Hollandse tulpen en klompen

Summary

Hollandse tulpen en klompen consists of two short fragment made by foreign companies - or there subsidiaries - in the Netherlands. The first fragment Hollandse tulpen shows men and women working on the tulip fields. The film is made for a Dutch audience as the inter titles do indicate and promotes the custom of giving flowers as a present. The production company was probably the Kinematograaf Pathé Frères, the Dutch subsidiary of Pathé. The reason for attributing the film to Pathé is the way the colour has been added to the film. The stencilling technique is typical for Pathé and not used by any other company in the Netherlands.

The second fragment shows children's play at the Island of Marken. The children wear the traditional costumes of their hometown.

Pictures like Hollandse tulpen en klompen these were quiet popular with foreign audiences. They fit well into the exotic cliché of Holland which consists of farmers and fishermen walking around in tradional costumes and wooden shoes (klompen), growing flowers or making cheese. Pictures which show a pure and simple countryside that contrasted the rapidly chancing, industrial world.

Most of these pictures were made in the small fishermen's town of Volendam and Marken. Both towns are situated in the neighbourhood of Amsterdam and had become real tourist resorts at the end of the nineteenth century. They also attracted lots of artists, and from the beginning of the twentieth century there pittorestique qualities were also discovered by filmmakers.

Already in 1899 Emile Lauste travelled to Marken to shoot a film in commission of the Dutch associate of the Mutoscope Company. This movie is very similar to the second part Hollandse klompen which was shot more than some fifteen years later.