Joris Ivens

  • Joris Ivens – Nieuwe gronden aka New Earth (1933)

    Joris Ivens1931-1940DocumentaryNetherlandsSilent

    Quote:
    The Zuiderzee Works episode of We Are Building was elaborated to the much longer film Zuiderzee by Joris Ivens in 1930. In 1934 Ivens used the same material, and additional footage, to make another version: New Earth. This time the film got a political message, and the editing became more compact and stronger, sustained by the stirring Music of Hanns Eisler. After the part on the reclamation and the closing of the dyke the film continues with images of the economic crisis and the poverty among labourers. Ivens opposes this with the speculation on the market: those who helped with the reclamation of new land for agriculture are now unemployed and starving, while grain is dumped at see to keep the prices up. The closing of the dyke is still one of the strongest editing sequences in the films of Joris Ivens.Read More »

  • Joris Ivens – La Seine a rencontré Paris AKA Seine a rencontré (1957)

    Joris Ivens1951-1960ArchitectureArthouseDocumentaryFrance

    The first film Joris Ivens made when he returned from Eastern Europe is a film poem about Paris and Parisian life on the borders of the Seine river. The film follows the flow of the river through the city of Paris, making a portet of this city and its people living, strolling, sun-bathing, fishing, working, swimming, loving and laughing beside the Seine. The poem written by Jacques Prévert gives the film an extra dimension, and the music, with the recurring theme of a children song, gives it a melancholic touch.Read More »

  • Joris Ivens – Pour le Mistral (1966)

    Joris Ivens1961-1970DocumentaryFrance

    One of Joris Ivens’ most poetic films is his first attempt to film the wind. With a beautiful photography, a powerful editing and a poetic commentary the film tries to make the wind visible and tangible. It starts in black and white, continues in colour and ends in cinemascope to illustrate the force of the upcoming Mistral wind that blows in the south of France. The original scenario was much more elaborate and ambitious and fits Ivens’ lifelong wish to film the impossible: the wind. It was difficult to find a producer for this film, for most people were rather sceptical to finance a film with an invisible main character. Finally Claude Nedjar was willing to produce the film, which despite many financial problems was finished in 1965.Read More »

  • Joris Ivens – Philips-Radio (1931)

    Joris Ivens1931-1940DocumentaryNetherlandsSilent

    An industrial film which shows the operations inside the Philips Radio plant: In a mêlée of activity, glassblowers make delicate glass bulbs. Machinery assists the bulb manufacture. A virtuoso glassblower begins a more complex tube used in radio broadcasting; it is then turned, fired, and sculpted. Conveyors carry partially completed units. Workers perform their various specific assembly-line tasks. Cases are manufactured and machined, wire harnesses are assembled, loudspeakers are produced. As radios near completion, they are run through a series of tests. Engineers and draughtsmen define future developments. In a closing stop-motion sequence, in a style reminiscent of Norman McLaren, a group of loudspeakers performs a playful dance. The film overall is a poetic depiction of an industrial process.Read More »

  • Joris Ivens & Joop Huisken & Robert Ménégoz & Ruy Santos – Das Lied der Ströme AKA Song of the Rivers (1954)

    1951-1960DocumentaryGermanyJoop HuiskenJoris IvensPoliticsRobert MénégozRuy Santos

    Quote:
    “The Song of the Rivers, or Das Lied der Ströme, is a 1954 documentary production by the East Germany’s Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft (DEFA). Dutch filmmaker Joris Ivens was the leading director. The sprawling film celebrates international workers movements along six major rivers: the Volga, Mississippi, Ganges, Nile, Amazon and the Yangtze. Shot in many countries by different film crews, and later edited by Ivens, Song of the Rivers begins with a lyrical montage of landscapes and laborers and proceeds to glorify labor and modern industrial machinery. The musical score is by Dmitri Shostakovich, with lyrics written by Berthold Brecht, and songs performed by German communism’s star Ernst Busch and famous American actor, singer and activist Paul Robeson who also narrates. Song of the Rivers is an ode to international solidarity.”Read More »

  • Joris Ivens – Une histoire de vent AKA A Tale of the Wind (1988)

    1981-1990ArthouseDocumentaryFranceJoris Ivens

    Premiere: Filmfestival Venice 1988
    Awards: Golden Lion (Filmfestival Venice), Félix (European Filmaward of the European Film Academy)

    Joris Ivens’ last film, made with Marceline Loridan, is a testamentary view on his own life and the changes in the world. After Pour le Mistral this film is his second attempt to film the invisible: the wind. On location in China they try to capture the wind as a natural phenomenon, and as metaphor for the constant changes in Culture and Society. In 1988 the film premiered at the film festival of Venice, where Joris Ivens received the Golden Lion for his complete oeuvre.Read More »

  • Mannus Franken & Joris Ivens – Regen aka Rain (1929)

    1921-1930ArthouseDocumentaryJoris IvensMannus FrankenNetherlands

    Quote:
    A day in the life of a rain-shower. As a city symphony Joris Ivens films Amsterdam and its changing appearence during a rain-shower. A very poetic film with changing moods, following the change from sunny Amsterdam streets to rain drops in the canals and the pooring rain on windows, umbrellas, trams and streets, untill it clears up and the sun breaks through once again. Although it seems to be one day it took Ivens a long time to film what he wanted to film (for even in Amsterdam it doesn’t rain every day). With The Bridge, Rain became his major breakthrough as an avant-garde film artist. In 1932 Joris Ivens asked Lou Lichtveld (who also made the music for Philips Radio) to make a sound version of it, and in 1941 the film inspired Hanns Eisler to compose his “Fourteen ways to describe rain” in the context of a ‘Film Music Project’.Read More »

  • Joris Ivens & Marceline Loridan Ivens & Jean Bigiaoui – Comment Yukong déplaça les montagnes AKA How Yukong Moved the Mountains (1977)

    1971-1980DocumentaryFranceJean BigiaouiJoris IvensMarceline Loridan IvensPolitics

    From 1972 until 1974, Joris Ivens and Marceline Loridan, along with a Chinese film crew, documented the last days of the Cultural Revolution, marking the end of an era. The vast amount of footage they shot was edited into twelve films of varying lengths. Focusing on ordinary people spread over a wide geographic area-many of whom were living and working in collectives-the filmmakers recorded a unique moment in history, and also captured some of the more enduring aspects of Chinese culture.Read More »

Back to top button