The Bridge

"As the film was intended to be a completely personal experiment, I was surprised by the favourable response it received from the public", writes director Ivens in his Autobiography of a Filmmaker. Ivens started work on his film The Bridge after having seen work by the European avant-garde at the Film Society. The absolute films of Walter Ruttmann and Hans Richter had made an especially strong impression on him. When Ivens said what he was looking for - a lifeless subject with a wide variation of movement and shape - a railroad engineer suggested that he should take a look at the new railroad bridge over the river Maas in Rotterdam. It was exactly what he was looking for. "For me, the bridge consisted of a laboratory of movements, hues, shapes, contrasts, rhythms and relations between all these elements". Trains passed by in a flash of black metal and white steam. Ships slowly sailed under it, hidden by gritty chimney smoke. According to Ivens, the lifting bridge formed an ode to modern engineering, with its revolving cable wheel and counterweights held up by shivering cables. (Text from Memory of the Netherlands)