This has long been one of my favorite countries, but these choices are not so tough. For most of the categories I have clear first picks.
1. Painter: We’re talking favorite here. Best goes to Rembrandt, but Mondrian changed my life. For single painting, I opt for Vermeer’s The Art of Painting. The map in the background (do you get the implicit political and indeed pre-Westphalian Catholic message?) blows me away. There is also van Gogh, his best works are the drawings. de Kooning deserves mention, my favorite picture by him is Excavation, which hangs in Chicago.
2. Movie and Director: Paul Verhoeven is the go-to guy, how about The Fourth Man? But all of his are worth seeing, at least up until Hollow Man. Starship Troopers remains one of the most underrated movies; most people didn’t get that it was a critique of militarism and consumer society, all rolled into one. But you can’t make much money attacking your viewers, at least not in Hollywood. Verhoeven aside, The Vanishing is a strong entry. The guy who directed Speed is Dutch as well, I believe.
3. Novel: Harry Mulisch, The Discovery of Heaven. An underrated Continental novel of ideas, full of metaphysical speculation. But for such a literate people, this category is surprisingly thin.
4. Classical Music: Here is a list, take your pick from an undistinguished lot. It seems they left out Sweelinck, my default choice. There is more choice if you count the Flems, such as Josquin.
5. Popular music song: "Venus," by The Shocking Blue. Yes they were Dutch, and yes this is better than the later (non-Dutch) remake.
6. Conductor – Willem Mengelberg or Ton Koopman or Bernard Haitink. More generally, the Netherlands has been vital to the Early Music movement.
7. Philosophical odds and ends: Erasmus (an important theorist of self-deception), Grotius (better on property than Locke), and Spinoza (sheer genius) remain worth reading.
8. Female spy: Mata Hari.
Here is a Dutch Celebrities Quiz, see how you do! Hee.
leaky dykes
I’m a big fan of Ruisdael myself.
I’ve been curious: what inspires these “favorites” posts?
can’t get a bit of love for Robert Musil?
Why would you count the flemish people? It’s like counting Canada when you’
‘re talking about the US. Especially, Josquin, because he actually came from a town wich is now situated in (the nord of) France.(admittedly, back then it was still part of Flanders.)
How did Mondrian change your life?
Ahem.
The Memory of a Killer is also a good movie (more recent than Starship Troopers), and it’s also an adaptation of a book, to boot.
Bananarama’s Venus was sensationally good. Some people think Stock Aitken Waterman were the Antichrist, but what a great dance song.
“Starship Troopers” is one of the worst-cast films of all time. Casper Van Dien? Denise Richards? Patrick Muldoon? Rue McClanahan as a one-eyed professor? I don’t care if Verhoeven was trying to make a point and depict the charaters as hollow, soulless buffoons. The movie was ruined by their wooden performances. Not to mention an idiotic storyline. Can anyone explain to me why they didn’t just nuke the surface of the bug planet instead of sending troops down to kill the bugs individually? Or why the fleet had chimps for pilots who couldn’t get out of the way of beetle ass barrages? Aaargh.
‘can’t get a bit of love for Robert Musil?’
He was Austrian. The Man Without Qualities being set in Vienna.
Speaking of which, Vermeer’s The Art of Painting (or, The Artist’s Studio) hangs in the Kuntshistoriches Museum in Vienna. And it is fabulous. When I first saw it I had an impulse to take a comb out of my pocket and run it through the painter’s hair–it’s that realistic).
To me the message at the end of the movie Starship Troopers was that humans themselves had become the
monsters. And did anyone else pick up on the suggestion that humans destroyed Buenos Aires to
precipitate the war?
How about licorice? stroopwafels?
Why forget Dutch greatest export “products”: cannabis, XTC and the Amsterdam Red Light District?
Also typically Dutch: an quasi-anarchist quasi-calvinist take on life, jonge jenever, cheap but decent university educations, and zoute drop.
A strong second for the original version of The Vanishing – it is the creepiest movie I’ve ever seen.
It isn’t really Dutch, and I won’t pick out an individual, but Dutch painting is known for its wonderful still-lifes.
Second for Stroopewafels! (but that doesn’t mean I know how to spell it correctly)
I can see why Aaron enjoyed Starship Troopers, if he knew roughly what it was going to be when he saw it. Cheesiness has its place. But I was expecting to see a serious movie. I made the same mistake with American Beauty.
Comments on this entry are closed.