Karel Appel, componist

While Jan Vrijman was shooting DE WERKELIJKHEID VAN KAREL APPEL in 1961, Ed van der Elsken made the short film KAREL APPEL, COMPONIST. Appel wanted to compose the soundtrack for Vrijman‘s film, so with the help of the electronic sound studio of Utrecht University, he went for two weeks to record Musique Barbare. Van der Elsken, who did stills for Vrijman’s film, also took pictures in the sound studio, and had a tape recorder running. On the final day, he shot a few rolls of film with his 16 mm camera. Subsequently, as an accompaniment to Appel’s anti-music, Van der Elsken collected together photos, footage and sequences from an earlier film of Appel in his New York studio, and compiled KAREL APPEL, COMPONIST, a five-minute film in the spirit of the Cobra movement.