Controversial Film about the 'Night Watch'. Peter Greenaway's Rembrandt’s J’Accuse

Controversial Film about the 'Night Watch'. Peter Greenaway's Rembrandt’s J’Accuse
Peter Greenaway takes his Rembrandt conspiracy theory to the big screen

by Melissa Tuckman
(Source: Artnews) The Night Watch has been on public view since its completion in 1642. But according to experimental filmmaker Peter Greenaway, Rembrandt’s masterwork is studded with unexplained mysteries. If the painting was meant to be a portrait of a militia company, Greenaway asks, why aren’t the soldiers in uniform? Who is the out-of-place girl in gold? And is she a child, a dwarf, or an angel? Even more troubling is the soldier standing behind the central officers: why does he appear to be shooting a musket into the middle of a crowd?

Greenaway is convinced that the painting contains satirical—and sinister—hidden messages. In his latest documentary, Rembrandt’s J’Accuse, which will be shown this month at the San Francisco International Film Festival, as well as at Hot Docs in Toronto, he speculates that The Night Watch is “a pointed finger” that attacks the militia company depicted here for corruption, child prostitution, and murder.

The Night Watch is most often described as a lively group portrait that glorifies an Amsterdam militia company. But Greenaway has reached a wildly different conclusion: the image exposes a real-world criminal plot. According to Greenaway, Amsterdam in the 17th century was violent and inadequately policed. Rembrandt’s J’Accuse proposes that the captain in The Night Watch, Frans Banning Cocq, could have murdered his way to the top. Furthermore, Rembrandt may have known about the crime.

Instead of conducting formal research, Greenaway bases his analysis on visual clues—a method that concerns some art historians since the film is presented as a documentary. Ernst van de Wetering, head of the Rembrandt Research Project in Amsterdam, worries that the movie will be “so misleading to the general ill-informed public” that it could undermine serious scholarly work. Bas Dudok van Heel, a historian at the Amsterdam Municipal Archive, dismisses the whole film outright, objecting, “The pretended research of Mr. Greenaway has never been done. All his figures are invented.”
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http://artnews.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=2676&current=True

(Comment Trendsbridge)
Of course the film is based on a 'Conspiracy Theory', and in recent history Amsterdam has been one of the worst governed cities in the Netherlands for many years. Although the film is presented as a documentary an until now unseen element of truth could be in this movie. Quite a few artists have always seen or felt more than there seemed to be at first sight. But this is not a welcome message for the 'holier than holy' Dutch Authorities.