Béla Tarr

21.07.1955, Pecuh, Hungary

 

Director
Tarr is a Hungarian screenwriter and director. As a sixteen year-old he began making amateur films. His works attracted attention from Bela Balazs’s studio and he helped finance Tarr’s first feature film Family Nest (Családi tüzfészek, 1979), which the critics compared with John Cassavettes’ works. His next two films, The Outsider (Szabadgyalog, 1981) and The Prefab People (Panelkapcsolat, 1982), make up the first part of his career characterized by social topics and documentary cinema verité style. His TV adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1982), made in just two shots (the first one lasts 5, and the second 67 minutes) marked a change and announced the second phase in his career. In the mid-1980s he began his collaboration with the writer László Krasznahorkai and made several films based on his novels: Damnation (Kárhozat, 1988), Satan's Tango (Sátántangó, 1994) and Werckmeister Harmonies (Werckmeister harmóniák, 2000). Damnation announced a change in the visual style by which the director became most recognizable (characterized by black and white picture and slow shots), and which peaked in the even-hour-long film Satan's Tango. This film, as well as Werckmeister Harmonies, won the director international acclaim.
Tarr won the award for outstanding contribution to the development of the film arts at the 11th Split Film Festival. His latest two films are The Man from London (A Londoni férfi, 2007), based on Georges Simenon’s short story, and the drama The Turin Horse (A torinói ló, 2011).




More about the director: Béla Tarr - interview

Omnibus Riba / Fish - result of a film workshop held by Béla Tarr during Split Film Festival

Filmography

Filmography:
The Turin Horse (A torinói ló, 2011)
The Man from London (A Londoni férfi, 2007)
Visions of Europe (2004) (segment Prologue)
Werckmeister Harmonies (Werckmeister harmóniák, 2000)
Satan's Tango (Sátántangó, 1994)
Damnation (Kárhozat, 1988)
Almanac of Fall (Öszi almanach, 1985)
The Prefab People (Panelkapcsolat, 1982)
Macbeth (1982) (TV)
The Outsider (Szabadgyalog, 1981)
Family Nest (Családi tüzfészek, 1979)


Films by this director

Family Nest

(Családi tüzfészek, Hungary, 1977)

Directed by: Béla Tarr
PHOTOGRAPHY: Ferenc Pap
Synopsis:

Tarr’s first feature is a social drama about a young couple with a daughter who are forced to live in a small apartment with the husband’s parents and their two other children. In order to get their own apartment and finally have some privacy, each week they go on a bureaucratic mission...

b/w, 108'

The Outsider

(Szabadgyalog, Hungary, 1981)

Directed by: Béla Tarr
PHOTOGRAPHY: Barna Mihók, Ferenc Pap
Synopsis:

The hero of this film is a talented but unambitious violinist András who was once thrown out of a music school. He keeps changing jobs and drowns his sorrows in alcohol. Soon after his wife gives birth to an extramarital son he marries another woman and hopes for better luck. However, due to a lack of money his marriage collapses and his second wife cheats on him as well.

color, 122'

The Prefab People

(Panelkapcsolat, 1982)

Directed by: Béla Tarr
PHOTOGRAPHY: Barna Mihók, Ferenc Pap
Synopsis:

Once a happy couple, Feleség and Férj, are trying to save their marriage and family while constantly fighting poverty. Feleség is an unhappy housewife and a mother of two children. Her husband, Férj, works in a factory. Over time the two of them grow apart, but when Férj gets a job offer abroad, Feleség persuades him to refuse it because she does not want to stay alone with the children.

b/w, 35 mm, 84 min

Almanac of Fall

(Őszi almanach, Hungary, 1984)

Directed by: Béla Tarr
PHOTOGRAPHY: Buda Gulyás, Sándor Kardos, Ferenc Pap
Synopsis:

This is a harsh story about five people who are stuck together in a small apartment. They are János, his sick mother Hédi, her nurse Anna, Anna’s lover and the unemployed teacher Tibor. Hédi is helpless and depends on help from other tenants, but they also depend on her because she handles the money and owns the apartment.

color, 119'

Damnation

(Kárhozat, Hungary, 1988)

Directed by: Béla Tarr
PHOTOGRAPHY: Gábor Medvigy
Synopsis:

Karrer is a shy and lonely man, disappointed with the world. He has only one wish left: he yearns after the singer in the Titanik bar he goes to every day. Even though she is married, Karrer will do anything to win her over. When the bar’s owner offers him a smuggling job, Karrer hands it over to the singer’s husband which allows him to flirt with her.

b/w, 120'

Satan's Tango

(Sátántangó, Hungary, Germany, Švicarska, 1994)

Directed by: Béla Tarr
PHOTOGRAPHY: Gábor Medvigy
Synopsis:

This is a seven and a half hour long film adaptation of Lászlo Krasznahorkai’s novel. It is divided in twelve parts (6 + 6, steps in tango) with the same titles as in the novel. In a shabby Hungarian village with just a few inhabitants, news arrives that a man called Irimiás, whom everyone had thought dead, is coming back. Upon his return, Irimiás announces his plans to revitalize the village -- but his real plans are a little bit different involve the peasants’ money...

b/w, 450'

Werckmeister Harmonies

(Werckmeister harmóniák, Hungary, France, Italy, Germany, 2000)

Directed by: Béla Tarr
PHOTOGRAPHY: Patrick de Ranter, Miklós Gurbán, Erwin Lanzensberger, Gábor Medvigy, Emil Novák, Rob Tregenza
Synopsis:

Inhabitants of a provincial Hungarian town eagerly await the arrival of a circus whose main attractions are the body of “the biggest whale in the world” and the mysterious prince who has a strange talent for attracting violent followers. When the circus finally arrives to town everybody gathers on the main square to see the attractions. Soon the balance of the town is affected and feelings of tension, violence and pending apocalypse arise. Film's co-director is Ágnes Hranitzky.

b/w, 145'

The Turin Horse

(A torinói ló, Hungary, France, Švicarska, Germany, USA, 2011)

Directed by: Béla Tarr
PHOTOGRAPHY: Fred Kelemen
Synopsis:

U talijanskom gradu Torinu 3. siječnja 1889. godine, njemački filozof Friedrich Nietzsche izlazeći iz kuće na adresi Via Carlo Alberto br. 6 primijeti da nedaleko od njega jedan kočijaš ima problema s tvrdoglavim konjem. Konj se odbija pomaknuti unatoč svim poticajima, zbog čega kočijaš naposljetku izgubi strpljenje te počne bičem udarati životinju. Na to Nietzsche pokuša zaustaviti nemilu scenu te jecajući zagrli konja oko vrata, da bi ga ubrzo njegov stanodavac odveo kući...

b/w, 155'

The Man from London

(A londoni férfi, Hungary, Germany, France, Italy, 2007)

Directed by: Béla Tarr
PHOTOGRAPHY: Fred Kelemen
Synopsis:

Sredovječni Maloin nadzornik je na željezničkoj postaji u lučkom gradu Bastia na Korzici, povučen i šutljiv čovjek oženjen neurotičnom Camélijom, s kojom ima kći Henriette. Kad jedne večeri sa svog povišenog radnog mjesta bude nadgledao željeznički terminal, Maloin će postati svjedokom fizičkog obračuna dviju osoba na obližnjem doku. Obračun će se odigrati u polumraku, zbog čega Maloin neće uspjeti razaznati koje osobe u njemu sudjeluju, no vidjet će kad jedan sudionik drugo...

b/w, 139'
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