Eric de Kuyper
Encyclopedia
Eric de Kuyper is a Flemish
-Belgian
and Dutch
writer, semiotician
, art critic, and experimental film director
. Fictionalized autobiographical novel
s, written in the 3rd-person, account for most of his creative work. His academic writing encompasses reviews, essays, articles, and books on semiotics
, film, dance, theater, and opera. His non-traditional films reveal an engineered penchant for melodrama, love songs, and silent movies
, their central topic is homosexuality
. Towards the end of the 2000s, he started organizing concerts en images, events in which he combines silent films, some segments shot by himself for the occasions, with live classical music, and sometimes singing and acting.
and then, as he put it, his teenage years of choices swayed by "faith, sexuality, and the future" in Antwerp. According to him, his family mostly spoke Dutch while they "thought in French and felt the more subtle emotions" in that language. After graduating from Notre Dame Jesuit High School, he returned to the city of his birth to study in the Department of Audiovisual and Dramatic Arts and Techniques (Rits), Erasmus University College Brussels, and took courses in philosophy and mass communication at the Free University of Brussels
. While in college, he began to work as a producer at the Flemish Radio and Television Network
. In 1974 he registered for graduate study at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences
in Paris where he worked in semiotics
and from which he received a PhD for his thesis "Pour une Sémiotique Spectaculaire" under the direction of A. J. Greimas
in 1979. Before he became a full-time writer in 1992, he was professor of film theory at the Catholic University of Nijmegen
in the Netherlands (1978–1988), and then Deputy Director of the Dutch Film Museum
(1988–1992). He was on the editorial board of and contributed to the Dutch academic film journal Versus.
De Kuyper has described himself as belonging to the dying breed of inhabitants of Brussels who are fully bilingual in Dutch
(Flemish
) and French, he also speaks English and German. His most frequent coauthor of academic papers and teammate in filmmaking has been another Flemish
Belgian and de Kuyper's fellow student at Brussels
and Paris
, Emile Poppe, later a colleague at Nijmegen University
(Poppe's position with the Film Archives eventually associated him with the University of Groningen). They live near Nijmegen in Kranenburg
in Germany, about 5 miles (8 km) from the Dutch border, as does the main character of de Kuyper's short story "De verkeerde krant," ("The Wrong Newspaper"). De Kuyper has said that he feels at home both in Belgium and the Netherlands to a certain degree, as well as somewhat of a stranger in each of the countries.
Brussels and family summer vacation at Ostend
.Together, they conjure up a nostalgic vignette of times gone by, along with a timeless sense of childhood when one feels everything revolves around him. A reviewer said of its effective acuteness that no one who has read it can look at the Belgian beach without thinking of de Kuyper. The lyrical By the Sea turned out to be the first volume in de Kuyper's successful series of 3rd-person fictionalized memoirs
.
The traveler's thoughts drift from languages to comparisons of European newspaper styles to cross-cultural observations, while his journey brings him to an unusual chance encounter as he transfers to a connecting train at Cologne
.
s of Alfred Machin
and Yevgeni Bauer
. The central theme of his filmmaking is homosexuality. Most of his work is highly experimental underground shown mainly at film festivals.
International Festival of Young Cinema, Different Cinema. Its original Italian title refers to the aria "Oh, pure/chaste goddess..." (i.e., the moon) from Norma
. The black-and-white 106'-long feature without a dialogue starts with a stationary camera showing attractive men grooming in front of a mirror while the soundtrack of operatic arias and fragments of other songs challenges the viewer to perceive the two levels as seductive and intoxicating parallels, speculative contrasts, or mold-breaking transgressions. The film establishes a relation with its cinematic objects, male bodies, that is both sensual and distant, somewhat reminiscent of Flesh
(dir. Paul Morrissey
; 1968) produced by Andy Warhol
.
, cinematographer on Beauty and the Beast (dir. Jean Cocteau
, 1946). The love story between a college student and his 40-year-old professor of film studies (like de Kuyper at the time), specialized in Hollywood dramas, takes an unusual twist when the two decide to visit the student’s parents. The father turns out to be the professor's lover of fifteen years ago. De Kuyper said he considered it important not to allow the audience to read the film through the common expectations of a gay topic, while at the same time, the choice of two male lead characters prevented the deciphering of the topic of love through the commonly established codes. He intended the balance to bring to the foreground the film's central topic, the exploration of asynchrony
at the roots of the Western notion of love. Rather than a discourse about love in people's real lives, though, A Strange Love Affair is filled with discourse about love as found in the movies, particularly Johnny Guitar
(dir. Nicholas Ray
, 1954), the controlling metaphor for the whole story.
After a decade-long hiatus from film, de Kuyper collaborated with Chantal Akerman
on the screenplays for her La captive (The Captive; 2000) and Demain on déménage (Tomorrow We Move; 2004) and she later cast him in a supporting role in her Die Blutgräfin
.
Flemish
Flemish can refer to anything related to Flanders, and may refer directly to the following articles:*Flemish, an informal, though linguistically incorrect, name of any kind of the Dutch language as spoken in Belgium....
-Belgian
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
and Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
writer, semiotician
Semiotics
Semiotics, also called semiotic studies or semiology, is the study of signs and sign processes , indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication...
, art critic, and experimental film director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
. Fictionalized autobiographical novel
Autobiographical novel
An autobiographical novel is a form of novel using autofiction techniques, or the merging of autobiographical and fiction elements. The literary technique is distinguished from an autobiography or memoir by the stipulation of being fiction...
s, written in the 3rd-person, account for most of his creative work. His academic writing encompasses reviews, essays, articles, and books on semiotics
Semiotics
Semiotics, also called semiotic studies or semiology, is the study of signs and sign processes , indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication...
, film, dance, theater, and opera. His non-traditional films reveal an engineered penchant for melodrama, love songs, and silent movies
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
, their central topic is homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
. Towards the end of the 2000s, he started organizing concerts en images, events in which he combines silent films, some segments shot by himself for the occasions, with live classical music, and sometimes singing and acting.
Biography
Eric de Kuyper was born and spent his early childhood in BrusselsBrussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
and then, as he put it, his teenage years of choices swayed by "faith, sexuality, and the future" in Antwerp. According to him, his family mostly spoke Dutch while they "thought in French and felt the more subtle emotions" in that language. After graduating from Notre Dame Jesuit High School, he returned to the city of his birth to study in the Department of Audiovisual and Dramatic Arts and Techniques (Rits), Erasmus University College Brussels, and took courses in philosophy and mass communication at the Free University of Brussels
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
The Vrije Universiteit Brussel is a Flemish university located in Brussels, Belgium. It has two campuses referred to as Etterbeek and Jette.The university's name is sometimes abbreviated by "VUB" or translated to "Free University of Brussels"...
. While in college, he began to work as a producer at the Flemish Radio and Television Network
Vlaamse Radio- en Televisieomroep
The Vlaamse Radio- en Televisieomroeporganisatie , or VRT, is a publicly-funded broadcaster of radio and television in Flanders ....
. In 1974 he registered for graduate study at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences
École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
The École des hautes études en sciences sociales is a leading French institution for research and higher education, a Grand Établissement. Its mission is research and research training in the social sciences, including the relationship these latter maintain with the natural and life sciences...
in Paris where he worked in semiotics
Semiotics
Semiotics, also called semiotic studies or semiology, is the study of signs and sign processes , indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication...
and from which he received a PhD for his thesis "Pour une Sémiotique Spectaculaire" under the direction of A. J. Greimas
Algirdas Julien Greimas
Algirdas Julien Greimas , known among other things for the Greimas Square, is considered, along with Roland Barthes, the most prominent of the French semioticians. With his training in linguistics, he added to the theory of signification and laid the foundations for the Paris School of Semiotics...
in 1979. Before he became a full-time writer in 1992, he was professor of film theory at the Catholic University of Nijmegen
Radboud University Nijmegen
Radboud University Nijmegen is a public university with a strong focus on research in Nijmegen, the Netherlands...
in the Netherlands (1978–1988), and then Deputy Director of the Dutch Film Museum
Eye
Eyes are organs that detect light and convert it into electro-chemical impulses in neurons. The simplest photoreceptors in conscious vision connect light to movement...
(1988–1992). He was on the editorial board of and contributed to the Dutch academic film journal Versus.
De Kuyper has described himself as belonging to the dying breed of inhabitants of Brussels who are fully bilingual in Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
(Flemish
Flemish
Flemish can refer to anything related to Flanders, and may refer directly to the following articles:*Flemish, an informal, though linguistically incorrect, name of any kind of the Dutch language as spoken in Belgium....
) and French, he also speaks English and German. His most frequent coauthor of academic papers and teammate in filmmaking has been another Flemish
Flemish
Flemish can refer to anything related to Flanders, and may refer directly to the following articles:*Flemish, an informal, though linguistically incorrect, name of any kind of the Dutch language as spoken in Belgium....
Belgian and de Kuyper's fellow student at Brussels
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
The Vrije Universiteit Brussel is a Flemish university located in Brussels, Belgium. It has two campuses referred to as Etterbeek and Jette.The university's name is sometimes abbreviated by "VUB" or translated to "Free University of Brussels"...
and Paris
École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
The École des hautes études en sciences sociales is a leading French institution for research and higher education, a Grand Établissement. Its mission is research and research training in the social sciences, including the relationship these latter maintain with the natural and life sciences...
, Emile Poppe, later a colleague at Nijmegen University
Radboud University Nijmegen
Radboud University Nijmegen is a public university with a strong focus on research in Nijmegen, the Netherlands...
(Poppe's position with the Film Archives eventually associated him with the University of Groningen). They live near Nijmegen in Kranenburg
Kranenburg, North Rhine-Westphalia
Kranenburg is a municipality in the district of Cleves in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located near the border with the Netherlands, south-east of Nijmegen and west of Cleves....
in Germany, about 5 miles (8 km) from the Dutch border, as does the main character of de Kuyper's short story "De verkeerde krant," ("The Wrong Newspaper"). De Kuyper has said that he feels at home both in Belgium and the Netherlands to a certain degree, as well as somewhat of a stranger in each of the countries.
By the Sea (1988)
De Kuyper's first novel (Aan zee: taferelen uit de kinderjaren; By the Sea: Scenes from a Childhood) consists of a series of insightful snapshots of a small boy's life in post-World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
Brussels and family summer vacation at Ostend
Ostend
Ostend is a Belgian city and municipality located in the Flemish province of West Flanders. It comprises the boroughs of Mariakerke , Stene and Zandvoorde, and the city of Ostend proper – the largest on the Belgian coast....
.Together, they conjure up a nostalgic vignette of times gone by, along with a timeless sense of childhood when one feels everything revolves around him. A reviewer said of its effective acuteness that no one who has read it can look at the Belgian beach without thinking of de Kuyper. The lyrical By the Sea turned out to be the first volume in de Kuyper's successful series of 3rd-person fictionalized memoirs
Autobiographical novel
An autobiographical novel is a form of novel using autofiction techniques, or the merging of autobiographical and fiction elements. The literary technique is distinguished from an autobiography or memoir by the stipulation of being fiction...
.
"The Wrong Newspaper" (2008)
In the short story (De verkeerde krant), de Kuyper turns his observations to all things German as a Dutch professor, living in Germany like de Kuyper, takes a train trip to Frankfurt:The ticket inspector came. Ich bedanke mich, he said politely. Strange that in German you thank yourself. For a long time he had pondered why the custom differed so much from that of other languages. In French, English, and Dutch you thank the other person and not yourself. Ultimately, he reached the conclusion that it wasn't so much a direct expression of thanks as a form of courtesy in which I declare myself to be thankful. Of course, you could always just say Danke schön.
The traveler's thoughts drift from languages to comparisons of European newspaper styles to cross-cultural observations, while his journey brings him to an unusual chance encounter as he transfers to a connecting train at Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
.
Film
De Kuyper's films reveal an engineered penchant for melodrama, love songs, and silent filmSilent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
s of Alfred Machin
Alfred Machin
Alfred Machin was one of the rare French film directors whose films expressed progressivist tendencies before World War I. Ironically it turns out during this war his films of the current events were of cinematographic service to the French Army. After 1920, AlfredMachin devoted himself in...
and Yevgeni Bauer
Yevgeni Bauer
Yevgeni Franzevich Bauer was a Russian film director of silent films, a theatre artist and a screenwriter. His work had a great influence on the aesthetics of Russian cinematography at the beginning of the 20th century....
. The central theme of his filmmaking is homosexuality. Most of his work is highly experimental underground shown mainly at film festivals.
Casta Diva (1983)
His non-traditional directorial debut (finished 1982, released 1983) earned him the Grand Prix at the HyèresHyères
Hyères , Provençal Occitan: Ieras in classical norm or Iero in Mistralian norm) is a commune in the Var department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France....
International Festival of Young Cinema, Different Cinema. Its original Italian title refers to the aria "Oh, pure/chaste goddess..." (i.e., the moon) from Norma
Norma
Norma is a popular girl's name. Norma may also refer to:In science and technology:*Norma , of the southern sky*Cygnus Arm, also known as the Norma Arm, a spiral arm in the Milky Way galaxy*555 Norma, a minor planet...
. The black-and-white 106'-long feature without a dialogue starts with a stationary camera showing attractive men grooming in front of a mirror while the soundtrack of operatic arias and fragments of other songs challenges the viewer to perceive the two levels as seductive and intoxicating parallels, speculative contrasts, or mold-breaking transgressions. The film establishes a relation with its cinematic objects, male bodies, that is both sensual and distant, somewhat reminiscent of Flesh
Flesh (film)
Flesh is a 1968 film directed by American filmmaker Paul Morrissey.Flesh is the first film of the "Paul Morrissey Trilogy" produced by Andy Warhol. The other films in the trilogy include Trash and Heat. All three have gained a cult following and are noted examples of the ideals and ideology of the...
(dir. Paul Morrissey
Paul Morrissey
Paul Morrissey is an American film director, best-known for his association with Andy Warhol.Morrissey attended Ampleforth College, a private Roman Catholic boarding school and Fordham University, both Roman Catholic schools, and later served in the United States Army...
; 1968) produced by Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
.
A Strange Love Affair (1984)
In his most narrative film, de Kuyper explores the themes of melodrama in the context of the characters' selection of lovers, and drives it in with an unconventional ending. The black-and-white photography is by the legendary Henri AlekanHenri Alekan
Henri Alekan was a French cinematographer.-Life:Henri Alekan was born in Montmartre in 1909. At the age of sixteen he and his brother became travelling puppeteers. A little later he started work as third assistant cameraman at the Billancourt studios. He then spent a short time in the army,...
, cinematographer on Beauty and the Beast (dir. Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
, 1946). The love story between a college student and his 40-year-old professor of film studies (like de Kuyper at the time), specialized in Hollywood dramas, takes an unusual twist when the two decide to visit the student’s parents. The father turns out to be the professor's lover of fifteen years ago. De Kuyper said he considered it important not to allow the audience to read the film through the common expectations of a gay topic, while at the same time, the choice of two male lead characters prevented the deciphering of the topic of love through the commonly established codes. He intended the balance to bring to the foreground the film's central topic, the exploration of asynchrony
Synchronicity
Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance and that are observed to occur together in a meaningful manner...
at the roots of the Western notion of love. Rather than a discourse about love in people's real lives, though, A Strange Love Affair is filled with discourse about love as found in the movies, particularly Johnny Guitar
Johnny Guitar
Johnny Guitar is a 1954 Republic Pictures Western film starring Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge, and Scott Brady.The screenplay was based upon a novel by Roy Chanslor. Though credited to Philip Yordan, he was merely a front for the actual screenwriter, blacklistee Ben Maddow. ...
(dir. Nicholas Ray
Nicholas Ray
Nicholas Ray was an American film director best known for the movie Rebel Without a Cause....
, 1954), the controlling metaphor for the whole story.
After a decade-long hiatus from film, de Kuyper collaborated with Chantal Akerman
Chantal Akerman
Chantal Anne Akerman is a Belgian film director, artist, and professor of film at the European Graduate School. Akerman's best-known film, Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles , exemplifies a dedication to the ellipses of conventional narrative cinema.-Early life:Akerman was born to...
on the screenplays for her La captive (The Captive; 2000) and Demain on déménage (Tomorrow We Move; 2004) and she later cast him in a supporting role in her Die Blutgräfin
Die Blutgräfin (film)
Die Blutgräfin is a German-Austrian film about Elizabeth Báthory. The screenplay is by the director of the film Ulrike Ottinger with additional writing by Elfriede Jelinek.-Plot:...
.
Fiction
Eric de Kuyper's fiction has been translated to French, Italian, and Hungarian, one short story to English.- Aan zee: taferelen uit de kinderjaren. (1988)
- De hoed van tante Jeannot: taferelen uit de kinderjaren in Brussel. (1989), NCR Award – Foundation for the Promotion of Art
- Een tafel voor een: reisberichten. (1990)
- Mowgli's tranen. (1990)
- Dag stoel naast de tafel: kroniek van het dagelijkse. (1991)
- Grand Hotel Solitude: taferelen uit de adolescentiejaren. (1991), Shortlisted for AKO LiteratuurprijsAKO LiteratuurprijsThe AKO Literatuurprijs is the best known prize for literature in the Netherlands. It is awarded to authors writing in Dutch and highly coveted for its recognition as well as the award amount of 50,000. The ceremony is televised live each year. The prize was conceived in 1986 and inaugurated the...
1992 - Aantekeningen van een voyeur. (1992)
- Als een dief in de nacht. (1992)
- Bruxelles, here I come: nieuwe taferelen uit de Antwerpse en Brusselse tijd. (1993)
- De verbeelding van het mannelijk lichaam. (1993)
- Ma, Weduwe, Veuve Dekuyper. (1993)
- Te vroeg... te laat...: een liefdesgeschiedenis. (1994)
- Een passie voor Brussel. (1995)
- Drie zusters in Londen: uit de familiekroniek, 1914-1918. (1996)
- Met zicht op zee: aan zee, veertig jaar later. (1997)
- Kinders: over kinderen en hun badwater. (1998)
- Een vis verdrinken. (2001)
- Villa Zeelucht. (2003)
- Het teruggevonden Kind. (2007)
- "De verkeerde krant." ("The Wrong Newspaper.") 2008
Non-fiction
- Filmische hartstochten. (1984)
- De verbeelding van het mannelijk lichaam: naakt en gekleed in Hollywood, 1933-1955. (1993)
- Alfred Machin, cinéaste, Bruxelles. (1995)
- Jacqueline Veuve: The Poetry of Gestures. (1996)
- Met gemengde gevoelens: over eigenheid, identiteit en nationale cultuur. (2000)
- Een vis verdrinken: een niet-Nederlander tussen de Nederlanders. (2001)
Film director
- Casta Diva (1983), Grand Prix – Hyères International Festival of Young Cinema, Different Cinema 1982
- Naughty Boys (1983), Golden Calf Special Jury PrizeGolden Calf Special Jury PrizeThe following is a list of winners of the Golden Calf Special Jury Prize at the Nederlands Film Festival.* 2009 The whole team - Kan door huid heen* 2008 Willem de Beukelaer's Stunt Team...
– Netherlands Film FestivalNetherlands Film FestivalThe Netherlands Film Festival is an annual film festival, held in September and October of each year in the city of Utrecht.During the ten-day festival, all Dutch film productions of the previous year are exhibited. Besides feature films, the program also consists of short subjects, documentary...
1984 - A Strange Love Affair (1984)
- Pink Ulysses (1990)
Screenwriter
- Parti sans laisser d'adresse (1982)
- Casta Diva (1983), Grand Prix – Hyères International Festival of Young Cinema, Different Cinema 1982
- Naughty Boys (1983), Golden Calf Special Jury PrizeGolden Calf Special Jury PrizeThe following is a list of winners of the Golden Calf Special Jury Prize at the Nederlands Film Festival.* 2009 The whole team - Kan door huid heen* 2008 Willem de Beukelaer's Stunt Team...
– Netherlands Film FestivalNetherlands Film FestivalThe Netherlands Film Festival is an annual film festival, held in September and October of each year in the city of Utrecht.During the ten-day festival, all Dutch film productions of the previous year are exhibited. Besides feature films, the program also consists of short subjects, documentary...
1984 - A Strange Love Affair (1984)
- Pink Ulysses (1990)
- La captive (2000)
- Demain on déménage (2004)
Concerts en images
- "Das Stahlwerk der Poldihütte während des Weltkriegs (1916)." Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, 2006.
- "Satie, Cage & film." Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique, Brussels, 2008.
- "Variationen auf GenovevaGenovevaGenoveva is an opera in four acts by Robert Schumann in the genre of German Romanticism with a libretto by Robert Reinick and the composer. The only opera Schumann ever wrote, it received its first performance on 25 June 1850 at the Stadttheater in Leipzig, with the composer conducting...
von Robert Schumann." Berlinale, Berlin, 2010.
As self
- De doormproducenten (interviewee; TV documentary, 1984)
- Pierrot Lunaire (producer, Dutch Film Museum; 1989)
- Drieliuk (interviewee; TV documentary, 1990)
Sources
- "Eric de Kuyper." Digitale bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse lettern. (in Dutch)
- Directions, Kranenburg, Germany, to the Hauptstraße/Nieuwe Rijksweg border crossing.
External links
- Eric de Kuyper (2008) "The Wrong Newspaper" A recording of de Kuyper's short story in English; 30'.
- Versus. A quarterly for film and the performing arts, 1982-1992. (in Dutch)