Constant,
Avant le Départ
by Maarten Schmidt and Thomas Doebele
First Run / Icarus Films, Brooklyn NY,
2006
VHS / DVD, 81 minutes, b/w, col.
Sale, $398; Rental, $100
Distributor Website: http://www.frif.com.
Reviewed by Anthony Enns
Department of English
University of Iowa
anthony-enns@uiowa.edu
The latest documentary by Dutch filmmakers
Maarten Schmidt and Thomas Doebele marks
a significant departure from their previous
work. Their 1995 documentary I Have
a Problem, Madam, which won the Golden
Calf Award for best short documentary
at the Dutch Film Festival, examined the
struggles faced by Ugandan women in a
male-dominated society, and their 2002
film Made in Holland Wordt Dutch Design
focused on labor issues and globalization.
Constant, Avant le Départ,
on the other hand, is an intimate portrait
of Dutch painter Constant Anton Nieuwenhuys,
who died on August 1, 2005. The film chronicles
the last months of his life, as he contemplates
death and reflects on his life and work.
In 1948 Constant founded the Experimentele
Groep Holland with Corneille, Karel Appel,
and his brother Jan Nieuwenhuys. In November
1948 they joined Christian Dotremont,
Joseph Noiret, and Asger Jorn to form
the CoBrA group. Tensions developed between
Constant and Jorn in the summer of 1949,
however, when they vacationed together
with their wives on the island of Bomholm
and Jorn started an affair with Constants
wife Matie, whom he later married. Constant
relates this story in the film, noting
that Matie took two of their three children
with her when she left. He subsequently
resigned from the group and abandoned
painting altogether, claiming it "had
nothing new to offer."[1]
In the 1950s Constant became increasingly
interested in urban space, and he began
constructing sculptures to express the
dynamic experience of the modern city.
In December 1956 Giuseppe Pinot-Gallizio
took him to a gypsy camp, and Constants
models of this encampment became the first
in a series of maquettes of an ideal city
called "New Babylon where, under
one roof, with the aid of moveable elements,
a shared residence is built; a temporary,
constantly remodelled living area; a camp
for nomads on a planetary scale."
[2] According to Constant, the modern
city ignores the psychological needs of
its inhabitants, and New Babylon was designed
to meet those needs by infusing creativity
and play into the experience of urban
life. This theory led Constant to become
a founding member of the Situationist
International in 1957, and later that
year he collaborated with Guy Debord on
"The Amsterdam Declaration,"
a manifesto that emphasizes the need for
"collective creativity" in urban
planning.[3] Constant remained in the
group until 1960, when he was expelled
by Debord. Although Debord rejected Constants
New Babylon designs, claiming that he
was nothing more than "a public-relations
man for integrating the masses into
capitalist technological civilization,"
[4] Henri Lefebvre argues that this action
was merely a political move to help Debord
cement his own authority. [5] Constant
discusses his theories of urbanism in
the film as he watches his son Victor
filming his New Babylon designs, and he
adds that this city was never intended
to be a prediction of the future but only
to show that urban space should be playful,
like a game. There is evidence, however,
that he was firmly committed to the realization
of this project until 1966, when he gradually
became aware that automation would not
result in "freedom from slavery and
toiling," but rather in "poverty
and boredom." [6]
Constant subsequently returned to painting,
and the film primarily focuses on this
part of his career. Constants work
from this period frequently deals with
politically engaged subjects, like the
Vietnam War, famine in Africa, and refugees
from Kosovo, and in the film he discusses
both his theories of art and his working
methods. He describes how he stares at
the blank canvas until an image gradually
emerges and how he always begins painting
the edges of the frame before moving towards
the center. The film also shows Constant
putting the finishing touches on his final
painting, Le Piège (The
Trap), and it follows his last visit to
see Titian's La Pietà at
the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice,
a painting which he greatly admires and
which he once studied for days at a time.
Looking over his own oeuvre, Constant
discusses his favorite works and claims
that the best paintings "with great simplicity
illustrate maximum expression"something
that few painters ever accomplish. Although
he hesitates to say whether any of his
works achieve this goal, it appears that
a similar aesthetic also informs Schmidt
and Doebeles film. While their approach
is extremely simple and straightforward,
the end result is a profoundly moving
portrait of the artist at the end of a
long and successful life.
References
1. J.-C. Lambert, "Constant and the Labyrinth,"
Situationists: Art, Politics, Urbanism,
ed. Libero Andreotti and Xavier Costa,
trans. Elaine Fradley et al. (Barcelona:
Museu DArt Contemporani, ACTAR,
1996) p. 100.
2. C. Nieuwenhuys, "New Babylon,"
Constant: New Babylon (Den Haag:
Gemeentemuseum, 1974), rpt. in Theory
of the Dérive and Other Situationist
Writings on the City, ed. Libero Andreotti
and Xavier Costa, trans. Paul Hammond
and Gerardo Denís (Barcelona: Museu
DArt Contemporani, ACTAR, 1996)
p. 154.
3. C. Nieuwenhuys and G. Debord, "The
Amsterdam Declaration," Internationale
Situationniste Vol. 2 (December
1958), rpt. in Theory of the Dérive
and Other Situationist Writings on the
City, ed. Libero Andreotti and Xavier
Costa, trans. Paul Hammond and Gerardo
Denís (Barcelona: Museu DArt
Contemporani, ACTAR, 1996) p. 80.
4. G. Debord, A. Kotányi, and J.
Nash, "Critique of Urbanism,"
Internationale Situationniste Vol..
6, 3-11 (August 1961), rpt. in Theory
of the Dérive and Other Situationist
Writings on the City, ed. Libero Andreotti
and Xavier Costa, trans. Paul Hammond
and Gerardo Denís (Barcelona: Museu
DArt Contemporani, ACTAR, 1996)
p. 109.
5. K. Ross, "Lefebvre on the Situationists:
An Interview," October Vol.
79, 69-83 (Winter 1997) p. 76.
6. S. Sadler, The Situationist City
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998) p. 153.