Extended Family Films: Home Movies in the State-Sponsored Archive Julia J

Extended Family Films: Home Movies in the State-Sponsored Archive Julia J. Noordegraaf, Elvira Pouw The Moving Image, Volume 9, Number 1, Spring 2009, pp. 83-103 (Article) Published by University of Minnesota Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/mov.0.0037 For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/362426 [ This content has been declared free to read by the pubisher during the COVID-19 pandemic. ] 83885 04 083-103 r2 ko 9/24/09 2:17 PM Page 83 EXTENDED FAMILY FILMS JULIA J. NOORDEGRAAF AND ELVIRA POUW Home Movies in the State-Sponsored Archive 83885 04 083-103 r2 ko 9/24/09 1:37 PM Page 84 NOORDEGRAAF AND POUW 84 In 2002, the Nederlands Filmmuseum organized a program of screenings and lectures around its substantial collection of films from the Dutch East Indies, as Indonesia was called when it was under Dutch colonial rule (1800–1949). “Van de koloniën niets dan goeds” (All’s Well in the Colony) screened, over a period of two months, a mix of promotional, ethnographic, and amateur films, as well as works that presented the colonial material in a new compilation, such as Vincent Monnikendam’s Mother Dao: The Turtle- like (1995), a documentary composed entirely of footage from propaganda films, Fiona Tan’s film and video installations Smoke Screen (1997) and Facing Forward (1999), and Karel Doing’s reconstruction of his uncle’s war experiences in Indonesia, Een ont- dekkingsreis naar Tarakan (A Voyage of Discovery to Tarakan, 2002). Another part of the program was a compilation film produced by Filmmuseum staff members Nico de Klerk and Frank Roumen, called Tabee (So Long, 2002). Assem- bling footage shot between 1912 and 1942, it portrays a typical boat trip from the Nether- lands to the Indonesian archipelago, visiting various cities along the way. The first part of the film presents a view of the passage from the perspective of a first-class passenger, with copious dinners, stops at various “exotic” places, such as Algiers and Port Said, and various forms of entertainment provided on board, from swimming and dancing to pillow fights and sack races. Upon the arrival of the boat in the Dutch East Indies, the film switches to a portrayal of life in the colony, with street scenes, tourist resorts, planta- tions, army barracks, and shots of politicians and the Japanese invasion, which marked the beginning of the end of the Dutch occupation. A voice-over explains the images and reads passages from eyewitness reports on the passage and life in the Dutch East Indies, including a travel account by the noted Dutch author Louis Couperus, who spent forma- tive years in the capital city, Batavia (now Jakarta). In So Long, professional productions seamlessly blend with footage shot by amateurs. For example, the scenes on board are taken from both professional and semiprofessional films and from private films shot by amateurs. Although the voice-over comments on the origin of some material—in particular the footage of the boat trips, taken from promotional films for the steamboat companies—the amateur footage is not identified as such.1 While it is clear that the footage in So Long derives from different films (the credits list thirty-five titles) of varying quality, the amateur material does not stand out. In the new context of this museum film, the previously private material, docu- menting the life of the families traveling to and living in the Dutch East Indies, is used as historical source for a general picture of life in the former colony. Its status as valuable documentation is further underlined by the decision to preserve it and by its position within the Dutch East Indies collection of the Filmmuseum, which mainly comprises professional films. 83885 04 083-103 r2 ko 9/24/09 1:37 PM Page 85 85 EXTENDED FAMILY FILMS How does the transition of these films from the private context of the family to the public context of the state-sponsored archive change the way they are valued and seen? How does their inclusion in a national archive influence Figure 1. Portrait of Mr. H. J. A. their status as “home movies” and our definition of what Sanders and his wife, G. Sanders, taken at their house in Lebong they document? To address these questions, we focus Donok, Sumatra, Indonesia, April 26, 1932. Courtesy of the on one particular collection, that of the Sanders family. Tropenmuseum Amsterdam (60035480). 83885 04 083-103 r2 ko 9/24/09 1:37 PM Page 86 NOORDEGRAAF AND POUW 86 Mr. H. J. A. Sanders (Figure 1) was the owner of a gold mine in Lebong Donok on the island of Sumatra from at least 1908 until June 1937. He was also a keen amateur filmer and photog- rapher. His films, shot from 1931 to1939, provide an interesting case for two reasons. First, they are representative of the amateur films produced in the Dutch East Indies during the 1920s and 30s, in that they document the highlights of the colonial life of the well-to-do who could afford the equipment to produce these films. At the same time, they stretch the boundaries of the genre, in that they do not limit themselves to the subjects stereotypically covered in family films, such as holidays, children, and scenes from domestic life. As Nico de Klerk points out, the home movies from the Dutch East Indies often show a blurring of the distinction between private and public as we normally understand it.2 Our analysis of the Sanders films confirms this observation. A close reading of two Sanders films shows how this material blurs the borders of the family and the line between private life and work. From the start, this material extends beyond the private realm of the family home. In that sense, the Sanders recordings, as the other amateur films from this particular social and historical setting where people created new “homes away from home,” illustrate the permeability between private and public life that was characteristic for life in any colony.3 Additionally, the inclusion of the Sanders material in a national film archive further extends its scope: it shares the space of the vaults with professional works and becomes part of a national heritage, situated in the public domain. As such, it becomes accessible to an undefined and potentially unlimited audience. Finally, we investigate the consequences of the ambiguous position of these films for analyzing amateur film in general. It is our assumption that the blurring of boundaries between public and private that occurs around the Sanders films extends beyond the home movies produced in the Dutch East Indies and other colonies where émigrés lived in relatively isolated circumstances. (The two hundred and forty-six thousand Europeans living among 61 million Asian/Pacific inhabitants of the islands in 1930 represented less than 0.5 percent of the population.)4 How can we account for the fact that the contexts in which amateur film is produced, preserved, and reused frame the material in constantly shifting ways? Over the past two decades amateur films have been rediscovered as valuable social and historical sources. Scholars have attempted to define the genre and provide models for analyzing its style and content.5 We contribute to this research by assessing the impact of public archiving and exhi- bition on the interpretation and valuation of amateur film—an underdeveloped dimension of the scholarship thus far.6 83885 04 083-103 r2 ko 9/24/09 1:37 PM Page 87 87 EXTENDED FAMILY FILMS Besides, existing studies of how the contexts of public archives and screenings influence the perception of moving image materials usually focus on professional media productions.7 Since their displacement from the home to a public, state-sponsored archive entails a clear change in their meaning—from documents that serve individual families as reminders of commonly experienced events to films that come to represent wider historical developments—family films are particularly apt objects to investigate how new contexts influence the meaning of audiovisual heritage. THE SANDERS COLLECTION The H. J. A. Sanders material consists of twenty-four films, running more than three hours. Of these, twenty are situated in the Dutch East Indies and four are holiday films shot elsewhere in Southeast Asia and Japan, as well as Hawaii and the continental United States. The collection records a range of subjects: the household, servants, holiday activities, and visits to friends. The collection also includes a few films that deal with Sanders’ working life in the min- ing industry. In 1990, the Royal Tropical Institute/Tropical Museum and the Nederlands Film- museum were granted state aid for preservation of the Dutch East Indies film collection. This project comprised approximately three hundred titles, most donated in the 1960s. The majority of films date from 1912 to 1941 and were made by professional Dutch filmmakers living in the Indonesian archipelago. They cover a range of subjects, most of a documentary character. Among them are government, medical, missionary, instruc- tional, industrial, and ethnological films by professional filmmakers such as Iep Ochse. Staff inventoried and viewed all of the items and evaluated the significance of their historical content. The uniqueness of each work helped determine which films were to be preserved.8 Nearly all of them were. More than ninety titles within the Dutch East Indies collection are described with the words amateur, family, or private.9 Next to the Sanders collection are films by families named Boks, Kerbert, Van Schaik, Kwee, and others. The most important reason to preserve the amateur material is the fact that they, as de Klerk writes, “provide a counterpoint to the ‘official’ productions made in this former Dutch colony.”10 The amateur images 83885 04 083-103 r2 ko 9/24/09 1:37 PM Page 88 NOORDEGRAAF AND POUW 88 portray things that official productions do not, such as the day-to-day affairs in a colonial household: how people lived, how they were dressed, what car they drove—the aspects that de Klerk describes as the “upholstery” of life.

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