e u r o p e a n f o u n d a t i o n j o r i s i v e n s

Three lost Ivens filmsThree lost Ivens films discovereddiscovered in the Netherlandsin the NetherlandsBert HogenkampBert Hogenkamp

Mali: Birth of a nation, birth of a cinemaMali: Birth of a nation, birth of a cinemaIan MundellIan Mundell

The Progressive model of IThe Progressive model of INDONESIANDONESIA CALLINGCALLING

for for Australian societyAustralian societyRobert Hamilton and Laura KotevskaRobert Hamilton and Laura Kotevska

Joris Ivens and ChinaJoris Ivens and ChinaSun HongyunSun Hongyun

The importance of The importance of YUKONGYUKONG to usto usTTani Barlowani Barlow

Scoring RAIN: a contemporary British composerScoring RAIN: a contemporary British composer ’’ss

perspectiveperspectiveEdward HughesEdward Hughes

Today on our time-table: Ivens in LeipzigFrederike Haupt

POWER FOR THE PARKINSONS: documentary and websiteEphraim Smith

Joris Ivens and Pare LorentzAndré Stufkens

nnnneeeewwwwssssmmmmaaaaggggaaaazzzz iiiinnnneeee iiiissssssssuuuueeee 11 nnnnoooovvvveeeemmmmbbbbeeeerrrr 2222000000005555

European Foundation Joris Ivens

Europese Stichting Joris IvensFondation Européenne Joris IvensEuropäische Stiftung Joris Ivens

Office

Visiting addressArsenaalpoort 12 6511 PN Nijmegen

Mail addressP.O. Box 606NL - 6500 AP Nijmegen, The Netherlands

T: + 31 (0)24 3888774F: + 31 (0)24 3888776E: info@ivens.nlI: www.ivens.nl

Archives

Regionaal Archief NijmegenMariënburg 27by appointment: +31 (0)24 3888774

Board

Marceline Loridan-Ivens, PresidentClaude Brunel, Vice-PresidentJosé Manuel CostaTineke de VaalMarc Vernet

Comité d'Honneur

Theo Angelopoulos / Tinto Brass / Jérôme ClémentConstantin Costa Gravas / Régis Debray / Jack LangClaude Lanzman / Edgar Morin / Vincenzo Franco PorcelliIgnatio Ramonet / Edgar Reitz / Paolo TavianiFrederick Wiseman

StaffAndré Stufkens, directorBram Relouw, coordinator

Contributors to this issue:

Tani Barlow, Niels van Dongen, Johannes C. Gall,Robert Hamilton, Edward Hughes, Frederike Haupt,Bert Hogenkamp, Willemien Jansen, Judith Kretzschmar,Ian Mundell, Sun Hongyun, Ephraim Smith

Language editor Andrew Sloan

Design Marleen de Betué, grafisch ontwerperin collaboration with Micky Cloosterman

Print Drukwerk Unlimited

Cover photo Joris Ivens directing DEMAIN À NANGUILA,1960 © Joris Ivens Archives / EFJI

The EFJI is an associate of FIAF (Féderation Internationaledes Archives du Film)

ISSN: 1568-9131

The EFJI is subsidized by the Ministry of Education,Culture and Science, The Hague

Bert Hogenkamp Three lost Ivens films discovered in the Netherlands

3

Bram RelouwDoc’s Kingdom

7

Robert Hamilton and Laura KotevskaThe progressive model of INDONESIA CALLING

for Australian society8

The ArchivesThe Foundation

12

Sun HongyunJoris Ivens and China

14

Tani BarlowThe importance of YUKONG to us

18

Frederike HauptToday on our time-table: Ivens in Leipzig

19

Crazy on Nijmegen20

Ian MundellMali: Birth of a nation, birth of a cinema

22

Edward Hughes Scoring RAIN: a contemporary British composer’s perspective

26

Survey of film programmes27

Ephraim SmithPOWER FOR THE PARKINSONS: documentary and website

28

André StufkensJoris Ivens and Pare Lorentz

29

Aquisition33

Sculptures34

Short cuts35

Curiosities from the archives36

Colophon Table of contents

Really neededIn 1929, Joris Ivens had made a

name with his ‘movement study’ DE BRUG(The Bridge, 1928) and the featuretteBRANDING (Breakers, 1929) based on ashort story by Jef Last, who also played oneof the leading roles in the film. While he wasstill working on his next film REGEN (Rain), alyrical cine-poem about Amsterdam in therain, he was approached in May 1929 by E.Sinoo, the general secretary of the AlgemeneNederlandse Bouwarbeiders Bond (ANBB).He asked Ivens to make a film on the occa-sion of the tenth anniversary of this tradeunion. This commission was a challenge thatIvens relished. As he would later write in hisautobiography: ‘Here it was. Somebody real-ly needed my work. Here was a chance togive my work direction, purpose, fightingqualities and here was also an opportunity todevote my whole time to film making.’1

The idea was to produce a feature-length documentary. For this Ivens could relyon the assistance of the 16 year-old JohnFernhout and on the staff of the AmsterdamCapi branch, Joop Huisken in particular. Butas the commission was simply too vast he

decided to engage some other assistants.They were a chemistry student (Willem Bon),a former Olympic Gold Medal winner andconfirmed catholic, who had just left theBenedictine monastery (Jan Hin), a painterand active communist (Mark Kolthoff) and aFrench photographer/cameraman (Eli Lotar).Not only were they his contemporaries, butthey also fully shared his admiration for themodernist film aesthetics propagated in theNetherlands by the Filmliga movement. Ivensneeded their help, because he was notalways able to liberate himself from his dutiesas a manager of the Capi photography shop.

As the central theme of the projectIvens chose the professional pride of thebuilding workers. He regularly consulted gen-eral secretary Sinoo on the progress that wasbeing made. The two men obviously got onvery well together indeed. Apart from theobligatory shots of the union’s activities (headoffice, meeting, youth outing, NVV congress),it was Ivens who determined what was beingfilmed and how. This was unusual, for as arule trade union films were based on scriptsthat were written by full-time officials of thecommissioning union, and between 1928 and

1931 quite a few of these were made in theNetherlands.2 The Polygoon Company, forexample, considered an elaborated scriptemanating from the commissioning bodyitself a perfect guarantee against any troublethat might arise over the film once it wascompleted. It had successfully followed thisprocedure with films like EN GIJ, KAMER-AAD? (And you, comrade?, 1928, for theTransport Workers Union), STALEN KNUIS-TEN (Fists of steel, 1930, SteelworkersUnion) and TRIOMF (Triumph, 1931,Socialist Trade Union umbrella organizationNVV).

Ivens used the freedom given bythe ANBB to shoot footage on a whole rangeof different subjects on locations as far apartas Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Arnhem, Limburgand Wieringen. After a while Ivens came tothe conclusion that in order to do justice tosome of the topics covered he had to edit thefootage into separate films, not using it in themain film. This was particularly the case withthe footage of the closing of the Zuiderzeeand the reclamation of new land, which in theeyes of Ivens deserved a film of its own andwould become the four-reel ZUIDERZEEW-ERKEN (Zuiderzee works, 1930). But first hereleased a one-reeler about the driving ofheavy wooden piles into the swampy Dutchsoil, HEIEN (Pile driving, 1929). With this filmhe wanted ‘to obtain the full physical effect ofthe rhythmic powerful pounding.’3 HEIEN hadits premiere for a Filmliga audience in theAmsterdam art house cinema ‘De Uitkijk’ inNovember 1929, more than two monthsbefore the ANBB film proper was released.

Many itemsBy January 1930 Ivens had so

many of these items ranging from a half tofour reels, all dealing with aspects of thebuilding industry or the activities of the ANBB,that he had a hard time making up his mindon which ones to leave out of the final film,entitled WIJ BOUWEN (We are building).This had its premiere on 4 January 1930 inthe main hall of the AMVJ Gebouw (YMCABuilding) in Amsterdam. In The Camera and IIvens recalled: ‘While the first reel was goingthrough the projection machine I was stillbusy cutting and splicing the last reel.’4

According to a contemporary source it was

Three lost Ivens films discoveredBert HogenkampAs a result of on-going research into the history of Dutch docu-

mentary film at the Netherlands Institute of Sound and Vision, threeearly films of Joris Ivens have recently been discovered, eventhough they were considered to be irretrievably lost. The three -VAN JEUGD, STRIJD EN ARBEID (Of Youth, Struggle and Labor,1930), SPOORWEGBOUW ZUID-LIMBURG (Railway ConstructionSouth Limburg, 1930) and BETONARBEID (Concrete Construction,1930) – formed part of a commission by the Algemene NederlandseBouwarbeiders Bond (General Netherlands Building WorkersUnion). The discovery is all the more exciting as so many of thefilms that Ivens did realize between 1929-1931 – the most produc-tive years in his long career – have been lost. Bert Hogenkamp,media historian at Sound and Vision, unearthed the three filmsamong the thousands of reels in the collection of the Polygoon-Profilti newsreel company. In the following contributionHogenkamp not only offers an educated guess as to how the printsended up in that particular collection, but also discusses the sig-nificance of the discovery for the appreciation of Ivens’ earlycareer.

3

Joris Ivens, still from CONCRETE CONSTRUCTION,1930. © Joris Ivens Archives / EFJI

Joris Ivens, still from CONCRETE CONSTRUCTION, 1930. © Joris Ivens Archives / EFJI

not as dramatic as this, but still it was not until‘the evening before the premiere of the film,at one o’clock in the morning, [that] De Groothad seen the film in its final version.’ DeGroot was Hugo de Groot, an experiencedmusician and film composer whose job it wasto direct the full orchestra of the Socialistbroadcasting organization VARA at the pre-miere of the (silent) film. He therefore ‘onlyhad a few hours to compose a fitting score toaccompany the film.’5 Although the availabil-ity of sheet music to accompany WIJBOUWEN was later announced in the ANBBnewsletter De Bouwer, no score has survivedin the personal archive of Hugo de Groot.6

Only the lyrics (written by NVV general sec-retary and former ANBB official Coen van derLende) and music (De Groot) have survivedof the ‘ANBB March’ which was first per-formed at the premiere of WIJ BOUWEN on4 January 1930.

Although the ANBB was verypleased with WIJ BOUWEN, it was in factquite unbalanced, being a succession of var-ious shorter films and lacking an overalldramaturgy. After a title sequence it startedwith a more or less complete version ofHEIEN (reel 1), followed by footage of theunion, its history and activities, ending with afilm report of an NVV congress (reels 2 and3), a day out with the youth group, includinga shot of Ivens enjoying an ice cream (reel 4),the construction of houses (reel 5), the build-ing of the Telegraaf newspaper headquartersin Amsterdam (reel 6), bricklaying and a sur-vey of examples of modern architecture, suchas the Van Nelle factories in Rotterdam (reel7), and the closing of the Zuiderzee (reels 8to 11). The film ended with a short sequencereminding the spectators of the importance ofbuilding work and exhorting the buildingworkers to be ‘aware of your power.’7

Although the total length of the premiere ver-sion of WIJ BOUWEN amounted to 3,200meters (10,498 ft) – more than two and a halfhours when projected at a speed of 18frames per second. An even longer version of3,802 meters (12,473 ft) – over three hours –was submitted to the Netherlands Board ofFilm Censors.8 It is likely that the latter ver-sion included the three items that werescreened alongside ZUIDERZEEWERKENin the Amsterdam film theatre Rialto the dayafter the premiere of WIJ BOUWEN: TIM-MERFABRIEK (Carpentry factory),IMPRESSIES UIT EEN STEENHOUWERIJ(Impressions from a stonemasonry, directedby Jan Hin) and SPOORWEGBOUW ZUID-

LIMBURG.9 The second title had a limited runin a Filmliga program of Dutch films, whichalso included ZUIDERZEEWERKEN.Although it was felt they deserved to be pub-licly screened, neither Ivens nor the ANBBhad immediate plans for the release of these

films, which also included BETONBOUW, athree-reeler on the construction of concretecaissons in Rotterdam harbor.10 First Ivenshad another pressing matter to resolve.Following Russian film director VsevolodPudovkin’s short trip to Amsterdam in early1929, he had been invited to visit the SovietUnion. On 13 January 1930 he boarded thetrain to Moscow, taking with him a selectionof his own films (including HEIEN enZUIDERZEEWERKEN) and those of hisFilmliga colleagues.

After a long visit which took himacross the length and breadth of the SovietUnion, described in detail in his The Cameraand I, Ivens returned to Amsterdam in April1930. He was now a converted communist,who worked closely with the Dutch CP, par-ticularly its mass organization Vereenigingvoor Volks Cultuur (Association for PopularCulture).11 Although the building workersunion was, politically speaking, in a differentcamp - in the communist jargon of the day:the camp of the ‘social fascists’ - Ivensremained in touch with ANBB general secre-tary Sinoo. The two agreed that Ivens and hisassistants would shoot some more films forthe union, which was extremely pleased withthe success of WIJ BOUWEN. On 11th April,the 75th screening of this film took place, witha total attendance of 33,000 spectators.12 Fora start Willem Bon covered a day trip in Mayof young building workers visiting theAmsterdam Zoo and the well-known touristattractions Volendam and Marken, resultingin the two-reeler AMSTERDAMSCHEJEUGDDAG (Amsterdam Youth Day). Thenthe ANBB arranged with its sister organiza-tion for Helmuth Niendorf, the head the filmservice of the German building workersunion, to film the trip of a Dutch delegation tothe Cologne and Rhine regions in late May.Ivens’ company, Capi, took care of the Dutchsubtitling of this film, entitled JEUGDDAGDUITSLAND (Youth Day Germany). Lastly, inJune Ivens, Kolthoff and Huisken traveled toVierhouten to cover a youth camp, resultingin another two-reeler JEUGDDAG VIER-HOUTEN (Jeugddag Vierhouten). Althoughthey enjoyed the comradeship with theyoungsters, such trips and camps were hard-ly inspiring subjects for Ivens and his assis-tants. Only occasionally were they able to puttheir modernist ideas about film into practice.

New filmAfter a break during the Summer

months the ANBB resumed their exhibitionsof WIJ BOUWEN in September 1930. Sinooexhorted union branches which so far hadnot done so to book the film: ‘All we require isthat one books a hall and takes care of themusic.’ He suggested that the film service ofthe Instituut voor Arbeiders Ontwikkeling(Institute for Workers’ Education) would beable to help out. Sinoo added that if need beunion headquarters ‘would assist with projec-tion equipment and accessories. Thecharges for the branch are so small, that noone needs to abstain. Moreover these costscan be recovered by charging admission.’13

He hinted at a new film ‘which is as good as

4

Joris Ivens, still from CONCRETE CONSTRUCTION, 1930 © Joris Ivens Archives / EFJI

New York, construction workers lunching on a crossbeam, 1932 © Charles Ebbett. Ivens’ film CONCRETE CONSTRUCTIONpresents a similar image of modernity in the Netherlands

Opening title CAPI Films RAILWAY CONSTRUCTIONSOUTH LIMBOURG, 1930 © coll. Beeld en Geluid,Hilversum

ready.’14 In October 1930, he confessed that itwould not surpass WIJ BOUWEN, ‘but ournew film will be equal to it, i.e. just as beauti-ful, just as captivating, just as important, andthat is a remarkable feat… just as ordinary.Our second film too will derive from Laborand from our movement.’15 On 17 November1930 the new film had its premiere in anentourage that was completely different fromthe first screening of WIJ BOUWEN. Insteadof the 600 invitees and the full VARA orches-tra that had filled the main hall of the AMVJGebouw, a hard core of ANBB officials andsome film critics saw the film in the long nar-row art house cinema ‘De Uitkijk’ inAmsterdam. Whether it was musicallyaccompanied on the cinema’s famous whitegrand piano is not known. The new film wasconsistently referred to it as VAN ARBEID,JEUGD EN STRIJD (Of Labor, Youth andStruggle) by the union organ De Bouwer, butthe opening title of the first of the recentlyrediscovered films actually reads VANJEUGD, STRIJD EN ARBEID (Of Youth,Struggle and Labor).

Like WIJ BOUWEN, VAN JEUGD,STRIJD EN ARBEID was a succession of sixshorter films. It consisted of JEUGDDAG TEVIERHOUTEN, SPOORWEGBOUW ZUID-LIMBURG, BETONARBEID, AMSTER-DAMSE JEUGDDAG, JEUGDDAG DUITS-LAND and finally WIJ BLAZEN ALARM (Wesound the alarm). The last title had been pro-duced by the Polygoon Company, famous forits newsreel, which at that time had close tieswith the social democratic movement in theNetherlands. Commissioned by the DutchLabor Party, it had been released earlier in1930 under the title ALARM, to support the(unsuccessful) campaign against the renewaland extension of the Dutch Navy. As Sinoopointed out, it ‘has been added to our film asa spur to continue the struggle, under themotto Never, never again war.’16 Shortly afterthe premiere, four of the six titles (ALARMand SPOORWEGBOUW ZUID-LIMBURGhad already received an ‘all ages’ certificate)were submitted to the Netherlands Board ofFilm Censors. The board issued the required‘all ages’ certificates, despite the fact thatJEUGDDAG TE VIERHOUTEN broke ‘at vir-tually every splice,’ not to mention a paperclipwhich was stuck in one of the reels of BE-TONARBEID and ‘which, if it had not beendiscovered beforehand, would have dam-aged both the film and the projection equip-ment.’17 This may seem symbolic for Ivens’lack of concern for VAN JEUGD, STRIJD ENARBEID, but the surviving correspondencebetween the Board of Film Censors and Capiis full of examples of films being submittedtoo late, forms being filled in incorrectly andfees waiting to be paid. Ivens simply did notcare for film censorship at all.

It must be said though that Ivensdid not show much interest in the film. Herefrained for example from mentioning VANJEUGD, STRIJD EN ARBEID to journalists,whereas he was regularly feeding the news-papers with stories about the sound film hewas to make for Philips or the Studio JorisIvens that he had set up to help young film-makers. Later in life too, for example in hisautobiographies, he never referred to it.Remarkably the ANBB too did not seem toembrace its second film as warmly as the firstone. In January 1931 it obtained a brand newprint of WIJ BOUWEN to replace the old one,as this film was still extremely popular withlocal branches.18 In the meantime VANJEUGD, STRIJD EN ARBEID was bookedonly occasionally. The union’s policy of allow-ing the screening of ‘the new film only in

those places where the first has already beenshown’ did not help.19 But it soon turned outthat the film simply lacked appeal. The threeYouth Day films which made up the best partof VAN JEUGD, STRIJD EN ARBEID werereally only of interest to those who had beenpresent on the occasion. WIJ BLAZENALARM had lost its edge, for the politicalcampaign for which it had been made hadcome to an end. This only left SPOORWEG-BOUW ZUID-LIMBURG and BETONARBEIDas films in the same class as WIJ BOUWEN.Despite reassurances given in De Bouwer‘that we know already for sure, that this film[VAN JEUGD, STRIJD EN ARBEID, BH] willbe a success,’ it rapidly sunk into oblivion.20

Lost and foundAfter a while VAN JEUGD, STRIJD

EN ARBEID was taken out of circulation. TheANBB probably never had more than onecopy of the film. What happened exactly withthe negatives between the mid-thirties andthe early eighties, when their presence in thePolygoon-Profilti collection can be tracedback, is a mystery. It seems likely though thatthe only part of the film with which Ivens hadnothing to do, WIJ BLAZEN ALARM, mayhave been the determining factor in the des-tiny of the negatives. My supposition is thatIvens never bothered to get the negativesback from Polygoon, where they had beensent to in the autumn of 1930 so that the first(and only?) print of the film could be made.After all, Polygoon had professional laborato-ry facilities in Haarlem, whereas Capi couldonly print small amounts of film by hand.Given the fact that the premises of Profilti inThe Hague were destroyed by the RAF inMarch 1945, with a complete companyarchive, it is improbable that the sister com-pany had acted as the keeper of the nega-tives.

Over the course of time the secondreel of JEUGDDAG TE VIERHOUTEN andAMSTERDAMSE JEUGDDAG have beenlost. But the rest of VAN JEUGD, STRIJD ENARBEID has survived in remarkably goodcondition. The films have been transferred bythe Netherlands Institute for Sound andVision from the original flammable nitrate car-rier onto safety film and in order to safeguardthe material, a master has been made. Forconsultation, there are video copies availableon VHS and Digibeta. The films will be shownat the IDFA film festival in November 2005.

Only the first of the two reels of JEUGDDAGTE VIERHOUTEN have survived. Reel 1shows what happened in the holiday camp:the pouring rain on the first day, getting up,washing and breakfasting, the country walkthrough the Veluwe national park (the sun isshining again), preparing the dinner, etc. Onestriking detail is that the camp participantsare wearing jackets and ties for their countrywalk. Certain shots show Ivens’ feeling forimage composition but in general, the filmdoes not rise above the level of a newsreel.

Joris Ivens, stills from

CONCRETE CONSTRUCTION

OF YOUTH, STRUGGLE AND LABOUR, Youthday inVierhouten, youngsters of the General NetherlandsConstruction Workers Union washing, 1930 © Coll. Beelden Geluid, Hilversum

1930 © coll. Beeld en Geluid, Hilversum

5

SPOORWEGBOUW ZUID-LIMBURG ismuch more interesting as a film. The subjectis the construction of the ‘Millions Line’ (socalled because it cost a million guilders perkilometer to build), which was the railway linebetween Schaesberg, Kerkrade andSimpelveld. Enormous amounts of soil had tobe shifted and the film shows how people didthis work, by machine and by their own mus-cle power. It was a theme which Ivens placedat the centre of many of his films, i.e. thatman was able to conquer nature (here, theearth), thanks to his ingenuity (the machineshe invented) and the power of labor. SPOOR-WEGBOUW ZUID-LIMBURG contains shotswhich are typical of the avant-garde film styleof the twenties, with workers filmed in frogperspective, and railway carriages movingdiagonally across the frame.

ANBB official Sinoo called BETONARBEID(also known under the title CAISSONBOUW)an ‘educational film’ and it is true that it doesshow how concrete caissons were made andsunk in the Rotterdam harbor, theMerwedehaven, to serve as an embankment.But BETONARBEID is more than just an‘educational film’. The film is also a testimonyto Ivens’ keen eye for the extraordinary skillsof the ironworkers. Unwittingly he recordedhow deficient safety conditions at the con-struction site actually were in 1930. Above all,the subject of the film offered him the chanceto compose a ‘symphony of labor,’ by playingwith light and dark, with lines and visualrhythms. A few shots are even reminiscent ofthe work of Mondriaan. In many respects,BETONARBEID closely resembles GROEI(Growth) (1930), a short film by Polygooncameraman Jo de Haas about the construc-tion of the Bijenkorf department store inRotterdam.

Notes

1 Joris Ivens, The Camera and I, Berlin, Seven Seas

Books, 1969, p.432 In The Camera and I (p.44) Ivens claims that he knew

‘no example of a film made by a union for a union.’ This

is obviously a lapse of memory. 3 Joris Ivens, The Camera and I, op.cit., p.454 Idem, p.445 De Bouwer, 9 January 19306 The archive of Hugo de Groot is kept by the

Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, Hilversum.7 Skrien, no.64, April 1977, pp.18-228 WIJ BOUWEN was issued certificate 8684 on 7 January

1930. Cf. archive of the Centrale Commissie voor de

Filmkeuring, Nationaal Archief, The Hague9 Het Volk, 7 January 193010 Apart from the titles mentioned Sinoo also listed a film

about ‘the construction of the third passage arm in

The Hague’. In all it amounted to ‘approximately 1,200

meters of film’. Cf. De Bouwer, 10 July 1930, pp.2-311 See Bert Hogenkamp, ‘Workers’ Newsreels in the

Netherlands (1930-1931)’, in: Armand Mattelart, Seth

Siegelaub (eds.), Communication and Class Struggle 2.

Liberation, Socialism, New York/Bagnolet: IG/IMMRC,

1983, pp.157-16412 De Bouwer, 17 April 1930. Eventually over 50,000

people would see the film.13 De Bouwer, 25 September 193014 De Bouwer, 28 August 193015 De Bouwer, 23 October 193016 De Bouwer, 27 November 193017 Correspondence Centrale Commissie voor de

Filmkeuring – Capi, 1930-1931, Nationaal Archief,

The Hague18 De Bouwer, 18 December 193019 De Bouwer, 29 January 193120 De Bouwer, 29 January 1931

6

Bert Hogenkamp is a Media Historianat the Netherlands Institute for Soundand Vision. He also holds a professor-ship at Utrecht University. He publishedbooks on Ivens (Borinage), on Film andlabour movement and on the history ofDutch documentary (1920-1940 / 1945-1965). Hogenkamp was also head advi-sor to the restoration project of the JorisIvens Nitrate collection at theFilmmuseum in 1994.

©fo

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lleJoris Ivens, stills from

RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION SOUTH LIMBOURG

1930 © coll. Beeld en Geluid, Hilversum

Joris Ivens, RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION SOUTH LIM-BOURG, 1930 © coll. Beeld en Geluid, Hilversum

Joris Ivens, still from CONCRETE CONSTRUCTION,1930 © coll. Beeld en Geluid, Hilversum

Joris Ivens, OF YOUTH, STRUGGLE AND LABOUR,Youthday in Vierhouten, bread for the youngsters of theGeneral Netherlands Construction Workers Union havinga break, 1930. Coll. Joris Ivens Archives / EFJI

Doc’s Kingdom 2005

Name: Li Yifan, ChinaFilmography: BEFORE THE FLOOD (2005)

Because of the building of the Three GorgesDam, a vast area in China will be flooded.Millions of people have to move as theirtowns and villages disappear beneath thewater. The film shows this government-directed process and the human tragedy andrelentless bureaucracy that comes with it.

Hello…Ah, you are from the Ivens foundation? Ivensis a reference point of mine, as are Antonioniand Frederick Wiseman. Ivens providedanother way of looking at China besidesCommunism. Before, Communism waseverywhere, also in the schools. Ivens' viewfocuses on common things, not on the Partyand the government officials, but on the ordi-nary people. He does not ask who is wrongand who is right, but shows the conse-quences of political changes in everyday life,with a non-political view. I have seen theHOW YUKONG MOVED THE MOUNTAINSseries and liked it very much.

Why did you start making documentaries?I don't want to work in the big studios that arelike machines. In China the documentariesmade with government support are [just like]a speech in favor of them. Now, with low costdigital cameras it is very easy to make filmsand everything is possible. I choose the doc-umentary genre because I want to show themany problems in China.

How would you describe yourstyle/approach?Just showing my point of view on China, notmaking everything beautiful. I want to filmsomething I understand, that I'm inside of,concerned with. This film is not about thedam - that is just the background. I wanted toshow how people change because the situa-tion around them changes.

Do you want to change something with yourfilm, make a difference?Of course all major situations are too big for

one person to change, but this is my part.Also the media, strikes and protests have todo their part. I am not a political filmmaker,but one thing has already changed becauseof all this attention. Now the governmentcannot cut the power before the people haveleft their old houses, the ones that will beflooded.

Name: Maya Rosa, lives in France, born inSpainFilmography: IN THE GARDEN OF THEWORLD (2004)

Maya Rosa's film is focused on the Alentejoregion, considered one of the poorestregions in Europe and once known asPortugal’s granary. Nowadays, the immenseplain is gradually becoming even moredeserted, despite some progress and wealth.The film reflects on the 30 years since the fallof the dictator Salazar in the carnation revo-lution of 1974. She interviews the mostly eld-erly, the people with ordinary questions andgets unexpected answers. They start recitingpre-revolution rebel poetry, tell funny orshocking anecdotes and provide a valuableinsight into a mainly forgotten part of history.

Why did you start making documentaries?I always wanted to make films and chosedocumentaries because I wanted to saysomething about the world around me, tryingto portray this world. Maybe I'll make fictionfilms later, now it's important for me to benourished by the world.

How would you describe your style and yourapproach?Simple and strong. Give space to people toexpress themselves and realize that everysubject has its own form. I was formed inanthropology first.I lived in the region when I was a kid. Theyhave a very strong oral tradition and I want-ed to record their history by letting them tellit. I tried just to quietly look and listen to a cul-ture that is disappearing. Every image is likea scene where little bits of human history areconveyed like on a stage. Film is a way ofrecording traces of the past. Each screeningof this memory keeps it alive.

Have you seen any films by Joris Ivens andwhat did you think of them?I've seen THE BRIDGE, RAIN, PHILIPSRADIO and BORINAGE and liked them verymuch. I'm really eager to see more. Worldhistory speaks of a lot of domination andpower and the poor people have no voice. Tocapture the rarely spoken of black holes inhistory - people suffering, being oppressed,dying - is important for me. Ivens also hadstrong ideas about showing these 'gaps' inhistory, the urgency to keep these memoriesalive. It's very important to stand up and sayno to the oppressor.

Bram RelouwThe 2005 international edition of Doc's Kingdom housed moreguests and films then ever before. This bi-annual seminar on doc-umentary film has a unique set-up. All meetings and screenings areplenary meaning that the maximum number of participants is equalto the number of seats in the large hall in the Camera Municipal inSerpa, a peaceful little village in the heart of the Alentejo region ofsouthern Portugal. Each seminar aims to get all the guests partici-pating in the numerous debates and asks that all the directors arethere as well.The European Foundation Joris Ivens is a partner of Doc'sKingdom. We picked out two striking films making their debut andinterviewed the directors.

Li Yifan, still from BEFORE THE FLOOD (2005)

Li Yifan during Doc’s Kingdom in Serpa, Portugal 2005.Photo Bram Relouw

Li Yifan, still from BEFORE THE FLOOD (2005)

Poster Doc’s Kingdom, 2005.

7

Reflecting on the social history of19th and 20th century travellers, a close wit-ness of both centuries, the novelist HenryJames compared it to a ‘gold-mine over-grown and smothered’, a massive documen-tation characterised by ‘a vast body of pre-cious anecdotes, a long gallery of wonderfulportraits, an array of the oddest possible fig-ures in the oddest possible attitudes’. If acomplete work could sum up the 20th centu-ry in film, James may just have well had inmind the work of the Dutch film lion, JorisIvens. Wherever one looks in the history oftwentieth century film, there is Joris Ivens.His long and peripatetic life (1898-1989)made him a close witness to the major socio-political transformations of the twentieth cen-tury and these are represented in his filmwork (1912-1988) which ranges across a raftof diverse topics. It is chiefly as a documen-tarist that Ivens is remembered and the twinpolitical tides of the post-war twentieth centu-

ry, decolonisation and Cold War World, dom-inated his oeuvre and inspired some of hismost powerful works. For Australians, Ivensis perhaps best known for INDONESIACALLING, the documentary made in 1946 insupport of an autonomous, self-governingIndonesia, at the critical time when the Allieswere engaged in the serious and unlovely

business of attempting to gain control of thedecolonisation process in Indonesia. Thisarticle reappraises INDONESIA CALLING ina new light as it examines the film’s historicalimportance as Ivens’ futuristic sketch of mul-ticultural Australia, three decades before thenotorious White Australia Policy was disman-tled formally in 1975 as unworkable andundesirable.

The story of Joris Ivens’ INDONE-SIA CALLING has reached legendary statusin Australia, and especially in civil liberties cir-cles. Immediately before the Second WorldWar ended, the Dutch filmmaker, Joris Ivensaccepted an invitation to come to Australia asFilm Commissioner for the Netherlands EastIndies (NEI). His engagement was to film theliberation of the NEI from the Japanese inter-regnum. The Netherlands Government hadpreviously rejected Ivens for work on thegrounds of his socialist tendencies, but wasprepared to overlook his political colours tosecure the best film man in the world for thisvery important mission. Once in Australiahowever, Ivens grew increasingly uneasy atthe contradictory positions of the Netherlandsand NEI Dutch on the future of the post-warNEI. Overall, the Netherlands’ situation wasgrim. The NEI Government, which had repre-sentatives domiciled in Washington from1943, was wholly dependent on Americangoodwill for the recovery of the NEI.However, the Dutch were confronted by ananti-colonial American press campaign ani-mated by the slogan, “Not a drop of Americanblood for the revival of colonial lordship.” 1

The Netherlands’ Queen Wilhelmina setabout placating American public feeling. In aseries of speeches to the American Congressand radio audiences, the Queen adopted aliberal stand more in line with the principles ofthe Atlantic Charter, promising joint consulta-tions aimed at political reconstruction of theKingdom and its territories under a completepartnership. 2

Two years after QueenWilhelmina’s assurances to America, a muchdifferent story was unfolding in Australia.Throughout 1945, Ivens witnessed at firsthand, the overtly colonialist attitudes andpractices of the 4000 strong NetherlandsIndies Commission to Australia and NewZealand, a militarised administrative contin-gent attached to the Allied forces on thePacific front line and the oil and rubberpeople based in Australia since their flightfrom the Japanese in 1942. Ever the human-iste and unable to ignore what he felt was animpending reneging of Atlantic Charter princi-ples in the NEI, Ivens split from his employerin spectacular fashion, resigning his commis-sion at a press conference in the Kent Roomof the Hotel Australia in Sydney on 21November 1945.

As the literature has it, Ivens almostfell into the making of INDONESIA CALLINGby accident.3 Footage of the waterfront strikehad been filmed in October 1945. Followinghis public defection from the Netherlands

The film only lasted 22 minutes but the impact of INDONESIACALLING! – ‘the story of the ships that didn’t sail’ was enor-mous. The cost to Ivens was an asthma attack which almostkilled him and a longstanding conflict with the DutchGovernment which was only healed toward the end of his life.The effect of the film as a source of comfort for the hopes of theyoung republic of Indonesia is virtually incalculable. INDONESIACALLING became the 20th century equivalent of Max Havelaar inDutch politics. However, the Australian context had not beenexplored fully. The film counteracted almost two centuries of theexclusive White Australia Policy. In INDONESIA CALLING, JorisIvens anticipated and presented in 1946 his futuristic vision ofthe multicultural changes made in Australia decades afterwards.

8

The progressive model ofINDONESIA CALLING forAustralian society

Robert Hamilton & Laura Kotevska

Marion Michelle, Joris Ivens recovering in the BlueMountains from severe asthma attacks, 1946 © MarionMichelle, Coll. MM / EFJI

Indonesians dancing a 1.500 years old dance in a Sydneyclub. Joris Ivens, still from INDONESIA CALLING!, 1946© Joris Ivens Archives / EFJI

Norman Lindsay, 'Another Alien', published by TheBulletin 1934'.

9

administration, production began in earnestand continued up to July 1946, as Ivensbegan capturing on celluloid, the ban onDutch shipping imposed by Australian water-side workers and trade unionists sympatheticto the Nationalist aspirations of theIndonesian Independence Movement. Hesoon found himself joined by a veritable“Who’s Who” of Australian and British cinemaworking together, as he put it, “ to give ayoung republic a little breathing space, … alittle oxygen” during the critical early monthsafter Bung Sukarno’s Proclamation ofIndonesian Independence on 17 August1945. Harry Watt took time away from his firstfeature for Ealing Studios, THE OVERLAN-DERS, to direct a scene and supplied pre-cious short ends when film stock was virtual-ly unobtainable. Marion Michelle, KatherineDuncan, Peter Finch (already with his ownCommonwealth Investigation Branchdossier) and members of Australia’sCommonwealth Film Unit, also joined. Theoutcome was INDONESIA CALLING, the firstpost-war film dealing with decolonisation inthe Pacific.

The struggle to make and screenINDONESIA CALLING has been well docu-mented in a literature which follows the schol-arly trend in cinema studies and film histori-ography in investigating issues surroundingthe production, distribution, screening andreception of film. Ivens, his crew and sup-porters had to deal with inter alia, sub-stan-dard production equipment and facilities, lim-ited funds, a lack of film stock, surveillance bythe New South Wales Police, andCommonwealth Investigation Service, andinterference from the Federal Opposition inAustralian government who sought politicalcapital from attacking the LabourGovernment for its tacit support for theIndonesian cause. The oxygen metaphorbecame appropriate for Ivens himself when acomplete health breakdown removed himfrom production and he was forced to retreatto the healthier, elevated currents of the BlueMountains to convalesce. Ivens was perhapsa little hard on himself in blaming sinusitisand ‘overstrained nerves’ for his physical col-lapse.4 He could not have known that the timespent in central Sydney and around the fore-shores of Sydney Harbour in spring and sum-mer exposed him to planatus trees, nowknown for their dramatic effect upon asthma-tics and their ability to trigger severe respira-tory problems.5 During 1946, the notorietyassociated with the making and delayed

screening of INDONESIA CALLING eclipsedthe controversy of events on the waterfrontand obscured the issue for many Australians,of how to interpret the larger changes ofdecolonisation brought about by burgeoningnationalist movements to the near North.

In later years, Ivens was curiouslyreticent to comment on INDONESIA CALL-ING. He omitted the episode from TheCamera and I and at the end of his life herejected an approach from the historian, Ericvan‘t Groenewout to make a documentary onthe film claiming that in his mind the matterwas closed.6 Of course there has been noshortage of critiques of the film. To date, com-mentaries on INDONESIA CALLING havefocused on the mechanical and politicalobstacles associated with the film as symbol-ic of the nascent republic’s fight for life.However, what they do not acknowledge isthe domestic political context of INDONESIACALLING. Ivens’ gaze rested not just on thematter of the dilemma of the ‘Indonesianquestion’ but also on the politically sensitivematter of the White Australia Policy.7 His cam-era turned inward upon Australian societyand had an eye for the future. INDONESIACALLING is liberally peppered with beautiful-ly framed vignettes in which Ivens forecastfuture directions for Australian society, andparticularly the transition of a predominantlyWhite Australian population to the multicultur-al model advocated by Australian Labor’sWhitlam Government in the early 1970s.

‘INDONESIA CALLING WHITE AUSTRALIA’

To have an appreciation of the sub-tle gravity of Iven’s vignettes, some back-ground on the White Australia Policy is ne-cessary. Before the Pacific War, Australiawas a British Dominion, part of the Britishrealm. Like other European colonisers,Australia looked to other civilisations to fur-nish answers to the great questions of thetime, particularly the ebb and flow of civilisa-tions as an unceasing struggle for suprema-cy between East and West. To understandthe modern world, an understanding of thestruggle between East and West was funda-mental in the minds of politicians, scientistsand the majority of Australians anxious abouttheir precarious position. White Australians inparticular felt their isolated and ephemeralposition keenly. Being white, resource-laden,under-populated and perched remotely onthe edge of the Pacific Rim forced Australia tocling to the superiority of the British Navy,occasionally looking towards the UnitedStates as an alternative source of regionalleadership.

Geographic determinism was aug-mented with extreme racism. As a nation, theoverwhelming majority of Australians agreedwith the necessity of preserving the socialand racial homogeneity of its citizens. EarlyAustralian political leaders such as Prime

Minister Alfred Deakin stated with confidencethat Australia and its Asian neighbour’sshould show a growing convergence of poli-tical, geographic and even intellectual inter-ests. However, such convergence couldnever extend to the domestic sphere of immi-gration, family, racial inter-marriage and chil-dren. The effect of this national neurosis fornon-Europeans was prosaically summed upby the Australian utopian, William Lane, whoquipped in April 1892 that he would rathersee his daughter ‘dead in her coffin than kiss-ing one of them [non-European] on the mouthor nursing a little coffee-coloured brat thatshe was a mother to’.8 By the beginning of the20th century, eugenic, genetic, psychologicaltheorising, experiment and observation dom-inated proposals for the making of public pol-icy and attitudes to non-Europeans weremost clearly defined in the treatment ofAborigines and Asians and embodied in acomplex series of legislative and administra-tive measures known collectively as theWhite Australia Policy, aimed at severelyrestricting non-European immigration.9

If it is possible to overlook the overtpolitical imagery of INDONESIA CALLING,the film can be read as depicting another his-torically significant moment, as Australianaudiences confront an alternative, previouslyunpalatable taboo, to encounter on film whata non-White Australia might look like.Pervading the history of Australian film andmedia are representations that excludeminority groups and thereby enforce binarycodes of otherness. In just 22 minutes,INDONESIA CALLING overturned and coun-teracted almost 170 years of these opposi-tions and stock images of White Australia.Solidarity is achieved not merely on thewaterfront. INDONESIA CALLING provides asite through which Asians are not ‘construct-ed’ through dominant racial discourses inher-ent to the period, but rather locatesIndonesians within the context of white exclu-sivity and positions them as equal citizens;united against capitalist oppression, thethreat of militarism, and racism.

Three discrete themes permeateIvens’ progressive vision of a model for amulticultural Australia; the overturning ofAustralian’s fear of Asian invasion, the typifi-cation of intimate relations betweenEuropeans and Asians, and the reversal ofthe ‘Orientalist’ stereotype of Asians as back-ward, fixated in time, barbaric, and less thanhuman. The first tangible images revealIndonesians in the central business district ofSydney. They act as an immediate correctiveto the longstanding invasion metaphorevinced in the influential Bulletin cartoon of1888 which demonstrates the obvious dan-gers to White Australia, of a demonic Asiawithin a child’s cot meant to representAustralia.

Freedom for Pacific People. Joris Ivens, still fromINDONESIA CALLING!, 1946 © Joris Ivens

Demonstration of Indonesian seamen in Sydney oppos-ing colonial restoration in the pacific and calling forrespecting the Atlantic Charter, 1945. Coll. MarionMichelle /EFJI

Catherine Duncan, script writer of Indonesia Calling!,1947. Photo coll. Screen Sound Australia

INDONESIA CALLING depicts in abreathtakingly natural way, Indonesians buy-ing newspapers outside Sydney’s GeneralPost Office in Martin Place, alighting from thenow defunct city trams, mingling with othercommuters and sharing a cigarette and ajoke. Peter Finch’s laconic voice over givesinstant admission to multicultural Australia;‘Here in Australia, for years they have lived inour country as friends and fellow townsmen.Women learnt the names of our fruit. Mothersfound that children were much the same inany language.’ The images which followshow Indonesian and White Australian moth-ers and children engaging each other easilythrough the universal language of childrenand motherhood. This language, much likethe language of freedom spoken by dock-workers and trade unionists, transcends cul-tural differences and seals a social compactpredicated upon understanding and human-ism. The innocence of children counterpointsthe innocence of the young Indonesianrepublic. Each needed the opportunity ofautonomous development and freedom fromoppression. Such images act dually to punc-tuate the larger concerns of INDONESIACALLING and redirect its focus from being afilm solely about colonialism and geo-politics

to a film that counteracts and offers an alter-native version of multi-cultural Australia freeof the encompassing notions of Australiabeing at risk and vulnerable to the threat ofAsian invasion.

Ultimately, Ivens created somethingunique in the Antipodean context, as hisimages recognised the possibility of a newform of social organisation underpinned bycitizenship and not race. These visionsreframed the discourses of ‘otherness’ as hepromulgated ideas of what would happen ifone took the ‘other’ and made it part of the‘self.’ No where is this more apparent than in

the dance scenes. White Australia grew outof and codified in law, a horror for and evenprohibition of white intimacy and sexual rela-tions with non-whites. The ‘East’ was corrupt,tainted, and feckless and too close a contactwas synonymous with contamination anddiminution of the physical and intellectual fit-ness of an emerging Australian national type.The Bulletin cartoon, ‘One day, he put a newpipe before me …’ leaves no doubt as to therevulsion White Australia held for Asia and ofthe dire personal and national consequencesof white females having sexual relations withAsians, and the fear of miscegenation.

Ivens unraveled this national neuro-sis frame by frame, step by step in the indoordance scene in which white Australianwomen dance cheek to cheek withIndonesian merchant seamen, KPM employ-ees and other Indonesian male escapeesfrom the Japanese invasion of the NEI. Thefleeting dance scene with its high shot nor-malises the connection between Indonesianand Australian and typifies their natural rela-tionship. The effect is a lyrical almost ethere-al vignette in which the dancers seemunaware of the camera. This beautiful sceneis a prescient, richly symbolic window intoAustralia’s future.

It is a testament to Ivens’ thatINDONESIA CALLING reversed the‘Orientalist’ stereotype of Asians to offer aliminal moment in the history of Australiansociety captured for posterity. Under Ivens’perceptive mind and deft touch, decades ofinculcated racism slough away as one byone, he removes their last vestiges to repre-sent a model for a truly modern, egalitarianAustralian society. In contradistinction to thebiological determinist imagery of non-Europeans as fierce, fixated in time, barbaric,

10

Joris Ivens, film stills from first sequences of

INDONESIA CALLING presenting

multicultural city life in Sydney

‘Young Australia confronts the Chinese dragon’, cartoonfrom The Bulletin, 14 April 1888

‘One day he put a new pipe before me…’, The Bulletin,1902.

Indonesians dancing a 1.500 years old dance in a Sydneyclub. Joris Ivens, still from INDONESIA

‘The Hague still afraid of Indonesia Calling!’. Even after18 years Dutch minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Lunstried to stop screening of INDONESIA CALLING! Coll.JIA/EFJI

and under-civilised, Ivens introducedAustralians to his ideal of sama rata samarasa, a sense of equality among people andof satisfaction in society by its members. Thegrammar of the film, the use of sweepingshots, high angles and panning blurs the dis-tinctions between Australian and Indonesianto reunite the orang rampasan10 with theirAustralian hosts in a celebration whichrestores both harmony and pragmatism. InGeorge and Margaret Street Sydney,Manadonese, Javanese and Ambonese menrejoin their brothers as international citizensof the world, resplendent in western stylesuit, tie and hat, as equally at home inCarnaby Street London or Collins StreetMelbourne. Ivens was not flirting with fictionin his depiction of the Indonesians as urbane,sophisticated and politically attuned to themoment. Australian born Molly Bondan, laterto marry CENKIM’s11 Mohammed Bondanrecalled how easily Australian women werecharmed by the men many of whom had trav-eled the world, spoke several languages,were beautifully dressed, and ‘whose mentaldevelopment was without exception farbeyond that of their Australian girlfriends’.12

In a similar vein, INDONESIACALLING gives a compelling image of theIndonesians as ‘Men’s Men’, after the mouldof the Australian male. Chief among the pos-sessions valued by his contemporaries are‘mate ship’, self-reliance, belief in one’s ownability, and a healthy skepticism for mis-placed authority. The Australian historianRussel Ward charted the origins, develop-ment and features of this peculiar form ofnationalism in his Australian Legend.13

Ward’s central argument was that the egali-tarian ideals and socialist tendencies of 20th

century Australia were drawn from the valuesof the agricultural and pastoral workers ofcolonial Australia and transplanted to anemerging urbanised and industrialised bour-geoisie. The national narrative became for-mulated around national development and anational consciousness which owed much tothe manliness, heroism and resilience of theearly pioneers as they struggled against theelements and the worst excesses of humannature. Joris Ivens taps into these iconicthemes as Indonesian and Australian alikeare cast into this heroic mould, emergingtogether from the ANZAC buffet at the Alliedand British Service Club, donating funds forthe Victory Loans, gathered around a short-wave radio, pitted against the vicissitudes ofoppressive colonial capitalism in their water-front strike, and ironically, standing shoulderto shoulder against Japanese militarism inthe Pacific!

Film is a discourse in which everyframe is motivated and cut with a purpose. Itis therefore impossible, from an Antipodeanpoint of view, to discount the significance ofINDONESIA CALLING’s contribution toAustralia’s national narrative. Sparse thoughthese images are, Ivens ensured that thisprogressive model was included in the finalcut. His letter to Tom Brandon of GarrisonFilm, who took charge of international salesfor lINDONESIA CALLING leaves no doubt ofthe considerable obstacles Ivens had to over-come. ‘The film was chiefly donated, all ages,lengths and speeds and hardly any indicationof which, in the cutting room no moviola, sothe editing had to be done like tailor’s meas-ure length of goods, but it was good that Iremembered my Holland training in the silentdays. The Australian genius for making ice-boxes out of old tin cans was evident in thesound head and synchronizer, which was asdifficult to set up as a jigsaw puzzle and took

about half an hour to prepare for four reels –no image of course – and it would only windin one direction. The little studio had only anold hand splicer and the method of gettingemulsion off was scissors and spit, scissorsand spit. We had to cut the negatives ourselves in the same dusty room’.14

Ivens certainly left Australians witha rare historical treasure in lINDONESIACALLING!

AcknowledgementsThe authors like to acknowledge the helpgiven by the archivists and librarians of thefollowing institutions: the National Archives ofAustralia, Canberra; Katherine Rogersonfrom ACP Magazines for permission to repro-duce Bulletin cartoons, Screen SoundAustralia, National Screen and SoundArchive, Sydney and Canberra Office; TheEuropean Foundation Joris Ivens, Nijmegan.We are particularly grateful for the help andadvice of André Stufkens, Director of TheEuropean Foundation Joris Ivens.

Notes

1 New York Times, 2 October 1943, p. 2.2 Transcript of a Speech made by the Queen of the

Netherlands, 6 December 1942. Commonwealth Record

Series A989/1 Item 43/600/5/1/5, Australian Archives.3 G. Cutts, ‘Indonesia Calling and Joris Ivens’, in A. Moran

& T. O’Regan, (eds.), An Australian Film Reader, Currency

Press, n.d., Sydney.4 H. Schoots, Living Dangerously: A Biography of Joris

Ivens, Amsterdam University Press, 2000, p. 206.5 Recent research conducted by the Asthma Foundation

and NSW Department of Health into planatus or Plane

Trees in the Central Business District of Sydney and

Harbour Foreshores reveals that they pose a substantial

and severe health risk for asthma sufferers and for per-

sons with respiratory disease.6 Schoots, op. cit., p. 360.7 In the 2003 edition of Newsmagazine, Gerda Jansen-

Hendriks did allude to INDONESIA CALLING’S portrayal

of the solidarity between people of all colours and creeds

and ideal multicultural and multi-ethnical society in cosmo-

politan Sydney. However, she did not persist with this

theme.8 W. Lane in the Wagga Hummer newspaper, April 1892.

Quoted in H. McQueen, A new Britannia, Penguin,

Ringwood, 1986, p. 35.9 G. Tavan, The Long, Slow Death of White Australia,

Scribe, Melbourne, 2005, p. 7.10 Describes those Indonesians who claim they were liter-

ally snatched by the Dutch in the final evacuation of the

Netherlands East Indies.11 Central Komite Indonesia Merdeka: the central body

used in Australia to coordinate the political struggle for

independence.12 M. Bondan, In Love with a Nation: Molly Bondan and

Indonesia, Sydney, 1995, p. 22.13 R. Ward, The Australian Legend, Melbourne University

Press, 1959.14 Letter: Joris Ivens to Tom Brandon, ‘Haslemere’,

Blackheath, New South Wales, 15 September, 1946.

Robert Hamilton teaches ModernHistory and Sociology at GeorgesRiver College in Sydney. Awardsinclude the Grey Prize for History 1993,Australian Postgraduate Award 1995,University of Western Sydney TravelScholarship 1997, and Westfield NSWPremier’s History Scholarship in 2003.He was an academic visitor at theRijksuniversiteit te Leiden and MenziesCentre for Australian Studies in Londonin 1998 and has taught at theUniversities of Western Sydney andUniversity of New England. He has aninterest in Australasian history with afocus on colonial and postcolonialIndonesia and Islam. Publicationsinclude: Psychopaths, communists andcriminals: Brigadier Simpson and theTanah Merah Internees, (1994) Shari’aLaw in Southeast Asia, (1995, reprinted2004) The Netherlands East Indies inthe Early Twentieth Century, (2004)and On the Wallaby in Southeast Asia:Reassessing Australian RegionalAffairs, 1901-1945 (in press 2006).

11

Laura Kotevska studies Modern His-tory and Literature at the University ofSydney. She was a former student of theGeorges River College in Sydney. Thisis her first publication.

‘A brotherhood of nations’ crossing the Sydney bridge.Joris Ivens, still from INDONESIA CALLING!, 1946 ©Joris Ivens Archives / EFJI

‘A brotherhood of nations’ crossing the Sydney bridge.Joris Ivens, final sequence from INDONESIA CALLING!,1946 © Joris Ivens Archives / EFJI

12

Collection of posters restored and pre-served.

Since June 1997 the collection of film postersat the Foundation have been deposited in thevaults of the Regional Archive Nijmegen.Over the years this collection has been care-fully preserved and, if necessary, restored –finishing in June 2005. After arrival, allposters were checked and an inventory wasmade of all damage. In some cases the dam-age was quite serious, and varied from tearsand stains through to substantial damagecaused by crepe tape. About 70 posters plas-tered with this crepe tape were treated first.During the seventies, museums were recom-mending to archives around the world the

use of this crepe tape as it was considered asafe method to protect posters against tearson the edges and folders. But in the long run,the chemical effects of this tape turned out tobe disastrous. Crepe tape, also known aspainters tape, is based on synthetic rubberglue. This glue degrades very quickly andduring this process the paper is significantlydamaged. The adhesive oxidizes, followedby various stages of decline. Initially there isa period of little change, but when oxidationstarts the adhesive rapidly changes in bothcomposition and color – it becomes sticky,oily and discolored. Various elements get intothe paper and can even come through tobecome visible as dark lines on the back ofthe posters. It’s important that all crepe tapeis removed before reaching the final stage ofthe degrading process. If not, it’s very difficultor even impossible to remove the tape. Theadhesive hardens and gets brittle and thepaper will become very vulnerable. At first the tape was removed by immersingthe whole poster in kerosene, but later it wasdecided to remove the tape manually. Thesolvent used was odorless white spirit. Incases where the paper or ink didn’t permit theuse of solvents, the tape had to be removedmechanically.

As well as removing tape, tears wererestored and when necessary the paperstrengthened by doubling it with Japanesepaper, that has very thin, long fibres. Acidicpaper, which is very vulnerable, was rinsed tobring it back to an agreeable degree of acidi-ty, which extends the life of the posters.

During and after restoration, care is taken tostore the posters in acid free files. Posterswhich are too big to be stored in files arerolled up in acid free cardboard cylinders witha diameter of 10cm and stored in an acid freebox. This valuable collection is now preserved forthe future in the best possible way. Willemien Jansen, Head restoration depart-ment Regional Archive Nijmegen.

After restoration, BREED Documentconver-sie digitized all of the posters so that this col-lection will also be available in digital format.

Film poster PHILIPS RADIO for sale

In 2001, the film poster for PHILIPS RADIOwas chosen as the best Dutch film poster ofall time in a contest run by the film magazineSkrien. It was designed by Anneke van derFeer in 1930, and shows the aesthetics offunctional modernism, based on new ways ofdesign as represented by Piet Zwart andPaul Schuitema. The poster, which is part ofthe collection of the Joris Ivens Archives, hasbeen reproduced and published by theFoundation. The poster can be ordered for

7,50 euro, plus postage and packaging – 4euro for addresses in The Netherlands and 7euro for outside. Check it out on the shop page at our newwebsite: www.ivens.nl

Digitisation Joris Ivens Archives

After the digitisation of the Hans WegnerCollection (22,000 documents) was finishedlast year, the project was continued with thedigitization of the Joris Ivens Archive(100,000 documents). The company BREEDDocumentconversie from Nijmegen are spe-

cialists in digitizing extensive archival collec-tions, using a reliable security system andhighly qualified personnel. The huge archiveof documents was converted from analoguetext files into digital images. To improve theword search facility these images were con-verted into text files with OCR (OpticalCharacter Recognizing) meaning thatsearching for certain names or titles is nolonger like looking for a needle in a haystack.A lot of the documents in the Joris IvensArchives were made with a typewriter and forthis the OCR functions quite well. However,the OCR isn't 100% guaranteed, for examplewith hand written texts the OCR struggles torecognize requested words. The digital textfiles are being scanned in 100 and 300 dpi,meaning the Archives cover several harddisks of PDF files. For security reasons, alarge number of back-up DVD's are alsobeing made. These files can be searched ondemand from the Ivens website.

Personnel

On 1st October 2005, Huub Jansen finishedhis work at the Ivens Archives by completingthe inventory of the Marceline Loridan-IvensCollection. The collection is contained in 120boxes and covers almost all of Ivens’ filmsand interests, but with a particular focus onthe films made in Vietnam and China. Since2000, Jansen has worked as the archivecoordinator for listing the Hans WegnerCollection (2001), the Ewa Fiszer Collection(2004) and the Collection of the World Unionof Documentary and the InternationalAssociation of Documentarists. During thepast few years he has also managed severalassistants who worked on the photo collec-tions.

The Archives

Willemien Jansen, head restoration Regional ArchivesNijmegen, restoring the Ivens poster collection.

BREED working on the scanning of the Joris Ivens Archives

This Philips Radio poster can be ordered for 7,50 euro atwww.ivens.nl. The poster was designed by Anneke vander Feer in 1931 and choosen all time best Dutch filmposter.

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Subvention 2006-2008

After the positive notices in 2004, and againin April 2005 from the Council of Culture, inSeptember 2005 the Ministry of Education,Culture and Science approved the 2006-2008 policy plan and decided to continue thefinancial support. They gave their opinion ofthe Foundation: 'In many ways an exemplaryinstitution, dynamic, active and with a clearvision.' The next few years will see a broad changein the film field in the Netherlands becausethe ministry wants to create one, integralNetherlands Film Institute on the bank of theriver IJ, opposite the Central Station inAmsterdam. This national institute willinclude the Film Museum, Holland Film, theNetherlands Institute for Film Education, andother film institutes related to non-commer-cial distribution, film archiving and presenta-tion, promotion and marketing. Also the grantsystem – currently reviewed every four years-will change. Smaller institutions in particularwill have to apply to the Netherlands FilmFund for funding on more regular intervals. The Ministry advised the Foundation to for-mally co-operate with the Film Museum. Thisco-operation in fact already exists on manylevels, as the Foundation collaborates withseveral different departments within the FilmMuseum on projects like the DVD box set,restoration, distribution etc. The starting point the plan of the EuropeanFoundation Joris Ivens is the independentposition of the Foundation and the surplusvalue it created through the years by itsactive policy, organizing retrospectives, exhi-bitions, publications and research. By work-ing at a local level (collaborating with othercultural organizations in Nijmegen), on anational level (collaborating with the FilmMuseum and the Netherlands Institute forSound and Vision), and internationally (beinga member of FIAF), the Foundation hasproved the necessity of its existence. In thenext three years the Foundation will continueto improve and enlarge its core business - thearchive - by digitizing its collections for on-line consultation on request and continuingwith acquisition, listing and preservation.

Guusje ter Horst

After being a member of the Foundation forthree years, Guusje ter Horst decided toleave the board. It was not a shock decision,as it had been agreed from the start that onany occasion when a conflict could occurbetween her role as Mayor of Nijmegen andposition as a board member she would with-draw. For the next few years the municipalityof Nijmegen will support the Foundation withadditional funding to cover the extra costs of

renting the office in Het Arsenaal. This strongsupport for the Foundation actually forced theMayor to leave the board, but she will contin-ue supporting the Foundation.

New website

The Foundation’s bilingual website will beredesigned and modernized, to provide moretopical information, more news, and morebackground material (like essays). Becauseof the digitization of both the paper collectionand Ivens’ films, it will be possible in the nearfuture to make the resources of theFoundation available on-line and on demandfor research. Already THE BRIDGE andZUIDERZEEWERKEN can be seen online.The Hans Wegner Collection and Joris IvensArchive will also be made available online.

DVD

30 films have now been digitized for the JorisIvens DVD-box. Along with 15 Ivens classics,from RAIN up to UNE HISTOIRE DE VENT,there is bonus material including interviews,photos and several versions of the same film.The Foundation, who initiated the project, iscollaborating with the Film Museum, A-film(Amsterdam), Digital Film Center (DFC,Arnhem), ARTE (Paris) and Facets(Chicago). The production is very complicat-ed because of the search for best versions,the conservation of titles to get the bestsource material, copyright issues, digital for-mats and financial consequences. The boxset will be ready in spring 2006.

Dossier Ivens

Il Cinema Ritrovato, the film festival inBologna, will dedicate a Dossier Ivens to theDutchman’s rediscovered films. The Dossieris a special program of films focusing ongreat directors like Buñuel, Chaplin and oth-ers. Peter von Bagh, the program director,had already organized a Joris Ivens retro-spective twenty years ago at the HelsinkiFilm archive, for which occasion he wrote anessay in Finnish. The reason for this celebra-

tion, to be held in June 2006, was the disco-very of five films in the last few years thathave allowed film scholars to gain a greaterunderstanding of Ivens’ oeuvre.

Film Museum 1946 - 2006

In 1946, after the liberation, two film buffs,Piet Meerdink and Paul Kijzer, started a filmarchive. In March 1946, with only one film instock and screenings being held in studentart house cinemas, Paul Kijzer was able toconvince Henri Langlois to include this Dutchbranch as a member of FIAF. As they wereactually far too occupied with their own busi-nesses, they asked Kijzer’ nephew Jan deVaal to become the director. This pioneeringinstitution had to conquer many obstacles.When De Vaal retired 40 years later, he leftan enormous and marvelous collectionbehind. Highlights that received worldwideattention included the Desmet collection, theJoris Ivens Collections, old film posters, andcolonial films from the East Indies. To cele-brate both the 60th anniversary of the FilmMuseum and the achievements of Jan deVaal, the Foundation proposes to show anumber of de Vaal’s favorite films and publishhis innovative film programs.

The Foundation

Tineke de Vaal, Marceline Loridan-Ivens and Guusje terHorst in Nijmegen, May 2005 © Henk de Smidt, photoColl. EFJI

New website www.ivens.nl, design Walter van Rooij.

Ivens’ Chinese Connection

The tremendous political and artis-tic success of THE SPANISH EARTH was afactor in spurring Ivens to undertake aChinese project around June 1937. It was atthis time that Ivens read in American news-papers about the Japanese invasion ofChina. He decided to set off to China again,and after three months of travel, Ivens finallyarrived. However, this brave filmmaker ofSpanish Civil War action soon faced greaterobstacles than he could ever have imagined.Because of Kuomintang’s complex political

and philosophical considerations, Ivens couldnot reach the frontline at Yan’an, the basecamp of the Chinese communists. He felt thathe was only poking a small hole into the cur-tain covering the country at that time, and hehadn’t seen the real China. This arousedIvens’ strong desire to venture further intoChina.

Between 1957 and 1959, during theCold World War era, Ivens saw ideology, vic-tory parades, party bureaucracy and falsepolitical propaganda spread across socialistcountries in Russia and Eastern Europe.Ivens felt uneasy about socialism, even

though he was a believer in it. Although hecould use any technology, work to variousbudgets, film what he wanted to film, he stilldidn’t feel free in socialist countries. He felthe had already contributed his best efforts,and believed that he should go somewhereelse. At that moment, he was disillusionedwith socialism and communism. Ivensreturned to the capitalist west1 from EasternEurope and made THE SEINE MEETSPARIS in 1957. He even enjoyed sunbathingnear the Seine River.

Just when Ivens was not sure abouthis belief in socialism and not sure about him-self, the Great Leap Forward in China

Joris Ivens and ChinaSun Hongyun

‘Mummy, I’m going to fly away! To China!’ shouted a young JorisIvens, sitting inside his homemade airplane. This was the begin-ning scene of Ivens’ last film, A TALE OF THE WIND (1988). Ivens’airplane was only flying in his dreams, but China was Ivens’ dream-land.In China, a lot of people know Joris Ivens – the great master of doc-umentary film. Indeed, Ivens had an amazing relationship withChina for half a century. Ivens was there during the four majorchanges to China during the 20th Century, documenting thechanges with his camera as well as his personal opinions andobservation. He paid close attention to China all the time, and hecontributed a lot of his expertise and energy to the country. He hadamazing influence on the birth and later development of Chinesedocumentary films. In addition, Ivens was obsessed with Chinesephilosophy and art.Because of China, Ivens received many awards and earned a greatreputation in his field, but also suffered a long period of unem-ployment and misery.

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Film poster A TALE OF THE WIND, 1988. Coll. JIA/EFJI

brought a bright spot to his socialist beliefs.He considered working in the young socialistChina equally as important as visiting Russiain 1930 after the October Revolution.2 At thattime, Ivens believed China was making somesubstantial changes. Besides making great

advances in industry, agriculture and sci-ences, China was creating new kinds ofhuman beings. These human beings had areal understanding of socialism in their work,day to day living and human connection.3 Asa documentary filmmaker, Ivens felt he wasliving in a lively universe with these peoplewith their long history and abundance of cul-ture. Their history was one of continuousstruggle. The whole population took up theresponsibility of revolution.4

In 1958, Ivens made BEFORESPRING to reflect the spirit of this new China.

Throughout the film there were scenes repre-senting Ivens’ hope and confidence inChina’s future. At the beginning of the film,Ivens said, ‘I have a strong feeling a great eraof Chinese history has begun.’ At thatmoment, Ivens was impressed by Chinesepassion and their revolution.

Soon after the creation of the newChina, their government adopted the policy ofisolation. In the 1960s, the Chinese CulturalRevolution burst forth. It created a variety ofdifferent opinions in Western countries, butIvens himself was not aware of the situationin China. At the beginning of 1971, Ivensreceived an invitation from the Chinese PrimeMinister, Zhou En-lai, to visit China. ThePrime Minister asked Ivens to make a filmabout the Cultural Revolution. Zhou wantedIvens to show the real story of the CulturalRevolution. He said that it was fine to film thisunder-developed country as it was. Therewas no need to sugar coat it, but to presentthe truth.5

Soon after, in 1972, MichelangeloAntonioni traveled to China by governmentinvitation to film CHINA. During his five-weekstay, Antonioni said that he just wanted to geta picture of China and he can't offer more. Inthe eyes of Antonioni, Chinese were pes-simistic and not perfect. He expressed hisfeelings about China and experiences inChina in that film. The Chinese government,as the host, was very disappointed with thefilm. Therefore, his film was withdrawn soonafter its release. On the other hand, Ivens’film, HOW YUKONG MOVED THE MOUN-TAINS reflected the spiritual changes broughtby the Cultural Revolution. It became a por-trait of Chinese daily life with its manyaspects, and the benefits of the CulturalRevolution.6 YUKONG focused on industry,agriculture, school, business and military.The characters in the film included old crafts-men, professors, factory workers, soldiers,

women and high school students. It encom-passed every aspect of the campaign andspirit of the Cultural Revolution. Each part ofthe film did not just study the particular occu-pations. He tried to represent the centraltheme of Cultural Revolution by connectingdaily work and living with the overarchingphilosophical changes. It took five years forIvens and Marceline Loridan to completetwelve series of HOW YUKONG MOVEDTHE MOUNTAINS. The title of this film camefrom Chairman Mao’s philosophy of ‘Willingcan move mountains.’ With the swift changeof the political climate in China in 1976,YUKONG was never screened publicly inChina (even to this day) and almost com-pletely withdrawn from all movie theaters andTV propaganda after only a year and half ofshows, even though it took five years tomake. Soon after the YUKONG series actual-ly aroused a lot of criticism. Ivens, previouslya world famous name in documentary film-making, was even linked with that of anotherfilmmaker, Leni Riefenstahl, who was regard-ed as a Nazi for a time after World War II. Alot of nasty words were said about him. Somecalled him a liar, propagandist, Chineselunatic, blind follower of communism andeven cold-hearted campaign pusher. Thishurt Ivens and affected him emotionally, andthis film brought him unfair criticism, unem-ployment and poverty.

In the following ten years, Ivenslived in silence and misery. He hardly madeany film during this time. Although, time totime, the Chinese government told Ivens hewas: ‘welcome to come back to China, Chinais your home, you can come back anytime.’7

However, Ivens decided to stay in Paris andremain unemployed and poor. This was hisway of proving that he was independent andfree from the Chinese government, and thatYUKONG was not a government film. It washis own doing and incorporated his inde-pendent opinion.8 But the direct result of thereleasing of YUKONG to theaters was tenyears unemployment for Ivens and Loridan-Ivens in Europe. The turning point of his cri-sis was making another film, called A TALEOF THE WIND.9

A TALE OF THE WIND was alsoabout China. Ivens still viewed the Chineseland with cynicism and foreboding. But thistime, he focused more on Chinese traditionalarts and philosophy than the political sceneand social organizational changes. He triedto use dreamland and metaphysics to repre-sent his inner feelings. As a documentaryfilmmaker, he was always questioning, think-ing, pulsated and confused. Throughout the

film, the now old Ivens had striven hard topursue and enjoy the wind. In the end of ATALE OF THE WIND, Ivens gave a pose offarewell to his beloved China and departedafter a lifelong commitment to filmmaking.

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Film poster BEFORE SPRING, 1958 © Coll. JIA/EFJI

Robert Capa, Joris Ivens and John Ferno filming in China,1938. Coll. JIA/EFJI

Joris Ivens meeting Guo Moruo, vice president of NPC,together with Situ Huimin, vice-president of the FilmBureau, 1957.

Announcement of the screening of YUKONG in theBeijing Daily (1977). Coll. China Film Archive

LuSong-he, interpreter during the shooting of YUKONG ©Sun Hongyun

Joris Ivens and Marceline Loridan-Ivens meeting premierZhouen’Lai, 1977

Ivens’ Chinese films and 20th CenturyChinese history

The 20th Century was an era full of change inChina, giving birth to a new nation and endur-ing many struggles. Only Ivens’ films coverthe history of this period. THE 400 MILLION,BEFORE SPRING, HOW YUKONG MOVEDTHE MOUNTAINS and A TALE OF THEWIND reflected key moments of Chinese his-tory. Every part of his films was a small pieceof the 20th Century. China, during World WarII was an interesting place and country forwestern filmmakers. They came to China tofilm action and heroics. There was AmericanHarry Dunham’s CHINA STRIKES BACK(1937), Russian Roman Karmen’s CHINADEFENDS HERSELF (1938) and IN CHINA(1941), and Japanese Kamei Fumio’sSHANGHAI (1938). However, the most influ-ential film was Ivens’ THE 400 MILLION. Itnot only documented the misery broughtabout by the Japanese invasion, it alsoshowed the Chinese fighting back, such asthe bombing of Guangdong and the Battle ofTai-er. At that time, most of the Western coun-tries were not holding high hopes for theChinese to liberate themselves. Ivens had avery acute observation of the Chinese com-munist party and the common people. He feltthe enormous energy when they were work-ing together. His film reported many activitiesfrom North to South. It included a war plan-ning meeting of Chinese communist leadersin Wu’han, guerrilla war in the South, a train-ing session for Xi’an militia, and a rally for allsections of the population. Whatever Ivensfilmed, from Guangdong to Xi’an, fromShandong province to Gansu province, it pre-sented a more complete representation of theperiod of the Chinese - Japan War than anyother film. Therefore the historical imagesfrom THE 400 MILLION have become veryimportant in China. Although Ivens was notsatisfied with the film, it showed to Americansthe truth behind the Chinese fighting againstthe Japanese invasion.

EARLY SPRING was a film about apolitical movement after the establishment ofthe new China under the Communist Party.However, Ivens did not give too much atten-tion to people’s communes and the GreatLeap Forward. He filmed everyday lives andtheir changes from Inner Mongolia’s Hailar toWu’xi, a city in Zhejiang Province after the

creation of the new China. It was a poem writ-ten by Ivens’ Camera. Ivens used this film todescribe the happiness of people when theycould control their own lives. He reflected theeagerness of people contributing to thesocialist society. However, at that time Ivenscould not know of the complexity of thepolitical climate as a foreign filmmaker. Hewas just obsessed in the utopia of Chinesepropagandizing. This is particularly evident inthe commentary for this film, which was com-posed by a Chinese film worker, as it reflect-ed some of the character of The Great LeapForward, with its exaggeration and craziness.

YUKONG is a great example to usewhen discussing the relationship between thetruthfulness of history and documentary films.It’s not easy for historians to describe theChinese Cultural Revolution, how can peopleunderstand and criticize objectively? The‘objective’ observation of the film process has

different definitions between Ivens’ YUKONGand Antonioni’s CHINA. Ivens tried todescribe China in YUKONG with a profes-sional spirit of reality. However, perhaps hisstrong passion for the movement towards autopian society in China blinded his view.Maybe Ivens did not show the real conditionof China in that era. We cannot find out aboutChinese history from his YUKONG. Howmany people actually believed that Chinawas achieving its great dreams, many! Ivenswas not an historian. We cannot say Ivens’YUKONG tells all the truth of that revolution-ary era. Unfortunately, we can only say thatIvens and Marceline tried to use the mostadvanced filming techniques to describe thehistory. They believed that they were doingtheir best to describe the history of that peri-od with great reality. A Chinese filmmaker Wu

Wenguang, who actually experienced theCultural Revolution, talked about the truth ofYUKONG. He noticed that many sceneswere artificially arranged; but he is sure thatwas Chinese society and folks experiencedtruth---willingly took rearrange all things forgranted in that period.10 It was the historicvalue that YUKONG is.

A TALE OF THE WIND seems tohave nothing to do with Chinese history.There are some scenes of the farmer bar-gaining and counting money, the modernstyle marriage of a young couple, the farmwoman singing a popular song, operasingers, a gymnastics show and the speechof a small town government official. It showedcontrasts between traditional and modern,positive and negative, and openness andconservativeness. Sarcastically, Ivens pre-sented the revolution of China in the 1980susing his own interpretation. It is here, thatyou can notice how Ivens was deeply hurtfrom the criticism of his previous film,YUKONG.

Ivens and Chinese Ancient Culture

Ivens adored Chinese culture andphilosophy before his arrival in the country.He read some Chinese poetry before hisChina trip in 1938. In the film, THE 400 MIL-LION, Ivens revealed his interest in ancientChinese culture, where he describedChinese history and it included four sculpturefigures in front of the Confucius temple. InBEFORE SPRING, he presented the specialcharacteristics of Chinese paintings, folktoys, dragon dance, flying kites, origami, etc.This film was just like a Chinese poetry. Itwas the observation of happiness beforespring arrived. Also the contents of three ofthe twelve films from YUKONG -REHEARSAL AT THE PEKING OPERA,TRAINING AT THE PEKING CIRCUS, andTRADITIONAL HANDICRAFTS - obviouslyreflected his deep appreciation of ancientChinese culture.

Let us look at the other aspect ofhis film career in China. It seems he facedobstacles at every filming opportunity. In1938, the Kuomingtan Party forced him toleave China before he finished his film. In1958, Ivens turned down the suggestion fromthe government to film a people’s commune,choosing instead to film BEFORE SPRING.Although he had great empathy with China,Marceline and he had to fight to gain theopportunity to film real working people duringthe filming of YUKONG. The un-openness ofancient Chinese culture and the intricacies of

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YUKONG was screened at the Working People’s Palaceof Culture in Beijing, 1977

Qin Liren, second lead during the shooting of theYUKONG-series © Sun Hongyun

The monkey king, still from A TALE OF THE WIND, 1988 © Capi-films

Chinese personal relationships frustratedIvens’ filming at every turn. On the otherhand, the profound Chinese culture and fan-tasy of Chinese philosophy inspired Ivenschange from focusing on revolutions andsocial changes to Chinese culture and phi-losophy. He started to pursue the meaning oflife through Chinese tales and arts into theinner workings of Chinese philosophy.

Hence, in A TALE OF THE WIND, itwas a meeting between Ivens and China. Init, the hero wanders through the history andculture of China. Ivens ascended the philoso-phy of Chinese arts from the pure apprecia-tion of Chinese culture in the film. Ivens foundthe similarity between Chinese wind and hispersonal spirit. Within Chinese philosophy,the wind represented Ivens’ pursuit of free-dom and dignity. The bravery, smartness,defiantness of the mystical monkey king(Soung wu-kong) became the symbol of hispursuit for justice and ideals. In this film, hesadly said, “Folks called me cloud and rain,but I was just a breath of air in China.”

In A TALE OF THE WIND, Ivensportrayed himself. The old man rushedacross the Chinese desert, mountains, andrivers in efforts to chase the wind. He wan-dered in the dreamland of fairy tales, walkinghand in hand with his younger self in thesupernatural film. He dreamed about flyingand dreamed about China at that time. In the1920s, he concentrated on the Frontiermovements and glorified industrial progress.In the 1930s, he was crazy about communistmovement. He used the camera to partici-pate in the struggle against oppression and

inequality. In the 1940s, his name was on theblack list of the Federal Bureau ofInvestigation, and then he had to leave hishomeland. During the 1950s, when socialismwas smashed, Ivens left the Western worldwith mystification and gloom. In the 1960sand 1970s, he carried his camera to pursuejustice and the ideals he now thought again.However, he was badly hurt soon after therelease of YUKONg. All the sorrow was dissi-pated by the desert wind in the film – A TALEOF THE WIND. In this film, Ivens waited forwind in the desert, meditated in front ofBuddha even though he spent his childhoodin a catholic family. He chased the wind ontop of the Yellow Mountain and laughed at thesky during a strong wind.

Ivens’ influence on Chinese documentaryfilms

Ivens was one of the most impor-tant founders and developers of Chinesedocumentary films. Throughout the 20th cen-tury, almost every step of Chinese documen-tary development had some connection withIvens. He sent a small movie camera to theYan’an Film Group with the help of PrimeMinister Zhou En-Lai, at Wu’han City in 1938.This was because he could not reach Yan’anto make the film himself. The Yan’an FilmGroup soon made their first film, YAN’ANAND BA-LU-JUN, which was the greatest filmabout fighting against the Japanese invasionof China at the time. Most of the sections ofthis film were shot with Ivens’ camera. Afterthe establishment of the People’s Republic ofChina, BEFORE SPRING was filmed whileIvens was teaching Chinese documentaryfilmmakers to film color documentary film. Inthe 1970s, Ivens and Loridan introduced newdocumentary film aesthetics to China - cine-ma-verite and direct cinema. Old styleChinese documentary filmmakers weretrained for several months, and it led achange in their documentary film makingmethod. They started synchronous recording,to study objects carefully, catch the bestshots while the activities were happening, toparticipate in the events, pursuing the natureand variety of the visual. The whole of the filmcrew was Chinese except Ivens and Loridan.They called this filming period a movableCinema-verite school. Documentary scholarThomas Waugh said, “A whole new era inChinese film making has expanded by theappearance of YUKONG.”12

Ten years later, in the 1980s, Ivensfilmed A TALE OF THE WIND. This film broke

down the barrier between both fiction anddocumentary film, and dream and truth. Ivenstried to look for truth between dreamland andmetaphysical land. Once again, Ivensbrought a new film making idea to China.

Besides filming, Ivens was invitedto lecture Chinese filmmakers and to be anadvisor to the Central News & DocumentaryFilm Studio and Beijing Film Academy. Histeaching had a lasting influence on Chinesefilmmaking communities and they also learnta lot from his vast experience. He helped withthe filming of THE INDIGNATION OF 600MILLION PEOPLE. And his devotion to thedevelopment of Chinese documentaries wasalso very important and meaningful. Thoseeducated by Ivens turned out to be the lead-

ers of the Chinese film industry for the nexttwo decades. Even today, some of the mostwell known television programs, such asWorldwide Watch, Culture Express and Tellthe Truth clearly show the influence of Ivens’cinema-verite.

Notes

1 Joris Ivens, in the Camera and I (Chinese Film

Publisher), p. 294.2 Joris Ivens, in the Camera and I (Chinese Film

Publisher), p. 297.3 Joris Ivens, in the Camera and I (Chinese Film

Publisher), p. 297.4 Joris Ivens, in the Camera and I (Chinese Film

Publisher), p. 297.5 Joris Ivens, in The Memory of A Vision (Beijing Film

Academy in 1989-6, p. 106)6 The interviewee Lu Song-he, who was Chinese inter-

preter of Ivens during filming Yukong.7 The interviewee Situ Zhao-dun, who was Ivens’ good

friend in China.8 The interviewee Qian Li-ren, who was the second lead of

the Yukong film group.9 Marceline Loridan’s speech at Ivens’ 100th birthday cel-

ebrations in China.10 ‘Make camera lens like your eyes’, Shanghai Literary

Express, p. 8311 Filming the Cultural Revolution, New Challenges for

Documentary, edited by Alan Rosenthal P149

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Film scholar Sun Hongyun, a lecturerat Beijing Union University, studied atthe College of Arts and Media atBeijing Normal University in documen-tary aesthetics, and publishedAesthetical Characteristics of HowYukong Moved the Mountains, onJoris Ivens, Documentary films’ func-tion in the World War, New documen-tary and Fahrenheit 9/11. She also co-directed CHINA IN THE EYES OFIVENS and JORIS IVENS for CCTV.

Deng Yingchao (the wife of Zhouen’Lai), vice president ofthe National People’s Congress, meeting Joris Ivens andMarceline Loridan-Ivens. Mr. Situ Huimin at the left. Coll.China Film Archive

Joris Ivens and Marceline Loridan surrounded by theirChinese audience at the premiere of the YUKONG-seriesin Beijing, 1977

Joris Ivens and Marceline Loridan-Ivens visiting vice-pre-mier DengXiaoping in 1979. Coll. China Film Archive.

Mao Zedong being filmed in Yan’an by the camera JorisIvens left behind, 1938. Coll. JIA/EFJI

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I am Tani Barlow. I teach Chinesehistory and thought at the University ofWashington in Seattle, USA. With DonaldLowe (San Francisco State University,retired), Wang Hui (Qinghua University),Alessandro Russo and Claudia Pozzana(both University of Bologna), I am hostingAlain Badiou at a February 2006 conferencecalled ‘Is a History of the Cultural RevolutionPossible?’ in Seattle. Within the context ofthis conference the Ivens/Loridan master-piece HOW YUKONG MOVED THE MOUN-TAINS (1976) is important to us.

The Chinese Cultural Revolutionwas a large-scale, tragic, history-alteringevent. It was also a central political momentof the lives of a generation of people, mostlyin China but also in Europe, the United Statesand Latin America. It transformed the waythat the generations of the 1960’s – acrossthe world – would think about cultural politics,as well as the role of the political party in gov-ernment, the relationship between culturalexpression and political power, righting theinequitable relation of men and women and ahost of other Mao Zedong thought-inspiredpositions that have since become social andtheoretical questions. Our conference focus-es on three related problems. One, why is itso difficult to think about the CulturalRevolution and what would be a better way ofwriting the history of that event? Two, did theCultural Revolution leave behind anythingpolitically useful or culturally significant to sal-vage? Three, how did late 1960s MaoZedong fever, particularly in France, changethe course of European philosophy?

There are several reasons whyscreening YUKONG is so important. First,seeing the documentary film will help disrupta well established tendency to see the MaoistCultural Revolution in black and white terms,because YUKONG documents mundanepolitical drama. It presents us with a com-plexity that has been lost in the bitterpolemics of the post-Mao era. Viewing HOWYUKONG MOVED THE MOUNTAINS nowwill return politics to a day to day issue,where it can be seen more clearly and recon-sidered. Second, some of the Chinese peo-ple who participated in making the film arestill alive. Re-examining their lives sinceIvens made the film may be possible. In anycase, viewers today can indirectly considerthe mixture of truth and theater that theactors in the mid-seventies, brought to theirfilm performances. Third, the fate of political-ly engaged art and philosophy hangs in thebalance. The great tradition of engaged cine-matic art has been reborn in China.Documentary style cinema verite is a leadingsector in the arts scene. The socio-economic‘Great Transformation’ of the Chinese polityhas brought into being a thriving art move-ment that is seeking to document the lives ofthe poor, migrant, minoritized or dislocated,as well as the everyday experiences of ordi-nary rural or urban people. In this way,although obviously not directly in a cause andeffect relation, HOW YUKONG MOVED THEMOUNTAINS is a progenitor of filmmakers inChina today. And what happens in thePeople’s Republic engages moviegoerseverywhere. Fourth, the drama of presentday Chinese ‘development’ and its neo-liber-al high tide is anything but benign: HOW

YUKONG MOVED THE MOUNTAINS is agit-prop art, and as art, it carries a political her-itage that should not be forgotten in thesetimes.

One of the unanticipated results oforganizing ‘Is a History of the CulturalRevolution Possible?’ has been the tremen-dous interest that younger scholars, particu-larly in the United States, have alreadyshown for rethinking the failed ‘cultural revo-lution.’ In his poignant essay, ‘Love what youwill never believe twice,’ Alain Badiou arguedthat from political catastrophes we inheritproblems, not solutions. It is important toremember what impels us to act, even cata-strophically. Some of the questions thatBadiou has set for the Chinese CulturalRevolution are relatively esoteric. Theyinvolve rethinking categories of ‘the event,’fidelity to truth, the problem of the so-called‘historical sequence’ and so on. But for theless philosophically inclined, the question ofwhether a history of the Cultural Revolution ispossible is also important. If it is possible todocument what led millions and millions ofpeople all over the globe to take a radicalroad toward desired social equality and anti-capitalism in the late 1960s, then perhapstwo previously obscured promissory notescan appear as redeemable. We can ask whyrevolution became repression. We can thinkagain about a future post-capitalist world atleast in part because we have inherited thefailures and successes of the ChineseCultural Revolution. The problems of Chinaare everyone’s problems. Massive urbanpoverty, a rotting rural world, college gradu-ates driving taxis, acute problems of gover-nance and the world’s most inequitable divi-sion of national wealth. HOW YUKONGMOVED THE MOUNTAINS documents afailed attempt to address crises that have notgone away. Its value to our today and tomor-row is vast.

“Is a History of the Cultural RevolutionPossible? A Workshop in Concert with AlainBadiou,” will be held at the University ofWashington, Seattle, on February23-25, 2006. Prof. Tani Barlow, Departmentof History, Box 353560, University ofWashington, Seattle, WA 98195, email tobarlow@u.washington.edu

The Importance of YUKONG to usTani Barlow

Chinese film poster HOW YUKONG MOVED THEMOUNTAINS, 1979. Coll. JIA/EFJI

Tani Barlow

American film poster HOW YUKONG MOVED THEMOUNTAINS, 1979. Coll. JIA/EFJI

French film poster HOW YUKONG MOVED THE MOUN-TAINS, 1979. Coll. JIA/EFJI

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This would have pleased the filmmaker: hiswork was being presented to future mediascholars who studied it intensively, in the citywhere he co-founded the documentary film fes-tival, but also fell out of favour. This seminar onthe documentary films of Joris Ivens lasted forfour months during the winter semester of2004/2005. Film scholar Judith Kretzschmarconducted the lectures, which took place withinthe framework of the research project 'JorisIvens and Germany', funded by the DEFAFoundation.

Joris Ivens - who is he?It was one year ago that I got acquainted withJoris Ivens. I was browsing the university home-page looking for a seminar on 'media science'that would be relevant to my studies in journal-ism when my eyes fell upon this title: 'The docu-mentary works of Joris Ivens and his influenceon German film art.' I thought: Who the hell isJoris Ivens? One mouse click later and I wasregistered, a little curious, but above all happy tohave finally found a course of suitable lectures.

Entry into the unknownEvery Wednesday of the winter semesterbecame my ‘Joris Ivens day.’ Once a week,between 11am and 1pm, 15 students met withour teacher Judith Kretzschmar. The first ses-sion on October 13th brought reassuring recog-nition - I wasn't alone in my ignorance. Hardlyany of my fellow students had ever heard ofIvens, nobody had seen his films. Only a fewhad done some research on the internet. TodayI'm amazed that Ivens’ name or achievementsare not known around Leipzig, despite hisimportant status, or for the documentary filmfestival if nothing else, but at the start of thecourse I wasn't aware of these things. That firstWednesday we received a schedule for theseminar, covering his complete oeuvre byFebruary, from THE BRIDGE till A TALE OFTHE WIND, and we selected topics for reports.At almost every meeting one or two studentswould report on a preferred theme or film.Personally I was curious about the theme 'JorisIvens and the GDR' focussing on the eventswhich took place during the LeipzigDocumentary Film festival 1968 and the filmHOW YUKONG MOVED THE MOUNTAINS:THE PHARMACY, which was banned in 1983.Thanks to the teachings of and discussions withour lecturer, I had the feeling that this could beexciting and educational. I hadn't seen the filmyet, but I applied for this assignment with a fel-low student. I wasn't disappointed.

The borders of a filmmakerOur curriculum had a chronological order, so westarted with Ivens' biography. From the verybeginning, a vivid discussion broke out aboutthe issue of what a documentary filmmakershould do. 'I think, one can say, that documen-tary film is an emotional representation of facts.An audience can try to be objective, but a docu-mentary filmmaker shouldn't' - this quotationfrom a lecture given by Ivens in 1939, made usreflect in what way authenticity, manipulationand propaganda could have played a role in

Ivens' films. Ivens’ subjective approach, at atime when people attended film theatres to beboth entertained and informed, seemed doubtfulto some students. Other students argued thatdocumentary film, despite all this, is an art form,and should be free. This issue haunted usduring many meetings, for instance when dis-cussing KOMSOMOL, FRIENDSHIP WINS andBORSZY. PHILIPS-RADIO, CREOSOTE,SONG OF RIVERS, MY CHILD, THE WINDROSE and a film made by GDR television in1964 (MENSCHEN AM PULSSCHLAG DERZEIT: JORIS IVENS), were also shown andinstigated many exciting discussions.The first films, which we saw in full length, wereTHE BRIDGE and RAIN. After a short introduc-tion to avant-garde and experimental films it wasall systems go! While outside the first Novembersnow was falling, our eyes were fixed to thescreen and the aesthetics of Ivens' rain shots.With the help of a sequence protocol we'd beenanalysing separate film sequences, starting withplayful sunlights on water surfaces of the canalsof Amsterdam through to dripping rain drops andimpressions of flowing water in the finalsequence. To this day these images still strikeme when cycling through large puddles on theuneven streets of the old Leipzig inner city.As we were dealing with so many films, wefocussed on some specific aspects - a femalestudent thoroughly researched the score ofKOMSOMOL, composed by Hanns Eisler, whowas born in Leipzig in 1898. That score couldpaint Farmers in a positive light – and thelabouring classes played an essential role inIvens' turn to political filmmaking. 'Ivens as adocumentary filmmaker in the service of theSoviet Union' was the main theme of three ses-sions, followed by a series of six lectures on'Ivens in the service of DEFA.' The DEFA pro-duction PEACE CYCLE TOUR WARSAW-BERLIN-PRAGUE attracted different reactions.While some laughed about the really patheticand rhetorical commentary of the voiceover, oth-ers were very disappointed that Ivens couldhave made such an 'unartistic' film. We hadmany discussions on this matter as well.

Scandal in LeipzigIn December we started preparing for our reportto be handed in on January 26th. Our teacherJudith Kretzschmar provided us – just like all theother students - with a lot of information, docu-ments, papers and references concerning oursubject. These included clippings from Germanand international newspapers in which theDocumentary Film Festival in Leipzig 1968 wasdescribed and reviewed; a copy of the Festivalconcept from the State archives; letters anddeclarations about screenings of disapprovedfilms; informative papers about the problemswith the Academy of Science in 1983; variousbooks; and the tape of HOW YUKONG MOVEDTHE MOUNTAINS: THE PHARMACY. We setup the presentation in two parts with the title‘From Icon to Persona non grata: Joris Ivensand the GDR.’ In the first part we explainedabout the events in Leipzig 1968; we printed ahandout with the case history and the conse-quences of the scandal. In the second part weswitched to the Eighties, and showed significantparts from THE PHARMACY and discussed thescreening during the retrospective of 1983 in theever changing relationship between Ivens and

the GDR. During the holidays, many studentscontinued working at home to strengthen essen-tial aspects of their reports.

After 16 weeks….The final film, which was presented under thetheme 'From politics towards poetry' was ATALE OF THE WIND. Ivens said about workingon this film: 'I felt as if I were in the avant-gardeagain, like when I was a young man and makingRAIN.' With this, the cycle of films, which we hadstarted in autumn 2004, came full circle. Weanalysed this film together and speakersexplained about symbols and metaphors like thewind and the monkey king Sun Wugang. Allagreed that A TALE OF THE WIND is one of themost poetic and beautiful films Ivens made.Ivens' changing political views played a largerole in our closing lectures. When at the endJudith Kretzschmar asked us what we had likedor disliked about this course, many people stat-ed that studying Ivens had given much joy. Thiswas because it was rare on a university courseto get an opportunity to become acquainted withsuch a broad field of thought and topics relatedto the oeuvre of one single person. Also wenoted that much still needs to be discovered –especially for us, who hadn’t known too muchabout Ivens only one year earlier – but we hadmade a start. This seminar was the first, but cer-tainly not the last, time that we will study Ivens -and it is hoped that this filmmaker will regainpopularity not only in Leipzig, but also in the restof Germany.

Today on our timetable: IvensA seminar at the Leipzig University introducedJoris Ivens to a new generation of students

Frederike Haupt

Judith Kretzschmar at the Leipzig University

Joris Ivens received an honorary doctorate from theLeipzig University (at that time Karl-Marx-University) on18 November 1968. In the same year he became personanon grata in East-Germany. © Reinhard Podszuweit

Joris Ivens celebrating his 70th anniversary during theLeipzig documentary filmfestival, 1968.© Reinhard Podszuweit

1 City film contestOn 19th November the winners of the Cityfilmcontest received the Joris Ivens AwardNijmegen 2005, one for the best amateur film(2,000 euro) and best professional film (5,000euro). In February 2005, 100 film projectsapplied for this contest. Nominees got financialsupport and workshops to make their films. Atthe end 42 films were submitted to fight for thefirst prize, made up of feature films as well asserious, historical or hilarious documentaries.All films are related to the city of Nijmegen,inspired by Joris Ivens, who started his filmcareer by creating vanguard city films like THEBRIDGE (1928) and RAIN (1929). Director JosStelling, who debuted with a film on the famousNijmegen mediaeval story MARIKEN VANNIEUMEGHEN (1974) and made THE FLYINGDUTCHMAN (1995), a project Ivens wouldhave liked to make himself but never succeed-ed, presented the prize. This contest was initi-ated by the Foundation and well organized byBram Relouw in co-operation with other cultur-al organizations in Het Arsenaal, like DZIGA.This event proves that local film culture is aliveand kicking.Supported by: Foundation Nijmegen 2000,Municipality of Nijmegen, Province ofGelderland and the Prince Bernhard Fund.

2 A travel along the tidesWhen the queen visited Nijmegen on 3rd Junea 'Travel along the tides' was created to pres-ent the impressive history of the town. All kindof tableaux vivants and living statues showedhistorical moments and people. Together withvolunteers from the local film archive‘Nijmegen Blijft in Beeld’, the Foundation creat-ed a set with a replica of the subjective camera(made by Henk de Smidt) Joris Ivens used in1928. They also shot some film with old cam-eras and a tableaux vivant about RAIN attract-ed the interest of the audience.

3 Living statuesWhen 45,000 walkers ended their four daysmarch on July 22nd, they were welcomed byhundred thousands of fans. A special tribunewas decorated with living statues to presentimportant people from the history of Nijmegen,like Joris Ivens (third from the right side). Alocal contest to elect the 'Greatest citizen inNijmegen’s history' resulted in a top ten placefor Joris Ivens.

Crazy on Nijmegen, 2000 yearsthe oldest city in theNetherlandsNijmegen, Joris Ivens’ birthplace, celebrated its second millenniumanniversary in 2005. This celebration created enormous enthu-siasm to organize cultural events and festivities. The history ofNijmegen goes all the way back to the Romans who founded theirLimes - the northern border of the empire - along the river Waal. Itwas here that Constantine the Great put his footmarks in theground, Charlemagne built a castle, Louis the Pious dividedEurope and the Byzantine empress Theophano gave birth to twochildren. On the same spot emperor Frederick Barbarossa built aneven bigger castle. Only two hundred meters away from this castlethe three Limbourg brothers were born, the miniaturists of worldfamous books like the Très Riches Heures de Duc de Berry (1412-1416). These brothers stand at the cradle of the famous Dutch tra-dition of painters, just like Nijmegen-born Ivens stands at the cradleof Dutch film art. The Foundation initiated a number of activities,like the City film contest, lectures, screenings and publications.

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© De Gelderlander / Flip Franssen

Photo Richard van Megen / Nijmegen Blijft in Beeld

Film maker Jos Stelling presented the Joris Ivens AwardNijmegen 2005 on November 19th

4 Premiere of LA PETITE PRAIRIEAUX BOULEAUX On the occasion of the national commemora-tion of the victims of the Second World War(May 4th) the Foundation organized the firstscreening in Holland of the feature filmMarceline Loridan-Ivens made aboutAuschwitz. The director herself introduced thisautobiographical film and answered questionsafterwards. The screening was attended by theMayor of Nijmegen, Guusje ter Horst and theGerman and French consuls. This event wasorganized in collaboration with Studio Canaland A-Film.

5 PublicationsThe art history department of the RadboudUniversity of Nijmegen, published a specialissue of their magazine Desipientia on themost important moments and artists in local arthistory in which an article about Ivens tracedthe influence of his birthplace on his filmcareer. The local historical society Numagapublished in its annual book a special articleabout the Ivens family and the festivity culturein Nijmegen, the most northern Burgundian cityof Holland. Various lectures on Ivens andNijmegen were also presented.

6 TelevisionThe regional broadcasting TV channelGelderland made a special documentary onIvens in June. The popular series 'History Bus'on historical subjects, seen by 400,000 view-ers, showed interviews with Marceline Loridan-Ivens in Paris, and Tineke de Vaal and AndréStufkens in the archives. After intensiveresearch, striking footage of Ivens, interviewsand film sequences were included. The film willbe put online on the Ivens website.

7 ‘Limbourg Brothers, Nijmegenmasters at the French court, 1400-1416’The Limbourg Brothers are considered to beamong the top ten artists of all time, along withsuch luminaries as Rembrandt andMichelangelo. Six hundred years after theirdeparture from Nijmegen to the courts of va-rious Dukes in France, four of the six knownbooks of hours they worked on, returned to theNijmegen Museum Het Valkhof. With master-pieces from the Metropolitan Museum of Art inNew York, the Louvre, the BibliothèqueNationale de France, the Biblioteca ApostolicaVaticana, the collection of Queen Elisabeth II,the J. Paul Getty Museum and Berlin GemäldeGalerie, the exhibition provided a once-in-a-lifetime-event. These catholic brothers left forFrance like Joris Ivens did, giving special atten-tion to workers and farmers, with amazinglyrealistic detail. Despite innovative realism theirart doesn't represent historical truth, it is anidealized representation of 'good governance'by a brutal and violent ruler - Maecenas, theDuke of Berry. Like Ivens’ films these minia-tures show a utopian realism, with respect fordaily life and trivial aspects. André Stufkens ini-tiated the Foundation Limbourg Brothers in2002, which started the events to forever linkthese prodigal sons to Holland and Nijmegen.In fact, just like Joris Ivens became part of itscultural history after decades of negligence.Queen Beatrix opened the exhibition on 26thAugust. From left to right: André Stufkens,chairman of the Foundation LimbourgBrothers, Jacques Thielen, president of theFoundation Nijmegen 2000 and queen Beatrix.For further information (also in English, Frenchand German): www.gebroedersvanlimburg.nl

The premiere of LA PETITE PRAIRIE AUX BOULEAUX in Nijmegen © Bram Relouw / EFJI

The Joris Ivens Place with the Joris Ivens monument during the festivities July 2005 © De Gelderlander / Gerard Verschooten

Marlies Claasen in the Joris Ivens Archives, film still from‘The History bus’

André Stufkens, Jaques Thielen and queen Beatrix. Withcourtesy of Gerard Verschooten.

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In a post-colonial world it is hard tocredit the claim that a Dutchman, workingwith a European crew, could make the firstfilm of an African nation's film culture. It iseven stranger when the country is Mali,which despite being among the poorestAfrican nations has such a rich film culture.For Moussa Sidibé, who was closely involvedin making DEMAIN À NANGUILA, it could nothave been anything other than an Africanfilm. 'It was the first time we had thought ofthe cinema,' he explained.1 'It was theSoudan, it was internal autonomy [withinFrench West Africa], we weren’t even inde-pendent yet. So, it was the first time thatAfricans had made films, that Africans werein the film milieu.'

It is not entirely clear where the pro-posal for making the film originated. It wascommissioned by the government estab-lished to take the Federation of Mali to inde-

pendence during 1960, working through aproduction company, the Société Franco-Africain de Cinéma. However, it seems thatthis company was established in order to pro-duce the film, and it is likely that the idea orig-inated with the writer, Catherine Varlin, in dis-cussion with government officials. In anycase, it was the Société Franco-Africain deCinéma that approached Joris Ivens in April1960, with a proposal for a film on modernagricultural methods in the Sudan.2

Ivens had finished his Italian docu-mentary in 1959, edited the Marc Chagallfilm, recently returned from teaching in China,and was planning his first trip to Cuba. He

was also itching to make progress with hislongstanding project to film the Mistral.However, the independence movement thatwas sweeping Africa was very attractive tohis sense of history. 'It was absolutely neces-sary that I go down there,’ he told the maga-zine Afrique Action.3 'I sensed that veryimportant things for the future of humanitywere happening there.' That said, he had noexperience in filming in Africa. There is a sub-stantial sequence from the Sudan in SONGOF THE RIVERS (1954), dealing with effortsto unionise the workers, but as with much ofthat project the filming was done by otherhands.

He arrived in Bamako, capital ofwhat is now the Republic of Mali, at thebeginning of May 1960. His camera operatorfor the project was Louis Miaille, who hadconnections with the production companyand had recently worked with Jean Rouch on

LA PYRAMIDE HUMAINE (1959), an impro-vised fiction set in Abidjan. Also on the teamwere Pierre Gueguen, Marc Champion, LouisGueguen and Paul Seban (standing in forTinto Brass, Ivens' assistant director fromITALY IS NOT A POOR COUNTRY andassistant-editor from MARC CHAGALL, whohad fallen ill at the last minute).4

Moussa Sidibé became involvedearly on in the project. He had been conduct-ing demographic and sociological surveys forthe government in the Upper Niger Valley,where the filming was to take place. He wasasked by his project director to accompanyIvens and the others as they looked for loca-

tions, and to liaise with community leaders,since French was not widely spoken andnone of the Europeans spoke Bambara.From there he went with Ivens to Bamako,having become a sort of adviser to the pro-duction. The more Sidibé got involved inpreparations, the more impressed Ivensbecame. ‘During a test, I saw that the chil-dren involved didn’t know what to do,’ Sidibéexplained, ‘so I tried to show them what theyhad to do for the camera. It was while I wasdoing that that Joris Ivens decided on me.‘‘Monsieur Sidibé, I’m going to take you on asan actor.” It began like that.’

He took the leading role in the film,playing under his own name a much less re-

Mali, birth of a nation,birth of a cinema

Joris Ivens made only one film in Africa, but DEMAIN À NANGUILAcaught the spirit of independence so well that it inspired a nationto take control of its own screens. DEMAIN À NANGUILA is littleknown among Joris Ivens' films and has rarely been screened inEurope. However in Mali, where it was made in 1960, it is seen asthe first film in the nation's cinematic history. It was shown inmobile cinemas across the country during the 1960s, and its suc-cess inspired the government to set up a national film productionservice. Rediscovered in the 1990s, the film continues to be cele-brated by the government and critics alike.

Ian Mundell

Girl of Nanguila © Joris Ivens Archives / EFJI Detail of the Mali-map used by Ivens, the village ofNanguila marked with a circle.

Sidibé Moussa acting in DEMAIN À NANGUILA © JorisIvens Archives / EFJI

Girl from Nanguila acting in DEMAIN À NANGUILA ©Joris Ivens Archives / EFJI

putable character. The Sidibé in the film is liv-ing a fast life in Bamako, when an accidentputs him in hospital and into the hands of thelaw. He is sent to a re-education centrewhere he resentfully learns to plough, buildhuts and grow fruit, before being releasedinto the care of his brother. The only way tobeat government authority is to submit tofamily authority, and he must return to live inhis village, Nanguila, far from the bright lightsof Bamako. The attractions of village life arefew and far between for Sidibé, particularlywhen the girl he has his eye on marries anolder, richer man. But he slowly gets caughtup in the mobilization that is bringing newfarming methods to the region, eventuallyrebelling against family authority to join inbuilding a new irrigation project. In the end heleaves Nanguila, returning – to everyone’ssurprise – to the re-education centre he wasso keen to escape a few months before.

The extent of Catherine Varlin’scontribution is, again, unclear, since her initialscenario has not been preserved in Ivens’archive. He described it as dealing with ‘theadventures of a young African newly graduat-ed from a centre for agricultural training’. But,characteristically, Ivens made changes oncehe started to get to know the place and thepeople he would be filming. 'I had veryenriching and instructive contacts with theAfricans, and I had to take their suggestions

into account,’ he said.5 ‘Sidibé, our lead actor,was a marvelous collaborator through thewhole filming. He organized and directed allof the scenes that we filmed in Bambara.'

For Moussa Sidibé, it was this col-laboration and the detail included that makethe film African rather than European, fromthe purely local events that are shown takingplace in Nanguila to development projectsthat are brought to the village. Ivens alsoemphasized that the events he showed wereall based on reality, with, for instance, the vil-lage elders playing themselves and a wed-ding filmed by chance being worked into thestory.6 He defended the singing and dancing

in the film, particularly the women singing toencourage the men as they dig the irrigationworks, as an accurate reflection of the wayAfricans express themselves rather than anexternal desire for the exotic.

'I'm ashamed,' he joked,7 'I saw notone lion, not one snake, not one elephant,nothing exciting. Not one crocodile, eventhough I swam in the Niger. One night, veryfar off, I glimpsed a hippopotamus. In my film,you only see men, women and children. Theyalone interest me.' This is not the whole story,however, as Ivens indicated in another inter-view recorded while he was editing the film.8

'I would like to show how the face of a villagecan change at the moment when a newrepublic comes into being and how a greatevent can be reflected in a modest location.'

While both of these ambitions canbe seen reflected in the final film, a furtheraim was not followed through. Early versionsof its commentary include comments on theinfluence of white colonial rule, and end witha reflection on the country's post-colonialfuture.9 However, this is toned down in thefinal version of the film to a more neutral hopefor the future: 'Africa will begin to exist foritself and in the world, it is a new story. DoesSidibé know it? Maybe not, but he will learnall about it.'

This toning down of the commen-tary is seen by one of Ivens' biographers ascensorship by the French government,10 butfrom the archives it seems that the processwas pre-emptive rather than a response toofficial intervention. Ivens would have beenwell aware of how sensitive the French gov-ernment was to cinematic criticism of colo-nialism.

Post-production on DEMAIN ÀNANGUILA took place through June and July

1960, with Moussa Sidibé visiting Paris todub his dialogue and causing a flurry of arti-cles in the popular press about 'Mali's firstfilm star'.11 Malian students resident in Parishelped provide some of the other voices, andtranslations were made of the Bambara dia-logue. The film was presented to the pressduring the editing, and a clutch of interviewsappeared towards the end of July. For thecommunist press, Ivens presented some ofhis views on post-colonial Mali that did notappear in the final film.12

Ivens left for Cuba before the film’srelease had been finalized, but clearlyexpected things to progress in his absence.However, on 20 August the Federation ofMali collapsed, leaving the republics of Maliand Senegal to go their own ways. This pre-sented no problems regarding the content ofthe film: the agricultural policy was not con-troversial and the Federation's flag, much inevidence during the wedding and irrigationproject scenes, was adopted by the Republicof Mali, at least in the short term. However,the Société Franco-Africain de Cinémaappears to have waited for the approval ofthe new head of state13, and his mind was onother things.

The filmography approved by Ivenssays that DEMAIN À NANGUILA had a Parispremiere in 1960, but, if this was the case, itwas a low key affair, failing to register with themain film critics or cinema journals. It was

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Mali blues Most of Mali, in West Africa, lies in the Sahara. The only fertile area is in thesouth, where the Niger and Senegal rivers provide irrigation. Caravan routeshave passed through Mali since A.D. 300. Djenné and Timbuktu were com-peting as the western Sudan’s preeminent center of trans-Saharan tradeand Islamic scholarship. Their mud-brick homes and mosques are worldfamous. Subjugated by France by the end of the 19th century, the landbecame a colony in 1904, named French Sudan in 1920. French Sudan wasawarded internal autonomy under French rule in 1958. The following year itsleader, Modibo Keita, began discussing independence in an alliance withSenegal, led by Leopold Senghor. In December 1959 Charles De Gaulleaccepted proposals for an independent Federation of Mali within the Frenchcommunity. The country Ivens toured in May 1960 was in a limbo betweencolony and independence. A formal transfer of power had taken place on 4April 1960, but legislative assemblies of Sudan and Senegal did not adopt

the constitution until early June. Ivens was no longer in the country whenindependence was declared at midnight on 20 June. Despite the celebra-tions, disagreements over relations with France remained. Senghor sup-ported France, but Keita, the president of the Federation, opposed it.Senghor was the first to move, withdrawing Senegal from the Federation on20 August. Keita proclaimed the Republic of Mali on 22 September, he pur-sued Marxist socialist policies in what quickly became a one-party state, andbuilt alliances with the West, the Soviet Bloc and China. National independ-ence created cultural impulses: a national cinema of which Ivens’ DEMAINÀ NANGUILA was the first, and a new national music, a mixture of blues andoriginal roots music, based on ancient rhythms. This music can be heard inthe opening sequence of DEMAIN À NANGUILA, in a striking traveling shot,introducing Sidibé Moussa when running through Bamako, the capital city.

Children from Nanguila acting in DEMAIN À NANGUILA.© Joris Ivens Archives / EFJI

Modibi Keita, first president of the republic of Mali.

Djenne, the world famous mud house architecture.

Cover of the Michelin map of West-Africa used by Ivensfor his trip in Mali.

screened at the 1961 Moscow Film Festival,but received little attention14, and seems notto have been released commercially inEurope. It occasionally appeared at specialistconferences, but otherwise vanished withouttrace. With Ivens caught up in his new enthu-siasm for Cuba, he too abandoned the film,later listing it among his least successfulworks, although without explaining why.15 Hedid not film in Africa again, although he diddiscuss plans for a cinema service with thegovernment of Congo-Brazzaville in the early1970s.16

One positive view of DEMAIN ÀNANGUILA came from the director andethnographer Jean Rouch, in a survey ofethnographic film for he undertook forUNESCO in 1961, although his full apprecia-tion was not published until some yearslater.17 He concluded that DEMAIN À NAN-GUILA would not have the slightest influenceon role of agricultural cooperatives, but that it(and films on similar subjects) had an essen-tial cultural role to play. ‘They are irreplace-able (if awkward) means of communicationabout a continent where information is pre-cisely what is lacking,’ he wrote. ‘In the capi-tal of an African state, more is known aboutwhat is going on everywhere else in the worldthan about the surrounding country.'

DEMAIN À NANGUILA had itsMalian première in Bamako in 1961, in theVox cinema – the same open-air screenwhere Moussa Sidibé has his accident in thefilm, falling from a tree while trying to get afree view of an American gangster movie.The première was attended by the presidentof Mali, Modibo Keita and members of thegovernment, and according to Sidibé itturned into a national occasion. The film thentoured the country with the mobile cinemasthat went from village to village showingnewsreels. Again this mirrors a sequence inthe film where one of these ciné-busescomes to Nanguila.

According to Sidibé, DEMAIN ÀNANGUILA was so successful that the gov-ernment decided to set up a national cinemaservice to make both feature films and news-reels. ‘That says it all,’ he explained. ‘The cin-ematographic structure of the country startsfrom there.’ This view is shared by historiansof Malian cinema.18 ‘Through the public suc-cess that the film experienced, the authoritiesrealized what an important role the cinemacould play, not only in raising awarenessamong the population but also in affirmingour national identity outside our borders,’writes Youssouf Doumbia in an overview ofMalian cinema.

Sidibé himself went on to train inMorocco, after which he directed films andwas, for a time, the president’s personal cam-eraman. Other would-be directors were sentto study film in the Soviet Union and inCanada, while a collaboration withYugoslavia trained technicians in Mali. Whenthis first generation of Malian directors beganmaking films in the late 1960s, it is strikingthat they chose themes similar to those inDEMAIN À NANGUILA.

For example, Souleymane Cissé’sCINQ JOURS D'UNE VIE (1970) tells thestory of a young man from the country who istrying to make his fortune and return to hisvillage after a spell in prison. Meanwhile,Djibril Kouyate’s RETOUR DE TIÉMAN(1970) concerns a young agriculturalist whobrings new methods to a village but experi-ences resistance from traditionalists. Thisdoes not mean that DEMAIN À NANGUILAwas necessarily the inspiration for thesefilms, but it does help explain how Ivens’ filmcan be seen as part of this early phase ofMalian cinema. Through collaboration andhis innate sympathy for people, Ivens wasable to produce a film that reflected the ten-

sions in Malian society – troubled youth, tra-dition at odds with modernity, the town versusthe country – along with the aspirations of theyoung nation.

Notwithstanding the success ofDEMAIN À NANGUILA, it gradually disap-peared from circulation in Mali as the printswore out. In the mid-1990s Sidibéapproached the producer – now known asSofracima – and was given carte blanche todistribute the film in Mali. This led to the filmbeing rediscovered by the public and feted bythe government. When the Ministry of Culturelaunched a new cinema club programme inJune 2000, it did so by screening DEMAIN ÀNANGUILA and CINQ JOURS D'UNE VIE,‘the two films which symbolize Malian cine-matographie’.19

Whatever he may have thought ofDEMAIN À NANGUILA in later life, Ivenscould not have denied that it has been anunqualified success in terms of the ambitionshe set out for it. ‘It is absolutely essential that a purely Africancinematic art should be born,’ he told AfriqueAction.20 ‘The freshness of Africa, the human-ism of its culture, all the things that I haveseen and sensed, can be expressed verywell through the art of cinema. With DEMAINÀ NANGUILA we have attempted with Malian experiment that must be taken further.Now it is down to Africans themselves tobring their own contribution to world cinema.'

24

Why not Rouch?Joris Ivens was not the first European to make films in the part of WestAfrica that was to become Mali. In particular, he was following in the foot-steps of Jean Rouch, who had been carrying out ethnographic studies andmaking films in the region since the mid-1940s. But in contrast to DEMAINÀ NANGUILA, Rouch's films are not seen as part of Malian film history. Thedocumentaries Rouch made within Mali's current borders concentrated onone distinct (and unusual) tribe, the Dogon, and its masked ceremonies.The aim of films such as CIMETIÈRE DANS LA FALAISE (1950) was torecord something ancient, both from a western ethnographic point of viewand for African history, since these rites were being eroded by factors suchas migration and the spread of religions such as Christianity and Islam. Thesame can be said of the films Rouch made among the Songhay people inwhat is now Niger. He was salvaging something that was disappearingrather than recording something current. For the government, these filmshad little to do with the modern, socialist state that they were trying to cre-ate.Films such as JAGUAR (1955) and MOI UN NOIR (1957), that Rouch madein Niger, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, are a slightly different matter. Here hisAfrican collaborators act out their own stories, and the films show an African

view of modern life and the complexities of society at the time. But againthese films sit uneasily with the aspirations of the African independencemovement, in particular because of their irreverence and taste for the lowlife. In contrast to Rouch's films, DEMAIN À NANGUILA is current in its themesand shows people dealing with the issues of everyday life, in their own wayand own language. In Ivens' film the Malians are characters, not subjects asthey are in Rouch's documentaries. It is also significant that the film wascommissioned by the Malian state, made with the collaboration of Malianssuch as Moussa Sidibé, and also that it was filmed at the moment of inde-pendence. As in so much of Ivens' cinema, he shows the aspirations of thepolitical culture rather than its weaknesses. Rouch and Ivens were friendsat the time Ivens was making DEMAIN À NANGUILA, and it is likely thatthey discussed the project and that Ivens had seen Rouch's films. Theyshared a cameraman in Louis Miaille, and Ivens' diary notes suggest thatRouch introduced Ivens to the musicologist Gilbert Rouget, a colleague atthe Musée de l'Homme in Paris[1].

[1] [JIA 357] the diary notes also record meetings with Rouch in June 1960.

Joris Ivens directing a girl in the village of Nanguila, Mali.© Joris Ivens Archives / EFJI

An interview with Joris Ivens after the shooting was fin-ished. L’Humanité, 27 July 1960

Joris Ivens, still from DEMAIN À NANGUILA (1960) ©Joris Ivens Archives / EFJI

Notes

1 This and subsequent information from telephone inter-

view with Moussa Sidibé, 26/7/05.2 Ariane Misraki ‘Joris Ivens: le Hollandais filmant’ Afrique

Action 29/5/61, Tunis, p28. Draft letters from Ivens to the

Société Franco-Africain de Cinéma, 15/4/60 and 24/4/60

[JIA 357]. Abraham Zalzman, Joris Ivens (1963) Éditions

Seghers, Paris, p94, notes Varlin’s experience in Mali

and says she established the company to produce the

film.3 Misraki, ibid.4 Telegram, 11 May, from Catherine Winter to Ivens,

Grand Hotel Bamako. [JIA 357]5 Misraki, ibid.6 Yvonne Baby, ‘Avec “Demain à Nanguila” Joris Ivens

réalise le premier film sur le Mali’ Le Monde (27/7/60),

Paris, p9.7 Nicole Zand, ‘Avec “Demain à Nanguila” Joris Yvens

[sic], le “Hollanais volant” a réalisé le premier film du

Mali’ Libération (27/7/60), Paris, p2.8 Baby, ibid.9 The longer versions of the commentary, in French, are

in the Hans Wegner Collection [HWC 351]. The intention

may have been to preserve this more militant tone for

release in East Germany, as was the case for several of

Ivens' Eastern Bloc films of the 1950s. Shorter versions

also appear here, and in [JIA 358]. 10 Robert Grelier, Joris Ivens (1965) Les Éditeurs français

réunis, Paris, p103-105.11 Anon, ‘Joris Ivens termine à Paris “Demain à Nanguila”

film sur la vie actuelle au Mali’ France Soir (23/7/60),

Paris, p8. Anon, ‘Voici le premier (et unique) acteur de

cinéma du Mali’ L'Aurore (23-24/7/60), Paris, p4. Anon,

‘Moussa - premier vedette du Mali - aime Charrier’ Paris

Presse-L'Intransigeant (28/7/60), Paris, p8. 12 Samuel Lachize, ‘Au coeur de l'Afrique nouvelle Joris

Ivens (le “Hollandais volant” a trouvé son cinquième con-

tinent’ L'Humanité (27/7/60), Paris, p2. Jacqueline

Autrusseau ‘Pas de continent perdu pour Joris Ivens’ Les

Lettres Françaises no 838 (25-31/8/60), Paris, p6.

13 Hans Schoots, Living dangerously: a biography of Joris

Ivens (2000) Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam,

p263, citing letters between Ivens and Ewa Fiszer, and

Ivens and Marion Michelle.14 Georges Sadoul, ‘L'Afrique vous parle’ Les Lettres

Françaises no 885 (20-26/7/61), Paris, p6, gave it a

favourable review, but appears to be the only French crit-

ic to take note of it.15 Carlos Böker, Joris Ivens, film-maker: facing reality

(1981) UMI Research Press, Michigan, p141. Interview

with Ivens (22/3/78).16 Schoots, ibid, p30817 Jean Rouch, ‘Le Cinéma Africaine’ Les Lettres Français

no 893 (21-27/9/61), Paris, p1, p7. Full version translated

as ‘The Situation and tendencies of the cinema in Africa’

in Steven Feld (ed) Ciné-ethnography University of

Minnesota Press (2003), Minnesota, p75-76.18 Victor Bachy, Le Cinéma au Mali (1983) Editions

OCIC/L'Harmattan, Paris, p26. Youssouf Doumbia, ‘Du

talent, des lauriers et de la precarite’ L'Essor (20/0/01),

Bamako. Accessed http://www.essor.gov.ml, 1/9/05.19 Ministry of Culture website,

http://w3.culture.gov.ml/arts/cinema/films/nanguila.htm,

accessed 1/9/05.20 Misraki, ibid.

25

Ian Mundell is a journalist and filmwriter based in Brussels. His recentwork has dealt with Joris Ivens and hisVietnamese films, especially LOIN DEVIETNAM, Henri Storck's newsreelfilms, Ivor Montagu, and current trendsin militant cinema. He is also neglect-ing research for a book on ChrisMarker. Mundell wrote an introductiontext on Ivens’ oeuvre for Senses ofCinema, the cinephile website in theseries Great Directors.

Justified self-censorshipWhen he took the decision to tone down the militant, post-colonial messagein parts of DEMAIN À NANGUILA, Ivens would have had known how sensi-tive the French government of the time was to any criticism of its role inAfrica. For instance, in 1960 it was still refusing to permit the release of LESSTATUES MEURENT AUSSI, a film on African art made in the early 1950sby Ivens' close friend Chris Marker and Alain Resnais. The film - made with-out the two directors ever setting foot in Africa - explores the various formsof African art and the different ways such objects are treated in comparisonto European art. However, the final reel of the film explores the politicalaspects of this argument, with the hardly radical suggestion that colonial rulemay have played a part in degrading African culture. For reasons that were never fully explained to the directors, the film was not

given the censor's permission to be released. In contrast, the film's com-mentary was published as early as 1957[1]. The first two thirds of the filmwere given official permission to be release 1961, but the final reel was stillbanned, and the directors refused to let it be shown. The whole film was notapproved until 1965, when a conflict with the producers prevented its publicappearance. It was not until 1968 that LES STATUES MEURENT AUSSIwas given a complete, public screening.

[1] Anon [Chris Marker] 'Les Statues meurent aussi' Cinéma 57 no 16, mars1957, Paris, p13-19. The commentary also appeared in Marker's bookCommentaires, 1961, Éditions du Seuil, Paris.

Joris Ivens, still from DEMAIN À NANGUILA (1960) © Joris Ivens Archives / EFJI

Cameraman Louis Miaille visiting the market of Bamako,during the shooting of DEMAIN À NANGUILA. © JorisIvens Archives / EFJI\

Thus I was excited and moved todiscover Hanns Eisler's discussion of JorisIvens's film RAIN and his own score FourteenWays of Describing Rain in his famous book'Composing for the Films' (New York: OUP,1947). He proposes a number of reforms tofilm music, which retain freshness even sixtyyears on. He says that movie scores shoulduse 'small instrumental forces' more suited to'technification' and that the modern moviescore should 'sparkle and glisten' in keepingwith the rapid and transient movement ofimages across the screen. How very true thatis - even today's 'cheap' synthesised scoresfor TV and low budget movies often seem toape the slow moving monolithic orchestralsounds of the ubiquitous Hollywood block-buster.

When I finally viewed the London16mm copy of RAIN (at the British FilmInstitute) I was immediately struck by thebewitching musicality of these images. Thefilm seems to imply in its structure a variety of'musical' speeds, but moving continuouslywithout break - which finds an analogy in themodernist musician's desire to connect updifferent movements into one symphonicstructure. For example, near the beginning,as the images move from scenes of water-ways and rain to the first highly rhythmicimages of the city, the images seem to flypast, creating an almost breathless sense offlow and momentum. Later on, just before asingle fade to black before very intense, slow,panoramas of foggy cityscape and stormcloud, the images are constructed in threes -a kind of geometry of cutting is built aroundthe iconic form of the umbrella.

As others have commented, the'musicality' of the film is so remarkable that inmany ways it resists musical scoring.However, my attraction to the film's beautifulimages was such that I could not resist acommission from the Bath InternationalMusic Festival in 2001 to create a score forlive performance to RAIN. I think my purposewas to create a score that had something ofthe modernity of awareness and perceptionenshrined in the film; and my justification wasthat a score that allowed for more aural

space and a greater variety of pacing couldhave a valid role to play in interpreting thefilm. Eisler's score is wonderful - intense, bril-liant and nuanced with melancholy (in hisinvocation of his great teacher Schoenberg,also an emigre from war-time Europe) - but inone sense is so unremitting that it sometimesseems to threaten to overwhelm the images.I chose to adopt the same scoring as Eisler(flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano) but to cre-ate a score with fewer sections, and moredeliberate space and silence in it, so that thetwo domains of music and picture bothbreathe and 'dance' according to their ownlaws.

One area of significant textural dif-ference between the two scores is in the useof piano solo. Both scores have piano solos,but where the solo in Fourteen Ways isrelentless and virtuosic, that in my own scoreLight Cuts Through Dark Skies is spare. Thepiano solos are also located at differentpoints in the film. In Light Cuts, the piano solobegins after a moment of silence accompa-nying a shot of a water surface (throughoutmy score the water surface image is matched

by a moment of unaccompanied stillness asa result of a break in the music track whichitself anticipates a textural transition or tempochange). This piano solo consists of restspunctuated by broken chords, and accompa-nies views on board a tram as it moves along.Where Fourteen Ways is restless, the musicof Light Cuts is here tranquil, causing thespectator to listen through the actual soundto the music of the picture. In contemporarycinema perhaps the nearest equivalent to thistechnique of punctuating silence with soundis in Kubrick's use of a very sparse LigetiEtude in his last film, EYES WIDE SHUT.

RAIN is a magical film sustained bysensuous visual flow and the absence ofperiodic cutting. While I respect the view thatsays the film should be watched without anyaccompanying music (having watched itcountless times myself and always discover-ing new details on each occasion) I do thinkthat music can play a key role in heighteningthe film's poetry, its modern sense of timeand its flow and rhythmic fluctuations. Thecombination of music and film, especially inlive performance, often makes a very specialexperience.

Further info: www.edwarddudleyhughes.com,www.uymp.co.uk, www.bmic.co.uk

Scoring RAIN a contemporaryBritish composer’sperspective

Edward HughesMy interest in scoring films is a typical composer's perspective: i.e.I am not so interested in the craft of synchronicity and direct mime-sis between music and picture, rather I'm interested in the effect ofcounterpoint and simultaneous unfolding of events in the twomedia - creating a new poetic form in their combination. I thinkwhat I do is indeed 'scoring' a film as opposed to making a sound-track. Perhaps that sounds old-fashioned, but I think in the moderninterest in creating live music to both archive and contemporarysilent films there is a really profound interrogation of the value andfunction (both in social and artistic terms) of the music to picturerelationship.

Ed Hughes (1968) studied music atthe Universities of Cambridge andSouthampton. Works recorded andbroadcasted by BBC Radio 3 includean orchestral work, chambre music,vocal works and song cycles. Worksin recent years reflect his developinginterest in musical responses to filmand visual art. He created newscores for films like RAIN (Ivens,1929), I WAS BORN, BUT (1932,Yasujiro Ozu) and BATTLESHIPPOTEMKIN (1925, Eisenstein), com-misioned by the Bath InternationalMusic Festival and Arts Council ofEngland. Ed Hughes is artistic direc-tor of the British ensemble the NewMusic Players and currently lecturesin the music department at theUniversity of Sussex.

26

The score Light Cuts through Dark Skies.

27

January 2005

06.01 Delft, The Netherlands, FilmhuisLumen, RAIN in the travelling programmeSound&Vision, co-organised by theInternational Film Festival Rotterdam

12.01 Alphen a/d Rijn, The Netherlands,Parkfilmhuis, RAIN in the travelling pro-gramme Sound&Vision, co-organised by theInternational Film Festival Rotterdam

14.01 Gouda, The Netherlands, FilmhuisGouda, RAIN in the travelling programmeSound&Vision, co-organised by theInternational Film Festival Rotterdam

18.01 Lisse, The Netherlands, Filmhuis Lisse,RAIN in the travelling programmeSound&Vision, co-organised by theInternational Film Festival Rotterdam

21.01 Vlaardingen, The Netherlands,Filmhuis Het Zeepaard, RAIN in the travellingprogramme Sound&Vision, co-organised bythe International Film Festival Rotterdam

22.01 Schiedam, The Netherlands, FilmhuisSchiedam, RAIN in the travelling programmeSound&Vision, co-organised by theInternational Film Festival Rotterdam

25.01 Barendrecht, The Netherlands,Filmhuis Barendrecht, RAIN in the travellingprogramme Sound&Vision, co-organised bythe International Film Festival Rotterdam

February 2005

14.02 Utrecht, The Netherlands, MuziekCentrum Vredenburg, The ASKO-ensemblewill be playing compositions by Hanns Eislerduring the screenings of NEW EARTH (JorisIvens) and OPUS II (Walther Rutmann). Theprogram will start at 20.15 h.

15.02 Amsterdam, The Netherlands, MuziekCentrum Vredenburg, The ASKO-ensemblewill be playing compositions by Hanns Eislerduring the screenings of NEW EARTH (JorisIvens) and OPUS II (Walther Rutmann).

March 2005

09.03 Brussels, Belgium, FilmmuseumBrussels, PHILIPS-RADIO and NEW EARTH 12.03 Brussels, Belgium, FilmmuseumBrussels, THE WIGWAM, BREAKERS andZUIDERZEE

13.03 Brussels, Belgium, FilmmuseumBrussels, MISERE AU BORINAGE, withAUTOUR DU BORINAGE (Jean Fonteyne),JOURNEE TAYENNE (Jean Fonteyne) andLES MAISONS DE LA MISERE (Henri Storck)

04-13.03 Paris, France, Centre Pompidou,Cinéma du Réel, ‘Prix Joris Ivens à la pre-mière œuvre’: TROPICO DE CANCER(TROPIQUE DU CANCER) by EugenioPolgovsky (Mexico)

20.03 Lyon, France, MUSICADES music fes-tival, various versions of RAIN will bescreened, including the new synchronisation

of Hanns Eislers’ score. Introduction: ClaudeBrunel.

April 2005

08.04 Amsterdam, The Netherlands,Filmmuseum, premiere of RAIN with the newsynchronisation of Hanns Eislers’scoreFourteen Ways to describe rain. Johannes C.Gall and Mark Paul Meyer who made theauthentic reconstruction will present an intro-duction and debate.

11.04 Nijmegen, The Netherlands, VlaamsCultureel Kwartier, ‘Joris Ivens en Nijmegen’,lecture by André Stufkens in a series of‘Nijmeegse Coryfeeën’

16.04 Eindhoven, The Netherlands, Evoluon,Philips 100 years anniversary: screening ofPHILIPS RADIO by Joris Ivens and otherPhilips-films by Hans Richter, George Pal andothers

28.04 Nijmegen, The Netherlands, RadboudUniversity Cultuur op de Campus, screeningof A TALE OF THE WIND with an introductionby Bram Relouw

May 2005

04.05 Nijmegen, The Netherlands, LUXArtplex, Dutch premiere of La Petite Prairieaux Bouleaux, with an introduction and debateby Marceline Loridan-Ivens

15.05 London, England, RiversideTheatre, screening of PEACE TOUR WAR-SAW-BERLIN-PRAGUE (1952), in the pres-ence of Ian Steel, the Scottish winner of thisbicycle tour.

26-26-05 Seoul, South Korea, Seoul HumanRights Film festival, PHILIPS RADIO andSONG OF THE RIVERS will be screened.June 2004

14-19.06 Serpa, Portugal, Doc’s Kingdom,documentary seminar in cooperation with theEFJI

04.06 Gelderland, The Netherlands, broad-casting of a documentary on Joris Ivens July 2005

02-09.07 Bologna, Italy, Il Cinema Ritrovatofilm festival, screening of RAIN with the new

synchronisation of Eislers’score on the largemarket Piazza Maggiore.

August 2005

14-20.08 Lussas, France, Etats Généraux duFilm documentaire, RAIN will be screened inthe original silent version and in the new syn-chronisation of the film and Eisler's musicFourteen Ways to Describe Rain.September 2005

14.09 New York, USA, PBS (Public broad-casting), premiere Rivers to the sea, a docu-mentary on Ernest Hemingway with footage ofIvens’ THE SPANISH EARTH

October 2005

05.10 Apeldoorn, The Netherlands, DeGigant, Lecture ‘Joris Ivens, fact and fiction’ byAndré Stufkens (Vereniging Onderwijs,Kunsten en Wetenschappen)

November 2005

08-13.11 La Rochelle, France, EscalesDocumentaires 2005, Joris Ivens retrospectivewith the films: THE BRIDGE, RAIN, THE 400MILLION, BORINAGE, THE SPANISHEARTH, LA SEINE A RENCONTRÉ PARIS,...A VALPARAISO, LA PHARMACIE AND HIS-TOIRE DE BALLON (FROM THE YUKONGSERIES), THE 17TH PARALLEL AND A TALEOF THE WIND. Also ALGERIE ANNEE ZEROand the recent film LE PETIT PRAIRIE AUBOULEAUX by Marceline Loridan-Ivens

19.11 Nijmegen, The Netherlands, LUX(Cinemariënburg), presentation of the JorisIvens Prize Nijmegen 2005 for the best cityfilm, during the city film festival to celebrate the2000 years anniversary of Nijmegen.

27.11 Amsterdam, The Netherlands, IDFA(International Documentary Festival), screen-ings of the rediscovered parts of the BUILD-ING WORKERS UNION FILM-II with live-music (the Netherlands InstituteVision andSound)

27.11 Frankfurt an Main, Germany, AstaNielsen Kinothek / French Institute, openingfilm of a special program entitled 'the four ele-ments' will be A TALE OF THE WIND, attend-ed by Marceline Loridan-Ivens.

December 2005

02.12 Amsterdam, The Netherlands, IDFA(International Documentary Festival), screen-ings of the rediscovered parts of the BUILD-ING WORKERS UNION FILM-II

06.12 Malden, The Netherlands, CultureleKring, Lecture ‘Joris Ivens and Nijmegen’ byAndré Stufkens

Survey of film programmes

Panoramic view on the Piazza Maggiore, where RAINwas projected on a huge screen. © Il Cinema Ritrovato2005 (Cineteca di Bologna)

Panoramic view on the Piazza Maggiore, where RAIN was projected on a huge screen © Il Cinema Ritrovato 2005 (Cineteca di Bologna)

Documentary

The grant permitted the completion of addi-tional research as well as interviews withParkinson family members, scholars, andarchives/museum officials in New York,Wisconsin, Ohio, and the Netherlands.Indeed, several of these interviews, particu-larly those with Mr. André Stufkens, Dr.Robert L. Snyder (the biographer of PareLorentz), and Dr. Cynthia Koch (ExecutiveDirector of the Franklin D. RooseveltPresidential Library and Museum), changedthe direction of the documentary. I realizedthat it was not enough just to tell the story ofthe Parkinson family and their filming in 1940.Upon the recommendation of Mr. Jeff Forster,Vice President of Programming for DPTV, Iexpanded his coverage of the interactionbetween Lorentz, the Director of the UnitedStates Film Service, and Joris Ivens, the pio-neering Dutch filmmaker who had been hiredto direct the shooting of the proposed REAfilm. The story of the Parkinson family afterthe premiere of POWER AND THE LAND inAugust, 1940 has now to be a separate half-hour sequel offered to PBS stations and/oroffered as a bonus item on a DVD.

By January, 2005, I had completedthe editing of a sixty-minute rough cut. DetroitPublic Television assigned this project to Mr.Donald Thompson, their most senior editorand recipient of seven regional Emmys. Iregard this collaboration as one of the highpoints of this project. Thomas C. Benet, theson of Stephen Vincent Benet (who wrote thenarration for the 1940 film), provided film andphotographs of his father. He also furnishedseveral photographs of the composerDouglas Moore, a Benet family friend. InJune, 1940, Benet and Moore, under thedirection of Ivens, had collaborated in creat-ing a masterful blending of words, music, andfilm that added a distinctive rural flavor toPOWER AND THE LAND.

Website

But there is also an accompanying web site.Smith retained a number of consultants tocomplete essays for this web site. Mrs. HildaWane Ornitz (the wife of Arthur Ornitz, the firstcameraman on POWER AND THE LAND,prepared a unique biographical essay on herhusband. Dr. Clayton Brown, the author of thestandard scholarly study on the REA, pre-pared an historical essay on rural electrifica-tion. Two other scholars, Dr. Robert L. Snyderand Dr. Robert J. Snyder, prepared essays onthe life and contributions of Pare Lorentz. Mr.William J. Sloan, a librarian at the Museum ofModern Arts, submitted an interview with Ms.Lora Hays, now an adjunct professor at theNew York University. Ms. Hays had been theassistant editor on POWER AND THE LANDin 1940 and had subsequently edited the twoadditional short films, BIP GOES TO TOWNand WORST OF FARM DISASTERS, whichwere found by Smith during the process.

Dr. Ruth Cowan Schwartz, aProfessor of the History of Science andTechnology at the University of Pennsylvania(and the author of More Work for Women),submitted an essay on how POWER ANDTHE LAND fits into contemporary scholar-ship. “POWER AND THE LAND is very beau-tiful,” she writes, “so beautiful that it is some-times hard to remember that it is also propa-ganda, political advertising: beauty in theservice of a political agenda.” Mr. AndréStufkens, contributed an essay on the com-plex relationship beween Lorentz and Ivens in1939-1940. Stufkens argues that Lorentzattempted to maintain, more so than is gener-ally recognized, control over the film.Stufkens also translated the diary kept byIvens while shooting POWER AND THELAND.

I also contributed three essays tothe web site. The first was on the early lifeand contributions of Joris Ivens. The secondessay was on Douglas Moore, then (in 1940)

the Chairman of the Department of Music atColumbia University (and later a Pulitzer prizewinning composer). Moore had prepared thescore for POWER AND THE LAND. I wish tothank Mrs. Bradford Kelleher, his daughter,for her critique of this essay. The third was ascholarly essay on Stephen Vincent Benet,the great American poet and author. Benethad written the commentary for POWER ANDTHE LAND. At my request, Thomas C. Benet,reviewed this essay.

In addition, the web site also con-tains 68 separate videos running a total of 82minutes. Mostly “out takes” and “bonus”items not found in the documentary itself. Theemphasis here is on (1) life in Rural Americabefore rural electrification; (2) the contribu-tions of the REA; (3) the making of POWERAND THE LAND; (4) the life and contributionsof Joris Ivens; (4) the life and contributions ofPare Lorentz; (5) the contributions of othermembers of the production crew: StephenVincent Benet, Douglas Moore, and LoraHays; and (6) the history of documentary filmduring the New Deal period. I would like toexpress my appreciation to our very talentedweb-master Mr. Chris Hoskins for his hardwork and thoughtfulness in the creation ofsuch a massive and innovative web site.

We now have a PBS quality docu-mentary and web site that will be a learner-friendly educational resource. We believe itwill be an important educational resource forstudents, teachers, and scholars.

Dr. Ephraim K. Smith has been aProfessor of History at CaliforniaState University, Fresno since 1966.In addition to teaching courses on thehistory of documentary film and doc-umentary film-making, Dr. Smith,through his independent film compa-ny Heritage Productions, producedThe Historic J. E. Crosby Mint Still(2000) and the four-part AmericanMint: A Documentary (2001-2002).Part Two of this series received a2002 Bronze Telly Award in the cate-gory “Education (for academic use)”

28

Power for the Parkinsons:documentary and website

In November 2003, this newsmagazine published an article on myforthcoming documentary POWER FOR THE PARKINSONS -thestory of the making of Joris Ivens’ POWER AND THE LAND in 1939-1940. In April, 2004, the New York Community Trust provided a$300,000 grant to the California State University, FresnoFoundation for a hour-long PBS-quality documentary to be offeredby Detroit Public Television (DPTV). This grant also required thecreation of an extensive and very informative interactive web site.The finished documentary will be released in the beginning of 2006and offered to all PBS stations in the United States.

Ephraim Smith

Screenshot web site Power for the Parkinsons

Jeff Forster, Rick Adams, Donna and Ephraim Smithshooting in Nijmegen in the Joris Ivens Archive, July2004. Photo André Stufkens

Jeff Forster, Ephraim Smith and Rick Adams shootinginside the Joris Ivens Archive. Photo André Stufkens

The start

Their collaboration started in June1939 and would last for one year. Lorentz firstdiscussed the commission for productionnumber 5 for the United States Film Serviceswith Ivens in the 'Garden of Allah,’ a hostelryin Beverly Hills. Before this meeting Lorentzhad guided Ivens through the United Artistsstudios to the set where THE FIGHT FORLIFE was shot.2 THE FIGHT FOR LIFE is amotion picture dramatization, and bothLorentz and Ivens were very much interestedin creating documentary film with the samedramatic impact as a feature film. THEFIGHT FOR LIFE was based on the book byPaul de Kruif, a bacteriologist and a success-ful writer of million selling pop science books.Ivens was a friend of De Kruif as well. He wasthe son of Dutch immigrants and lived inHolland, Michigan. In the Autumn of 1936 healready had asked Ivens to film his book WhyKeep Them Alive? about the deprived healthcare situation of the poor in Detroit. With hisbooks, De Kruif was capable of engaging alarge number of people in real social subjectsby dramatizing the story, 'the facts don't mat-ter quite as much as the overall sense of thestory.’3 Although the script wasn't filmed byIvens it shows that both Ivens and Lorentzwere attracted to the same social subjectsand narrative approach of De Kruif and hisattempts to reach millions of people.

Critique

In the same month - June 1939 - ashe had asked Ivens, Lorentz published a 'cri-tique' on Ivens' THE 400 MILLION. Ivens’ filmon the Japanese army invading China waspremiered in March and Ivens himself was far

from satisfied with the result. Lorentz wrote inMcCall's: 'Yet here was a great cameraman,a fine scenario writer (donating his services, Iimagine), and a first-class composer, all fail-ing to create a moving and original piece ofwork for the obvious reason that no one mansat down and sweated to weave all thethreads into a simple, clear, well-designedmovie…the scenes were long and not toowell edited, the narration did not have a con-cise and straight design.’4 Lorentz's bluntreview must have sharpened Ivens' will to gethis 'artistic revenge' and give his next film amore convincing, direct flow. For his part,Lorentz, being fully aware of Ivens' failingsand traps, must have thought that he himselfcould be capable of becoming 'the one mansitting down and sweating to weave allthreads' and indeed at several essentialmoments during the production Lorentz inter-fered directly and strongly, and without it thefilm would have become quite different.

29

Joris Ivens and Pare LorentzArtistic rivalry during the making of

POWER AND THE LAND

POWER AND THE LAND ‘was perhaps the most effective film madeto promote President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New deal policies.’1

Effective because millions and millions of farmers saw this film onrural electrification and supported the creation of co-operativeswhich had an enormous impact on the revolutionary change ofrural areas, the welfare of the farmers and the expanding economyof the US after World War II. That POWER AND THE LAND couldbecome both beautiful and effective was due to the collaborationbetween Joris Ivens, the director, and Pare Lorentz, the ‘GeorgeWashington of American documentary,’ who produced the film. Thelively personalities of these two masters of documentary, their dif-ferent visions and working methods resulted in a kind of artisticrivalry from which the film greatly benefited. Lorentz got another'Film of Merit' he wanted for his commissioners, in the impressiveseries of THE PLOW THAT BROKE THE PLAINS, THE RIVER, THEFIGHT FOR LIFE, THE LAND and the never made ECCE HOMO. AndIvens got his 'ideal documentary,’ proving his vision with a dra-matic and personalized approach. Both men never wrote abouttheir conflicts, probably because they had too much respect foreach others achievements. The film’s production was well docu-mented by Ivens and preserved in the Joris Ivens Archives, but onthe issue of their relationship, only a few bits and pieces are left.Ivens avoided unveiling any thoughts on this subject in the type-script / manuscript of his autobiography before publication. Thisarticle is trying to reconstruct their relationship.

André Stufkens

Pare Lorentz, head of the Unites States Film Services, onthe roof of the Department of Agriculture, 1936. PhotoDorothea Lange

Pare Lorentz, film still The Fight for Life.

30

'It's your picture'

'Script: freedom change in reality…'Ivens hopefully noted in his diary after his firsttalks with Lorentz who answered with: 'it'syour picture.’ Even later on – after quite anumber of conflicts Lorentz stated: 'As I toldyou in California, it is my desire as Director ofthe U.S.F.S. to have as little to do with thedirection of the work of the people of well-established reputation who are working for usas it is humanly possible.’5 However Ivensexperienced less freedom than hoped for andLorentz forced Ivens to change the filmagainst his will. On six key moments, at least,Lorentz influenced the film significantly. It was Lorentz who, in the beginning, trans-formed the script outline into a simple ‘FromDawn to Dusk outline.’ Ivens benefited a lotfrom this simple concept, giving the structure,balance and rhythm of the film a more ‘con-cise and straight design’ as his previous filmson China and Spain. Paul Rotha concludedthat Ivens 'recognized that a dialectical andcontroversial onslaught could not possiblyconvince the audience for which it wasintended…'6 This simple structure fitted therural context of the film perfectly and provedto have a lasting impact on audiences. It also was Lorentz who recommended thatthe film be shot in Ohio, where his maternalgrandmother had lived, although Ivens sug-gests in his autobiography that he didn’t getany hint where to film. It didn’t take arduousresearch either to find the average modelfarm, Ivens found the Parkinson family in St.Clairsville after only one week, and shippedout all his equipment to start the shooting bythe end of August.Lorentz, being an advocate of non-politicaldocumentary, also forced Ivens to leave thepolitical conflict out. This was the drama withthe private utility companies who refused toput up electricity lines to farms and foughtagainst any attempt by the farmers to put uptheir own. On the 6th October, in the middleof filming, Lorentz decided to replace cam-eraman Arthur Ornitz, who ‘wasn’t competentenough for the job,’ even though Ivens wasquite satisfied with the footage shot up to thatpoint. This move by Lorentz, to replace Ornitzwith Floyd Crosby, was also meant to avoidany alterations to the script by Ivens and toget more control over his direction. In

November, after all the rushes were done, aconflict between Ivens and Lorentz arose,because Ivens had shot much more thanoriginally agreed. During a meeting on 21stNovember, Lorentz strongly suggested thatIvens should stick to a short film as agreedfrom the start.7 'A producer has to haverespect for accomplished work' Ivens react-ed, but Lorentz had to also consider thefinancial interests. Consequently, Ivens hadto leave out sequences like the barn firescene and Bip visiting a modern milking dairy.Lorentz argued that these dramatic scenescould harm the rhythm and peaceful settingof the film.8 According to notations of his talkwith Lorentz on the 21st November, therewas also a difference of opinion about thepersonalization of the film. Lorentz wantedthis to be dealt with in the second half only,when electricity had been connected, butIvens wanted it throughout the complete film.In this case, Ivens won out.

Who was in charge?

From the beginning the division oftasks and responsibilities between Lorentzand Ivens was not clear. ‘I accepted two pos-sibilities: 1 - director outdoor shooting, 2 -director of whole picture. To be decided inprocess of work,’ Ivens wrote in June. Afterthe shooting process was over it didn’tbecome any clearer either. In December,Ivens concluded: 'The assignment was stillkind of vague.' This confusion had nothing todo with Snyder’s understanding that thesponsors of the film, the Rural ElectrificationAdministration of the Ministry of Agriculture,had the impression that Lorentz himselfwould make the film and they were not awareof the fact that he commissioned Ivens toreplace him.9 In fact Ivens was in direct con-tact with quite a number of REA officials, whoknew that Ivens was making the film. Ivenswas quite annoyed about Lorentz trying tokeep him away from the sponsors. 'Bad thingfor an experienced director to be separatedfrom the sponsor by the producer.'10 Duringthe shooting Ivens had encountered manyproblems with the sponsor. ‘I wasn't protect-ed,’ Ivens complained.11 When visiting theREA staff in Washington, Ivens felt tensionsbetween the sponsor and the producer whichmade the situation even more complicated:'They were against Lorentz.'12

The continuing confusion about responsibili-ties had to do mainly with Lorentz’s wish to

Joris Ivens, film still WORST OF FARM DISASTERS, the barn fire sequence with bucket line © Joris Ivens Archives / EFJI

Joris Ivens shooting POWER AND THE LAND, mrs. Hazel Parkinson © Joris Ivens Archives / EFJI

Novelist John Steinbeck offered his help to write the com-mentary of POWER AND THE LAND.

write the commentary himself, taking oversupervision again after shooting and gettinghis ideas for the documentary realized. Forthis he used some strange arguments:'Lorentz wrote Ivens that he tried without suc-cess to interest John Steinbeck in writing thenarration. Lorentz then decided to write thenarration himself,' concluded Snyder afterreading Lorentz’s letter to Ivens on 20thNovember, four days after the last shoot inSt. Clairvilles. Ivens already knew thatSteinbeck couldn't be involved because hehad met the author on the 1st, 2nd and 5thAugust and asked him to do the script.Steinbeck agreed to do the dialogues, butLorentz had already rejected the idea inAugust because of a lack of money.13

The delay of almost half a year between thelast day of shooting, 16th November 1939,and the postproduction, running from May toAugust 1940, was mainly caused byLorentz’s attempts to write the commentaryhimself. When he failed, for obvious reasonsgiven that he was far too busy with finishingTHE FIGHT OF LIFE, ECCE HOMO anddefending the USFS against political attacks,it led to several complaints from his spon-sors. They wanted the film ready as soon aspossible to impress Senators and membersof Congress, as at that time the support forfunding the USFS was diminishing rapidly.Harry Slattery, REA administrator, wrote toLorentz in April 1940: 'I can say with utmostsincerity that I believe that your interestshave suffered somewhat for lack of the ruralelectrification film.’14 Two days later a newwriter and composer were commissioned byLorentz to finalize the commentary andmusic.

The ideal of a documentary organization

In June 1939, when the relationshipbetween Lorentz and Ivens was just starting,Joris Ivens had been elected as the first pres-ident of the Association of Documentary FilmProducers, probably the first non-profit inter-national organization of documentary film-makers. Its aim was to improve the artisticand technical standards of independent, cre-ative films and to promote wider productionand distribution. Ivens' concern for the rela-tionship between filmmaker, producer andsponsor was not only personal and limited tohis own film projects, but also had to do withhis broader vision for the development of thedocumentary film field. 'The day of the one-

man documentary film is over. The problemsare too manifold and the processes too com-plex to be handled satisfactory by a singleman,’ Ivens stated in a university lecture,delivered immediately after the filming ofPOWER AND THE LAND was finished. Hepredicted that in the future, larger units andteams of specialists were needed.'Understanding of the relationships withinsuch a group is of vital importance to the pro-fundity and quality of our documentary film.’When mentioning examples of existingteams, Ivens also makes a judgment aboutLorentz, which was removed in the draft of'Ideas in Documentary Films.’16 'Lorentz hasa team but he is a very dominating factor. Acompletely dominating man. He doesn't givethe members of his unit much freedom ofexpression - Or he didn't then. He didn't relyso much on the teamwork.' This critique wasshared by other members of the ADFP likePaul Strand and Leo Hurwitz, who also hadconflicts with Lorentz during the making ofTHE RIVER and left the scene. In contrast,according to Ivens, documentary film teamsin the UK, like the British G.P.O. set up byJohn Grierson, showed striking examples ofreal team work. In the USA opportunitiesgrew to organize similar structures: 'TheUnited States Film Service could have hadthis kind of a focusing point, you could say inthe sense of the British outfit but as a gener-al buffer between sponsor and director andgiving experience to all units so that Lorentzwould have been the first documentary filmproducer, you could say. Lorentz, or some-body else in the U.S. Film Service. The kindof function that Grierson had in England.Lorentz's personal character doesn't workthat way. His mind doesn’t work that way. Hemissed there. He had not at all the urge todevelop somebody else. He never took doc-umentary films seriously in any way. Henever even wanted the word documentaryput on his films. He thought he was doingsomething special. I think we missed there.We had to consolidate a real movement thatwas just starting. That could have been acentral organization there. Another thing, theattacks that came later on the United StatesFilm Services, we would have been muchstronger in the whole argument. Now theycould attack it and say they have only donethree films in three years but there the over-head costs would have been divided amongten films.’

Is there such thing as a documentarymovement?

At first sight, Ivens' opinion onLorentz's vision sounds rather awkward, buttwo articles on documentary film written byLorentz at the beginning and end of POWERAND THE LAND support Ivens' strong argu-ments. Lorentz judgment on documentaryfilm, as expressed in two articles in McCall's'The Documentary Film' (August 1939) and'Good Art, Good Propaganda' (July 1940)were indeed not very encouraging. Lorentz:'Just the words 'documentary' and 'factual'gives me a headache, because for the pastfour years I myself have been working withwhat have unfortunately come to be knowngenerally as 'documentary' films.' Accordingto Lorentz’s harsh opinion most documen-taries are boring, with aimless direction, ameaningless score and third-rate photogra-phy. Unless the documentary filmmaker isstriving to have as good photography, editingand music as Hollywood, he doesn't thinkthat this genre will be of any importance forthe public. Underneath this critique lies adeeper conviction opposing political docu-mentary, or even Ivens personally, whendescribing: '…the extreme left-wingers inmovies have taken the attitude because amovie is liberal it is therefore 'good'… while Iam personally in favor of the Chinese winningtheir own country away from the Japanese…I do not feel that just because a man hasmade a picture dealing with these subjectshe had made a 'good' movie... they arguethat their cause justifies their work - theirwork must be considered important becausetheir faith is the true faith.’ Ivens didn't havethis opinion at all and stressed over and overagain that only the best artistic quality, asgood as a Hollywood film, was good enoughfor documentary film. In fact he sharedLorentz's statement 'Good art, good propa-ganda.’According to Lorentz, there wasn't a docu-mentary movement, only some talents.'Personally, I feel that if there ever was amovement, a school, a development, it ispractically stopped dead in its tracks'. Morepeculiar, Lorentz denied the potency of hisown position, when stating: '…with theproven audience interest in factual films, itseems nothing short of stupid that no produc-er yet has entered this field in a full and intel-ligent manner.’ And what of Lorentz himself?- Ivens could have asked, obviously 'his minddidn't work that way.' In a letter to his parentswritten on 22nd April 1940, Ivens wrote quitedirectly about Lorentz: 'A good film directorbut no organizer.’17

Within this context it's easier to understandwhy Lorentz didn’t became a member of theAFDP. Virtually every documentary maker inthe USA was a member of the AFDP exceptLorentz. Along with Ivens as chair, LionelBerman, Joseph and Mary Losey, PaulStrand, Willard Van Dyke, William OsgoodField, Shirley Burden and Irving A. Jacoby

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Joris Ivens, film still POWER AND THE LAND, theParkinson family © Joris Ivens Archives / EFJI

32

formed the Board of Directors. Many wellknown documentary filmmakers, publishers,composers, editors and cameramen joinedthe ADFP like: James Beveridge, LuisBuñuel, Floyd Crosby, Robert Flaherty,Richard Griffith, John Grierson, AlexanderHackenschmied, Lora Hays, Leo Hurwitz,Jay Leyda, Helen van Dongen, DouglasMoore, Herbert Klein, Leo Seltzer and RalphSteiner.

POWER AND THE LAND was thelast production by the USFS, which didn'teven exist by the time that Ivens' film waspremiered in 31st August 1940 in St.Clairsville. 'If POWER AND THE LAND couldhave been released in the spring of 1940,some congressmen might have seen morevalue in movie making,' argued Snyder.18

The original time schedule, agreed upon inJune 1939 aimed for three months of shoot-ing and two months of editing, through whichthe film could have been ready in January1940. Snyder suggests that Ivens was moreor less to blame for this delay – although heonly surpassed the deadline of shooting bytwo days – but it was also due to the fact thatthe REA needed twenty three days, insteadof five, to install the equipment. In reality, itwas the deliberate and fatal miscalculation byLorentz himself to postpone the finishing ofthe film so that he could try to do the com-mentary that significantly delayed the film. At the end of the process, on 27th June 1940,Lorentz decided that he didn't want any per-sonal credit at all on the titles of POWERAND THE LAND. The USFS isn't mentionedeither, because it had been closed down.19

In spite of all the problems during the pro-duction and the differences in character andvision between both filmmakers, Ivensregarded the process as a mental rest afterthe strenuous film projects made in war timein Spain and China. According to Snyder,Lorentz retained his respect for Ivens andrecommended him for a new film project tobe made for the Federal Theatre Project inApril 1940. For his part, Ivens made clear hisadmiration for Lorentz and the pleasure hehad working for him.20

Most importantly, both men stimulated eachother to give their best shot, and made a last-ing documentary of beauty, a key film inIvens’ oeuvre.

This article is a summary of the full article onthe website Power for the Parkinsons. Itincludes parts of Ivens’ diary, in which his dayto day comments on the making of POWERAND THE LAND can be followed. Also fromthe ivens.nl Dossier.

Notes

1 Robert Sklar Film, an international history the medium,

1993 New York: Harry N. Abrams, p. 2512 Catherine Duncan, Joris Ivens, unfinished typoscript

with several chapters for a biography on Joris Ivens,

Paris n.d. [1956-1958]. [Marion Michelle Collection / Joris

Ivens Archives, Nijmegen]. 3 Robin Marantz Henig, The Life and Legacy of Paul de

Kruif, 2002 www.aliciapatterson.org /APF2003

/Henig/Henig.rtf4 Pare Lorentz, Lorentz on Film, Movies 1927 to 1941,

1986 Norman, London: University of Oklahoma Press,

p. 164-1655 Pare Lorentz in a letter to Joris Ivens, dated 20th

November, with Ivens' comments during his talk the day

after [Joris Ivens Archive, 2.3.02.41.01, file 253].6 Paul Rotha, Documentary Film, [1935], 1963 London,

Hastings House, p. 3187 Joris Ivens, handwritten notations 'Nov. 21 - Talk with L.'

on the original letter of Pare Lorentz, dated 20th

November , with Ivens' comments during his talk the day

after [Joris Ivens Archive, 2.3.02.41.01, file 253]. 8 The ‘left overs’ were edited into two separate documen-

taries in 1941: THE WORST OF FARM DISASTERS and

BIP GOES TO TOWN.9 Robert L. Snyder, Pare Lorentz and the documentary

film, 1993, Reno: University of Nevada Press, p.12910 Joris Ivens, manuscript and typescript 'Collaboration in

Documentary Film', w. d. [January 1940], written with the

support of Jay Leyda, lectured at the New York University

[Jan de Vaal Collection, Files Jay Leyda, EFJI].11 ad ibim, p. 912 ad ibim, p. 29. 'You mentioned Wallace, where did he

come in? He saw the film when it was finished. They

were against Lorentz.' 13 Joris Ivens, see note 10, file 252 B14 Robert L. Snyder, see note 11, p. 12915 'Ideas in Documentary Films' was a proposed title for

a publication to be published by Harcourt, Brace &

Company (alternative options: 'Film Ideas and Film

Methods') in 1943, based on the lectures in December

1939 and January 1940 text and edited by Jay Leyda.

The publisher rejected. It is with much reservation that

Ivens' lines are being made public here, because Ivens

must have had his rightful reasons not to publish.

Anyway it sheds an interesting light on their relationship [

Jan de Vaal Collection, Jay Leyda papers, EFJI,

Nijmegen]. The papers, draft versions, interviews etc.

were given to Jan de Vaal, director of the Netherlands

Filmmuseum (1947-1988) and co-founder of the Joris

Ivens Archives (1964), by Jay Leyda, after he did

research in the Amsterdam collections to finalize the

script of the definitive publication of 'The Camera and I' in

1969. Jay Leyda's name isn't mentioned in the book,

probably because he already suffered from political accu-

sations and job prohibition.16 Joris Ivens, see note 16, p. 1 (chapter 'Ohio').17 Joris Ivens in a letter to his parents, April 22 1940,

Annebeth Ivens Collection. 18 Robert L. Snyder, see note 11, p. 169. 19 Summary of the Calendar for finishing the REA-film

[Joris Ivens Archives, 2.3.02.41.01, file 256].20 Robert L. Snyder, see note 11, p. 127

Joris Ivens, film still POWER AND THE LAND, map of USwith cooperatives electrification © Joris Ivens Archives /EFJI

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AcquisitionAnna Maria Papi

The friendship between Anna Maria Papi andJoris Ivens started when Papi organized ascreening of Vietnamese films in Florence,Italy. LE 17E PARALLÈLE was censured, itwas not allowed to enter Italy because Nixonvisited the country, but after Papi set up aCommittee against censorship the illegalscreening at the Palazzo dei Congressi was abig success. 5,000 visitors, half of them leftwaiting outside, attended the rally. AfterwardsIvens visited Anna Maria Papi and her hus-band, the photographer and painter GiorgioCipriani, many times in the several lodgingswhere they lived. When Ivens wanted to relaxand take a holiday near the beach in Italy, heleft for Forte di Marmi, where Papi receivedartists from around the world at her home,such as Pablo Neruda and José Venturelli,from around the world at her home. In this bighouse, with 25 bedrooms, Ivens andMarceline Loridan-Ivens met the family ofsculptor Henry Moore, sculptor Marino Mariniand the 1975 Nobel Prize winning novelistand poet Eugenio Montale. They appear to beeasy going people, not at all arrogant, livingsimple lives. The relationship with Papi was

based on shared experiences. As a youngchild Papi and her mother (who was Spanish)went by train from Pisa to Barcelona, lookingfor her father who was a partisan who diedduring the Spanish Civil War. After the war,she met Hemingway in Venice, with whomshe discussed her Spanish experiences. Achain of connections with Ivens life story start-ed to develop.

According to Papi’s memories everybodyloved Ivens, because he kept his youthfulenthusiasm, was both sweet and tough, butwithout looking tough. He adored the ancientvillage of San Gemignianello, and wanted tomake a film about the isolated location nearSiena, a place without time, hills like the sea,long horizons, houses with the colors of theearth.Anna Maria Papi gave documents, letters,clippings and photos about her relationshipwith Ivens and Loridan-Ivens to theFoundation along with a long and vivid inter-view of her memories on tape.

Henk de Smidt

Former curator of the NetherlandsFilmmuseum, Henk de Smidt is an enthusias-tic photographer. Mr de Smidt took photo-graphs at a large number of events involvingIvens or the Foundation, including festivals,meetings, symposia, exhibitions and recep-tions. Many hundreds of these photos weregiven to the Foundation.

Family Nooteboom-Ivens

The eldest sister of Joris Ivens, Mrs. TheaNooteboom-Ivens (1906-1997), took care ofthe family archive after her father (1941) andmother (1948) died. She kept a number ofmarvelous photo albums (1880-1980), whichgive a unique insight into the daily life of thisspecial family. Joris’ father Kees Ivens playedan important role in Nijmegen in the first halfof the 20th century because of his efforts topromote industrial progress. For example, heinitiated the building of a large traffic bridge, acanal, the electrification of a railroad. Thisfamily, with their Rhinelandish background,also loved to party, to dress up, to sing andplay. Lovely photos remind us of many funnyfestivities. Ivens’ father was also very inter-ested in technology, especially camera tech-nology. He founded the first chain of photoshops (CAPI) in Holland, introduced colorphotography, X-rays, attended the first

screening of a Lumière film in Holland etc. Itwas in this liberal milieu that Joris was raised.All kinds of aspects of his fathers’ achieve-ments were kept by collecting documents,clippings, flyers, books, articles, diaries, pho-tos and objects. After the death of TheaNootebom-Ivens, her children took over thecollection. Several parts that had been divid-ed among the children were recollected.Josien Nooteboom and Bob Haan took careof the 110 boxes and 27 albums and BobHaan created the inventory. To protect thisimportant collection and preserve it in the best

circumstances, the Ivens family and relativesdecided to deposit the collection in theNijmegen archives.

Edward Hughes

In 2001, British composer Edward Hughesmade a score for Ivens’ RAIN, commissionedby the Bath Music Festival. He gave the scoreand recording of Light Cuts Through DarkSkies to the Foundation for permanent refer-ence. Last year a tour was arranged alongBrittany where the score was performed liveseveral times to the screening of Ivens’ silentmovie.

At the backside : Irina, Mary and Henry Moore, MarcelineLoridan-Ivens ; in front sitting: Eugenio Montale, JorisIvena and Anna Maria Papi © Giorgio Cipriani

Eugenio Montale, Joris Ivens and Henry Moore in SanGemignanello © Giorgio Cipriani

Joris Ivens, Marceline Loridan-Ivens and TheaNooteboom-Ivens in Paris, June 1976 © JIA/EFJI

Thea, Joris (George), Hans and Wim Ivens with his brothers and sister in May 1909, celebrating the princess Julianafestivities. Coll. Familyarchive Nooteboom-Ivens

1. Situ Zhaoguang, Joris Ivens (wood), 1982,58 cm. The son of Joris Ivens’good friendSitu Huimin made two portraits in wood. Hisfather first got acquainted with Ivens in 1957when he was vice-director of the FilmBureau. Through the years Ivens became agood friend of the family. After the CulturalRevolution Situ Huimin was minister ofCulture. Siu Zhaoguang (1940) studied at theAcademy of Fine Arts in Beijing, where since1966 he was professor in scuplture. Hissculptures were exhibited in Hungary,Taiwan, Paris and all over China.On the photo: Mr. Situ Zhaoguang with hiswife Mrs. Situ Shuang and their daughter,2003. © Miroslav Sebestik

2. Bas Maters, Joris Ivens monument (steel),1990, 10 meters. When Joris Ivens returnedto his birthplace Nijmegen to celebrate his90th anniversary the city council decided toname a place after him and raise a sculpture.Bas Maters (1949) professor at the Academyof Art in Arnhem (environmental art) createda long bended strip of steel with an opensquare door at the bottom, presenting theharsh edges of daily life, and an open circledoor at the top, presenting an open lense ofa camera or a view on the sky, spiritual ideasand imagination. The nickname of this hall-mark on the Joris Ivens Place is shoespoon.This huge sculpture was constructed on aDutch shipyard. Photo André Stufkens

3. Emilio López-Menchero, Pasionaria- portevoix (steel), 2005. Belgian artist López-Menchero was inspired by a film still fromIvens’ THE SPANISH EARTH provided bythe Foundation, presenting a giant loud-speaker used by the Republicans to con-vince Spanish soldiers on the other side ofthe front line to surrender and join the demo-cratic forces. López-Menchero´s publicsculpture in the city centre of Brussels showsa similar megaphone to promote communi-cation: it can be used for shouting as well asfor listening.Projects of López/Menchero are being exhib-ited around Western-Europe.© E.López-Menchero en Joris Ivens Archives/ EFJI

4. Bob Lejeune, Joris Ivens (ceramic), 2005,50 cm. In the framework of ‘Nijmegen 2000’Lejeune (1958, Academy of Art, Den Bosch)was commissioned to create four portraits ofremarkable personalities in Nijmegen, likeIvens. His baroque-like colourful ceramicsculptures tell stories with all kinds of sym-bols, based on photos and research in theJoris Ivens Archives. © Bob Lejeune /Intermedi-art Theo van Stiphout

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Sculptures

Rivers to the SeaHemingway and IvensOn 14th September 2005 the documentaryRIVERS TO THE SEA about American journal-ist and novelist Ernest Hemingway (1898-1971) premiered on American television (PBS)as part of a series called ‘American Masters’.The series contains traditional, award winningdocumentaries with an American audience inmind. Because Ivens and Hemingway werefriends, especially during and after the shoot-ing of THE SPANISH EARTH in 1937, thefoundation provided photos and footage to theproducers. The Foundation also did this for adocumentary on Robert Capa, which receivedworldwide attention.

Senses of CinemaIan Mundell was invited to write an introducto-ry article on Joris Ivens for the cinephile web-site Senses of Cinema for a series on GreatDirectors. Senses of Cinema is an online jour-nal devoted to the serious and eclectic discus-sion of cinema. Mundell surveys Ivens’ oeuvreand states that the current documentary move-ment has gone back to the point at which Ivensstarted in the late 1920’s - working alone with ahandheld camera, writing the script (if neces-sary), doing the shooting, editing and distribu-tion by himself. ‘But the idea of what a docu-mentary should be has changed radically, andmuch of Ivens’ work sits uneasily with presentideas.’, is a general opinion nowadays. Therhetorical mode, with re-enactment and a voiceover, seems outdated. However in many ways-and Mundell proves his case with severalexamples - ‘they are all faithful to the underly-ing idea that there is a human reality that canbe captured on film and shared.’The films made after WWII that were commis-sioned by Eastern Bloc institutions are not veryacceptable to most western critics. SurprisinglyMundell proclaims that perhaps this workcomes closest to the modern observational

documentary; the events are staged, certainly,but not for the camera. All of the speeches andcrowd scenes would be happening even ifIvens wasn’t there. In this sense, the films are‘straightforward accounts of a rigidly controlledpolitical culture.’The complete text can be read on:http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/05/ivens.html#film

Docupolis: ‘Man with the Camera’-Award toJoris IvensThe International Film Festival in Barcelonaintends to award the ‘Man with the Camera’-Prize to Joris Ivens in April 2006. Since 2004the festival dedicates a retrospective and thisnew award to the complete opus of an out-standing engaged director who has left a lega-cy and marked the way for future generations.The award valorizes the historical, ethical, aes-thetical character, as well as the contribution tothe development of the ‘Zeitgeist’, the spirit ofan era. In previous years the Cuban filmmakerSantiago Álvarez and Brasilian filmmakerEduardo Coutinho were awarded.

Talents from the EastAGITPROP, the Bulgarian production compa-ny, won the Silver Wolf Award during IDFA2004 for their documentary GEORGI ANFDTHE BUTTERFLIES. They are continuing withtheir project US4REVISITED, about the back-ground to Ivens’ documentary THE FIRSTYEARS (see news magazine number 10). Thedirector Valentin Valchev pitched his ideas atthe IDFA Forum and the ‘Docu Talents from theEast’ panel during the Karlovy Vary FilmFestival in July 2005. After visiting the set loca-tions of Ivens’ film in Bulgaria, Bosnia, Polandand the Czech Republic, he researched thedocuments at the Joris Ivens Archive. The filmis scheduled to be ready at the end of 2006.

Indonesia 60th anniversay of independenceOn 17th August 2005, the Indonesian Republiccelebrated its independence. In August 1945president Sukarno was surprised by the sud-den capitulation of the Japanese occupyingforces. Radical students forced Sukarno tomake his Proclamation, after which anIndonesian flag Red & White was hoisted,which was in fact a Dutch flag without the bluebanner. The violent period of the first years ofMerdeka, the Bersiap, cost thousands of lives.Ivens, who was appointed film commissioner ofthe Dutch Indies, was also surprised. From thewindow of his hotel in Sydney, he saw dock-workers preventing Dutch ships from sailing offto the young republic with Dutch tanks andammunition. Ivens soon resigned from his gov-ernmental job and shot INDONESIA CALLING! During the ceremonies in Jakarta in August2005, the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr.Bot, stated that Holland deeply regretted itsattitude after the Proclamation of Freedom andoffcially recognized August 17th 1945 as thedate of independence. This declaration alsorehabilitated Ivens’ position, as his point ofview caused much condemnation and criticismby Dutch authorities at the time. Ivens becamea suspect, a man to be watched, and his pass-port was withdrawn. Many documents from theNational Security Service show how Ivens wasfollowed. In the case of Indonesia, however,history has shown that Ivens’ position was theright one.

Wilhelm IvensThe Valkhof Museum will be organizing anexhibition of the photos of Wilhelm Ivens

(1849-1904) in February 2007. The Joris Ivens’grandfather emigrated from Germany toHolland and was one of the first people in thecountry to start a photographic studio. He waslater elected the first chairperson of theNetherlands Photo Society. His studio becamewell known and the quality of his photos wasquite high. At the end of his career he wasearning almost as much as the head of policeand the municipal secretary. Portraits, cityscenes and landscapes were his main targets.One can see parallels between Joris Ivens’vision and the way his grandfather made pho-tos. It is hoped that a lot more will be disco-vered during research for the exhibition.

Arja GrandiaOn July 1st 2005 Arja Grandia, Head ArchivalLoans of the Filmmuseum in Amsterdamretired after 37 years of service. At the time Jande Vaal headed the Netherlands FilmmuseumArja Grandia started as a youngster and tookcare of the distribution of archival film prints, forinstance for the FIAF Film Pool. Because of thespecial relationship of Joris Ivens with Jan deVaal / Filmmuseum also a long term relation-ship between Grandia and Ivens developed.With her solid and strict approach Grandiamanaged to provide many Ivens films forscreenings around the world. The Foundationpaid special attention to her departure to thankher for all her efforts.

Vivo filmsItalian distributor Vivo Films, who are dedicat-ed to documentaries, intends to produce aDVD of Ivens’ Italian documentary l’ITALIANON E UN PAESE POVERO. Along with threetelevision series, Vivo would like to includebonus material like Stefano Missio’s documen-tary QUANDO ITALIA NON ERA UN PAESEPOVERO.

Composition for FilmThe famous book of Hanns Eisler and TheodorW. Adorno on film music will be reprinted inGermany including the DVD with the FilmMusic Project for the Rockefeller Foundation.Johannes C. Garl made a new authentic syn-chronisation of Eisler’s score to RAIN whichwill be included on DVD inside the book.(seearticle newsmagazine 10)Komposition für den Film / Date of release:19.4.2006 / ISBN: 3 - 518 - 58461 – 8 / Editor:Suhrkamp

Short Cuts

35

Ernest Hemingway, Joris Ivens and Helen van Dongen inHavana, Cuba, 1939 © Joris Ivens Archives / EFJI

Front cover Composition for Film © Suhrkamp

Rivers to the sea © EBC / American Masters

Joris Ivens started film in 1927 without any film education. Of course

he was used to handling cameras in his father’s photography shop,

but this was mostly selling rather than making photos. He also had a

photochemical and technical background after his studies at the

Technical University in Charlottenburg. This technical knowledge fur-

ther improved after practical training at the Ica and Ernemann facto-

ries in Dresden. Thus when he made his first films, he didn’t feel any

fear for the technical aspects of filmmaking. He felt free to invent cre-

ative new camera movements and camera technologies, and to exper-

iment with it with only one purpose: to create a new film language.

Here are four examples:

1 A periscope camera. During theshooting of RAIN (1929) Ivensneeded close-ups of wet surfacesof streets and pavement. He didn’twant to lie down flat on the rainystreets and so designed aperiscope camera, with the cam-era at the bottom and a viewfinderat the top. The viewfinder and thecamera were linked with small mir-rors. The camera proved to be suc-cessful.

2 A waterproof camera with rubber hood. During the shooting ofBREAKERS (1928) Ivens wanted to film as close as possible to the crash-ing waves. To achieve this, the close-ups of breakers were filmed with hishandheld camera covered with a rubber hood. The final sequence of JefLast, the protagonist, walking into the North Sea in despair, was shot withthis waterproof camera. The close-ups of breaking waves are some of themost powerful images in the film.

3 A subjective camera wagon. For his I-FILM (1928) Ivens wantedto imitate the movement of the human eyes during walking, so designed asubjective camera trolley. The camera was mounted on a moving standwhich was connected to the axle of the wheels with a rod, and made simi-lar up and down movements as the human eyes do during walking. Theeffect was different than expected, as it looks like a drunken walk down theKalverstraat, and the Kalverstraat looks flooded. Former curator Henk deSmidt has made a replica of this remarkable camera in 1999.

4 A camera wagon for traveling shots.After Ivens was commissioned by theDutch construction workers union to makeWE’RE BUILDING (1929), his first solidpayment, he ordered the construction of aspecial camera wagon for two people. Oneperson sat in front to steer and pedal thecycle chain, the second at the back sittingbehind the camera, which was fixed on atripod. We don’t know whether theGerman company made the wagon at all,in fact there isn’t proof that wagon wasever ordered. Presumably the expensesfor buying this bespoke and unique wagonwere far too high and Ivens found manyalternative ways to shoot traveling shots.

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Curiosities from the archives

Joris Ivens and Cheng Fai shooting RAIN withthe periscope camera. © Germaine Krull /Photographische Sammlung Folkwang MuseumEssen / Coll. JIA/EFJI

Sketch replica subjective cameraJoris Ivens sketching the subjective ca-mera (1962)

The replica of the subjective camera inMuseum Het Valkhof, made by Henk deSmidt with the De Smidt-family