Rembrandt, Painter of Man

In Rembrandt, Haanstra shows that it is possible to make a fascinating film, only with images from paintings. He had to travel though all over Europe to numerous museums and private owners in order to film the works of art. In the work of the great painter, Haanstra recognizes his particular interest in man as an individual human being, cutting straight through all the religious motives. And Haanstra also wants to see Rembrandt as an individual. Although the film was made as part of the Rembrandt-Year 1956 and partly meant to promote The Netherlands internationally, references to the Fatherland are absent. In the most famous fragment of the film, we see through a series of self portraits running into one another how the painter irreversibly ages: a great man too is marked by life. Through this sequence of images, Haanstra achieved a result that reminds us of present day computer animation.