ED VAN DER ELSKEN KAREL APPEL, COMPOSER (1961)

Director: Ed van der Elsken

Year: 1961

Time: 5 mins

Music: Karel Appel & Frits Weiland

Eye of Sound: This short film was shot when notorious Dutch painter Karel Appel, a member of the avantgarde group CoBrA, was preparing a soundtrack for Jan Vrijman's documentary on Appel himself. Appel is seen receiving the assistance of Frits Weiland, who's been also an important name in Dutch painting and filmmaking but whose musical credentials are far more solid that his colleague's; Weiland's electronic and tape works for the Utrecht Sonologie Institute are essential episodes in the history of modern European music, although his renown failed to move beyond a close circle of specialists. As far as my sources go, this was Appel's only "official" experiment with music, and not much attention is actually paid to the soundtrack's composition. What Van der Elsken offers us is a rather short portrait of an artist and of an era when such multidisciplinary indiscipline was actually encouraged and not frowned upon. There is apparently a larger version around, so this can be seen as a teaser.

http://rapidshare.com/files/398816573/karelappel.avi