Miklós Jancsó (1921-2014)

 

A scene from Silence and Cry (Jancsó, Hungary, 1968)

The “tracking shot in Kapo,” a little seen film by Gillo Ponecorvo, has become short hand for a type of aestheticization of the Atrocities of War, an easy out for criticism to label depictions of horror on moral levels via aesthetics. Many critics (including myself at times) often feel queasy attacking a film on moral grounds (the usual “what gives us the right to judge” connotations etc etc), but formal discussions become fair game to sneak such articulations in. This is our expertise after all.

Miklós Jancsó’s tracking shots don’t offer easy aesthetic answers in terms of their morality. Formally they are breathtaking: dollies, zooms, whip-pans, the whole works to create a lucid sense of space, one that is not about tracking us through a space, but disorienting us. Jancsó shifts emphasis throughout – information (ie. the characters) enters and exit the frame; they become the dominant center before suddenly retreating to the background. It’s different from what Robert Altman would do, because Altman treated everyone equally. Jancsó’s shifts are more sudden and jerky; scenes are always interrupted by the presence of new information.

If morality of films were only judged by their formal elements, Jancsó would be more damning than Kapo. Except Jancsó’s political explorations justify such aesthetics. He lived in a country that was literally torn: first during the war, and secondly between its Soviet influence and its Western aspirations. A film like The Red and the White, the agreed upon canonical title of his work, presents an seemingly unending war in which victors, villains, and victims are all one in the same. His idea of a tracking shot is not to sweep us up in emotion. It’s to throw us around into the shit.

Jancsó passed away yesterday. David Hudson provides more news here.

Reality Manifested: The Opening Shot of Tarr's The Man From London

There is something truly metaphysical about the opening of Bela Tarr’s The Man From London. More than any other shot in his filmography, this opening shot, as well as much of the rest of the film, Tarr feels to be manifesting existence before his camera. I love the openings to both Satantango and The Turin Horse, but the operations at work under those shots is of a very different quality of what Tarr does here. Many perceive that the long take in cinema creates a sense of realism. But in The Man From London, Tarr’s long aren’t capturing reality, they seem to construct reality itself. Until the camera exposes us to what we see, I’m not sure that the location beyond the sight of the camera actually exists.

The Turin Horse: Life, and Nothing More

The Turin Horse

Directed By: Béla Tarr (co-directed by Agnes Hranitzky)

Written By: László Krasznahorkai and Béla Tarr

Starring: János Derzsi and Erika Bók

Director of Photography: Fred Kelemen, Editor: Agnes Hranitzky, Original Music: Mihaly Vig

Rated: Fun for the whole family!

                Last week, I had the pleasure to attend a number of the films by the Hungarian master Béla Tarr, including his 450 minute epic Sátántangó. When friends asked me what I’d be doing that day, I explained to them I’d be at a seven and a half hour film. When that shot their ears up in horror, I went on: It’s all in Hungarian, and it’s in black and white, also not much happens in terms of plot, and it’s most likely about people suffering. When I told my friends after seeing it that I was truly inspired by the film, including the opening shot of cows wandering through an empty village, they questioned my authenticity.

And certainly they are right to—who would sit through the work of Tarr? His aesthetic is uncompromising to say the least, and while most audiences have trouble approaching “art films” like The Descendants or even Malick’s The Tree of Life, Tarr belongs on a whole different playing field.

            But there is a brutal truth in Tarr (working once again with novelist László Krasznahorkai), coming at you in 24 frames per second (no digital here!), and one most apparent in his now final film, The Turin Horse. This deeply disturbing work borderlines on parody of art cinema, mainly because Tarr is a relentless filmmaker who never compromises in his portraiture of a life void of hope. Clocking in at just over two and a half hours, The Turin Horse is the most polished of Tarr’s films in terms of reaching a new height of minimalism, where everything to know about life comes in the small details the filmmaker slowly reveals. A mutual friend of mine, who is a close friend of Tarr, suggested to let the film “wash over me.” And bathe in despair I did.

New York Film Festival: Béla Tarr's The Turin Horse

The Turin Horse

A Film By Béla Tarr

Hungary

            When the “plebeians” below us think about art cinema, they may imagine long tracking shots where nothing happens, filmed in black and white without dialogue, on subjects that seem moronic and too mundane to ever demand the attention of cameras. Of course, those men and women are certainly entitled to their opinion (as well as their Transformers), but they may be missing out on something that even most filmmakers would refuse to do: stare into the abyss of life with much disdain and fear as it stares back into us.

            And thus comes the final film from Béla Tarr, The Turin Horse, a two and a half hour masterpiece that is brutal truth at 24 frames per second. This deeply disturbing work borderlines on parody of art cinema, mainly because Mr. Tarr is a relentless filmmaker who never compromises in his portraiture of a life void of hope and the impossibility to fight against the idea of a progressive world. I had somehow missed Mr. Tarr’s previous features—most notably the 450 minute Sátántangó—but knew to be prepared. A mutual friend of mine and Mr. Tarr’s suggested to let the film “wash over me.” And bathe in despair I did.