RNL
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Post by RNL on Dec 15, 2005 19:42:35 GMT
Béla Tarr (1955- )
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Feb 9, 2006 17:32:56 GMT
>>> 1. Damnation 1987 >>> 2. Werckmeister Harmonies 2000 >>> 3. Sátántangó 1994
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Feb 9, 2006 18:05:49 GMT
(In response to a deleted post):
I felt the same, but having watched them both twice, I now think Werckmeister is quite a bit better, though clearly, as you say, an extension of the same world. It's technically superior, the takes are more complicated (the assault on the hospital is unbelievable), and where Damnation is deliberately meaningless, without concept, focusing primarily on moments of nondescript beauty (like the raindance), Werckmeister is deeply suggestive and ambiguous - the staged celestial ceremony in the tavern at the beginning, the musical philosophy, the unseen 'Prince' and his entourage, the stuffed whale... "See how much trouble you've caused..."
What a film.
Artificial Eye are releasing Sátántángo this year. I'm looking forward to it so much.
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Feb 9, 2006 18:14:34 GMT
Oh, that's great news. It really is. Though, as a sidenote, as much as I love them for picking up world cinema, they're mean on the extras. Tartan are much better.
What's your favourite scene(s) in each of the films, or which do you remember most easily when referencing them?
For Damnation, I can't really get the opening shot out of my head. The sounds, and the slowest of tracks--it's quite incredible how Tarr manipulates, or registers, the subconscious with his camera movement. The hospital scene in Werckmeister feels as if it has many, many edits in it when you watch it.
For Werckmeister, the crab two-shot which directly influenced that similar shot in Gerry is close, but I think the first appearance of the giant truck got me. There's a moment, where the full texture of the side of the vehicle fills the screen. You wonder if it's even going to end, and it's wonderful just watching what appears, out of context, to be a close-up of some kind of metallic surface.
In many ways, due to the sounds and grim exteriors, the two films reminded me much of Eraserhead.
Oh, and by the way, that shot you spoke of in another thread about the guy walking down the alley into the sunlight is terrific, but for some reason, I expected, or wanted, it to linger for even longer.
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Feb 9, 2006 19:11:45 GMT
My favourite moments in Damnation are the two langorious explorations of the bar while the band plays and the clientele dance (or sit slumped), and the sex scene, where the couple appear to be just another incidental object in a space the camera happens to be passing through.
Werckmeister: eavesdropping on the Prince, the opening scene in the tavern, the march to the hospital and the subsequent ransacking (the moment János' stunned face slides unexpectedly into frame). I love the nighttime arrival of the circus, too. I also couldn't get enough of the transition from the classical music to the kids playing along nextdoor with pots and pans, bouncing on the bed.
I know what you mean about wanting the shots to last longer. I usually do. The shot's significance is altered and its power amplified by its lingering, but too short and too long will differ from person to person, (and mood to mood, I'm sure). The meaning is conveyed, the superficial information (truck enters village), then it's insisted that there's more to be seen, beyond the image and what it denotes, and the depth imbued to the metal side-panel of the truck, simply because our attention is directed there (as it never would be in reality) is amazing.
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Oct 23, 2006 1:57:35 GMT
"Right at the center of a seemingly incomprehensible world, at the age of 32, the question "why do I make films" seems unanswerable. I don't know.
All I know is that I can't make films if people don't let me. If I don't receive trust and funding I feel like I don't exist. The last one-and-a-half to two years of my life went by in just such a state of apparent futility - I was given no opportunities to realize my plans through the official channels. Two courses of action were left open to me: to gradually suffocate or search for some alternative. Then followed a terrible year of begging for money and trying to discover whether it's even possible to make a different type of film in Hungary, one that doesn't depend on the official and traditional sources of funding. And once the money's finally all there and I've managed to create some small opportunity, kidding myself that I'm "independent," that's when it hits me that there's no such thing as independence or freedom, only money and politics. You can never escape anything. Those who give you money also threaten you. All that remains is obligation. The film has to be made. Then you desperately clutch onto the camera, as if it were the last custodian of the truth that you had supposed existed. But what to film if everything is a lie? All I can be is an apologist for lies, treachery and dishonor.
But in that case, why make films?
This also leads to internal conflicts, as my self-confidence wanes, the crew start to leave because the venture appears uncertain and I can't pay them enough. And I am left with a general feeling of anxiety. So I flee from this form of desperation into another - the film.
Probably, I make films in order to tempt fate, to simultaneously be the most humiliated and, if only for a few moments, the freest person in the world. Because I despise stories, as they mislead people into believing that something has happened. In fact, nothing really happens as we flee from one condition to another. Because today there are only states of being - all stories have become obsolete and cliched, and have resolved themselves. All that remains is time. This is probably the only thing that's still genuine - time itself: the years, days hours, minutes and seconds. And film time has also ceased to exist, since the film itself has ceased to exist. Luckily there is no authentic form or current fashion. Some kind of massive introversion, a searching of our own souls can help ease the situation.
Or kill us.
We could die of not being able to make films, or we could die from making films.
But there's no escape.
Because films are our only means of authenticating our lives. Eventually nothing remains of us except our films - strips of celluloid on which our shadows wander in search of truth and humanity until the end of time. I really don't know why I make films.
Perhaps to survive, because I'd still like to live, at least just a little longer...."
-Bela Tarr, during preproduction for Damnation, 1987
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Oct 23, 2006 2:07:22 GMT
Sátántangó in three weeks!!!
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Nov 13, 2006 4:19:48 GMT
Wet Dog, are you up for watching Sátántangó 'together'? Mine was despatched Saturday. I'm expecting it Tuesday or Wednesday. ;D
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Nov 13, 2006 23:26:30 GMT
Yeah, I guess so. Mine was dispatched yesterday, I probably won't have it until the middle of next week.
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Nov 18, 2006 18:30:55 GMT
Has yours come yet, Wet Dog? I think I'm going to watch it tomorrow; hope you don't mind. ;D
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Post by bobbyreed on Nov 18, 2006 18:48:39 GMT
I'm jealous... still another 10 days here... :/
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Nov 18, 2006 19:52:20 GMT
Has yours come yet, Wet Dog? I think I'm going to watch it tomorrow; hope you don't mind. ;D Yeah, it actually arrived on Wednesday, surprisingly. It usually takes about 8 to 10 days. I don't know if I'll be watching it tomorrow, but go right ahead.
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Nov 18, 2006 19:55:49 GMT
I'm jealous... still another 10 days here... :/ Is there any word yet on the AV quality of the Facets release? Their editions of Damnation and Werckmeister Harmonies are, I've read, terrible. A quote, on the latter: "Facets has allowed their staff of pigeons to crap all over Béla Tarr's film monument."
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Post by bobbyreed on Nov 18, 2006 23:10:10 GMT
I'm jealous... still another 10 days here... :/ Is there any word yet on the AV quality of the Facets release? Their editions of Damnation and Werckmeister Harmonies are, I've read, terrible. A quote, on the latter: "Facets has allowed their staff of pigeons to crap all over Béla Tarr's film monument." I haven't heard anything yet. (Have you, Kino?)
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Nov 20, 2006 5:17:26 GMT
A little advice going into Sátántangó: don't set seven-and-a-half hours aside, but more like ten or eleven hours. Make use of its intervals (given at the end of each disc), and also do not hesitate, if you're feeling the strain, to have a little break inbetween the chapters too. That way you can maintain concentration, and thus get more out of it.
I would have liked Mihály Vig's music to be in it more - a lot the sequences are merely diegetic, and, since they're without dialogue, very minimal in sound in general, and I think a lot of them could have benefitted greatly from his usually beautiful scores. When the music is present, for instance, it is indeed fantastic to watch.
Look forward to hear your thoughts, guys...
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Jan 4, 2007 1:21:24 GMT
Goodness, what an extraordinary filmmaker.
I think I like Damnation the best of the above three, but after seeing Werckmeister again tonight I looked at the DVD case of Sátántangó and just seeing Víhaly Mig's face on one of the covers gave me shivers, and reason enough to watch it again.
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Post by Michael on Jan 4, 2007 2:06:10 GMT
He actually seems like the kind of filmmaker I would love. I can't wait to see his films.
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Post by svsg on Sept 6, 2007 7:16:03 GMT
and where Damnation is deliberately meaningless, without concept, focusing primarily on moments of nondescript beauty (like the raindance), While I agree with you that there are several moments of non-descript beauty, I strongly disagree with you on the lack of concept. Please read my comments in proview thread.
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Post by svsg on Sept 6, 2007 7:16:42 GMT
Damnation Werckmeister's Harmonies
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Sept 9, 2007 0:56:45 GMT
I didn't mean to imply that the film has no thematic substance or anything like that. I was more saying that it's not as allegorical as Werckmeister Harmonies. It seems to be trying to stifle its own emerging poetry, to insist instead on the rain and the mud and drudge, and hold that there's nothing beyond that. What symbolic images there are (none according to Tarr), the raindance when it's already raining and the 'man bites dog' scene at the end for instance, seem calculated to this effect. They lack the resonant elegance and lyricism of the symbols employed in Werckmeister. They're blunt and insistent (and effective as such), they evoke futility and fatalistic irrevocability. It's a hopelessly nihilistic film. Now, I find that touches a profound truth - and where to go from that realisation but to the transcendent, cosmic metaphysics of Sátántangó and, especially, Werckmeister Harmonies.
To be honest, it baffles me that anyone could prefer Damnation to Werckmeister Harmonies. They're so similar, and the latter, to my eyes, is a quantum leap on from the former. Not to slight Damnation; it's incredible.
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