In Search of the White Castle

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In Search of the White Castle

14/12/2013Gerard-Jan Claes

The inhabitants of the old island didnt need anybody. They had to relycompletely on the land and the sea in order to live. The migrant workers, taken

from their homes by a new industry, tourism, build hotels for the guests takenfrom their homes by that same industry. Migrant workers, guests and

inhabitants live apart from each other both physically and economically.

The poorest people in the richest country on earth are brought together in a

ghetto by the same arbitrariness of supply and demand that brings together the

migrant workers and the tourists. Because of that same arbitrariness the

migrant workers have a job while the ghetto inhabitants dont.

The factory workers are guest workers within the system of arbitrariness;imprisoned as long as they can be used and if not, shown the door.

Teenagers from the ghetto, gathered together in a summer camp, show how the

system can be broken. And through all of this the procession against the white

castle gathers momentum. [1]

In his documentary The White Castle, Johan van der Keuken interweaves three worlds: acommunity centre in Columbus (Ohio), two factories in the Netherlands and Formentera, theisland off the Spanish coast inundated with tourists. As the second part of his North-South

triptych (Dagboek(Diary, 1972), Het witte kasteel(The White Castle, 1973) and De nieuwe

ijstijd(The New Ice Age(1974)), the film shows the impact of the Western, capitalisticfree-market thinking on the daily life of the social underclass, a social strangling grip whichalienates and isolates people. A conveyor belt which runs the world, according to Van derKeuken. [2]

earch of the White Castle http://www.sabzian.be/print/610

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Van der Keuken attempts to break through this system of arbitrariness in The White Castle.He liberates the labourers and teenagers, even though its short-lived, in a film. His socialcommitment in this film is contained within an attack on the language as a conventionalsystem; he wants to decommission the predetermined language. [3] It follows that, formally,

The White Castleis one of Van der Keukens most radical films. He leaves a spatiotemporal,anecdotal anchoring in the here and now behind in order to make a film which circlescontinually, which moves like a windmill and refuses to anchor itself. Every turn seems to bethe possibility of another film. Every image is a prelude, without a fixed form. This dynamicsurfaces in his entire oeuvre. Out of an image or a sound a whole film can arise. Forms swirlaround him and one of them blossoms into a film. This multiplicity makes it difficult to grabonto, demarcate or define a film like The White Castle. All images start to interlink.Everything seems to belong together.

I think its fascinating to build within a free form, but a classical form needs to

underlie it. The paradox is that if you want to make a free composition, you

have to proceed in a stricter way than you would in a conventional film. You

namely have to make it plausible to implicate certain things which dont seemto have anything to do with each other at a first glance. It is my task to prove

that, for the duration of the film, they do have something to do with one another.I propose that everything goes with everything, but everything doesnt go with

everything beforehand, but only after modification. Everything only goes with

everything if you think about it carefully.[4]

The White Castlemoves forward like a merry-go-round; similar images return, but always indifferent relations because of a different framing, a different camera movement or a differentrhythm. Occasionally even the same images resurface in a different correlation. Images arerecycled in one and the same film. Everything is a potential leitmotiv. Van der Keukenmaintains a freedom in watching and doesnt presumptuously portend to know the power ofan image. In fact, he even re-uses images and sounds in various films, thus ensuring that his

oeuvre becomes an auto-referential fabric. Hence Vakantie van de filmer(Filmmakers

Holiday, 1974) a reflection on life and death, on photography and the moving image isone big exercise in repetition. His images dont seem to cling to or limit themselves to onefilm. They dont want anything and yet at the same time want so much. In a certain sense,theyre autonomous, they dont belong with anything. They seem surrounded by accoladesand its Van der Keuken who brings them to life and connects them in the process of editing.In Johan van der Keukens work, the edit is more than ever the movement of thought itself,the thinking that moves the matter. [5] His love for jazz and improvisation can here be felt,another way to generate or (re)organise material.

In the work of Johan van der Keuken film and life are intertwined. His last film De grotevakantie(The Summer Holidays, 2002) a film in which the terminally-ill Van der Keukenlooks back on his oeuvre and on his life is the natural consequence of this symbiosis: if Icant make an image, Im dead. [6] He reworks and reformulates his own aesthetic principlesand shows how they hook into his own personal environment. A web in which everythingmerges, returns and in which all dreamt or envisaged films are present too. A film like thetip of an iceberg. The big mass beneath the water, the unfilmed or unshown material, isntvisible but is nonetheless tangible and present to the spectator. Van der Keuken burrows,associates and sometimes a film arises from that, but not necessarily.

Rather than talking about film as a language, Van der Keuken understands it as a condition,

an tator a state of being, as something which defies easy definition and which can ratherbe approached in terms of becoming and movement. Its a space of experience, a way ofstanding within the world. Maybe that also explains the appeal of his films. His films are allspaces in which you can wander, which envelop you, which stick with you and are hard to


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shake off.

Johan van der Keuken is a documentary maker. He goes to work with reality. The White

Castleisnt an abstract contemplation of the capitalistic system. Van der Keuken is in searchof people and places who endure its consequences in concrete terms. But on the other handhis films also have something speculative about them and there is room for association.Notice here the importance of the notion of approaching, of never being able to show thingsin their complete clarity, but of moving around them. This is whats so exceptional about Vander Keukens oeuvre. His work has certain similarities to that of the direct cinema movement,but he forces the viewer to orientate him/herself, to be in search of a larger, political relation.Van der Keukens form is a dialectics in action, an immediateness which obstinately anchorsitself in an indirectness, in a fragmentary representation, a collage, but always with attention

to a strong structure. A cinma vritwhich invalidates itself. The spaces are representedfragmentarily from the very beginning of the films through details. Everything is immediately

in medias res. The notion of decentralisation is carried through in the form.

I feel that the possibilities of the montage have been enriched by pursuing this

course. Initially the montage distanced itself from meaning and concept and

became a collage. () It then returned to the forming of conceptions. But indoing so it became a montage which encapsulates the collage and makes

visible a continuous interaction between freedom and collective necessity. A

dialectics which is left-wing in its consequences, but one which retains the

surprise. [7]

This dialectical collage of Van der Keuken brings to mind Walter Benjamins entreaty for adifferent historiography. Benjamin believed in a method of montage which juxtaposesstereoscopic images. Out of this confrontation a world can be exposed which breaks throughthe common construct of the conventional historiography a story of progress which doesnttake into account negative developments and so reinforces the position of the powerful. [8]

With a similar montage strategy Johan van der Keuken shows that the images which arenttaken up and therefore arent distorted by this dominating fiction can also break through itand reveal another reality. This emancipatory revelation, however, is not free from a utopiandesire. The juxtaposition of images shows a spiritual coherence to which we as viewers must

work towards. In De Poes(The Cat, 1968) Van der Keuken articulates it thus:

The film could be a means for change. To this end it must affect the fixed

patterns of expectation. To this end it must create a dynamic balance of the

forms in which our reality can be described. Art could be a means by which to

set man free. A school for seeing the self and the other more clearly.

Or, in the words of Jean-Marie Straub:

A political film must remind people that we dont live in the best possible world,

far from it, and that the present, denied us in the name of progress, simply

continues and is irreplaceable That human feelings are being plundered in

the same way that the earth is being plundered That the price that people

must pay, whether it be for progress or welfare, is much too high and is

unjustifiable.[9]


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The baby drinks from the breast of the eating mother. Side bacon hangs from

the roof beams. Wedding portrait above the door, shotgun next to it. Baby criesfor a while, father hugs baby, a little timid in front of the camera. Mule comes

out of the small barn. Sweat stains under armpits in the shirt of father. Littlecart rolling under olive trees. Stowing grain onto cart with neighbours, straw

hats, white greyhound frolics for a moment, grain almost saffron-coloured. A

painting by Mil let. Satie piano tune slowed down. [10]

The White Castleturns around in circles, in a centrifugal movement, around a nucleus.Literally: a donkey walks in circles, a windmill, a waterwheel, the spinning of wool, aconveyor belt in a factory, queuing in a refectory, the traffic, a tractor, a bus which drivesthrough the film and the rotating camera movement from the car around the burger jointWhite Castle. These are actions which recommence, which repeat themselves, routine actswhich take on a ritual character. Simultaneously a bigger composition takes form, anunremitting flux which connects the different spaces. The different worlds, geographically cutoff from each other, all undergoing the consequences of social inequality and exploitation,are inscribed and so connected in a global stream in which one is only able to survive. Its aneconomic flux like an unceasing waking state on which you cant get a grasp. A dominantcondition with a logic which seems headstrong and inevitable. A process which paralysesand doesnt seem to have an end. There is no longer any solid ground. Everything revolves.

Images of curtains, windows and doors. Do the labourer and young people in The White

Castleunderstand what is happening outside their own life? At the end of the film we seeimages of young mothers. Does the circle start over? The nearly symbolic character of the

association of certain images encourages a more intense way of looking. Is it possible to readthis literally? Definitely. But the film runs on and the images come together again in adifferent sequence, making it seem like thats not the case after all! Van der Keuken throws acertain restraint overboard in order to sometimes use seemingly banal contrasts, like, forexample, the opposition of craftsmanship to industrialization: an image of an elderly womanbaking bread is followed by an image of a conveyor belt. The shifting in food production andconsumption is a thread which keeps the whole film together. The Spanish workers cook andeat together, artisanal bread is baked and black teenagers queue in the refectory.Furthermore, the title and core of the film the white castle refers to the fast-food burgerchain White Castle. The white castle as an unshakeable fortress.


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Images of people queuing for food and people who work on a conveyor belt keep returning.For Walter Benjamin a crucial notion is the difference in experience between craftsmanshipand industrial labour. In the continual interaction with objects an unconsciously formed web

of experience namely arises in the act of craftsmanship. The conveyor belt, on the otherhand, becomes a repetition which does not build on anything and doesnt penetrate to theunconscious level of experience. The new technical machines dont just help the humanbeing in his/her act of labour, but condition his/her behaviour. Once the most cost-efficientaction has been found, this is mechanically repeated, like an automaton. Its the perpetualrepetition of the new. All movements stand apart from each other. Industrialised labourexcludes every form of true experience. It is replaced by a logic which no longer processes,but reduces price, which no longer registers but is merely vigilant. [11] [12] Benjaminassigned film a recuperating capacity to construct new synthetic realities in which thefragmented images are combined according to a new law. Not only as defence against thetrauma of the industrialization but as a means to restore the capacity to experience, crushed

by the production process. [13]

Van der Keuken also crumbles the audio tape. He interweaves radio adverts, politicalspeeches, factory noise, department stores and traffic noise. The sound is often piercing andworks disorientating. A constant emission of auditory fragments at top speed. An excess ofstimuli, the industrial sounds act as if part of an offensive, oppressing and disorderingpeople. While throughout the film different spaces are combined with each other, from thevery beginning the sound is disconnected from the image, thus causing the viewer toimmediately feel spatially detached. Examples of this can be found in the combination ofimages of black teenagers with soundscapes from the Netherlands. In the middle of the film,yet, a new space is opened up by the soundtrack; Van der Keuken makes a contrapuntal


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countermovement by placing song central. The American teenagers sing Donna Donna,originally a Yiddish song, about a calf that is led to be slaughtered. The voice, alwaysembodied, becomes an instrument to cultivate collectivism. Together the young people singtheir fate. Finally we hear one of the Spanish labourers sing in front of his friends and wehear soft humming from a little girl. Singing seems to represent a last stronghold which hasnot been incorporated by the system. A hopeful feeling however, tainted by a melancholicpowerlessness.

Van der Keuken also lets a couple of teenagers voice their thoughts. Here too sometimesseemingly evident statements are put forward. The teenagers try to put into words how theyrelate to the economic system. Is anything else possible? In their sincere indignation alasting realisation of impotence slumbers.

Im trying to raise the question rather or not we really believe it s possible that

people can share equally what we have.

Life is pain and darkness to most people I believe. (...) Just in terms of living. I

mean everyday living, I cannot even do that, hardly... Right now, mostly thinkingabout survival.

I like being black. Its the poor that kills me, you know. Because I believe its

more of a economic question. () It really makes you feel ashamed to be from

America today. I mean... we make economic slaves of other countries and we

go in to countries and literally rape them, like they raped the black community

and are still raping the black community.

When youre talking about changing American policy and American institutions,

youre talking about changing a way of life.


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Throughout the monotonous sound of industry, moments of rebellion and hope neverthelesssurface as well. Through their talking and singing (words and songs) the teenagers try tobreak free from the system. An attempt to search for a way out through words. Always afeeling of hope or is it navet? combined with a realisation of impotence. This search forones own position (within the larger picture) is also what The White Castle as a filmcontinually does: searching for a form, but always with the realisation of its own search, itsown form. The form folds back in on itself and looks itself straight in the eyes. Of courseevery film fights against its own form, but the fight is often hidden by a seemingly absentideology. The film then has the pretention to step outside the window of its own form.Arrogantly the film comes to the fore, thereby causing the space, and with the space also the

freedom of the viewer to orientate him/herself, to disappear. The space is no longernegotiated but is dictatorial and intrusive. Thats whats so beautiful about The White Castle;its not merely the choosing of the subject which makes the work political. Theindependence of the viewer begins at the point where identification ceases, at that point itturns from amusement into work. [14] This other viewpoint is also political for Van derKeuken.

By treating these economic and social problems in a composition, Van der Keuken seems to

solve them. The possibility to intervene, to interfere arises. But The White Castleis aware ofits own form. In that respect the film is at odds with our time. Our time is one and all

malapropism but doesnt seem to be aware of this. The White Castleon the other hand is

also one and all fragmentation but is aware of its fragmentation. The White Castledoesnthave a fixed form, but is allowed the freedom to still form itself within the film. Whileeverything stands on unsteady ground, it is at the same time intelligently constructed. Theform is not unambiguous, but flows. The film is formed in the process of watching, in themovement made throughout it. In that way it transcends its own fragmentarization. Whenwatching these kinds of films a second time around, they yield even more of their beauty andpower, they open themselves up even more. These are films which link and unlink and whichallow you to watch. Every image is necessary - though never intrusive, nor self-evident. A filmsearching for itself.


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Text by Gerard-Jan Claes

-----------------

[1] Johan van der Keuken - Het witte kasteel (1973) (The White Castle, 1973)

[2, 3, 4, 5] Johan van der Keuken - Zien, Kijken, Filmen. Foto's, teksten en interviews(1980)

[6] Johan van der Keuken - De grote vakantie (2000) (The Summer Holidays, 2000)

[7] Johan van der Keuken - Bewogen Beelden. Films (2001)

[8] Walter Benjamin - Over het begrip van de geschiedenis- vertaling: Marcel Martens (1990)[9] Sickle and Hammer, Cannons, Cannons, Dynamite! - Diagonal Thoughts[1][10] Johan van der Keuken - Zien, Kijken, Filmen. Foto's, teksten en interviews(1980)

[11] Walter Benjamin - Baudelaire: een dichter in het tijdperk van het hoog-kapitalisme(1979)

[12] Lieven De Cauter - Genealogie van een belevingsmachine: De sleutelwoorden van de

moderne ervaring - Archeologie van de kick. Over moderne ervaringshonger (2009)[13] Susan Buck Morss - Droomwereld van de massacultuur - in Benjamin Journaal 2(1994)

[14] Johan van der Keuken - Zien, Kijken, Filmen. Foto's, teksten en interviews(1980)

-----------------

Translated by Hannah Van Hove. You can find the original text here: Op zoek naar het witte

kasteel [2].

HET WITTE KASTEEL [3]JOHAN VAN DER KEUKEN [4]1973 [5]GERARD-JAN CLAES [6]

Source URL:http://www.sabzian.be/article/in-search-of-the-white-castle

Links:

[1] http://www.diagonalthoughts.com/?p=1832[2] http://sabzian.be/article/op-zoek-naar-het-witte-kasteel[3] http://www.sabzian.be/tags/het-witte-kasteel[4] http://www.sabzian.be/tags/johan-van-der-keuken[5] http://www.sabzian.be/tags/1973[6] http://www.sabzian.be/tags/gerard-jan-claes


In Search of the White Castle

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