In the documentary film The New Rijksmuseum, director Oeke Hoogendijk chronicles the simultaneously precise, meticulous, radical, and frustrating decade-long renovation of Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum (2003–13), a significant piece of architecture that forms a centerpiece to the city and houses a treasure trove of paintings from the Dutch Golden Age, including masterpieces by Rembrandt van Rijn, Johannes Vermeer, Frans Hals, and Jan Steen. First Run Features, which produced the film, describes Hoogendijk's work as capturing the story from a “fly-on-the-wall perspective,” a point of view that provides an innovative way to objectively document a controversial renovation and to convey the frustration involved in the sumptuous but fragmentary story the film delivers.1 As the camera follows the architects, museum director Ronald de Leeuw, art restorers, curators, artworks, and members of the feisty Dutch Cyclists’ Union (DCU), these performers in the renovation process tell a story about the ways in which this...
University of California Press