Skoop and Skrien: A New Wind

The first issue of the new film magazine Skoop appeared in February 1963. The magazine was started up by students at the Dutch Film Academy; four of them – Pim de la Parra, Wim Verstappen, Gied Jaspers en Nikolai van der Heyde – made up the editorial board. The magazine’s purpose and the editors’ intentions were immediately evident: they were going to shake things up and get a fresh wind blowing through the lethargic landscape of the Dutch film world.

It was quickly clear who their opponents were, too. Just as other like-minded groups abroad – particularly the nouvelle vague in France and the Neue Deutsche Film in Germany – they viewed the established order, especially filmmaker Bert Haanstra and the critic Janus van Domburg, as opposition. In the magazine’s summer 1964 issue, Haanstra’s newest film Alleman was run into the ground. They used its premiere in the Alhambra Theatre in Amsterdam to protest against Haanstra’s film and to hand out pamphlets promoting Skoop.

‘Criticism Is Sick’

After that, it was Van Domburg’s turn to take a beating. In the first issue of Skoop, there was a ten-page article by Van der Heyde entitled 'De kritiek is ziek' (‘Criticism Is Sick’). This article wiped the floor with contemporary film criticism. Especially Van Domburg – the editor-in-chief of (Critisch) Filmforum who was considered to be the country’s expert on film – and H. Wielek bore the full brunt of their attacks. Van der Heyde accused them of ‘oblomovism’ – intellectual laziness. Van der Heyde believed they hid behind obsolete principles and unmanageable theories. He accused them of being unable to clarify what made a film either good or bad – which was exactly what one should expect from a critic. According to Van der Heyde, the absence of professional expertise was at the root of the problem. The old guard lacked the ability to ‘speak with practical know-how about directing, camera work, editing, etc.’.

The focus on craftsmanship was also an issue for Verstappen, the most influential of all the Skoop critics. He saw that most audiences saw film as entertainment more than anything else, and in his reviews he stood up for well-made popular films – especially Hollywood films. To him, the big heroes weren’t Bergman or Fellini, but rather Hollywood directors such as John Ford and George Stevens. Verstappen’s preference was shared, incidentally, with French critic André Bazin, the nouvelle vague, and German directors such as Wim Wenders.

In his reviews, Verstappen devoted much attention to the workmanship involved in a film. One of the ways he did this was through extensive analyses in which he dissected film scenes completely. Verstappen didn’t just draw on examples from work by famous directors, he also discussed the infamous fellatio scene in Gerard Damiano’s Deep Throat (1972).

Although critique based on practical expertise as propagated by Verstappen took on a prominent role at Skoop, it wasn’t the only critical approach used by the staff there. Unlike other magazines, they didn’t have a clear editorial policy. Differing opinions were tolerated. For example, there was room for the more theoretical, even poetic, reviews by Rein Bloem, or the contextual approaches from the 1970s that centred on the filmmaker’s experiences.

Skrien

In November 1968, a second film magazine appeared on the market: Skrien. It, too, was published by students from the Film Academy. Completely in line with the spirit of the times, this new magazine took up a socio-critical position. It was dedicated to a progressive cinema, and viewed the established film culture as an integral part of a capitalistic society, as well as representative of contemporary Dutch society. Using Marxist film criticism, it was going to expose the existing balance of power in the film world. Skrien advocated an alternative film culture as well as the revamping of the existing film system. In particular it supported the Vrije Circuit, a non-commercial distribution and screening circuit that was able to circumvent the Nederlandse Biocoopbond and showed films in subsidised art house cinemas.

At the end of the 1970s, the interest in the social and political context of film waned. Skrien reoriented itself toward more film-theoretical principles. This approach was based on an ideological framework, one in which semiotics (Christian Metz) and postmodern media theory (Jean Baudrillard) played a vital role.

During the 1980s, film and media history would become increasingly important in Skrien, and there was more interest in commercial cinema and new media.

The Wind Dies Down

Forty years later, things have quieted down. Skoop ceased to exist in 1993, and the last Skrien was published in January 2009, after the Council of Culture recommended that its subsidy not be renewed.

The only film magazine that is currently published with any regularity is De Filmkrant, which was started up in 1981. It reports on the trials and tribulations in the Dutch film world in a journalistic way.

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