De brug is a 1928 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...

 documentary short film directed by Joris Ivens

Joris Ivens

Joris Ivens was a Dutch documentary filmmaker and committed communist.-Early life and career:...

. This silent film explores the newly constructed Rotterdam

Rotterdam

Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...

 vertical-lift railroad bridge: its structure, mechanisms, complex actions, and the steam-powered trains and ships making use of it.

Synopsis

Three views of the film camera appear "as if in a technical drawing. It then proceeds to examine the bridge from all angles." The bridge is shown in ultrawide format, then wide, then in close-up, from a train rider's viewpoint. The view shifts to outside the train looking down at the harbor water far below, then to clouds of steam obscuring and revealing the bridge's steel structure. A worker ascends, inspects, observes the surrounding environs, and descends the superstructure. From a vantage point between two train cars coupled together, the countryside flits by as the train makes its way to the bridge. The bridgemaster at the control console commands the raising of the central section, and the massive alignment grooves, pulleys, cables, and counterweights are all detailed in their steady synchronized operation until the bridge's maximum height of 38 meters is reached. Sailing and steam ships then make their way through, while the steam train waits, puffing. The bridge descends, the counterweights rise, and the train continues on its way.

History

Ivens was involved in the Amsterdam film-league (Filmliga), while he managed his father's photographic business and attended university. Ivens' "first enthusiasm was the abstract films sent to them — sometimes brought to them — from Germany by Ruttmann

Walter Ruttmann

Walter Ruttmann was a German film director and along with Hans Richter and Viking Eggeling was an early German practitioner of experimental film....

, Eggeling

Viking Eggeling

Viking Eggeling was a Swedish artist and filmmaker. His work is of significance in the area of experimental film, and has been described as absolute film and Visual Music....

, Richter

Hans Richter (artist)

Hans Richter was a painter, graphic artist, avant-gardist, film-experimenter and producer. He was born in Berlin into a well-to-do family and died in Minusio, near Locarno, Switzerland.-Germany:...

, and others," and De Brug, one of Ivens' first ventures into filmmaking, followed in a similar vein.

In the 1920s, the modern, technology-oriented city of Rotterdam had become quite popular. The construction of its new lifting bridge (Hefbrug, or De Hef) was covered extensively in the press, and inspired artists as well. Ivens called the bridge "a laboratory of movements, tones, shapes, contrasts, rhythms, and the relations between all of these." He climbed the bridge over a period of months and filmed it "day after day" on lunch breaks, searching for "expressive angles."

According to van Ulzen, Ivens' "almost entirely abstract" film achieved immediate world fame. De Brug was described in the British journal CLOSEUP (1928) as a "pure visual symphony."