Last weekend, I watched the documentary "Een fotograaf filmt Amsterdam" (A photographer films Amsterdam) by the late Dutch photographer and filmmaker Ed van der Elsken (1925-1990). Though I watched it for the nth time over the last 15 years or so, every single shot of this one-hour documentary keeps intriguing me, time and again.
Amsterdam on a sunny summer's day in 1981. In the city's streets, people moved lightly, almost as if they were dancing. The city vibrated with life and there was a sense of true joy, a freedom of spirit, which was so strong, you could almost touch it. There was something very unique to the city's choreography that seems to have gradually dissolved in the years that followed. Something playful, unconcerned, carefree, laid-back, simply happy. Ed van der Elsken managed to catch it on film. To me, as well as to many others who wandered the streets of Amsterdam in 1981, it brings back to life the look & feel of that era, like a time capsule. Somewhere along the documentary, Ed unknowingly summarizes the Zeitgeist in just three words: "Alles kan, hè?" (Everything is possible, isn't it?)
I feel very privileged to have witnessed a time, in which "everything was possible" - or at least we all believed it was, for that short moment in time.
And how would we qualify our current Zeitgeist, forty years from now?
Amsterdam on a sunny summer's day in 1981. In the city's streets, people moved lightly, almost as if they were dancing. The city vibrated with life and there was a sense of true joy, a freedom of spirit, which was so strong, you could almost touch it. There was something very unique to the city's choreography that seems to have gradually dissolved in the years that followed. Something playful, unconcerned, carefree, laid-back, simply happy. Ed van der Elsken managed to catch it on film. To me, as well as to many others who wandered the streets of Amsterdam in 1981, it brings back to life the look & feel of that era, like a time capsule. Somewhere along the documentary, Ed unknowingly summarizes the Zeitgeist in just three words: "Alles kan, hè?" (Everything is possible, isn't it?)
I feel very privileged to have witnessed a time, in which "everything was possible" - or at least we all believed it was, for that short moment in time.
And how would we qualify our current Zeitgeist, forty years from now?
