A Man saying “Mooh” and an Actress bursting into an Aria about Red and White Radishes: Early sound film in The Netherlands: developments & debates

Abstract

In this chapter, the music production of early sound films in the Netherlands is scrutinized in an international as well as local context. The early 1930s witnessed the development of a handful of fully equipped film studios in Holland. In terms of the speed with which cinema sound equipment was diffused, the Netherlands held equal pace with the United Kingdom, together leaving other European countries far behind. Lengthy features addressed often self-referential themes, attempting to express a certain recognizable ‘Dutch identity’ along different strands of narratives. The majority of these early Dutch sound films comprised inserted songs—even the most serious dramatic productions contained at least something of a cantata. With some exceptions, composers and arrangers rarely originated from the ‘classical’ music scene but were specialized film musicians. The most experimental scores were composed for documentaries. The film Regen by Joris Ivens was shot in silence yet provided with a score by Lou Lichtveld shortly after its release. In it, the listening process became an autonomous component of the cinematographic experience.