Professional Documents
Culture Documents
FA: There was also a change in the sound. The person who was
working the sea did so to the sound of wind. Whereas here, the noise
is mechanical. The workers have to wear ear protectors.
<< Beauty >>
[1970]
JVDK: Here, using very simple editing, we get the same idea of
blocked ears, of the senses cut off, of subterranean life. It is a kind of
false history of a spy in which the character is carrying out a kind of
investigation of the real. But whenever things have to do with nature,
he cannot see it or feel it. This makes him increasingly violent. His
senses are blocked. There is an obvious link to my film about blind
people.
FA: The character is deprived of sight, sex, hearing, which may be
references to the very parameters of cinema, namely sound and
image. There is also this image, which is about to appear...
JVDK: For me, this was a very sexual image, this rounded interior
shape within the rock.
Beauty, 1970
FA: Compared to Flat Jungle, where the editing was tied to the
locale, considerable liberties are taken in assembling objects and
situations that are completely disjointed.
FA: How do you explain your special relationship with music? When the worms appear in Flat
Jungle, the music accompanying the shot is almost plaintive.
JVDK: Here we will resolve the little story which, through a series of dissolves, in a very linear
and classical pattern, runs counter to the non-linearity of the film, in which everything gets
mixed up and intertwined. Here we have a bit of story line. It is a bit like a mood change. Now
we have the non-documentary shot par excellence, because we are in place before the
character who is arriving on a motorbike. Leacock and other filmmakers who deal with the real
would never do this. They would get angry [laughter]. You can see that it was set up, because
the guy on the motorbike is looking to see if the take was all right.
Beauty, 1970
For example, here, nature is behind bars, and he is behind other bars.
He is never in the place shown in the image. In this film, the abstract
aspect of things is emphasized. But, generally speaking, I believe this
abstraction needs a kick in the pants. It is an extreme film, one of
several I have made that were against the idea of the documentary,
because there was an overly facile assumption about the transmission
of the real by means of the image. Now there is a terrible thing,
because he is looking at this injured bird, but it is I, clearly, chasing
after the bird with my camera. It is a shot that I would not do now. The
bastard is no longer he but me. You can even see that it is the camera
making this movement behind the injured and panicky bird.
FA: This, too, is one of your abstract, demonstrative films, which alternate with films that are
closer to real life.
<< Sarajevo Film Festival >>
[1993]
JVDK: This is Sarajevo in the middle of the war. I filmed a young
female architecture student who was at the film festival being held
at the time. All of these scenes are directed. And then we noticed her
father, who is blind. Naturally, I reacted immediately. My father is
blind, he has not gone out since the beginning of the war, said the
JVDK: Yes, the nature of this rhythm is revealed fairly late in the film.
<< The Spirit of the Times >>
[1968]
JVDK: This is one of my first films, highly political. It is a trip to
Biafra during the war, when I was working as an assistant to another
Dutch filmmaker, Louis van Gasteren, who, for me, played a key role
in my choice to become political rather than merely mental. One
must participate. This scene shows a pile of signs, done with pretty
simple special effects - the assassination of Robert Kennedy, Martin
Luther King, some key moments from 1968. The idea is to indicate
political upheaval around the world. There we have a shot of me in
Biafra. (We hear the drum roll of a military march and then suddenly
it switches to rock music.) The idea of that music, of the way in which
it was presented, was to indicate that order was breaking down.
FA: However, not long afterwards, you made a film about the
counter-culture in Amsterdam, in which the hippies come out rather
well.
JVDK: I think it is somewhat more complex than that. These are people who are trying to
create another identity. The idea here was to ask whether it was possible to turn ones back
on society and pursue other interests of a more psychical nature, etc. This counter-cultural
center inherited the idea, but there were also politicised people, squatters, immigrants... Here
we again have this obscured view, the surface of the screen, with a soundtrack that is in front
of the screen, and a shot that lasts for a fairly long time.
FA: In this glimpse of the wall, there is a crevice in the rock which for you had an erotic
meaning, and which is seen throughout the film until we reach scenes that are indeed erotic.
It could be the image of a womans vagina.
JVDK: Yes indeed! At that time, I hadnt thought of that at all [laughter]. Thats the house in
which I lived at that time.
10
FA: Theres this strange thing of a window that opens to the outside...
JVDK: But the outside is again a wall, and we dont know what lies
behind it. In any case, this goes hand in hand with my discovery at the
time of the films of Straub and Satyajit Ray, both of who are interested
in the lasting nature of things, and who attempt to bring duration into
existence.
FA: Given your experience as a photographer, do you feel that long
shots bring you closer to photography?
JVDK: No more than close-ups. There are some shots that are more photographic in nature.
Extreme close-ups can give that effect. There, the focus is on feet, but at the same time the
body is attempting to concentrate on the frame. Perhaps its true that familiarity with
photography makes such a shot possible. You can see the things that I have written: Cinema
is OK, too. [laughter] There, thats it.
11