In 2014, Morgan Knibbe (1989) made the short film Shipwreck, about the aftermath of a horrific shipwreck on the coast of Lampedusa in which 350 refugees drowned. Shortly afterwards, he made his first feature-length documentary, also about refugee issues: 'Those Who Feel the Burning'. This very impressive, original and visually strong film was one of the best Dutch films of the last...
Hungarian composer György Ligeti (1923-2006) suffered under several dictatorships; the Nazis killed his father and brother during World War II, and after the War the communists forced him to write sweet 'folk music'. After the 1956 Hungarian uprising, he fled to Vienna and then to Cologne. In the West, he unpopularised into an idiosyncratic composer, who already...
'Let me lament my fate in tears. And let me long for freedom.' What would my preference be: book, film or play? That question fascinated me when it turned out that Toneelgroep Maastricht had adapted Arthur Schnitzler's book Droomnovelle and Stanley Kubrick's film Eyes Wide Shut based on it into a new play. Actually, it was not a fair...
September, the month of the Dutch Theatre Festival and the Fringe Festival full of old and new performances you must see. But a lot is also happening in the rest of the country at the start of the new theatre season. Five must-sees. Toneelgroep Maastricht, Eyes wide shut (theatre) 'The new Shakespeare' he has been called, I already called him 'devil's advocate'. Fact...
First there was Arthur Schnitzler's book. Then Stanley Kubrick's film. And now the play. From 27 August, Toneelgroep Maastricht plays Eyes wide shut. After his wife confesses her sexual fantasies, a man searches feverishly for his own deepest hidden desires against the backdrop of carnival celebrations. "I always wanted to make psychologised drama once," says Servé Hermans, artistic director of...
At the end of this month, Toneelgroep Maastricht will present 'Eyes wide shut'. The play is an adaptation of Stanley Kubrick's film of the same name. The latter was in turn inspired by Arthur Schnitzler's 'Droomnovelle'. The book was published 90 years ago and caused quite a stir. Sexual charge Over the years, quite a few literary studies have been devoted to Dreamnovelle. But what has...
Who does a film belong to? That's the theme at this year's IFFR Critics' Choice programme. From YouTube compilations to a Russian Mad Men. Is the studio the owner, the filmmaker or the viewer? With video essays as the new form of film criticism.
From 2007, video artist Matthew Barney (The Cremaster Cycle) and composer Jonathan Bepler on a free adaptation of Norman Mailer's most maligned book Ancient Evenings. To Mailer's mythology of ancient Egypt, they added the equally mythical American automobile industry in an ambitious and operatesque film project with a demanding length of 5 hours 11 minutes.
From February River of Fundament on world tour and the Holland Festival
Imagine an old-fashioned sophisticated comedy, but filmed with modern speed, in the colourful and baroque style of a richly detailed comic strip full of plots and escapes, rounded off with a perfume of melancholy. Then you come close to The Grand Budapest Hotel, the new film by
When Muziekcentrum Vredenburg closed its doors in 2007 for an ambitious renovation, symphonic concerts were moved from the centre of Utrecht to the emergency location Vredenburg Leidsche Rijn on the A2 motorway. The broadcasting series 'Vredenburg Friday'
Does live accompaniment with choir and orchestra make Kubrick's 2001 a different or better film? Not necessarily, but as an homage and event, it is a wonderful gesture. Even on the hard bucket seats in the Gashouder, it is once again a breathtaking experience. Last night, at the Gashouder on Amsterdam's Westergasfabriek grounds, finally revisiting Kubrick's science fiction epic 2001: A Space Odyssey. This...
Shakespeare had it, Oscar savage had it, Monty Python had it and Simon McBurney has trucks full of it. So it is British and it is called humour, or rather the ability to show the absurdity of life as simultaneously hilarious and deeply tragic. And let that also apply to Russian Mikhail Bulgakov. So his unfinished novel The Master and Margarita has now had to wait almost 75 years for a director like Simon McBurney to turn it into theatre.
Hear Vera Lynn sing as the atomic bombs explode in Dr Strangelove. Stanley Kubrick did wondrous things with the music in his films. Rightly so, the Holland Festival is making space for a special screening of 2001 with orchestra. Space ships to Strauss' waltzes, prelude to a Kubrick summer. Much has been written and speculated about the films of Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999),...
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