Take One (Sep-Oct 1972)

on a solid state mosaic screen employing light-emitting diodes. When this happens, the tv image will have granular background noise resembling the eye-brain’s. Lenny Lipton Letter from Holland Most creative writers regard the short story as an exercise for — or a relaxation from — their novels; painters are rarely satisfied with mere drawings or lithographs, even though they need to dothem for a living. So the filmmaker thinks of his shorts, and it is hardly surprising that during the past ten years in Holland there has been something of a rebellion in the film world — a rebellion against the longestablished tradition of shorts and shorts alone. There are several reasons for the Dutch suspicion of feature films. The restrictions of the Dutch language mean that it would be hazardous to export a domestic feature; it is hard to recoup the negative costs on the home market; Dutch audiences have in the past been scornful of local films, believing that such things are best imported from abroad, like cars and watches — and so on. But the real obstacles in the path of Dutch feature films are less tangible. There is no tradition of entertainment movies in Holland as there is in, say, Sweden. There are comparatively few producers with the professional expertise to handle a feature, and even fewer scriptwriters whose dramatic flair kindles the imagination. Dutch directors have one big advantage working in their favour. There is a system of official subsidies for films that pre-dates virtually all the much more vaunted and much more fashionable arrangements in practice in Sweden, Denmark, Yugoslavia, Belgium, and Australia. Since 1965 there has been a bank for Dutch feature film production in the form of a Production Fund from the government and the Nederlandse Bioscoopbond (the country’s largest film trade organisation). But the grants from this Fund are never sufficient to finance a fulllength film without a producer’s having to seek more support off his own bat. And this has proved difficult, in the face of a series of abysmal failures during the Sixties. On the other hand, the Netherlands represents paradise on earth for anyone willing to express his vision within the confines of the short film. Altogether some $1.2 million is available in the form of loans and production credits from the 38 Columns Nederlandse Bioscoopbond, the Ministry of Culture, Recreation and Social Welfare, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. If a budding director fails to secure any cash from these organisations, he may turn either to one of the TV stations for a subsidy or approach one of the industrial giants like Philips, KLM, or Shell, with a view to making a sponsored film for them. Currently there are several proposals in the air for reforming the system of subsidies so as to preserve and nourish the country’s fledgling feature film industry. Until now, officials have pointed out, with some justification, that such features as have seen the light of day have hardly impressed audiences at international film festivals. But in 1972 and 1973, there has been a breakthrough. Dutch feature films have started to earn money at the box-office. And nothing succeeds like success. The storm-troopers at the head of this new movement are two close friends, Pim de la Parra and Wim Verstappen. In the manner of Truffaut and Godard, they cut their teeth on a film magazine (Skoop, still published today) in the early Sixties, and since 1965 they have produced all their films, long and short, under the banner of “Scorpio,” with the “S” of Scorpio deliberately written “$.” Like Truffaut and Godard, too, Pim and Wim admit to a boundless affection for the American B film af the Forties and Fifties. One of their most profitable features, Obsessions, was dedicated to Republic Pictures, and all their work is executed swiftly and dramatically, with one thrill following another and with seemingly no plot development too grotesque for consideration (Blue Movie revolves around a young man’s inability to sustain an erection with the girl he really loves). Pim and Wim share the duties of a film production team with unquenchable enthusiasm. Pim will direct one film, with Wim as producer, and on their next assignment their roles may be reversed. Pim’s latest opus is Frank and Eva — Living Apart Together (scripted, like many Scorpio films, by Scots writer Charles Gormley), and his biggest hit has been Obsessions. Wim came to prominence with his “provo” picture, Joszef Katus, in 1966. It was screened at the Critics’ Week in Cannes, and Wim has since struck the financial jackpot with Blue Movie. Some Scorpio films have been unmitigated flops, including Rubia’s Jungle and Confessions of Loving Couples, but there is always another project in sight, and because they work efficiently and on modest means, Pim and Wim are able to survive to fight another day. Like all flag-bearers, however, Pim and Wim will probably not reap the rewards that they are helping to place within the reach of others. The resounding success of Business is Business (Wat zien ik) and Turkish Delight (Turks fruit) have brought Paul Verhoeven to the brink of international recognition as a director, and his style and approach owe much to Pim and Wim. Both movies, and especially Turkish Delight, are wise enough to conceal a serious centre beneath a surface gloss of comedy and sexual innuendo. Turkish Delight is like a parody of Ken Russell's Savage Messiah, with a vigorous young sculptor falling in love with a nubile girl only to discover that she is dying from an obscure mental disease. His encounters with the girl’s parents, his cheerful vulgarity in the face of bourgeois conformity, and the endlessly witty dialogue, help to make the film a whirlwind experience. Verhoeven knows how to tell a story and how to pace a film for nearly two hours — attributes that have eluded the Dutch for a long time. Business is Business, taken from the popular novels by Albert Mol, tells of a prostitute in the Irma La Douce range whose exploits in the red light district of Amsterdam are amusing, bizarre, and subtle by turns. Another director whose work carries a personal signature is Frans Weisz. Born of Hungarian and Dutch-Portuguese parentage, Weisz studied at the Centro Sperimentale film school in Rome. At the age of twenty-six, he directed a brilliant sponsored short, A Sunday on the Island of the Grande Jatte, a Pirandellian exercise on the fascination of books that was imaginatively photographed by Gerard Van den Berg and whose fluent compositions recalled the Impressionist painting of Seurat. Then came the underrated if rather self-indulgent Illusion Is a Gangstergirl (1967), which had an Italian zest and visual polish remarkable in such a young director. One feels that Weisz, whose latest film The Frame-Up, has done extremely well on its home territory, might well have developed into the Dutch Bertolucci had he been working in the right climate and enjoyed the aid of some experienced scriptwriters. So far | have ignored the Dutch documentary tradition, for the simple reason that it no longer plays a large part in the thinking or ambitions of most young filmmakers in the Netherlands. One cannot forget, however, that since the war the Dutch have made as significant a contribution to the development of the short film as Canada or Yugoslavia. Joris lvens is perhaps too cosmopolitan a figure to be claimed truly by Holland, but Bert Haanstra, Herman van der Horst, Charles Huguenot van der Linden, and John Ferno have all reached the summit of their craft, and Haanstra is recognized as something more than a mere craftsman. His particular brand of “candid” cinema, combined with his brimming humanism and affection for people at work and at play, raise his work beyond the level of mere reportage. Haanstra’s wit is characteristically Dutch,