Frans Zwartjes

Frans Zwartjes

Рождение : 1927-05-13, Alkmaar, Netherlands

Смерть : 2017-11-18

История

Frans Zwartjes (*Alkmaar, 1927) is a film maker, musician, violin maker, artist and sculptor. In the late 1960's he became well known with films showing grotesquely dressed up actors involved in little power-mad sexual games. Hysterics and cruelty are his regular topics. Susan Sontag called Zwartjes "the most important contemporary experimental film maker". Zwartjes made over fifty films. Pentimento (1979), Living (1971) and Ín Extremo (1981) seem to be his best known films. Director Ruud Monster's documentary The Great Wizard portrays Zwartjes as a self-conscious artist who comments on the world in a farcical way. The film was partly shot at Zwartjes's home, while he was composing.

Профиль

Frans Zwartjes
Frans Zwartjes

Фильмы

film fragments
Director
A selection of never-before-seen cinema sketches by Zwartjes, compiled by Stanley Schtinter with music from Zwartjes' record Tapes I.
The Great Magician
Writer
"The Great Magician" - A portrait of Frans Zwartjes (1927-2017), sometimes called 'the most important experimental filmmaker of his time' by the American essayist Susan Sontag.
The Great Magician
"The Great Magician" - A portrait of Frans Zwartjes (1927-2017), sometimes called 'the most important experimental filmmaker of his time' by the American essayist Susan Sontag.
Beyond
Original Music Composer
Zwartjes' reflections on Beckett, situated between trees.
Beyond
Director of Photography
Zwartjes' reflections on Beckett, situated between trees.
Beyond
Director
Zwartjes' reflections on Beckett, situated between trees.
Rudi van Dantzig repeteert
Director
A short documentary about dancer and choreographer Rudi van Dantzig.
Medea
Director of Photography
Frans Zwartjes' adaptation of Euripides' tragedy, originally produced for stage by the actresses Josée Ruiter and Çanci Geraerdts.
Medea
Director
Frans Zwartjes' adaptation of Euripides' tragedy, originally produced for stage by the actresses Josée Ruiter and Çanci Geraerdts.
In Extremo
Director
The central element in this film is formed by the preparation for and execution of a performance. The performance, a parachute jump, is carried out by an artist (Perrenet) and his girlfriend during the opening of an exhibition. As spectators to the performance, which takes place in the artist’s studio, an art dealer and several friends have been invited. The art dealer enters first, followed by Armand, who looks at some paintings made by Zwartjes; they spout the usual ‘gallery nonsense’. The art dealer appears most interested in the girlfriend. ‘My latest creation’ is how Amand introduces her. The guests who arrive thereafter are introduced in short, independent sections.
Pentimento
Sound Designer
This film is dominated by an icy blue. In a monumental building a group of scientists submit women to obscure experiments, in which sexuality and cruelty constantly merge into one another. When the film was released, this horrifying game of power and powerlessness was condemned severely by a militant group of feminists. The criticism was undeserved. After all, 'Pentimento' is an art-historical term for a hidden image underneath the actual image giving an indication of how the latter evolved to its current state. The film does not endorse the lopsided power relations in our world but actually challenges them.
Pentimento
Producer
This film is dominated by an icy blue. In a monumental building a group of scientists submit women to obscure experiments, in which sexuality and cruelty constantly merge into one another. When the film was released, this horrifying game of power and powerlessness was condemned severely by a militant group of feminists. The criticism was undeserved. After all, 'Pentimento' is an art-historical term for a hidden image underneath the actual image giving an indication of how the latter evolved to its current state. The film does not endorse the lopsided power relations in our world but actually challenges them.
Pentimento
Director of Photography
This film is dominated by an icy blue. In a monumental building a group of scientists submit women to obscure experiments, in which sexuality and cruelty constantly merge into one another. When the film was released, this horrifying game of power and powerlessness was condemned severely by a militant group of feminists. The criticism was undeserved. After all, 'Pentimento' is an art-historical term for a hidden image underneath the actual image giving an indication of how the latter evolved to its current state. The film does not endorse the lopsided power relations in our world but actually challenges them.
Pentimento
Editor
This film is dominated by an icy blue. In a monumental building a group of scientists submit women to obscure experiments, in which sexuality and cruelty constantly merge into one another. When the film was released, this horrifying game of power and powerlessness was condemned severely by a militant group of feminists. The criticism was undeserved. After all, 'Pentimento' is an art-historical term for a hidden image underneath the actual image giving an indication of how the latter evolved to its current state. The film does not endorse the lopsided power relations in our world but actually challenges them.
Pentimento
Writer
This film is dominated by an icy blue. In a monumental building a group of scientists submit women to obscure experiments, in which sexuality and cruelty constantly merge into one another. When the film was released, this horrifying game of power and powerlessness was condemned severely by a militant group of feminists. The criticism was undeserved. After all, 'Pentimento' is an art-historical term for a hidden image underneath the actual image giving an indication of how the latter evolved to its current state. The film does not endorse the lopsided power relations in our world but actually challenges them.
Pentimento
Director
This film is dominated by an icy blue. In a monumental building a group of scientists submit women to obscure experiments, in which sexuality and cruelty constantly merge into one another. When the film was released, this horrifying game of power and powerlessness was condemned severely by a militant group of feminists. The criticism was undeserved. After all, 'Pentimento' is an art-historical term for a hidden image underneath the actual image giving an indication of how the latter evolved to its current state. The film does not endorse the lopsided power relations in our world but actually challenges them.
It's Me
Music
First full-length experimental feature by filmmaker Zwartjes about an actress, played by Willeke van Ammelrooy, who during the whole film, in continuously changes moods, is busy in her room. Eventually, she is made an offer by telephone. But what offer does the actress get?
It's Me
Production Design
First full-length experimental feature by filmmaker Zwartjes about an actress, played by Willeke van Ammelrooy, who during the whole film, in continuously changes moods, is busy in her room. Eventually, she is made an offer by telephone. But what offer does the actress get?
It's Me
Director of Photography
First full-length experimental feature by filmmaker Zwartjes about an actress, played by Willeke van Ammelrooy, who during the whole film, in continuously changes moods, is busy in her room. Eventually, she is made an offer by telephone. But what offer does the actress get?
It's Me
Director
First full-length experimental feature by filmmaker Zwartjes about an actress, played by Willeke van Ammelrooy, who during the whole film, in continuously changes moods, is busy in her room. Eventually, she is made an offer by telephone. But what offer does the actress get?
Bedsitters
Producer
Set on the landing and the stairs of Zwartjes’ new house, then still empty, in The Hague. The filmmaker suggests a mysterious and complex space by using a ‘floating’ camera to film a number of crawling, creeping personages. (MUBI)
Bedsitters
Sound Designer
Set on the landing and the stairs of Zwartjes’ new house, then still empty, in The Hague. The filmmaker suggests a mysterious and complex space by using a ‘floating’ camera to film a number of crawling, creeping personages. (MUBI)
Bedsitters
Director
Set on the landing and the stairs of Zwartjes’ new house, then still empty, in The Hague. The filmmaker suggests a mysterious and complex space by using a ‘floating’ camera to film a number of crawling, creeping personages. (MUBI)
Audition
Director
Zwartjes made many films without dialogue or sound. The music can however be very important. Zwartjes composes it himself, sometimes together with his brother Rudolf and Lodewijk de Boer. Audition is a fine example of a Zwartjes film with an important soundtrack. It is a visual improvisation of cinematography and acting. There is hardly a ‘story line’. A man and a woman watch another woman singing, predominantly in exciting black and white images.
Moving Stills
Music
First film by Paul de Nooijer, in collaboration with his artistic father Frans Zwartjes. Moving Stills shows a series of photographs by Françoise de Nooijer, which are joined, by means of editing and colour effects, and turned into a moving picture. The erotic image gets an explosive charge. (filmcommission.nl)
Moving Stills
Director
First film by Paul de Nooijer, in collaboration with his artistic father Frans Zwartjes. Moving Stills shows a series of photographs by Françoise de Nooijer, which are joined, by means of editing and colour effects, and turned into a moving picture. The erotic image gets an explosive charge. (filmcommission.nl)
Living
Cinematography
Frans Zwartjes and his wife explore their new home, and the sexual tension they've brought with them to it.
Living
Sound
Frans Zwartjes and his wife explore their new home, and the sexual tension they've brought with them to it.
Living
Frans Zwartjes and his wife explore their new home, and the sexual tension they've brought with them to it.
Living
Director
Frans Zwartjes and his wife explore their new home, and the sexual tension they've brought with them to it.
Seats Two
Director
Two girls nestle beside each other on a couch and try desperately to conceal their mutual craving. Sexuality is suggested through the weird rhythm of the film's editing and the tactile quality of the images. - MIFF
How Did You Know I Was in Trouble
Music
Observations of a woman with a Japanese mask dressed in a large painted robe. She moves along the ground amid a (photographed or painted) backdrop of trees and a Japanese window. In the beginning, she is restless and her movements occasionally reveal her naked body beneath the robe. After a climax, also in the music, she is quiet and introverted.
How Did You Know I Was in Trouble
Director
Observations of a woman with a Japanese mask dressed in a large painted robe. She moves along the ground amid a (photographed or painted) backdrop of trees and a Japanese window. In the beginning, she is restless and her movements occasionally reveal her naked body beneath the robe. After a climax, also in the music, she is quiet and introverted.
Through the Garden and Into the Living
Music
Film shot entirely in the open air with women walking around a garden, life-sized photos in the grass and people at the table. A film from the series Home Sweet Home.
Through the Garden and Into the Living
Director
Film shot entirely in the open air with women walking around a garden, life-sized photos in the grass and people at the table. A film from the series Home Sweet Home.
Toilet
Director
Short, abstract film of a woman in a toilet. Black and white film with some tinted shots.
They Are Five
Cinematography
In this experimental film we see people in varying combinations walking and crawling through sand and grass and along the waterfront in a very quick assembly.
They Are Five
Director
In this experimental film we see people in varying combinations walking and crawling through sand and grass and along the waterfront in a very quick assembly.
Behind Your Walls
Director
Frans Zwartjes' two visions of womanhood in Behind Your Walls have all the febrile frustration associated with his previous work. Flesh looks like crisp paper about to be despoiled, a torpid heat reduces movement to fidgets and hesitations. - MIFF
Spectator
Director
Spectator is one of the early masterpieces by Zwartjes. The film explicitly shows one of Frans Zwartjes’ main themes: the relationship between husband and wife. It is a relationship that is strongly marked by power and domination, sexual attraction and repulsion. It manifests itself in humiliation and abuse (such Pentimento), but also in cool eroticism or natural physicality. Zwartjes’ goal is not to explain or designate this relationship. Rather it is the subject that Zwartjes uses to describe his world. In an article on Zwartjes, filmmaker and student George Schouten compares Zwartjes to the Italian writer Alberto Moravia. For both, sex is their way of dealing with reality. It is the subject by which they define their world. And for Zwartjes, it is also the subject with which he can display and develop his cinematic talent. (eyefilm.nl)
Visual Training
Director
A man and his female helper lather a blindfolded woman's naked body with various foodstuffs.
Collage
Director
An experimental short from Dutch filmmaker Frans Zwartjes.
Compilatie
Director
An experimental short from Dutch filmmaker Frans Zwartjes.
Eating
Original Music Composer
Three women, wear makeup or masks, having a meal.
Eating
Director
Three women, wear makeup or masks, having a meal.
Anamnesis
Director
Film in three parts. A man and a woman, Trix Zwartjes and Lodewijk de Boer (Zwartjes’s regular actors) circle around each other in a house and outside at the water side. They attract and reject each other.
Spare Bed-Room
Director
An experimental look at the sexual life of a couple.
Sorbet '3'
Director
A man in drag reaches for some sorbet and then eats it.
Dolls
Cinematography
An experimental film by Dutch filmmaker Frans Zwartjes.
Dolls
Director
An experimental film by Dutch filmmaker Frans Zwartjes.
Sorbet II
Cinematography
Short film by Frans Zwartjes
Sorbet II
Director
Short film by Frans Zwartjes
A Fan
Director
A man in drag sits on a couch holding a fan. The wallpaper behind him is floral patterned. Although the man does little more than looking around and waving his fan, Zwartjes created enormous tension.
Birds, One
Director
A woman plays with a bird as the camera's gaze is drawn to her legs.
Film II
Director
To mark his ninetieth birthday, EYE has restored Zwartjes’ very first film, originally shot on Super-8 and long thought lost. Zwartjes started his career as a violinist and visual artist. He took photographs, made music and built instruments – but only really broke through with his equally craftsmanlike films.