Cinema of the Netherlands
Cinema of the Netherlands refers to the film industry based in the Netherlands. Because the Dutch film industry is relatively small, and there is little or no international market for Dutch films, almost all films rely on state funding. This funding can be achieved through several sources, for instance through the Netherlands Film Fund or the public broadcast networks. In recent years the Dutch Government has established several tax shelters for private investments in Dutch films.
Box office
In 2000 the total revenue coming from box office results in the Netherlands was €128.5 million; Dutch films had a share of 5.5%, which is €7.1 million. In 2006 the total revenue was €155.9 million; Dutch films had a share of 11.5%, which is €17.4 million.The Netherlands Film Festival and the Netherlands Film Fund are the initiators of four awards recognising box office achievements in the Netherlands. The awards are intended to generate positive publicity for a film when the media attention for the film's release has stopped. The Golden Film is awarded to films once they have sold 100,000 cinema tickets, the Platinum Film at 400,000 tickets, and the Diamond Film at 1,000,000 tickets. The Crystal Film is for documentary films from the Netherlands and is awarded once the film has sold 10,000 cinema tickets.
The most visited film in Dutch cinema history is Titanic, which attracted 3,405,708 visitors. Proportionately the most visited Dutch film is Turkish Delight which had 3,328,804 visitors in 1973, approximately a quarter of the entire population at the time. Titanic, by comparison, drew roughly one fifth of the population of the Netherlands in the late nineties.
History
The first Dutch film was the slapstick comedy Gestoorde hengelaar by M.H. Laddé. Willy Mullens was one of the influential pioneers of Dutch cinema in the early 1900s. His short slapstick comedy The Misadventure of a French Gentleman Without Pants at the Zandvoort Beach is one of the oldest surviving Dutch fiction films.Although the Dutch film industry is relatively small, there have been several active periods in which Dutch filmmaking thrived. The first boom came during the First World War when the Netherlands was one of the neutral states. Studios like Hollandia produced an impressive cycle of feature films. A second wave followed in the 1930s, as talking pictures led to a call for Dutch-spoken films, which resulted in a boom in production: between 1934 and 1940, 37 feature films were released. The film Dead Water, directed by Gerard Rutten, won the Coppa Istituto Luce at the Venice Film Festival, for best cinematography, which was the work of Andor von Barsy.
To accommodate the rapid growth, the Dutch film industry looked to foreign personnel experienced with sound film technology. Mostly these were Germans, or people who had worked in Germany, who fled the country after Hitler took power. Several renowned German directors who would go on to work in Hollywood directed films in the Netherlands in this period, most notably Douglas Sirk and Ludwig Berger.
During World War II, the private Dutch film industry came to a near halt. However, the German-led occupation government supported many small propaganda films in support of the Third Reich. The best-known of these were De nieuwe tijd breekt baan, Met Duitschland tegen het Bolsjewisme and Werkt in Duitschland. After 1943, this funding came to an end, due to internal struggles within the Dutch Kultuurkamer and the lack of money of the occupational government.
In 1946, the Dutch Historical Film Archive was founded, which would become the Nederlands Filmmuseum, today's Eye Filmmuseum. It has played an important role in the preservation and presentation of cinema in general, and Dutch cinema in particular. Its collection encompasses fiction and documentary film, as well as animation, amateur film, and experimental film. The latter has a rich tradition in the Netherlands, not unlike non-fiction film. Cinema newsreel collections, including the Polygoon journaal, state sponsored films, commissioned films, commercials, and documentaries, besides other television productions, are being preserved at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision.
The Dutch Documentary Tradition
The Documentary film of the Netherlands has been renowned worldwide, propelled first of all by the avant-garde from the 1920s and 1930s, in particular the Filmliga movement, with filmmakers such as Paul Schuitema, Mannus Franken, Andor von Barsy, and Joris Ivens. In the years directly following World War II, most effort was given to the reconstruction of the country, and filmmaking was largely related to that purpose. In that period, the so-called Dutch Documentary School emerged. New filmmakers came to the fore, who received critical acclaim, such as Herman van der Horst, Bert Haanstra, and John Fernhout, among others.Van der Horst was successful with his short film Steady!, about the reconstruction of Rotterdam, which won a Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival in 1953, while Van der Horst became also known for his film Faja Lobbi, about life in Suriname, along de Marowijne river, which won a Golden Bear at the Berlinale. Haanstra, in his turn, established his name with Glass, a short about the production of glass, which also won prizes in Berlin and Cannes, as well as an Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject. John Fernhout directed Sky Over Holland, about the country and its connection to visual art, made for the World Exhibition in Montreal in 1967. It was a major attraction, which also won a Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject.
Many other filmmakers came to the fore in the 1960s, eager to explore new pathways and to experiment with film as a medium, supported by broadcasting stations such as VPRO. Among them were the filmmakers and photographers Jan Schaper, Ed van der Elsken and most notably Johan van der Keuken, who had a major impact on Dutch documentary history.
In the same period, Joris Ivens continued to direct films, across the world, for example in Chile and Vietnam, but also in the Netherlands, where he made Rotterdam-Europoort. By that time, Ivens had become the most famous filmmaker from the Netherlands, and he had won many prizes, among them a César Award and a Golden Lion, as well as a career achievement award at the Venice Film Festival. Ivens inspired many other people, including militant filmmakers, such as At van Praag, who established Cineclub Vrijheidsfilms. It produced and distributed films that showed a reality not shown by mainstream media. This critical engagement with cinema became a larger movement, with various other initiatives and politically oriented film collectives, such as the Amsterdams Stadsjournaal, following the example of Newsreel. Several prominent filmmakers started their career in this context, among them Annette Apon, or followed in their footsteps, such as René Scholten and Digna Sinke. A new documentary circuit emerged, which continued to grow over the years, with influential directors such as Heddy Honigmann and Jos de Putter.
Documentary film remains important nowadays within the Dutch film industry and the broader media landscape. The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, held annually in November, has been a major force in this regard too, being one of the largest documentary film festivals in the world.
Flourishing period
In the late 1950s, the film industry in the Netherlands expanded and professionalized, and more resources became available, also for features films. The Nederlands Filmfonds was established in 1957, and the Nederlandse Filmacademie was established in 1958. Bert Haanstra made his first fiction film in 1958, Fanfare, which was a big success. The most famous director of this era is undoubtedly Fons Rademakers, who received critical acclaim in the Netherlands and abroad with a number of films made between 1959 and 1963. Rademakers learned the business from Vittorio De Sica and Jean Renoir and brought his newfound knowledge of foreign art films with him.In the flourishing period, Dutch cinema saw the rise of professional techniques, which bolstered the creation of high-quality content for both local and international audiences. This era laid the groundwork for future generations of filmmakers, enabling them to produce films that resonated with diverse viewers.
The first generation of Dutch filmmakers who graduated from the Dutch Film Academy began to make a name for themselves, among them Frans Bromet, Frans Weisz, and Pieter Verhoeff. While documentary production remained important, Dutch fiction films became gradually more popular in the Netherlands.
A lasting success for Dutch film came in the 1970s, mostly under the influence of Paul Verhoeven. Verhoeven's five films of the decade – Business Is Business, Turkish Delight, Katie Tippel, Soldier of Orange and Spetters – were box-office hits; they are still in the top-twenty most successful Dutch films ever. Turkish Delight and Soldier of Orange were successful abroad as well and eventually led to Verhoeven's Hollywood career. In 2006 Verhoeven returned to his own language and made Black Book, his first Dutch spoken film since The Fourth Man.
Other successful directors from this era are Wim Verstappen and Pim de la Parra, whose movies were more commercial than those of their colleagues in the 1960s. In his book Van Fanfare tot Spetters, film historian Hans Schoots argues that the flourishing period of Dutch film lies between these two films, ending with the controversial Spetters, after which the happy era that was the seventies was over, and a more down-to-earth approach to filmmaking kicked in. Indeed, after 1980, few Dutch films managed to bring crowds of millions to the cinemas, partly due to a decline in interest, partly due to home video systems which resulted in an overall drop in cinema attendance in the Netherlands.