Glass (1958) 10 minutes

#1

Glass (Dutch: Glas) is a 1958 Dutch short documentary film by director and producer Bert Haanstra. The film won the Oscar for Documentary Short Subject in 1959. The first Oscar for the Dutch.

The film is about the glass industry in the Netherlands. It contrasts the handmade crystal from the Royal Leerdam Glass Factory with automated bottle making machines. Short segments of artisans making various glass goods by hand are joined with those of mass production. It is often acclaimed to be the perfect short documentary.

It is a lovely little film.

8 Likes
#2

Thanks for this.
I love good docs, also both side of my family originated in Holland so I’m a little Dutch-centric.:grinning:

1 Like
#3

Dear Ellie, Thank you for a wonderful afternoon!
I was blown away to find a link for this remarkable film I’ve thought about so often since I lost track of it somewhere in the 90’s. At the time I was a High School Art Teacher. A mangled copy of this film was available through the school district’s Audio-Visual Resources. I showed it every year. Suffice to say, it was, and still is for me, a masterpiece of film making. I never knew who made it or when because the titles and credits on the actual films were fuzzy if there at all. The overview taped to the carton became unreadable. When it came time to upgrade the old films to the next generation of visual media, this one didn’t even make the transition to video tape.

Sooo,

Thank you so much for finding and sharing this little gem of a film!

I am so delighted to see it again. The films I watched for 7 years were black and white, so the color, and the crisper images was frosting on the cake. I’d never thought to search for it as a documentary, I always searched though Art History, glass making, film making, short subjects. How did you find it?
Linda

1 Like
#4

Loved it! 12,13,14,15 (min characters)

1 Like
#5

Wow! That is so nice! I am glad you found it again.
I was not looking for this movie but i was searching for a same kind of short movie by Bert Haanstra but this one he filmed in secret in the Zoo of Amsterdam. It is a wonderful little movie about humans and animals. In this movie he worked with the same musicians as he did with the glas project.
I like the style of this filmmaker. Beautiful portraits of human expressions, great compositions. So real and honest.
Here is the zoo movie.

3 Likes
#6

Such lovely exploration in these films. I enjoyed “Zoo”, thanks. Now I’m on a quest to find out about Bert Haanstra!

#7

Not a fan of zoos … never have been … Nowadays … animals have every right to wonder at human behavior with curious fear and loathing … Who’s looking at who? … The zoo has become us … None the less … thanks for the vids …

#8

The Human Dutch (1963) is interesting as well. Same as Zoo, he filmed in secret.
I love the cattle market (8 minutes in) the faces of these farmers with their big sigars. Portraits! Great for doing some portrait sketching.
And then suddenly a head of Hitler pops up on a market, which is interesting to see how people respond to that thing and from there we go back to WW2, and 4th of may Remembrance of the Dead. Everything is silent at 20.00 for 2 minutes. The cemetery with all the white crosses is the American Cemetery Margraten. 8300 Amerikans are buried there. Every grave is adopted by a Dutch family or school.

Anyhow. I can go on.
Commentary of this movie is by Bert Haanstra the filmmaker himself.

1 Like