be set in the here and now, and in the place in which the filming occurred. Genre movies were unacceptable, so the film could not be horror or fantasy, for example, and had to be realistic. Finally, the films were not allowed to contain superficial action such as murders. These rules meant that the films were concerned with everyday aspects of life such as familial relationships, friendships and so on.

The ninth rule dictated only the use of the standard Academy 35mm format. The final rule stated that the director must not be credited. This most likely stemmed from the prevalence of high-budget films at the time, in which the popularity of the directors and actors alike was considered an important factor in choosing to go and see a film. The other aim of the final rule was to stop directors from showcasing their own personal tastes within their films, but instead encouraging them to simply exhibit the truth about the characters and the story.