Introduction

Of Dutch filmmakers whose works I have some acquaintance with, none has left me with more suspended emotions and unresolved moral chords than Johan van der Keuken. This has an autobiographical origin: Van der Keuken was the first director I met in person when I moved to the Netherlands from London in 1991. It was an instructive meeting, leaving me with the feeling that it would be good, one day, to reply to the questions that stayed unspoken in the air. This encounter or perhaps I should say, this near-miss collision with Van der Keuken happened in 1993. We had just moved into a new house by one of the canals, when the Canadian scholar Ron Burnett came to visit, while attending IDFA, the International Documentary Festival in Amsterdam. Burnett was also a friend of Van der Keuken, having published one of the first essay-interviews in English on the director back in 1978.

What could be more natural than to get us together, and so we invited Johan and his wife Nosh for drinks in our garden and they came. Johan looked around the house, and then asked what I was doing in Amsterdam. When I told him that I was trying to set up Film Studies at the University of Amsterdam, he shot back: “And what do you know about Dutch cinema?” Somewhat taken aback but deciding to be honest, I replied: “Not as much as I would like to.” When I added that the University had hired me, rather than a Dutch national, because they wanted the program to have an international dimension, I realized too late that this was not a very diplomatic remark. Johan quizzed me some more about which film of his I liked best, and how much money I was making in this job. Ron tried to intercede, explaining that I was a writer of some standing in the international community, but Van der Keuken became visibly upset. He soon insisted on going, taking his wife with him, and leaving Ron no other option but to join them.