Who is Bela Tarr?
One of the most interesting international filmmakers, Bela Tarr has created some of the most powerful images in film since Rainer Werner Fassbinder, an idol of Tarr’s. Growing up in Budapest in a working class family, Tarr originally wanted to be a philosopher but the strict Hungarian government would not allow Tarr to attend the Hungarian university after they learned of his short 8mm films. Tarr possibly saw this as a sign and threw himself headfirst into filmmaking.
Tarr finally made his mark internationally after filming a number of zero to no budget (and still unavailable publicly) throughout the 80s, with “Damnation,” a black and white filmed movie about a sad, melancholy man who falls in love with a singer while sitting on his wooden bar stool at a local dive, aptly named, “The Titanic.” The film is full of very intense, long takes which give it a slow, surreal and dream-like quality.
Similar in tone, but taken to its lengthy extreme, Tarr’s next film was “Satan’s Tango,” completed in 1994 and running 7 hours and 12 minutes, it is based on a novel by frequent writer and collaborator Laszlo Krasznahorkai, a friend of Tarr’s. The loose plot revolves around the collapse and disintegration of a collective farm in Hungary at the tail end of Communism. Many of them are eager to take the cash they would receive from a smooth-talking man who wants to buy out the farm and the plot revolves around various points of view and reactions to this changing landscape.
Tarr’s most recent film, and one that seems to close a loose trilogy, is “Werckmeister Harmonies”, another lengthy (145 min.) film based on a novel by Krasznahorkai and shot in black and white, it is composed of only thirty-nine slow shots of a small town that falls under the influence of a strange, diabolical circus. Whether you find his films boring or immensely unique, you have to give Tarr credit for staying true to his vision and creating the works he wants.
Alan McGee is a freelance writer from MN. Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/movies-articles/who-is-bela-tarr-1581112.html
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
No tags for this post.