Béla Tarr

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skuhn8
Joined: Tue Dec 14, 2004 4:46 pm
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Re: Béla Tarr

#51 Post by skuhn8 » Sat Dec 25, 2010 6:39 pm

Guido wrote:That video, for those who don't speak French, was amongst the most depressing things I've heard in a while. The news of Hungary's newly elected nationalist government (and its slew of reactionary reforms, according to the video's director) is appalling; Tarr had helped mount a funding initiative for the completion of ten or so new features by young Hungarian filmmakers, only to see it disappear almost overnight. Elsewhere, the government seems to be outright banning access to jobs in the civil sector to those aren't Christians, while making life increasingly difficult for foreign residents (again, all this according to the narrator). Despite having completed The Turin Horse, Tarr confides that he is uncertain as to his future in Hungary, both as a citizen and a filmmaker, going so far as to claim that he'll have to drive taxis in he wants to stay put.

It'd be great to hear from those who know more about the current situation in Hungary, as I know next to nothing beyond the things I've heard in the video.
The situ in Ireland has nothing on Hungary. Orban Viktor and his cronies are bent on driving this country into the shitter out of pure spite for electing him out (when he did f all to improve the poor lot last time he had the chance). But your news on Tarr specifically is news to me.

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Yojimbo
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Re: Béla Tarr

#52 Post by Yojimbo » Sat Dec 25, 2010 7:52 pm

Just to set people to rights about "The situ in Ireland", although I would have issues with the actions of the Unholy Trinity of our Government, banks and developers the fact is that what has been described out as a 'bailout for Ireland' is not strictly true; it is more a case of a bailout of those greedy British and German banks that fuelled Irish bank and developers greed by lending to them, hand over fist, at rates that fuelled our property bubble, while at the same time lining their own pockets

Robert de la Cheyniest
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Re: Béla Tarr

#53 Post by Robert de la Cheyniest » Tue Jan 18, 2011 11:50 am

I assume this is the best place to put this but The Turin Horse will premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in February. I really hope this isn't his last film.

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aox
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Re: Béla Tarr

#54 Post by aox » Tue Jan 18, 2011 12:58 pm

I don't think I have been anticipating a film this badly since Star Wars: Episode 1 (TPM).

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Morbii
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Re: Béla Tarr

#55 Post by Morbii » Wed Jan 19, 2011 5:55 am

aox wrote:I don't think I have been anticipating a film this badly since Star Wars: Episode 1 (TPM).
Well, hopefully the end result is different.

Apu
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Re: Béla Tarr

#56 Post by Apu » Wed Jun 29, 2011 12:02 am

A few months ago Family Nest was released in the Netherlands with English subtitles by Tiger Releases.

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tavernier
Joined: Sat Apr 02, 2005 7:18 pm

Re: Béla Tarr

#57 Post by tavernier » Thu Dec 15, 2011 4:29 pm

THE FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER TO HOST
A COMPLETE BÉLA TARR RETROSPECTIVE

TARR’S FINAL FILM, THE TURIN HORSE, TO OPEN THEATRICALLY AT THE FILM SOCIETY

New York, NY (December 15, 2011) – The Film Society of Lincoln Center will host a complete Béla Tarr retrospective titled The Last Modernist: The Complete Works of Béla Tarr from February 3-8, 2012. In advance of the U.S. Theatrical Premiere of The Turin Horse on February 10th, the Film Society will present a rare “complete” retrospective of a living filmmaker, stretching from his early cinema verité portraits of proletariat life in Communist-era Hungary to the hypnotic, career-defining masterworks that cemented Tarr’s international reputation.

“Few filmmakers have made as great an impact on world cinema in the past two decades as Béla Tarr,” said Film Society Associate Program Director Scott Foundas. “And yet, despite the enormous praise given to him by critics and filmmakers as varied as Susan Sontag, Jim Karmusch and Gus Van Sant, his films has remained relatively difficult to see, especially on the big screen. After witnessing the incredibly enthusiastic reception Béla received at this year’s New York Film Festival, it felt like the time was right to re-introduce audiences to this singular and remarkable body of work.”

The Film Society of Lincoln Center will also be home to the theatrical premiere of New York Film Festival favorite, The Turin Horse, opening on February 10th at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center and being released by Cinema Guild. Hungary’s official submission for this year’s Academy Awards and awarded the Silver Bear and FIPRESCI Prize at the Berlin Film Festival in 2011, Tarr has announced that thiswill be his final film.

On January 3, 1889 in Turin, Italy, Friedrich Nietzsche steps out of the doorway of number six, Via Carlo Albert. Not far from him, a cab driver is having trouble with a stubborn horse. The horse refuses to move, whereupon the driver loses his patience and takes his whip to it. Nietzsche puts an end to the brutal scene, throwing his arms around the horse’s neck, sobbing. After this, he lies motionless and silent for two days on a divan until he mutters the obligatory lastwords, and lives for another ten years, silent and demented, cared for by his mother and sisters. Somewhere in the countryside, the cab driver lives with his daughter and the overworked horse. Outside, a windstorm rages. The horse refuses to move, and the man and his daughter struggle through their daily schedule. Food and water grow scarce. Beggars and gypsies come to their door. The horse stops eating. Slowly, the apocalypse approaches.

Immaculately photographed in Tarr’s renowned long takes, The Turin Horse is the final statement from a master filmmaker. Director, Béla Tarr; Co-Director, Agnes Hranitzky; Screenplay by Béla Tarr and Laszlo Krasznahorkai; Director of Photography, Fred Kelemen; Film Editing, Agnes Hranitzky; Original Music by Mihaly Vig; Producer, Gabor Teni; Executive Producers, Elizabeth Redleaf and Christine K. Walker; Co-producers, Martin Hagemann, Juliette Lepoutre, Marie-Pierre Macia, and Ruth Waldburger

Béla Tarr was born in 1955, and grew up in Budapest, Hungary. He began making amateur documentaries at the age of 16 and shot his 1977 feature debut Family Nest at the age of 22, made with non-professional actors in a stark, realist style. His work made a dramatic shift with his 1982 video adaptation of Macbeth which is comprised of only two shots. In subsequent films, Tarr developed a durational aesthetic revolving around extended shot lengths, most famously in 1994’s Sátántangó, a film heavily influential in both the film and art worlds, and of which Susan Sontag said “I’d be glad to see it every year for the rest of my life.” Across the entire body of his work, Tarr has established himself as one of the defining filmmakers and greatest innovators in contemporary cinema.


FILM DESCRIPTIONS

Almanac of Fall, Béla Tarr, 1984, Hungary, 35mm; 119m
Four apartment-dwellers scheme against a rich elderly woman and each other, in a key work that bridges Tarr’s early social realism and later stylistic brio.
FEB 7, 8

Damnation/Kárhozat. Béla Tarr, 1988, Hungary, 35mm; 116m
Tarr and Krasznahorkai’s first collaboration is a ravishing film noir about a man’s efforts to steal his estranged lover from the arms of her debt-addled husband. FEB 3, 6

Family Nest/Családi tüzfészek. Béla Tarr, 1979, Hungary, 35mm; 108m
Tarr’s striking debut (made when he was 22) offers a take-no-prisoners snapshot of a seven-member family sharing a tiny apartment during a housing crisis. FEB 3, 6

Macbeth
Béla Tarr, 1982, Hungary, 35mm; 72m
Shot in two takes, Tarr’s entrancing TV adaptation preserves all the ambient tension of Shakespeare’s play, reinventing the space with his newly mobile camera technique.
FEB 4, 8

The Man From London
Béla Tarr, 2007, Hungary/France/Germany, 35mm; 135m
The Georges Simenon thriller about a railman and a suitcase of stolen cash becomes an enveloping, chiaroscuro world of melancholy and mystery. With Tilda Swinton. NYFF 2007.
FEB 7, 8

The Outsider/Szabadgyalog. Béla Tarr, 1981, Hungary, 35mm; 122m
An aimless young musician drifts through a series of jobs—and women—before being called up for military service in Tarr’s gritty second feature. FEB 6, 7

The Prefab People
Béla Tarr, 1982, Hungary, 35mm; 102m
A young married couple in monolithic housing endures the trouble and strife of love’s disintegration, in a searing story that works backward from the climactic break-up.
FEB 3, 6

Satantango/Sátántangó. Béla Tarr, 1994, Hungary/Germany/Switzerland, 35mm; 450m
A landmark of contemporary world cinema, Tarr’s international breakthrough came with this transfixing epic about the arrival of a (false) prophet in a small farming collective. Screened with one 15-minute intermission and one 60-minute dinner break. FEB 4, 5

Werckmeister Harmonies, Béla Tarr, 2000, Hungary, 35mm; 145m
Tarr’s apocalyptic masterpiece unfolds in a Hungarian town teetering at the edge of the abyss with the arrival of a giant stuffed whale. With Hanna Schygulla.
FEB 3, 8

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aox
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Re: Béla Tarr

#58 Post by aox » Thu Dec 15, 2011 4:42 pm

YES! Did I miss it, or does the article not say when I can purchase tickets in advance?

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tavernier
Joined: Sat Apr 02, 2005 7:18 pm

Re: Béla Tarr

#59 Post by tavernier » Thu Dec 15, 2011 5:01 pm

no info in the press release--did you check the website?

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aox
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Re: Béla Tarr

#60 Post by aox » Thu Dec 15, 2011 5:30 pm

yeah, there is nothing up. The week is blocked on the calendar, but nothing is up.

J Adams
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Re: Béla Tarr

#61 Post by J Adams » Thu Dec 15, 2011 6:03 pm

Who needs a "dinner break" for Satantango? I do not approve.

Perkins Cobb
Joined: Tue Apr 29, 2008 12:49 pm

Re: Béla Tarr

#62 Post by Perkins Cobb » Fri Dec 16, 2011 4:07 am

J Adams wrote:Who needs a "dinner break" for Satantango?
Lincoln Center does, now that they have two dining venues across the street. To be fair, they did show Satantango with two intermissions at MoMA, if I remember correctly.

PS: The cafe in the new Film Center does have good salads, but if you don't care about your heart go around the corner to Old John's.

J Adams
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2009 12:28 pm

Re: Béla Tarr

#63 Post by J Adams » Fri Dec 16, 2011 11:56 am

I'm fine with 2 intermissions, but a freaking hour? For dinner? Amateurs.

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aox
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Re: Béla Tarr

#64 Post by aox » Fri Dec 16, 2011 11:58 am

If they insist on an hour, I would feel better about it with it being in the middle after 3 hours and only one break throughout the film.

cinemartin

Re: Béla Tarr

#65 Post by cinemartin » Fri Dec 16, 2011 12:41 pm

I love Old John's.

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hearthesilence
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Re: Béla Tarr

#66 Post by hearthesilence » Fri Dec 16, 2011 12:47 pm

I kinda like the idea of a 'dinner' break for a film this long...for any film well over 4 hours long, it can sharpen your focus on the second half when you have time to process the first half, maybe even discuss it a bit, etc.

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MichaelB
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Re: Béla Tarr

#67 Post by MichaelB » Fri Dec 16, 2011 2:36 pm

Both screenings of Gance's Napoléon that I attended in London, twelve years apart, had a two-hour dinner break before part 4 (of 4).

But I suspect in that case it was as much for the musicians as for the audience!

Adam
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Re: Béla Tarr

#68 Post by Adam » Fri Dec 16, 2011 3:14 pm

Satantango has built into it two intermissions...
And dinner does take an hour.

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Highway 61
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:40 pm

Re: Béla Tarr

#69 Post by Highway 61 » Fri Dec 16, 2011 3:50 pm

The two intermissions with dinner break was exactly how the film was screened in Portland a few years ago. I certainly didn't find it disruptive. In fact I found talking about the film with my friends during the dinner break rejuvinating. There was a real sense of "I can't believe we're lucky enough to see this amazing film theatrically" that made us all the more eager to take in the movie's remarkable ending.

Zot!
Joined: Wed Jan 20, 2010 12:09 am

Re: Béla Tarr

#70 Post by Zot! » Fri Dec 16, 2011 4:17 pm

Yeah, an hour break is perfectly fine. The showing I was at had something similar. When horrified friends heard I went to an 8 hour movie, I informed them that they spend 8 hours at work every day, just to put things into perspective.

D_B
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Re: Béla Tarr

#71 Post by D_B » Fri Jan 06, 2012 10:55 pm

I have seen Satantango quite a few times now...

One time I saw it at Anthology Film Archives in NYC and only for the 2nd time in my life I searched out and had words with a projectionist - the guy broke for an intermission during a reel change, which happened to be in the middle of the sequence where poor Estike is trudging down the road with the cat.

Can you imagine - in the middle of the heart of the movie the lights suddenly come up! And when the film starts again its a similar shot!

Forget exactly what the projectionist's excuse was - I think he said he was asked to project the film at the last minute and didn't realize it was that long (?).

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aox
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Re: Béla Tarr

#72 Post by aox » Thu Jan 12, 2012 5:50 pm

They finally released these tickets to the retrospective. Just grabbed three!

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ando
Bringing Out El Duende
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Re: Béla Tarr

#73 Post by ando » Thu Feb 02, 2012 2:00 pm

I imagine you mean tickets to New York's Lincoln Center Tarr retrospective, THE LAST MODERNIST: THE COMPLETE WORKS OF BÉLA TARR starting this Friday. Almost missed it again!

I'll definitely catch Sátántangó and Damnation, two of my favorites.

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aox
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Re: Béla Tarr

#74 Post by aox » Thu Feb 02, 2012 4:06 pm

Yep, that's what I meant. Grabbed tickets to Werckmeister and Turin Horse. Still don't know if I want to endure Satantango.

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zedz
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Re: Béla Tarr

#75 Post by zedz » Thu Feb 02, 2012 4:21 pm

Don't miss Satantango on the big screen - you might not get another chance, and it really benefits from Stockholm Syndrome.

(Also, this might be the right place to dispel the impression that it's all doom and gloom - overall it's rather black, but it can also be funny, absurdist and extremely beautiful)

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