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Joost Ramaer
Measured and Laboured
The Life and Works of Alex van Warmerdam
Boekmanstudies
1 - A Unique Breeding Ground for Talent
A Youth Spent amongst Theatre, Music and Sets
Oldest children are often burdened by their position within the family. They must
struggle to gain every inch of their own space, fight for every decibel of music that
sounds from their room, every hour on their night out from their parents, who are also
novices, new to the stages a firstborn goes through. The tough, unremitting battle or the
very lack of it - the child refuses, or doesn’t dare, and tries to adjust itself, without
consideration of the harm to its character - just as often leads to discomfort and
uneasiness on both sides of the front. Silently passing the blame, alienation, glowing
embers that have never been stamped out during a hefty row or a good talk.
Alex van Warmerdam is a self-conscious oldest child. Ever since his birth, it is almost
as if he has always been there. He’s neither rebellious nor quiet and shy - at least no
more or less than other children. What is unusual is his tenacity. Perhaps that’s what his
mother finds difficult about him. Little Alex doesn’t give extra cause for a strict
upbringing, yet she has her hands full. The Haarlem-born Thea van Warmerdam-de Vos
married when she was 21, and Alex is born a year later, on 14 August 1952. Having
become a mother early in life, she is insecure about her role, and Alex takes little trouble
to put her at ease. As a toddler he regularly runs away from home,
leaving behind his deeply troubled mother. On one occasion he was brought home
by a bus driver, who had found little Alex -two or three years old- at a bus stop far
from his parental home.
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Thea usually has to face these trials on her own. Her husband Peter van Warmerdam,
born and raised in Spaarndam, is seldom at home. This was a necessity, not a choice. As
a boy Peter is good at drawing, but for many years he didn’t know what he wanted to be.
As late as 1945 – at 24 years old – he finds his vocation. An acquaintance points out an
advertisement to him, for a stagehand at the city theatre of Haarlem. A large number of
applicants are lined up in front of the theatre, but it is Peter who lands the job. This
leads to a life of minimum earnings and maximum passion. Every evening there is
something to do in the theatre, where at least five times a week, Peter has to be on the
scene. In the daytime, he helps building up and taking down shows and doing all sorts of
work, like painting billboards. Once every four years he has a day off at Christmas.
Despite the long hours, the stagehand’s pay is low. So low that Peter soon sacrifices his
spare time by constructing sets against payment for the many amateur companies in
Haarlem and its surroundings. In order to transport the large pieces of scenery he
purchases a car – in the early fifties still an unusual possession.
He picks an old but aristocratic second-hand Mercedes-Benz 170, a pre-war model, with
large round headlights on elegantly arched wings. Peter constructs the wooden roof rack
in aid of transporting the sets himself. He drives through Haarlem and the surrounding
area like that. With intervals, however: when the petrol is almost finished and Peter is
broke, he leaves the Mercedes and takes the bicycle until
he has enough cash to fill up the car again.
As a favourable circumstance of his minimal salary the stagehand and his family,
together with another family, are offered a low-rent accommodation in the
administrator’s residence of the Haarlem Concert Hall, which is part of the same
organizational unit as the city theatre. Theatre and the musical stage are still a private
enterprise, and programming is a colourful mixture of art and commercial
entertainment. In the basement of the Van Warmerdam house, the North Holland
Philharmonic Orchestra rehearses; outside in the garden the acrobats and tight-rope
walkers rehearse when circus acts are in town.
Peter also decorates his own home, because of a liking for it, and due to a permanent
lack of money. He makes painted wooden planks appear like a marble mantelpiece. And
when Alex and his brothers – Marc is born in 1954, Vincent in1956 – are not in school,
he often takes them on his tours past the amateur theatre companies. There they wait in
the car until he is done. At a young age they lie beneath the stage of the theatre in order
to keep the fountain going during an operetta. They had a musical upbringing thanks to
their mother. Thea is a great singer; for years, she has been active in an operetta
company.
Unintentionally and without any ulterior motive of an educational nature, Peter and
Thea create a unique environment, which would have left no child indifferent. Alex and
his brothers – in 1961 followed by twins, Anne-Marie and Liesbeth – grow up with
theatre, music and the applied art of Peter’s sets and decorations. As if that isn’t enough,
they also become altar boys in church. That too is theatre: for them, the fun ends as soon
as the Latin Mass is dispensed with. In retrospect, Alex van Warmerdam drew on his
whole environment to develop as an artist. Even now, this is occasionally
still evident in his mother’s words, who is 80 years old by now. When she tells of her
great-uncle for instance, a singer and sculptor who sang with the German opera for a
short period: ‘He had weak nerves and died reasonably young.’
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For five years the Van Warmerdams live in the concert hall, followed by a few years in
the Hannie Schaftstraat in East Haarlem. Alex is drawing all the time, just like his father
did. In 1960, he and Marc take part in a pavement drawing competition, which a local
newspaper gives a detailed account of. In the first round, Marc beats his older brother by
taking second place. Both proceed to the final. Now Alex wins, and Marc sadly loses out
to his brother.
A year later stagehand Peter van Warmerdam becomes stage manager of the Casino
Theatre in Den Bosch. He and his family move to the newly surrendered new housing
estate West 2 in Deuteren, a settlement on the edge of the city. There they will also live
for five years. Just like in many modern suburbs, it takes a considerable time before
there is a bus connection to Den Bosch. Thea feels quite isolated. Alex also can’t really
settle in Brabant; moreover he is in constant conflict with his teachers. He refuses to
unquestionably accept their authority. His incessant questioning – ‘Who says this book
is right?’- does not make him popular.
In Den Bosch too, the Van Warmerdam brothers continue to enrich their lives mostly
outside of the classroom. During the celebration of their parents’ copper wedding
anniversary, they perform their first real play in the living room in West 2, with a large
family crowd as their audience. It’s an existing play, named De Volgende Zaak (The
Next Case), with the roles of a villain, a forester and a judge. Alex plays the villain, the
most rewarding part. Marc is the judge, and their youngest brother Vincent is the
forester, who has very few lines. The performance is a great success and is captured on
black-and-white photos. In Den Bosch they also see their first real movies – the medium
that later on in life will make Alex famous. Lawrence of Arabia makes a deep
impression. A scene in the movie shows a boy sinking in quicksand. Marc cannot sleep
for weeks after seeing the horrible scene.
Even though their time in Den Bosch definitely has its pleasant sides, it is all in all a
liberation when the Van Warmerdam family can return to their familiar place of origin.
In 1966, Peter becomes stage manager of the Velsen City Theatre in IJmuiden.
The family finds accommodation above the playhouse, with a spacious terrace
that provides a beautiful wide view of the surroundings. A cantilever window above
the kitchen sink gives entry to the projection room. If you open a hatch next to the
projector during the show, the crowded theatre’s heavy warm air, smelling of sweat and
wet coats drifts into the projection room. The boys only need to run down some stairs
and past some doors to see all that happens on the stage and the big screen, something
they take full advantage of. Furthermore, the School for Graphic Design, followed by the
Rietveld Academy finally offer Alex the teaching environment that suits him.
Soon IJmuiden has more to offer. In the late sixties the harbour town is alive with the
rise of pop music and the social change of that period. In 1969, Peter van Warmerdam
starts working groups for cabaret, traditional and experimental theatre on the stage of
his city theatre, behind the safety curtain. These are to raise the level of amateur theatre
in the IJmond region. Het Witte Tejater (The White Theatre), as it is named, will be a
lively mixture of discussions, workshops, rehearsals and performances, with amateurs
and professional actors participating on equal footing.
Including the Van Warmerdam brothers. Het Witte Tejater becomes known
far beyond the borders of IJmuiden. Theatrical producers and critics from all
over the country visit IJmuiden to see for themselves, amongst them a group
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of students from the Amsterdam School for Drama. One of them is Olga Zuiderhoek.
She performs in one of the plays, and afterwards forgets her waist belt in the dressing
room. It is sent to her. Alex spotted it and remembered whose it was. Her acting
impressed him. Many artists become interested in the pioneers of IJmuiden, amongst
them also the members of the Hauser Kamer Orkest, a band named after brothers Dick
and Rob Hauser, bass guitarist and saxophone player respectively. The other members
are the pianist Gerard Atema, drummer Eddie Wahr, singer Chris Bolczek and guitarist
Thijs van der Poll. The last three are from IJmuiden. Together with Alex and his
brothers, the young musicians start mixing pop music with theatre in a way not shown
anywhere else.
2 - Just like rock stars
Hauser Orkater:The Start of a Legend
Their aim is clear from their new collective’s name Hauser Orkater – the second word is
a contraction of orchestra and theatre – the collective that will achieve an almost
mythical status at home and abroad. Yet the ending proves to be inevitable: most
musicians in the group want more emphasis on the music, whereas especially Alex’s
development is geared towards text and theatre. During a tour of Brussels in 1977,
at the height of their fame, the band members of Hauser Orkater decide to discontinue
the band within two and a half years. They keep it secret for the time being. Hauser
Orkater has just landed a structural subsidy, which they don’t want to
endanger. Furthermore, dozens of performances are planned. In 1978 Hauser Orkater
performs for two consecutive months at the Roundhouse in London, a former railway
engine shed transformed into a hot spot for pop music and experimental theatre. There
the group performsThe Hunch, the English language version of their third big show ’t
Vermoeden (The Suspicion), which Time Out magazine in a cover story describes as
amazing. Roundhouse employee Rina Vergano is deeply impressed, she recounts
years later to Hauser Orkater biographer Lutgard Mutsaers. ‘They were tall, cool and
confident, stylish in a Bohemian-like way. Just like rock stars.’ Vergano has never seen
‘so many beautiful men together,not before and not since’.
The day of the premiere, she goes backstage to wish them luck, but Alex is missing. ‘He’s
throwing up,’ she is told. ‘That was normal, apparently.’ Alex’s nerves underline
how serious the group is about their work. It takes some time before their hard work is
rewarded. The first shows draw no more than a few dozen visitors, in a hall with six
hundred seats. The British critics can’t make any sense of it and The Hunch gets only
bad reviews. The ‘rock stars’ are completely fed up and even want to go home before the
two months are up. But slowly things are getting better.
Also thanks to Vergano, the hall fills up. On their final night Monty Python’s Eric Idle
and Michael Palin come and watch, as well as The Kinks’ Ray Davies. These Hauser
Orkater heroes love The Hunch. Eric Idle writes them an enthusiastic letter: ‘The best
thing I’ve seen on a London stage in many years.’ One of the visitors is the critic Colette
Godard of the French newspaper Le Monde. Financially the London adventure may be a
costly failure, but the enthusiastic review by Godard earns the group an international
reputation. With ’t Vermoeden later that year, Hauser Orkater brings in full houses in
Rome and Bordeaux amongst others. In the first half of 1980 this is followed by 24
performances in Belgium, 16 in Germany, two in the US and
no less than 45 in France.
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In October 1978 the VPRO television channel shows the film version by director Frans
Weisz of a short new production, Entrée Brussels – the title refers to the meeting that
took place a year earlier, in which it was decided to end the group. Entrée Brussels
means an ambition that mostly Alex has harboured for years is fulfilled: making a movie.
He has drawn the storyboard himself. Just like the stage version, the movie is a success,
but the movie especially confirms the musicians’ deepest grievance: their part has
become a minor one.
One more time Hauser Orkater shows the group’s collective capability. Zie de mannen
vallen (Watch The Men Fall) premieres late May 1979 in the Shaffy Theatre, the theatre
and bar in Amsterdam where the group became big. Zie de mannen vallen deserves
particular notice, it being the artistic climax of a special and influential troupe, and
because it clearly shows the early stages of Alex’s later work. The show opens with an act
by Jim van der Woude, which became legendary. Jim comes on stage, carrying a very
heavy stage weight on each arm. Without being able to use his arms, he enters into a
fight with a wire that is stretched across the stage, which is connected to sensors that
transform the wire’s movements into mysterious sounds. In the end, Jim’s face has been
gruesomely deformed by the wire in which he has gotten entangled. To free himself, he
burns through the wire with a lighter. End of act.
The back of the stage is invisible due to a slightly rounded wooden wall, higher than
man’s height. In the middle of the stage, a wide platform slants up to the edge of the
wall. The sound of an aeroplane flying low is heard; it crashes somewhere behind the
wall. On top of the wall, Peer Mascini appears as the pilot. He has a short conversation
with Alex’s character, beneath him.
Peer ‘What’s your name, lad?’
Alex ‘Potter, sir.’
Peer ‘Is a nice name, boy.’
After that, the entire group bursts out in a beautiful a cappella song, after which Marc
van Warmerdam appears on the edge of the wall.
Peer ‘Hey Anton! I thought you were dead.’
Marc ‘I’ve lived on the edge for a while.’
Alex ‘And unlike before will you come down from there?’
It seems like total madness, like Der Ganzumsonst, as a famous Hauser Orkater song is
titled. But gradually a kind of game develops, using the space that is divided into two
parts, with seeing and not seeing, with what you seeor don’t see and whether that is
reality or imagination. Positioned on the edge, Anton overlooks the world behind the
wall. Alex’s character does not: Potter is below on the stage. He nevertheless calls out to
Anton triumphantly: ‘I still see more!’ Potter responds with some of the pseudophilosophical profundity that the performance is interspersed with. ‘Der Schein trügt
nicht’ (‘Appearances are not deceptive’), he says, and: ‘Manchmal
scheint alles größer.’ (Sometimes everything seems larger’) Kann man wohl sagen, or
quite right is what the audience is inclined to say: during the performance Potter
wrestles a giant scooter and an even larger bar stool. In the meantime, he recites Alex’s
texts: ‘Coincidence knows no boundaries! Coincidence is international, just like
rheumatism!’ Of equal beauty:
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Sometimes, when I walk outside
Let’s say on a muddy country road in the rain
And I feel quite alone
I imagine that behind a steamed up window
In a farm a bit further down
A beautiful young woman in her late twenties
Watches me
The members of the troupe carefully articulate such sentences, loud and clear but also
bare and dry, without pathos or exclamation marks. They sing Alex’s songs in the same
manner:
Why don’t you look at me
You frozen over pond
Must I wait until thaw sets in
Or pound a hole into you
Towards the end Jim van der Woude shines in a second classic, when he duels grimfaced and silently with two wooden window frames. In the final act the men climb via
the platform to the edge of the wall with difficulty, and fall off one by one, into the
unknown world behind it, as predicted in the title song:
Watch the men fall
Don’t they know
That only a woman
Can balance on the edge
Of a high wooden wall
Between heaven and earth
Her head in thin air
Each day she thinks
Of both sides of the wall
They talk of the good side
Thirty years later – Zie de mannen vallen is also captured on film by the VPRO, and the
multimedia library of the Dutch Theatre Institute saves a copy – the show still looks as
crisp and modern as it did in those days. The notes, the words, the stage image – they
are timeless. Some moments are hilarious, but the piece can in no way be labelled as a
comedy. A Latin Mass meets Space Odyssey comes closer. What mostly stays in the
audience’s memory is allure. An almost solemn allure–in the sounds, in the acrobatics
and in the diction of the wondrously beautiful and nonsensical texts.
Gradually, Alex van Warmerdam has discovered his talent. He has outgrown the
collective, and wants to be in charge of his creations. He takes control and his brother
Marc helps him out. Marc, having found his niche as organiser, is the one who makes
Alex’s artistic ideas happen.
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3 - The Artist Is in Charge, Not the Audience
Alex the Author Frees Himself From the Collective
With the dissolution of Hauser Orkater arises a creative and business problem.
A group of actors and musicians is left who, put plainly, need to work. Hauser Orkater
may no longer exist, but the group’s members are open to other forms of cooperation. It
is clear that Alex needs his own environment, in which he can make the artistic
decisions, where he can work with people of his choice. But a main condition of the
subsidy to Hauser Orkater is that the group launch at least one new production per year.
Alex doesn’t want that pressure. He wants to make theatre, but he also wants to continue
painting and drawing, and to write scenarios that one day will be made into a film. And
if he had wanted that kind of pressure, it would have been too risky to give in to.
It is Marc who comes up with the solution. In addition to Alex’s creative core, a second
core around Dick Hauser and Jim van der Woude is created. Both cores are an
organizational part of the Orkater Foundation. Both can continue to make use of the
building which the foundation can call its own from 1975. The building – located at
Anjeliersstraat, a street in the Jordaan quarter in Amsterdam - serves as an office, a
space for rehearsals and for building and storing sets, and for the foundations’ business
support. Both cores will create at least one new production a year, thus safeguarding the
subsidy.
Dick and Jim’s core is named De Horde (The Horde). Alex’s is called De Mexicaanse
Hond (The Mexican Dog) – the name refers to a breed of dog with no fur, but also to an
old expression from the fifties, referring to the noise you hear when you’re turning the
radio’s controls, in search of your station of choice. The first show of De Mexicaanse
Hond is called Broers (Brothers). It premieres on 6 January 1981 on the abandoned
ADM shipyard in North Amsterdam. Two brothers lead a ‘sober life in a dry area’,
according to the play’s description. Their lives are mixed up by the arrival of three land
surveyors: they have come to carry out measurements for the construction of a water
recreation centre. The performance has elements of the old Hauser Orkater: the
ingenious set, and music by Thijs van der Poll. However, mostly it is different. More like
theatre. a bit similar to Beckett. The reception is favourable and uncomfortable at the
same time. The public and critics still linger in the void of ‘the sadly missed’Hauser
Orkater. But to no harm.
As Steve Austen, the director of the Shaffy Theatre which contributed to the popularity
of Hauser Orkater, puts it: ‘When you become successful, the question arises: who is in
charge, the artist or the public? If you let the public decide your moves, you’re out.’ Alex
doesn’t let the public decide anything; he is in charge. De Mexicaanse Hond is his
vehicle. He is in search of new forms and performs what he needs for this quest, not
what he thinks the public needs.
Broers is followed a year later by Graniet (Granite), which traditionally premieres in the
Shaffy Theatre. Four men toil in a stone quarry. An enormous boulder needs to come
down; it just doesn’t happen. The distribution of work between the four men is a
recognizable parable of everyone’s sufferings in the office and on the shop floor. The
Neef character cuts corners. Papierman is a manager-type figure who organises the work
and Knuppelman is the rebel; Graniet is mostly about the power struggle between
Papierman and Knuppelman. More than in the Hauser Orkater performances there is a
storyline, a plot development, just like there was in Broers. Similarly, some critics think
7
the spoken lines are too sparse. They especially praise the opera-like scenes, where
music and sung texts are combined, ‘the moments when an abstract type of total theatre
erupts’. Graniet pulls in the crowds again; the audience starts to hook up to Alex’s quest.
Over a two-year period Dick Hauser and Jim van der Woude also put on two new
performances. However, already in 1983 De Horde dissolves. Van der Woude is a
brilliant solo performer, but not in charge of a new formula. The Orkater Foundation
once again has to deal with the old problem: who is going to create the other yearly
production? Once again, the players and creators come up with a solution. The Hauser
brothers create an opera, named Ballast, which opens the Holland Festival in
Rotterdam in 1983. It says ‘Stichting Orkater Opera’ (‘Orkater Opera Foundation’) on
top of the bill. Gradually the old name Orkater becomes the brand name of a new,
second core. The first performances by Orkater still have the division between musicians
and the men of texts and theatre, the same division that meant the end for Hauser
Orkater. Music plays a main part, just like Dick and Rob Hauser, just like Chris Bolczek
and Gerard Atema, the pianist who has stayed with the group since his return. In the end
Dick Hauser pulls out once and for all: he succeeds Steve Austen as
director of the Shaffy Theatre. With him, his brother Rob Hauser also leaves the stage.
As of 1985, the brand Orkater obtains a new artistic identity under the leadership of Aat
Ceelen, who is praised from all sides for his Papierman role in Graniet. Ceelen is a quiet,
level-headed man from Rotterdam, who came into contact with the Orkater family
through the actress and comedian Loes Luca. His fellow townswoman acted in
Wangedachte (Incomplete Thought), the first performance by De Horde. Ceelen
observes the occasionally blazing passions between the Van Warmerdam brothers in
amazement. At one moment differences in opinion, or just tension from hard work, lead
to hefty fights. The next moment all is forgiven and forgotten. Despite their own
dominant culture, the Van Warmerdams regularly
allow newcomers to perform with the group, like Alex does for the actors
Gerard Thoolen and Hans Dagelet in Broers. For Thoolen, a notorious worrier and
doubter, it remains a one-off, but most of them soon feel at home and taken seriously.
That definitely applies to Ceelen. His arrival to Orkater, and the departure of the Hauser
brothers, means a definitive split from the remains of Hauser Orkater. A series of
performances follow, loosely based on existing films, historical facts and literary texts.
The first is Yusa from 1983, based on the film Stray Dog by the great Japanese director
Akira Kurosawa. Ceelen is also no real artistic leader. The first years both De Mexicaanse
Hond and Orkater remain collectives of makers and actors, who together create new
productions. Gerard Atema and Thijs van der Poll write most of the music for Orkater,
and Chris Bolczek is the main singer. Sometimes Alex constructs the sets. The longstanding and loyal core is completed with two types of newcomers: professionals with a
certain amount of fame, like Loes Luca and Aat Ceelen, and young, starting actors.
Hauser Orkater’s legacy lives on in another respect: both Orkater and De Mexicaanse
Hond regularly tour abroad. Especially the French adore the Dutch theatrical company.
The fact that most actors only have an elementary command of French, if even that,
forms no hindrance. Alex van Warmerdam’s stage texts are skilfully translated into
French by Rob Scholten. He searches the old French dictionaries endlessly, until he
finds the archaic words and phrases that perfectly embody Alex’s bare, often somewhat
solemn texts.
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Orkater gives the theatrical and musical family at Anjeliersstraat the stability to enable
Alex to pursue his own path. As regular as clockwork he puts on new theatre
performances – De Wet van Luisman (Luisman’s Law) in 1984 and Onnozele Kinderen
(Innocent Children) in 1986. Thijs van der Poll and his younger brother Vincent are the
regular composers. Alex himself invariably plays a main part. Furthermore, he is
responsible for the texts, the sets and the direction. In addition to this, he continues to
paint, draw, write – in 1987 he publishes his first and to date only novel, De hand van
een vreemde (The Hand of a Stranger) - and to plod away at film scenarios. Because
that own movie, written and directed by himself, has to be made. In 1986 the moment is
there. It is a great leap forward in the artistic development of Alex van Warmerdam the
maker.
4 - A Milestone in Dutch Cinema
‘Abel’, Or the Steady Hand of A First-Time Director
Abel (Voyeur), Alex van Warmerdam’s first feature film, is released during a period in
which the Dutch film world is somewhat in a deadlock. In the 1970s, millions of Dutch
men and women went to the cinema to see films by producer Rob Houwer and director
Paul Verhoeven, like Wat zien ik?! (Business is Business), Turks Fruit (Turkish Delight),
Keetje Tippel (Cathy Tippel), Soldaat van Oranje (Soldier of Orange) and Spetters.
That period ends in the mid-eighties. Verhoeven has left for Hollywood because he feels
misunderstood in the Netherlands, and the flow of money for his expensive, flamboyant
productions has dried up. The dominant player in film funding becomes the Production
Fund for Dutch film, which is subsided by the Dutch government and takes a more
artistic direction under the leadership of journalist and authority on film Jan Blokker.
One young filmmaker withdraws from the trend. Dick Maas releases De Lift (The Lift) in
1983, Holland’s first real horror film. Because of the stinginess of his producer Matthijs
van Heijningen, Maas is forced to do almost everything by himself: the screenplay,
direction and the music. Marc Felperlaan, one of Holland’s most experienced
cameramen and with a series of films to his credit, signs on to do the cinematography.
De Lift becomes a box office hit and the first Dutch film purchased for worldwide
distribution by Hollywood superpower Warner Brothers. His sudden fame takes Dick
Maas to the Cannes Film Festival, where he meets Laurens Geels. The two decide to set
up a film production company, named First Floor Features. Right away, they start on
what is to become the box office success Flodder, written and directed by Dick Maas.
But Flodder won’t be First Floor’s first release. By then Geels has been director of the
Orkater Foundation for years, as well as a good acquaintance of the Van Warmerdam
brothers. He keenly follows Alex’s filming plans, and readily wants to produce his first
film. Thus First Floor becomes the producer of Abel, after an idea that Alex has
harboured for some time. When the Abel project starts, Olga Zuiderhoek is acting in a
piece by Orkater. Brother Marc phones her to ask if she wants to audition for Alex’s first
film. Marc emphasizes that an invitation is not the same as being selected. Olga
auditions once. Two weeks later Alex phones her. ‘I’m stopping the tryouts. I want you
for this part.’ Zuiderhoek will play Duif, Abel’s mother. Victor, Abel’s father, is
played by Henri Garçin, the stage name that Anton Albers goes by, a Dutch actor born in
Antwerp and a resident of Paris for nearly all his life. Garçin has starred in several
French films, but he is practically unknown in the Netherlands. He speaks Dutch
without an accent and yet he doesn’t sound Dutch. His accent is somewhat affected.
9
Posh in an archaic way, the way people today would imagine inhabitants of The Hague
would speak in Louis Couperus’ time.
It is typical for Alex that his choice is Garçin. A rather quaint character – just like
he should be in the film. Alex has been working on Abel in his head for years. His mind
is made up on how the characters should look, how they should sound, how they should
move. He is not interested in big names. He chooses actors that can bring the image in
his head to life.
Alex has written the script, is in charge of direction and plays the main character
himself. Old hand Marc Felperlaan is cinematographer. The set is built in a hangar of
First Floor, located in the western docks of Amsterdam, near IJmuiden. Because of the
combination of Felperlaans’ expertise and Alex’s steady hand in steering the actors,
Alex’s first film is a remarkably mature production. Alex is very decisive on the set. He
knows very well what he wants, and keeps at it until he has arrived at that point. Olga
Zuiderhoek has to work in a completely new manner. For years she has acted with the
Werkteater, a theatre where they mainly work with improvisation. In order for the act to
work, the improvising actor has to imagine himself in the position of the actors opposite
him: if I take away his glass, what will his reaction be? Alex however, doesn’t want such
a psychological approach. ‘You can do that on your own time,’ he sometimes utters. His
actors just need to create the specific image he has in his head, and should by no means
wonder why their character acts they way he or she does.
Zuiderhoek learns that, for Alex, she has to give a ‘completely thought out performance’,
as she describes it. He may refuse the psychological approach, to her it remains a vital
instrument for understanding her part. So she applies that approach –not on her own
time, but during the shoots, in her head, without sharing it with Alex. His approach does
not reduce the actors to robots who are simply putting on performance either. He is
dominant, but not coercive. He is also a very good listener. If an actor proposes a
solution to some element that isn’t working, or if the performance doesn’t flow, then he
adopts it. And if someone from catering makes a useful suggestion, he also adopts it; he
by no means thinks hierarchical.
In the film, Abel’s parents invite young Christine, played by Loes Luca, to their home,
hoping their shy son will fall for her. Duif passes round a large dish of herring, which
Christine detests. Duif then asks: ‘Don’t you like herring?’
Alex is not immediately satisfied with the way Zuiderhoek utters this line.He has her
repeat the line several times. It’s still not right. He then demonstrates himself: ‘Like this.
It should sound a bit sharp and nasal.’ Half an hour later, it sounds the way he wants it
to.
Dick Maas visits the set every now and then, and then tries to make a suggestion. Alex
immediately silences him: ‘Noooo man! Are you mad!’ Maas is fine with it: Alex may be
a first-time director, at least he knows what he wants. Abel is a huge success, both with
the critics and with the public. In the Netherlands, 400,000 people see the film. They
watch an uncompromising universe created by Alex van Warmerdam pass before their
very eyes. The direction, the editing, Felperlaan’s cinematography, the story, the
characters, the sets, the costumes and even the poster – truly all the film’s elements
show the maker’s versatile artistry and vision. A vision that transforms everyday human
relations into bizarre mutual connections and idiosyncrasies, with no escape for the
characters. Van Warmerdam lets them slog away in an aesthetically pretty but also
10
unpleasant environment, in a basic and bare acting style, stripped of all sorts of frills.
Even the many comical moments are hard and painful to the viewer.
The hero referred to in the title is 31 years old, but still living with his parents; he won’t
or doesn’t dare to leave the house – which is never made clear in the film- and
kills time with useless attempts to cut flies in two in full flight, using a pair of scissors.
Duif pampers him as if he were a small child, but Victor, an administrator at a factory
who yearns for a ‘normal’ family life, understands nothing of his son. Abel exasperates
him in deliberately provoking dialogues, that invariably get out of hand. The film starts
with a scene where the family sits at the table for breakfast on Christmas morning. Abel
sits at one head of the very long table, Victor at the other, Duif sits between them –
much closer to Abel than to her husband.
Abel ‘We haven’t wished each other a merry Christmas.’
Victor ‘Merry Christmas.’
Duif ‘Merry Christmas.’
Victor ‘For once, let’s try to have Christmas breakfast
without fighting.’
Abel ‘Why must you say that? We’re not fighting.’
Victor ‘I’m not saying we are. I’m just wishing us a Christmas
breakfast without a fight.’
Abel ‘Then by all means keep emphasising it.
That’ll spark a fight, for sure.’
Victor ‘You shouldn’t bloody turn things around!!!’
Abel, teasingly: ‘I’m not turning anything around,
I’m just making sense of it.’
Victor first imitates him, with a whining voice.
He then says: ‘Your sense! Imbecile!’
Abel ‘See! We are fighting because you emphasised it!’
In the following scene Abel, at the top of the stairs, piles up boxes which he then pulls
over himself using a rope. Duif crawls to him on all fours, and strokes his bleeding head.
Darkness, long shadows and deep, dark colours emphasise the claustrophobic
atmosphere of the house, a lofty apartment. The view from the large windows onto the
surrounding buildings shows beautifully spotlighted, man-sized scale models that have
been built up in a warehouse in the Amsterdam port. The architecture bears a likeness to
IJmuiden’s industrial surroundings, and to Peter van Warmerdam’s sets and
decorations; Abel’s tormenting conversations with his parents resemble the young Alex,
who could give his mother such a hard time. However, Van Warmerdam completely runs
off with these elements, so much so that he creates a completely new world that is no
longer connected to reality. Duif is not his own mother, by no means. She is a new
character. Alex takes offence at how his work is labelled: snug and parochially Dutch,
tragicomic, absurdist. The last term is especially detested by him. To him, it sounds too
much like ‘senseless’. He doesn’t like the term ‘black comedies’ that is used to describe
his work either. They are not comedies, they are deadly earnest. Alex often says that on
the set or during rehearsal: ‘What we’re doing here is very serious!’ The real nature of all
his creations, is best described by two words. The story lines, the texts, the music, the
design, the actor’s performance: it is all equally measured and laboured. That is the only
description the Van Warmerdam
brothers will accept.
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Abel is a new milestone in Dutch cinematic history. It proves that a distinct director’s
film can equally pull in the crowds. He also bridges the gap between art and
entertainment. Unknown actors like Henri Garçin instantly become well-known to a
wide audience. The same applies to Annet Malherbe who portrays Zus, a sex worker in
the peepshow Naakte Meisjes (Naked Girls) with whom Victor has an affair, but who
later falls in love with Alex.
Annet is Alex’s wife. Years later, in the television program Zomergasten (Summer
Guests) she recounts their story. They had once shared the bed, but that night didn’t
make much of an impression on her, as they both had had too much to drink. That
instantly changed when later on Alex declared his love in a letter. It was a bold,
convincing epistle, ‘no soft-soap’. Apart from being Alex’s wife, the mother of their two
sons Houk and Mees, Annet becomes the leading figure in many of his films and plays.
She later breaks through in an entertaining role in the TV series Gooische Vrouwen
(Women from the Gooi area). Halfway through, she is written out of the series, at her
own request. It was a nice stint, but now it’s time for something different. She and Alex,
and the other members of the Orkater family, continue to go their own way, without
getting isolated. At regular intervals, they bring in new members to the family, or they
take a side step, in order to gain new impulses and inspiration.
5 – An Airtight Fairytale
De Noorderlingen: The End is Neither Happy Nor Sad
A year after the premiere of Abel, Alex van Warmerdam publishes his novel De hand van
een vreemde (The Hand of a Stranger), about an unnamed painter who, while situated
on an island, attempts to paint a picture. Written in fine, polished prose Van
Warmerdam describes how the man is distracted by his confrontations with stiff waiters,
the revolting owner of the hotel he’s staying at and the owner’s wife, who he develops an
unrequited love for. Even his senses are confused. Just like Abel, who is unable to
choose between Zus and his mother, and indeed like most of Alex’s characters, the
painter does not manage to get a grip on the emotions and events that unsettle his life.
The author can manage all the better. His first film landed big prizes: two Golden Calves
at the Dutch Film Festival, for Best Film and Best Director, and an Italian film critics
prize. In 1990 the Circle of Dutch Film Journalists vote Abel Best Dutch Film of the
eighties. These honours don’t distract the maker from increasing his body of work. In
1988, De Mexicaanse Hond launch a new play, titled De Leugenbroeders (The Brothers
of the Lie), followed a year later by Het Noorderkwartier (The Northern Quarter). As
per usual, the text, direction and design are by Alex himself, who also acts in both plays.
Vincent is responsible for the music.
His second big film appears in 1992. De Noorderlingen (The Northerners) is another
First Floor Features production. The film is situated in 1960, in an as yet unfinished
street with newly built houses, located on a sand flat on the edge of a thin pine forest.
The year and desolate surroundings clearly refer to Alex’s younger years in the West 2
housing estate near Den Bosch. But the resemblance abruptly comes to a halt there.
What happens in the houses and the small forest is a grotesque transformation of Alex’s
childhood memories, to say the least. The small street’s butcher, played by Jack
Wouterse, has to watch helplessly how his wife, played by Annet Malherbe, slowly pines
away, praying and fasting piously. In the end she dies, lying in a bed by the window on
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the street side. On the pavement, on the other side of the window, a group of women
have a silent wake.
A forester, played by Rudolf Lucieer, desperately tries to preserve order in the pine
wood, in which he is seriously hampered by his bad eyesight, despite his thick glasses.
He tries to catch the evil postal worker Plagge in the act,but in vain. Plagge, played by
Alex himself, steams open the letters belonging to the streets’ inhabitants above an
illegally lit fire deep in the forest, so he can pester the inhabitants about their most
intimate secrets. Like the forester, who can’t manage to satisfy his lustful wife, let alone
impregnate her. To make matters worse, he clumsily shoots a mysterious girl in the
forest; panic-stricken, he dumps the body in a pool in the middle of the forest.
During the whole film, a radio is audible with the latest news on Congo, fighting its
colonial ruler Belgium for independence in the early sixties. This inspires Thomas, the
butcher’s son, to dress up as Patrice Lumumba, the first leader of a free Congo, a game
in which he is helped and encouraged by Plagge. The small street is further penetrated
by dark Africa by the exhibition about the far-away continent set up by two missionaries.
Highlight of the exhibition is a cage with an authentic Maroon inside. Thomas aids him
in his escape, after which the Maroon hides in a hut that he has dug in the forest. There
he witnesses the forester shooting the girl. In revenge, he puts the forester’s eyes out,
who in a rage goes searching for his attacker with a loaded rifle. He accidentally
stumbles upon the African, but decides not to pull the trigger.
De Noorderlingen ends unresolved, like all of Alex van Warmerdam’s dramas. The end
is neither happy nor sad - at least, no sadder than what preceded it. The streets’
inhabitants don’t get any closer, they don’t escape their sad lives, but also don’t make
matters worse. Even the deaths are not brought on by evil intent. The forester, the illmatched butcher with oversized libido and his pious wife , the boy dressed up as
Lumumba – the viewer can only pity them.
De Noorderlingen is an ambitious film because of the many characters and story lines,
because of the beautiful design – the street with newly built houses is not made of
bricks, it’s a film set made of wood and cardboard painted to look lifelike. However, it is
not a comment on the lean fifties of the reconstruction, or a criticism on consumer
society, like some reviewers think it is. It is more like an airtight fairytale, leaving the
viewer blissfully dazed through the mixture of references to realities and the creator’s
morbid fantasies. It’s the product of a creative brain, telling the same story time and
again, constantly reshaped, with use of the same elements. The forester from De
Noorderlingen reappears 10 years later in the play Welkom in het Bos, the stuffed
pheasant of Striptease fame starring Jim van der Woude even reappears 30 years later
in thefilm De laatste dagen van Emma Blank (The Last Days of Emma Blank).
De Noorderlingen is simply art. You have to watch it, enjoy it, and then get back to your
life and work. In hopes that your own imagination might run away with you a bit more
often. That you learn to see the real world through the grotesquely transforming artists’
eyes. Although Alex doesn’t really like using the word ‘artist’.
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6 - Building Your Own Tree Houses, Without Father’s Help
Playing Chess on Many Boards at the Same Time
Just like Abel, De Noorderlingen wins two Golden Calves: again for BestDirector, and
for Best Actor (Rudolf Lucieer as the forester). In addition, the film manages to receive
three European Film Awards, and is nominated for the International Fantasy Film
Award. Fourteen years after its premiere, Alex van Warmerdam will say, during the
National Film Quiz, that he thinks De Noorderlingen is his best film. It is also the last
film produced by First Floor Features. By now, Alex feels strong enough to produce films
on his own, with the support of his brother Marc’s organisational talent. He bears the
bad tidings to Laurens Geels, diplomatically using a nice metaphor. ‘We want to build
our own tree house,’ Alex tells the producer, ‘without our father constantly showing up
with sized pieces of wood.’ Geels is disappointed, but can only accept their solo effort.
The brothers found their own production company, called Graniet Film, named after the
play that put De Mexicaanse Hond on the map. The films that follow are usually smaller
in set-up than De Noorderlingen, but Alex runs things his way.
A year after De Noorderlingen, a new play premieres, Kaatje is verdronken (Cathy has
Drowned). Olga Zuiderhoek is one of the cast again, and so is Aat Ceelen. In his search
for the rest of the cast, Alex sees a rendition of Steven Berkoff’s Lunch in the Frascati
Theatre in Amsterdam, with Jack Wouterse and Ariane Schluter, a recent graduate from
the Maastricht Theatre School. In the theatre bar De Blinker, after the performance,
Alex accosts Schluter. ‘There is very little dialogue in Lunch,’ he says to her. This is
clearly to his liking. Schluter is deeply flattered and somewhat stuck for words. The
maker of Abel and De Noorderlingen is one of her idols. Later on, she receives a phone
call: would she like to have a part in Kaatje. Yes, of course she would! In understanding
Alex’s approach, she gets help from Zuiderhoek. ‘You have to ground your lines,’ she
explains. It’s not: ‘Have you eat-en?’, but: ‘Have you eat-ten?’ Kaatje is a classical Alex
production: the cast plays an average Dutch family
of twenty years’ ago, badly dressed, who live in an average family home. A seventies-type
pop band continuously comments the goings-on on stage. Schluter plays the title part as
the daughter who awakens sexually, in which her dead aunt of the same name
complicates matters. Alex rehearses the play with his usual seriousness and intensity.
Zuiderhoek has to try on dozens of dresses before the director picks one: a striped and
very unflattering specimen. The piece is a big hit with critics and audiences; more than
half the shows are sold out.
Despite the mad intricacies in Kaatje, during rehearsals Alex’s direction categorically
steers the actors away from getting laughs: ‘No pauses, know your lines! Just keep
going!’ However, theatre is different from film: in the theatre, the intimate contact
between the actors on stage and the audience inevitably does the job. Much to the
dismay of Alex, the audience bursts out laughing at every inopportune moment.
Kaatje’s success leads to tours abroad, amongst others through England. The piece is
well received at festivals in London and Edinburgh, but the regular shows in London and
other cities don’t fare as well. Halls are often only half-full, and the critics can’t make
much sense of Kate Has Been Drowned. Apparently, not much has changed since
Hauser Orkater performed The Hunch abroad. It has no effect on the company. After the
performances the actors, director and musicians chat, sing, smoke and drink in their
14
hotel rooms until the early hours. Schluter has the time of her life. ‘It was as if I was on
the road with a pop band,’ she reminisces many years later.
After the return to the Netherlands, Alex has a one-on-one talk with Olga Zuiderhoek.
‘I want to turn Kaatje into a film, but not with you,’ he confesses. ‘I’m thinking of
Michael Caine.’
‘Of course!’, jokes Zuiderhoek, ‘co-starring Meryl Streep! Well, go ahead!’
This conversation shows an innate truth. Alex will not hesitate using different actors
to ‘his’ apparent favourites, if he thinks it’s in the interest of his work. But he does tell it
himself, and that is much appreciated by the ‘spurned’ actors. This way he keeps his
relationships pure.
The filming of Kaatje has not commenced yet. Every film project is a tough battle to
acquire sufficient time and money, over and over again. Money always proves to be a
difficult aspect of Dutch film financing. This involves a complicated mix of investors and
subsidizers. Alex’s success with the audience and recognition by the critics by no means
guarantee a repeat. That is obvious from the half-full halls in England, nearly
twenty years after The Hunch. Abel draws 400,000 visitors, De Noorderlingen 150,000,
De Jurk (The Dress, 1996) 100,000, Kleine Teun (Little Tony, 1998) 80,000, and
Grimm (2003) 60.000.
He breaks new ground with the film Grimm. In the meantime Alex and Annet have
discovered Spain; during the summer, they rent a house there, to relax but also to
peacefully work on new projects. Grimm starts in a familiar Van Warmerdam
environment – bare, knotty, faintly Dutch. But at a certain moment the main characters
Jacob and Marie ride a moped into a tunnel. When they come out on the other side,
they’re suddenly in Spain. And that’s where they remain for the rest of the film. Critics
don’t appreciate the gimmick. They think Grimm is too much torn between two ideas, or
rather: between two countries, two atmospheres. That is the usual story. The maker has
to take advantage of each success in order to head in a different direction. But it usually
takes a while before the public and critics want to follow him there. Not until Ober
(Waiter, 2006) is Alex van Warmerdam on the rise again: 120,000 visitors. Ober is also
the first movie that is officially marketed as being a ‘comedy’, in agreement with Alex. In
pleasing the market, he won’t go any further.
Not everything that Alex touches turns to gold. With the turn of the century, Pierre
Bokma has joined the Orkater family, performing periodically. He plays the main part in
two new plays, Welkom in het Bos (Welcome in the Woods) and De Verschrikkelijke
Moeder (The Horrible Mother). As usual, Alex is playing chess on many boards at the
same time. While the actors are already rehearsing, Alex is writing and rewriting his
plays, composing music and painting, and working on film scenarios. Because It Needs
To Be Done, everything in his head Needs To Be Done. Plays like Welkom and De
Moeder, that often have absurd and hilarious moments, but should never – ever- be
called comedies, and which are always written in all seriousness, demand a very
particular inner logic. As Bokma describes it: ‘Alex always wants to keep everything
within a very tight frame. You can never touch the sides, you must always stay in the
middle.’ This works wonderfully well in Welkom in het Bos, but not in De
Verschrikkelijke Moeder. The viewer is left with too many questions. Bokma calls it a
‘failed’ piece.
15
But failure and lesser moments also contribute to the maker’s development. De laatste
dagen van Emma Blank (The Last Days of Emma Blank), Alex’s most
recent film from 2009 proves this. It’s the screen version of Adel Blank, a play from
1999. De film is situated at one location, a beautiful house in the dunes. There is a long
search for such a house during preparations, but it can’t be found. In the end, Alex
designs it himself, and Marc has the house made especially for the film, from wooden
sheets, beams and boards. The outer walls are painted black and have white window
frames. The house weighs heavily on the 2.75 million euro production budget. But it
alsolends the film an air of grandness. It’s a house that could exist, but doesn’t, like
everything in Alex van Warmerdam’s work.
Alex didn’t act in Adel Blank, and it was his intention to also not play in the film. But no
such thing. Emma Blank, played by Marlies Heuer, her first role for Van Warmerdam, is
deadly ill, or pretends to be– it doesn’t transpire throughout the film. She bullies the
domestic staff that takes care of her. The only person she shows any
affection is Theo, a man who behaves like a dog, in the most literal sense of the word.
Alex has a lengthy search for an actor to play this weird and wonderful part. Reluctantly,
he decides to play the part himself. As if to underline his reservations, Theo is often
portrayed in the background in the film, sometimes even in soft focus. That is a stroke of
genius: the puzzling dog-like man provides the film with a sinister feel, in preparation of
the climax. It gradually becomes apparent that Emma and her caretakers are members
of the same family engaged in a sadomasochistic game with each other. As the ending
nears, the suppressed take off their masks and rise against the tyranny of ‘Hitler in a
dress’, as Alex describes Emma Blank. Emma dies, from her disease or from famine,
because her family are withholding food and drink from her, to torture her in revenge.
The real reason for her death also remains unclear. Now that Theo is allowed to speak
again, it turns out he is as vicious as a dog. He commits a murder and a new terror
threatens. It is more than the others can take. Theo is beaten to death; a leaden peace
returns, forever tarnished by the previous events. Only Emma’s daughter, the house
cleaner in the role-play, leaves the stifling family circle.
Emma Blank is nominated for four Golden Calves at the Dutch Film Festival of 2009,
and the film receives the prize for the Best Script. The same year the film is awarded
with the Label Europa Cinemas at the VeniceFilm Festival, Alex himself may feel that De
Noorderlingen is his best film, De laatste dagen van Emma Blank shows his growth as a
director. Often his films are characterized as a succession of short scenes that are each
convincing on their own, or not, but have little correlation. The opposite is true of Emma
Blank. With a steady hand, Alex guides his actors and viewers through his ill-fated tale
with the ‘schwung’ as Hitchcock.
A highlight like that opens new paths. Ariane Schluter discovers one in Wees Ons
Genadig (Have Mercy On Us), a play from 2007 which she has acted in. She thinks the
piece is ‘mythical and philosophical’, areas where Van Warmerdam has never ventured
before. In Wees Ons Genadig a poet, a painter and a composer have to try to beguile
Schluter’s character Katherina through their work. She turns all three men down. At the
ending, the piece suggests – but no more than that – that Katherina is sent by a higher
power, the wrathful God of the artists. As if the play’s writer also wants to submit
himself to his judgment. ‘Alex has remained young for a very long time,’ Schluter now
says. ‘As a maker and a person. I think his getting older will be of influence on his work
in the coming years. This could become his new subject.’
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7 - One Big Hall of Mirrors Of The Arts
Command of Many Disciplines
In 2006 Alex publishes a book of poetry, Van alle kanten komen ze (They’re Coming
From All Sides). Again, he has mastered a new discipline: poetry. In the meantime, the
largest part of his oeuvre has remained unseen by the audience: his paintings and
drawings. As a little boy, besides becoming a missionary, he wanted to become a painter.
For nearly forty years he shows this ambition to the world almost exclusively through his
set and poster designs for film and theatre. And in the costumes, that often give his
characters ‘the look of a comic character’, an observation made in the jury’s report of the
Johannes Vermeer Award. But Alex also creates a lot of private work. Every now and
then, some paintings and drawings appear in a gallery or a city theatre. A proper
exposition is not something he specifically desires . His life is busy enough. He paints for
himself, in his spare time.
For this reason, he does not instantly agree when the city museum of Schiedam
(Stedelijk Museum Schiedam) sets out to organise a large exhibition of his work. The
museum plans to emphasise the expressive character of all his work. Alex pays a visit
and has to admit: the Stedelijk Museum in Schiedam is beautiful. Initially, the idea was
that it wouldn’t take much work. However, it soon turns out to be a hell of a job: for the
exhibition, he had to help in finding out where all his paintings and sketches for
costumes, posters etc. were, and which film scenes, poems and expressive material
would be most suited for the exhibition. In addition, he creates new works especially for
the exhibition, like some wall paintings in the museum itself. But the end result also
convinces Alex. The opening, with a spectacular act from percussionist Han Bennink, is
a happening, a festive reunion for the extended family of actors, musicians, camera
people, film and theatre technicians, financiers and business counsellors who Van
Warmerdam has also created with his enormous oeuvre. In this museological setting,
Alex is able to demonstrate his excellence through the free interaction between
disciplines.
The exhibition brings on new success, with critics and with the audience. For the first
time, the thousands of fans of Alex’s films and plays can see with their own eyes how his
paintings and drawings are at one with his films, theatre, prose, poetry and music
in shape, style and atmosphere. ‘His book conjures up the same images you would find
in the museum, the same with which he sets all his films and theatrical pieces in motion,’
according to the Johannes Vermeer Award jury. ‘The people who today are
in their forties and fifties, all grew up with his work,’ says Wilma Sütö, the curator
who put together the exhibition. ‘We all have memories of it, it has meant something
to all of us in the different developmental stages of our lives.’ Because Van Warmerdam
commands so many different artistic disciplines, his oeuvre is ‘one big hall of mirrors of
the arts, in which everything is reflected’, as Sütö puts it. ‘Only when I put together the
exhibition, did I realise why his work is so strongly interwoven with our lives: simply
because for the past thirty years Alex has come up with a new film or play once every two
years.’
Such continuity, such long-lasting creative power, is rare in the Dutch arts. It is the main
reason for the jury to award him the Johannes Vermeer Award 2010. ‘It is worth noting
that some artists in the Netherlands work not only in one or two, but even in half a
dozen disciplines within both the expressive arts as well as the performing arts,’ so says
the jury’s report. ‘In the opinion of the jury (…) within that select category, there is one
17
creative talent who has long managed to rise above the artistic domain, and that is Alex
van Warmerdam.’
The self-assured oldest child of Peter and Thea van Warmerdam has left an indelible
footprint in the landscape of the Dutch arts. And the end is nowhere near. When this
publication is at the printer’s, two new premieres are already on the horizon: a film and
a play.
On the author
Joost Ramaer (The Hague, 1958) received his Master in Law from the University of
Amsterdam. He has worked as a journalist since 1986. He was editor at the
monthlymagazine Quote until 1993. He then worked for almost fifteen years at the
newspaper de Volkskrant, the first ten years for the Economics section, the last five for
the Art section. At the end of 2007 he resigned to write a book about newspaper
publisher PCM. De geldpers appeared on 14 December 2009, published by Prometheus.
He has been a freelancer since.
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Alex van Warmerdam’s Oeuvre
17 January 1970 Alex thinks up a public act for the Eksperimentele Tejatergroep
of the Witte Tejater from IJmuiden. A group of fourteen youngsters, amongst who
Alex and Marc van Warmerdam, hold a march across the Lange Nieuwstraat in
IJmuiden, with the mayor’s permission. The group carries signs and banners without
any text and hand out blank stencils.
27 January 1971 Preview of Robins Speelhuis by Wim Zomer theatrical company.
Sets: Alex van Warmerdam.
18 November 1971 National airing on VrijUit by the broadcasting channel NOS
of Jofele toestanden, a selection of separate sketches that the Eksperimentele
Tejatergroep of the Witte Tejater in Ijmuiden has played for over a year. One of the
series’ actors and creators is Alex van Warmerdam.
Beginning of 1972 Alex van Warmerdam devises and plays the rock star Melvin
Blister during a first performance with the Hauser Kamer Orkest at a school party at
Kennemer Lyceum, a grammar school. The rock star act will later return in Op
Avontuur (In Search of Adventure).
10 December 1972 Op Avontuur premieres at PEN youth centre in IJmuiden. It is the
first show of the new collective Hauser Orkater, which came into existence when the
Hauser Kamer Orkest from Amsterdam brought in Alex van Warmerdam, because it
wanted to add more theatre to its performances. Vital members of the group are Dick
and Rob Hauser, Jim van der Woude, Alex, Marc and Vincent van Warmerdam, Chris
Bolczek, Thijs van der Poll, Gerard Atema, Eddie Wahr, and – later on – the actor Peer
Mascini. The members of Hauser Orkater are jointly responsible for the texts, design
and music.
17 September 1975 Famous Artists, the second show of Hauser Orkater, premieres at
the Shaffy Theatre in Amsterdam. The name is taken from a then popular American
drawing school, where you could take courses by mail. The show was a joint effort by all
members.
April 1977 ’t Vermoeden (The Suspicion) premieres at the Shaffy Theatre. The third
show by Hauser Orkater is another collective effort. It also launches Alex van
Warmerdam the author. He writes the lyrics for actor Peer Mascini’s character and two
songs in Dutch, amongst them Neckermann’s ongerief, which is recorded in 1978 for
Hauser Orkater’s first studio album. The show includes Striptease, by Alex and Jim van
der Woude which is made into a film in 1979.
Spring of 1978 Entree Brussels, the fourth collective show by Hauser Orkater. The
performance is made into a film under the direction of Frans Weisz and is broadcast in
October 1978 by broadcasting channel VPRO.
21 October 1978 Hauser Orkater is released, the group’s first official album. One of
the most popular songs is Azijn, a song by Alex vanWarmerdam.
22 May 1979 Zie de mannen vallen
(Watch The Men Fall), the last collective show by Hauser Orkater, officially premieres at
the Shaffy Theatre, after some weeks of try-outs and trial performances. This time
practically all spoken lines are by Alex van Warmerdam.
6 January 1981 Broers (Brothers), the first performance by the new music theatre
company De Mexicaanse Hond, premieres at the formerADM shipyard in North
Amsterdam. With Alex and Marc van Warmerdam, Thijs van der Poll, Gerard Thoolen
and Hans Dagelet. Production: Orkater. Although De Mexicaanse Hond’s first
performances are still collective productions, the new label gradually evolves into
dramatist Alex van Warmerdam’s brand.
19
April 1982 Premiere of Graniet (Granite) by De Mexicaanse Hond at the Shaffy
Theatre. With Alex and Marc van Warmerdam, Thijs van der Poll, Chris Bolczek and Aat
Ceelen. Text and design: Alex van Warmerdam. Production: Orkater. Graniet is also
made into a film, again directed by Frans Weisz, and broadcast by the VPRO.
1984 De Wet van Luisman (Luisman’s Law) by De Mexicaanse Hond. With Alex, Marc
and Vincent van Warmerdam, Thijs van der Poll, Chris Bolczek and Aat Ceelen.Text and
design: Alex van Warmerdam. Production: Orkater.
1984 Short film De Stedeling (The Townsman) commissioned by the VPRO.
Screenplay and direction: Alex van Warmerdam. Production: Orkater.
April 1986 Premiere of Onnozele Kinderen (Innocent Children) by De Mexicaanse
Hond at De Lantaren in Rotterdam. Amongst others with Alex, Marc and Vincent van
Warmerdam, Thijs van der Poll, Aat Ceelen and Annet Malherbe. Text, design and
direction: Alex van Warmerdam. Production: Orkater.
1986 Premiere of Abel (Voyeur), the first feature film by Alex van Warmerdam. With
amongst others Alex van Warmerdam, Henri Garçin, OlgaZuiderhoek and Annet
Malherbe. Screenplay: Alex van Warmerdam in collaboration with Otakar Votocek and
Frans Weisz. Direction: Alex van Warmerdam. Camera: Marc Felperlaan. Music:
Vincent van Warmerdam. Production: First Floor Features.
1987 Publication of De hand van een Vreemde (The Hand of a Stranger), the first and
thus far only novel by Alex van Warmerdam. The first edition appears at publishing
house Thomas Rap. Twenty years later the novel will be published again at
publishing house Nieuw Amsterdam. 176 pages. isbn 978 90 468 0804 7
15 January 1988 Premiere of De Leugenbroeders (The Brothers of the Lie) by De
Mexicaanse Hondin the Amsterdam city theatre. With Alex, Marc and Vincent van
Warmerdam, Aat Ceelen, Christan Muiser, Werner Herbers andHein Offermans. Text,
direction and design: Alex van Warmerdam. Production: Orkater.
2 November 1989 Premiere of Het Noorderkwartier (The Northern Quarter) by De
Mexicaanse Hond inDe Lantaren in Rotterdam. With Alex, Marc and Vincent van
Warmerdam, Aat Ceelen, Loes Luca, Christan Muiser, Hein Offermans and Jack Vecht.
Text, direction and design: Alex van Warmerdam. Production: Orkater.
1992 Feature film De Noorderlingen (The Northerners). Starring amongst others Alex
van Warmerdam, Rudolf and Leonard Lucieer, Annet Malherbe, Jack Wouterse and
Loes Wouterson. Screenplay and direction: Alex van Warmerdam. Camera: Marc
Felperlaan. Music: Vincent van Warmerdam. Production: First Floor Features.
1993 Founding of Graniet Film, the independent film production company of director
Alex van Warmerdam and producer Marc van Warmerdam.
12 March 1993 Premiere of Kaatje is Verdronken (Cathy has Drowned) by De
Mexicaanse Hond. With Alex van Warmerdam, Aat Ceelen, Olga Zuiderhoek,
Ariane Schluter, Joost Belifantie, Kees van der Vooren and Eddie Wahr. Text,
direction and design: Alex van Warmerdam. Production: Orkater.
1996 Feature film De Jurk (The Dress). Starring amongst others Alex van Warmerdam,
Henri Garçin, Rudolf Lucieer, Annet Malherbe, Olga Zuiderhoek, Ariane Schluter, Ricky
Koole, Kees Prins, Rijk de Gooyer and Peter Blok. Screenplay and direction: Alex van
Warmerdam. Camera: Marc Felperlaan. Music: Vincent van Warmerdam. Production:
Graniet Film.
20 September 1996 Premiere of Kleine Teun (Little Tony) by De Mexicaanse Hond at
the Toneelschuur in Haarlem. With Kees Hulst, Annet Malherbe and Ariane Schluter.
Text and direction: Alex van Warmerdam. Production: Orkater.
1998 Feature film Kleine Teun. Starring amongst others Alex van Warmerdam, Annet
Malherbe and Ariane Schluter. Screenplay, direction and music: Alex van Warmerdam.
Production: Graniet Film.
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April 1999 Premiere of Adel Blank by De Mexicaanse Hond at the Trusttheater in
Amsterdam. With Sylvia Poorta, Halina Reijn, Annet Malherbe, Peter Blok, Jacob
Derwig and Jaap Spijkers. Text, direction, design and music: Alex van Warmerdam.
Production: Orkater.
2000-2001 Series of gouaches for the newspaper NRC Handelsblad’s supplement on
Saturday.
3 May 2002 Premiere of Welkom in het bos (Welcome to the Woods) by De
Mexicaanse Hond at the Toneelschuur in Haarlem. With Pierre Bokma, Annet
Malherbe and Liz Snoijink. Text and direction: Alex van Warmerdam. Music: Alex van
Warmerdam and Frans Waxman. Production: Orkater.
2003 Feature film Grimm. Starring amongst others Halina Reijn, Jacob Derwig,
Carmelo Gómez, Elvira Mínguez, Ulises Dumont, Kees Prins and Peggy Sandaal.
Screenplay: Alex van Warmerdam in collaboration with Otakar Votocek. Direction and
music: Alex van Warmerdam. Production: Graniet Film.
September 2004 Premiere of De verschrikkelijke moeder (The Horrible Mother) by
De Mexicaanse Hond in the Amsterdam city theatre. Amongst others with Pierre Bokma,
Kees Hulst, Annet Malherbe, Tina de Bruin, Katja Herbers, Mees van Warmerdam and
Kees van der Vooren. Text, direction, design and music: Alex van Warmerdam.
Production: Orkater.
August 2006 Van alle kanten komen ze (They’re Coming From All Sides). Poems by
Alex van Warmerdam. Publishing house Nieuw Amsterdam. 64 pages.
ISBN 9789046800805
28 September 2006 Dutch release of the feature film Ober (Waiter). Starring
amongst others Alex van Warmerdam, Mark Rietman, Thekla Reuten, Ariane Schluter,
René van ’t Hof, Line van Wambeke, Pierre Bokma, Porgy Franssen, Kees Prins, Aat
Ceelen, Jaap Spijkers, Sylvia Poorta and Stefaan Degand. Screenplay and direction: Alex
van Warmerdam. Production: Graniet Film.
March 2007 Premiere of Wees ons genadig (Have Mercy On Us) by De Mexicaanse
Hond at the Amsterdam City Theatre. With Ariane Schluter, Pierre Bokma, Aat Ceelen
and Stefaan Degand. Text, direction, design and music: Alex van Warmerdam.
Production: Orkater.
2009 Feature film De laatste dagen van Emma Blank (The Last Days of Emma Blank).
With Marlies Heuer, Alex van Warmerdam, Annet Malherbe, Eva van de Wijdeven,
Gène Bervoets, Gijs Naber and Marwan Kenzari. Screenplay, direction and music: Alex
van Warmerdam. Production: Graniet Film.
14 February until 24 May 2010 Alex van Warmerdam, Exhibition, paintings,
film, theatre at the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam. Curator: Wilma Sütö.
Awards and Distinctions
Film
Abel 1986 Golden Calf Best Film -Dutch Film Festival;
Golden Calf Best Director - Dutch Film Festival;
Critics’ Prize - Venice Film Festival
De Noorderlingen 1992 Golden Calf Best Director – Dutch Film Festival;
Golden Calf Best Male Performer in a Leading Role – Dutch Film Festival;
Felix Young European Film - European Film Academy;
Felix Music -European Film Academy;
Felix Art Direction - European Film Academy;
Dutch Oscar Entry;
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Special Jury Prize
Veviers Film Festival, France;
Bronze Horse Screenplay – Stockholm Film Festival, Sweden;
Golden Rose Bergamo Film Festival, Italy
De Jurk 1996 Critics’ Prize – Venice Film Festival;
Dutch Film Critics Award - Dutch Film Festival;
Award for Best Feature Film - Potsdam Film Festival, Germany;
E.J. Jordaan Award - Amsterdam Fund for the Arts
Kleine Teun 1998 Official Selection ‘Un Certain Regard’ – Cannes Film Festival,
France;
‘Outstanding Screen Performance’ 1999 - Ludwigsburg/Stuttgart, for Annet Malherbe;
Bronze Sea Lion1998 Province Zeeland, for Marc and Alex van Warmerdam
for their contribution to Dutch film Top 100 Film of the Century – Election organized
by the Dutch Film Festival 1999. Abel: fourth place; De Noorderlingen: 13th place;
Kleine Teun: 31st place; De Jurk: 33rd place
Grimm 2003 Official Selection San Sebastián International Film Festival, Spain;
Official Selection Riga International Film Festival, Latvia;
Skrien Poster Award 2004, for the hand painted Grimm poster
Ober 2006 Golden Calf Best Screenplay - Dutch Film Festival;
Golden Calf Production Design - Dutch FilmFestival
De laatste dagen van Emma Blank 2009 Golden Calf Best Screenplay- Dutch
Film Festival;
Europa Cinema Label – Best European Film of Venice Days, the program parallel
to the Venice Film Festival;
Golden Gladiator Best Film – Tirana InternationalFilm Festival, Albania 2010
Theatre
Zie de mannen vallen 1979 French Critics’ Prize for Best Foreign Performance
Graniet 1982 CJP Award
Het Noorderkwartier 1990 Dutch/Flemish Toneelschrijf Prize – The Dutch
Language Union;
Albert van Dalsum Award – Amsterdam Fund for the Arts
Lifetime Awards
Prince Bernhard Cultural Foundation Theatre Award 1995
For his body of work as maker of theatre and film - Prince Bernhard Cultural
Foundation
Johannes Vermeer 2010 Award, State Prize for the Arts
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Justification
For this publication, the author has mainly relied on conversations with Thea van Warmerdam-de Vos,
Marc van Warmerdam, Aat Ceelen, Dick Hauser, Olga Zuiderhoek, Pierre Bokma, Ariane Schluter and
Wilma Sütö. The author is very grateful to them all for their time and patience.
In addition, he saw all films by Alex van Warmerdam on DVD and, at the unsurpassed multimedia library
of the Dutch Theatre Institute, recordings of the performances by Hauser Orkater- Striptease, Entree
Brussels and Zie de mannenvallen.
The main written sources were the entertaining and very well documented biography Hauser Orkater –
De biografie by Lutgard Mutsaers, published in 2009 by Mets & Schilt in Amsterdam, and various reviews
of and views on Alex van Warmerdam’s work, as well as interviews with him. In this last category two
newspaper articles deserve special mention. The opinion piece Waarom worden we geboren? by
film critic Ronald Ockhuysen as published in de Volkskrant on Thursday 21 September 2006, and the
interview with Alex by Jan Pieter Ekker in Het Parool of Wednesday 10 February 2010, published for the
occasion of the exhibition of
Alex’s works in the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam. The data for listing the body of works are derived from
Mutsaers’ book, the archive on the Orkater website and the Graniet Film website.
The information on the many prizes and awards Alex van Warmerdam has received over the years was
collected by Tesse van Camerijk of Orkater.
Johannes Vermeer Award
The Johannes Vermeer Award is a state prize for the arts, instituted by the Minister of Education, Culture
and Science, to honour and encourage outstanding artistic talent. The Boekman Foundation is responsible
for the organisation of the Johannes Vermeer Award.
Jury Johannes Vermeer Award 2010
Victor Halberstadt (chairman), Maarten Asscher, Judith Belinfante, Jos de Pont, Paul Schnabel.
Secretary Johannes Vermeer Award: Cas Smithuijsen, Boekman Foundation.
The Johannes Vermeer Award 2010 has been awarded to Alex van Warmerdam. The award ceremony will
be on 15 November 2010 in Het Prinsenhof in Delft.
This publication is published as part of the Boekmanstudies Foundation for projects and publications on
art, culture and related policy. Boekmanstudies is part of the
Boekman Foundation, the Dutch study centre for arts, culture and related policy.
© Joost Ramaer/Boekmanstudies
Text Joost Ramaer
Final form Cas Smithuijsen, Boekman Foundation
Editor Images Wilma Sütö, Stedelijk Museum Schiedam
Production Marielle Hendriks, Boekman Foundation
Design Studio Berry Slok, Amsterdam
Print Calff & Meischke, Amsterdam
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photo print, microfilm or any other
means, without written permission from the publisher.
isbn 978-90-6650-101-0
Johannes Vermeer Prize
Boekman Foundation
Herengracht 415, 1017 bp Amsterdam
t 020 624 37 36
www.johannesvermeerprijs.nl
[email protected]
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