A passing thunderstorm wakes me just before 5 a.m.
Heavy rain batters against my bedroom window.
There are occasional flashes of lightning that I can sense through my still-closed eyes, and the long drawn out rumble of thunder.
By the time I leave the apartment a couple of hours later the storm has passed and a pale blue sky is emerging from behind the clouds.
The reason I’m dragging myself out of bed so early this Sunday morning is to catch the 10.30 a.m. showing of Charlie Chaplin’s 1931 film City Lights at Pathé Tuschinski, a cinema which is widely considered to be the most beautiful in Amsterdam.
Avoiding the tourist tackiness of Damrak, I have to scurry quickly along Oudezijds Voorburgwal, the oldest canal in Amsterdam, to make sure that I can find the cinema in time for the start of the film.
As I round the corner into Reguliersbreestraat and see Tuschinski cinema up ahead, it is disappointing to see that the much admired facade is obscured by scaffolding and tarpaulin covers.
But my disappointment evaporates as soon as I enter the cinema.
Its interior is quite magical.
Art deco reds and golds abound in the foyer areas, with plush Moroccan carpet underfoot and paintings of exotic birds on the walls.
“C’est magnifique”, a French-speaking cyclist says about the cinema to her companions as they cycle past the cinema entrance while I am going in.
Now that I am inside the cinema, I have to agree with her – this cinema truly is magnificent.
Normally I would seize the opportunity to grab a beer from the cinema bar and take it in to the auditorium with me.
As pointed out by Vincent (John Travolta) to Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) in Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Pulp Fiction’, being allowed to bring a beer into a movie showing is one of the many good things about Amsterdam.
But at 10.15 a.m. it’s a tad early in the day to face a beer.
Inside the historic main auditorium, the ‘Groote Zaal’, I feel like an extra in a Cecil B. DeMille production, such is the extravagance of the decor and architecture.
I could sit here for half an hour marvelling at the surroundings and then leave without even seeing the film and I would still have got my money’s worth.
It is the most amazing cinema auditorium I have ever been in.
I look upwards and admire the extraordinary art deco ceiling light, just before the screen curtains open at a snail’s pace, slower than I have seen at other cinemas.
This teasingly slow unveiling of the screen heightens the sense of anticipation before the film starts.
No trailers or adverts are shown before this morning’s film.
We plunge straight into ‘City Lights’.
Charlie Chaplin gets my vote as the greatest genius in the history of cinema, and ‘City Lights’ is one of his several masterpieces.
In the opening scene Chaplin’s Tramp character is fast asleep, high up on a statue that unknown to him is being inaugurated by some civic bigwigs.
This funny scene very effectively deflates the pomposity of society’s upper echelons. The speakers’ voices are rendered as ridiculous squeaks, reflecting the inane quality of most official speeches by ‘important’ people.
I have sat through such speeches myself at various conferences, where an allegedly important figure opens proceedings with a series of platitudes (invariably written by some underling) and then leaves without listening to any of the other speakers. Chaplin skewers this phenomenon very nicely.
‘City Lights’ has a perfect fusion of music and action, slapstick and pathos.
The scene where The Tramp meets the blind flower-seller (Virginia Cherrill) for the first time flows beautifully. It is poignant for the most part then funny at the end.
Perfectionist that he was, Chaplin – who wrote and directed the film as well as composing the music for it – insisted on endless takes of the girl holding out the flower before he was satisfied.
All the set pieces are done superbly.
The scene that gets the biggest laughs from today’s audience is the boxing fight, in which The Tramp hides from his opponent behind the referee, darting out now and again to land a quick punch on his exasperated opponent.
Even in quieter, less dramatic scenes, Chaplin’s facial expressions keep your attention riveted.
The supporting cast of Florence Lee, Harry Myers, Al Ernest Garcia and Hank Mann are all excellent too.
After ‘City Lights’ finishes, I head out of the cinema in the direction of nearby Rembrandtplein, which is looking tatty right now.
Grassy areas have been dug up but nothing done with them.
I walk on.
The sound of James Taylor singing ‘You’ve Got A Friend’ drifts out from the open window of an apartment on Amstelstraat, a perfect song for this laidback Sunday.
De Sluyswacht café, leaning dramatically to one side due to lack of underlying support, is unfortunately closed so I am beer-deprived as I step into the Rembrandt House Museum on the other side of Jodenbreestraat from De Sluyswacht.
The Rembrandt House Museum is a very impressive building, although not very well lit.
For many of the exhibits, I have to try viewing them from various angles to avoid the glare caused by lighting hitting the canvas.
But it’s fun to clamber up the narrow winding staircases from one floor of the house to the next.
For a brief moment I have to myself the room that Rembrandt used as his studio.
Other visitors soon appear, but for a moment I am able to visualize Rembrandt there painting. This room is north-facing, which apparently provided the right kind of consistent light for his work.
Another interesting part of the house is the anteroom in which Rembrandt conducted the business of selling his own work and the work of other artists.
Rembrandt used to welcome buyers to this room with a glass of chilled wine, which was probably a very effective sales technique.
In his lifetime Rembrandt painted dozens of self-portraits.
One of these, titled ‘Self-portrait with open mouth’ (1630), is particularly striking for its gormless facial expression. The original Dutch title is ‘Zelfportret met verbaasde blik’, which translates as ‘Self-portrait with surprised look’ rather than the less flattering official translation of ‘Self-portrait with open mouth’.
The shop in the Rembrandt House Museum is well stocked but so cramped that even with only half a dozen visitors in it, I cannot physically get to the book that I was intending to buy.
So I give up on that purchase and head back outside again where it is now a fresh and sunny Sunday afternoon.
I find a bench overlooking a nearby canal and sit for a while reading Amsterdam Stories, a collection of short stories written by Jan Hendrik Frederik Grönloh under the pseudonym ‘Nescio’.
His writing has a wry melancholy feel that is quite addictive.
Grönloh wrote under an assumed name because it could have threatened his reputation as a serious businessman if it became known that he was the author of these short stories.
The stories have nothing scandalous or shocking about them; their social satire seems gentle by today’s standards.
It’s not the content that could have been damaging for Grönloh, simply the fact that in the conservative milieu of early twentieth-century Dutch business, the writing of fiction would have been considered a frivolous activity.
‘Nescio’ means ‘I don’t know’, which immediately gives an insight into the author’s self-deprecating style.
He was not a prolific writer, but the little that he did write has become established as some of the most highly regarded writing in Dutch literature.
In Amsterdam Stories some of his best known short stories appear in an English translation by Damion Searls, including ‘Young Titans’, ‘Out Along the IJ’, ‘The Writing on the Wall’, and probably Nescio’s most famous story, ‘The Freeloader’.
Although it is titled Amsterdam Stories, the stories are not entirely limited to Amsterdam.
Some of the stories feature scenes set in other parts of the Netherlands, including rural areas as well as towns and cities. In ‘The Freeloader’, for example, the character Bavink first sees Japi the eponymous freeloader whilst they are both down in the southern coastal province of Zeeland; Bavink is doing some painting, whilst Japi is doing as little as possible, as is his wont.
But Japi the freeloader is not portrayed simply as a hanger-on. He is keenly tuned in, much more so than others are, to the beauty and elemental forces of nature and weather.
Japi is a complex and ultimately tragic character.
‘The Freeloader’ story is a haunting lyrical evocation of him and the group of friends he latches on to.
Related Posts: ‘Nothing to Declare’, Actor’s Studio, Brussels; ‘An Italian Straw Hat’, Barbican Cinema, London