Helen van Dongen
| Helen van Dongen | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Helene van Dongen January 5, 1909 Amsterdam, The Netherlands |
| Died | September 28, 2006 (aged 97) Brattleboro, Vermont, USA |
| Other names | Helen Durant |
| Occupation | Film editor |
| Years active | 1927-1950 |
| Spouse(s) |
Joris Ivens (1944-?) Kenneth Durant (1950-72) |
Helen van Dongen (January 5, 1909 - September 28, 2006) was a pioneering editor of documentary films who was active from about 1925-1950. She collaborated with filmmaker Joris Ivens from 1925 to 1940, made several independent documentaries, and edited two of Robert Flaherty's films before retiring from filmmaking in her 40s.
Born in Amsterdam, van Dongen met Joris Ivens in her teens and eventually became his key collaborator. She worked on Ivens' first films The Bridge (1928) and Rain (1929). In the 1930s she was credited as the editor of Ivens' films including Nieuwe Gronden (1934), Misère au Borinage (1934), The Spanish Earth (1937), and The 400 Million (1939). Bob Mastrangelo has written that these four films "earned Ivens a worldwide reputation, and solidified van Dongen's status as one of the most important editors of her generation." He suggests that van Dongen's most important credit was as the editor of The Spanish Earth (1937), Ivens' film about the Spanish Civil War that was narrated by Ernest Hemingway: "...almost 70 years later it remains a powerful testament to the devastating effects of civil war. The intensity of van Dongen's editing is an important factor in the film's impact, particularly in the way it contrasts the horrors of war with the beauty of the Spanish countryside." Her final film with Ivens was Power and the Land (1940). Van Dongen and Ivens were briefly married in the mid-1940s, after their filmmaking collaboration had ended.
In 1941 van Dongen edited Robert Flaherty's film, The Land (1942), and she co-produced and edited his film Louisiana Story (1948). Jon Lupo described their collaboration as follows: "Though both The Land and Louisiana Story are prime examples of Flaherty's filmmaking sensibility, much of the beauty and emotional gravity of the films is owed to Van Dongen's delicately focused sound and film editing." Van Dongen kept a diary during her work on Louisiana Story that she later published, and that is considered an important record both of the film and of Flaherty's career.
...
Wikipedia