Sabzian and CINEMATEK are organizing an extensive retrospective of the work of Dutch documentary filmmaker Johan van der Keuken (1938-2001). Following the first part in October and November, the second part of the retrospective will continue chronologically from January. The modest exhibition with documents highlighting the connection between Van der Keuken and Brussels will remain on display at CINEMATEK.
The Dutch filmmaker, photographer, and author Johan van der Keuken (1938-2001) started out in photography as early as his teenage years. His first photo books appeared in the 1950s: Wij zijn 17 [We Are 17] and later Achter glas [Behind Glass]. At the age of eighteen, Van der Keuken entered the Paris film school IDHEC, where, in spite of the “systematic” education, he discovered a growing passion for filmmaking. This period marks his departure from photography as his main artistic activity.
This retrospective bears the title Seeing, Looking, Filming [Zien, kijken, filmen] after the 1980 book of the same name, a collection of Van der Keuken’s texts on filmmaking. Not coincidentally, it is these three verbs that in their interconnectedness best define Van der Keuken’s film practice. Seeing is a form of observation, an interest in the world. Looking is an action, you choose where to look and where to place your focus. And filmmaking in turn is a combination and culmination of the two. Van der Keuken, who playfully conceived of the camera as an extension of his body, opposed the idea that filmmakers stand outside the world they try to depict. The filmmaker stands radically in the world, looking through their lens, framing reality. He always kept one eye on the surrounding world while the other peered through the camera’s viewfinder. Van der Keuken’s oeuvre originates from the adventure of that gaze. Together with his wife, Nosh van der Lely, who operated the microphone and recorder, he traveled the world.
A fourth verb in the title could have been editing. A documentary filmmaker, according to Van der Keuken, can never pretend to represent reality. “For me, the material side of film comes first: a beam of light on a screen. And what is transmitted in that bombardment of light on a screen is always fiction.” In other words, films, including documentary films, are always constructed and edited. Van der Keuken also described his collagist editing strategy as cubist. Editing should offer not one point of view but a multitude of perspectives in which our reality could possibly be described.
The retrospective continues with Van der Keuken’s longer and more ambitious films. The North-South trilogy and De weg naar het zuiden [The Way South] explore the relationships of exploitation and exchange between the global North and South, influenced by the poetry of Bert Schierbeek and the jazz of Willem Breuker. In addition to his films about his beloved hometown of Amsterdam, there are films made in collaboration with poet Lucebert, anthropological and experimental films. The many travels and the intertwining of film and life are constants. As the “man with the camera,” he traces the world, inviting the viewer to discover a global reality and explore the connections between people. He continually reworks and reformulates his own aesthetic principles, showing how they connect to his personal worldview. His final film, De grote vakantie [The Long Holiday] – a film in which the terminally ill Van der Keuken reflects on his work and life—is the natural result of this symbiosis: “If I can’t make an image, I’m dead.” As the capstone of his work, the film offers a touching conclusion to his journey through life. You can find the dates for the individual screenings and programs here.
Van der Keuken was also a gifted writer about cinema, an activity through which he sought to shape and delineate his practice. “For me, writing was sometimes necessary because something lived inside me, hovering before my eyes, that I wanted to grasp – with hermetic formulas or intuitive stammering, speculative outpourings or strict prescriptions to the world.” On the occasion of the retrospective, Sabzian published an Issue featuring Van der Keuken’s writings, available in English, Dutch and French. A collection of texts on his work by various authors will be published in the coming weeks.1 2
Gerard-Jan Claes, Nina de Vroome, and Tillo Huygelen
For information on the subtitles accompanying the films, be sure to check the CINEMATEK website.
- 1With the support of Algemeen-Nederlands Verbond / Stichting ANV Fondsen, KULeuven – Commissie actuele kunst and Cinergie.be.
- 2Still De grote vakantie (Johan van der Keuken, 2000)