Béla Tarr Retrospective at LACMA
March 8th, 2008 by Andre Soares
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has just begun an homage to Hungarian director Béla Tarr, which runs until March 28. Titled "Reel Epics: The Films of Béla Tarr," the series is the first complete Los Angeles retrospective of the director’s work.
I’m unfamiliar with Tarr’s films — though I do recall that his The Man from London (above), screened at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, had both ardent admirers and equally ardent detractors.
"Critics have rightfully hailed Tarr as one of filmdom’s criminally undersung geniuses," Ed Halter wrote in The Village Voice about a year ago. "Susan Sontag once boasted that she saw Satantango over 15 times (likely the cause of her signature white hair streak). If 20th-century cinema begins with the montage frenzies of Vertov and Griffith, possessed by a cocksure project to remake history and the world, then it ends with the long sigh of Tarr, brutally conveying the inescapable weight of history and human limitation through monuments of unblinking vision."
Addendum: The director had to cancel his appearance at the Man from London screening on March 28.
"Reel Epics: The Films of Béla Tarr" schedule and synopsis from the LACMA site:
Werckmeister Harmonies (Werckmeister harmóniák)
March 7 | 7:30 pm
A mysterious travelling circus featuring an embalmed whale ignites a violent revolt among the citizens of a remote village. Tarr’s magic realist film depicts a series of Kafkaesqe events as seen through the eyes of a naïve postman. With a haunting score by Hungarian composer Mihály Vig. "Unusual, dreamlike and highly recommended." — Jim Jarmusch
2000/b&w/145 min. | Scr: Béla Tarr, László Krasznahorkai; dir: Tarr; w/ Lars Rudolph, Peter Fitz, Hanna Schygulla
Damnation (Kárhozat)
March 8 | 7:30 pm | Introduction by Bérénice Reynaud
Tarr’s first film noir, is a dark tale of illicit romance between a loner and a married cabaret singer. "Some of the most magnificent black-and-white images shot anywhere in the world." — Michael Atkinson, Boston Phoenix
1988/b&w/122 min. | Scr: Béla Tarr, László Krasznahorkai; dir: Tarr; w/ Miklós Székely B., Vali Kerekes
Family Nest (Családi tuzfészek)
March 14 | 7:30 pm
Tarr’s debut feature made at age twenty-two is a humorous depiction of three generations crammed into a single flat during a housing crisis.
1979/b&w/100 min. | Scr/dir: Béla Tarr; w/ László Horváth, Lászlóné Horváth
The Prefab People (Panelkapcsolat)
March 14 | 9:20 pm
In this improvised film Tarr examines "a blue-collar marriage dissolving under pressure from Communist-era poverty, masculine inadequacy, and restless depression." — Michael Atkinson, Village Voice
1982/b&w/82 min. | Scr/dir: Béla Tarr; w/ Judit Pogány, Róbert Koltai
The Outsider (Szabadgyalog)
March 15 | 7:30 pm
A violinist stumbles through fatherhood, marriage, factory, hospital work, and eventually military service. Tarr’s first film edited by wife Agnes Hranitzky.
1981/color/122 min.| Scr/dir: Béla Tar; w/ András Szabó, Jolán Fodor
Almanac of Fall (Oszi almanach)
March 21 | 7:30 pm
In this chamber piece combining expressive lighting and color camerawork to stunning effect, an old woman becomes ensnared in the power plays of her children and caretakers. "The elaborately choreographed mise en scène is consistently inventive and unpredictable, making use of highly unorthodox angles…but the drama itself (whose Strindbergian power and sexual conflicts are realized with an intensity and concentration that suggests John Cassavetes) carries plenty of charge on its own." — Jonathan Rosenbaum
1984/color/120 min. | Scr/dir: Béla Tar; w/ Hédi Temessy, Erika Bodnár, Miklós Székely B.
Sátántangó
March 22 | 2 pm
Tarr’s masterwork tracks the strange and often drunken happenings in a crumbling village on Hungary’s remote prairie. "I’d be glad to see it every year for the rest of my life." — Susan Sontag
1994/b&w/435 min. plus an intermission and dinner break | Scr: Béla Tarr, László Krasznahorkai; dir: Tarr; w/ Mihály Víg, Putyi Horváth, László fe Lugossy
The Man From London (A Londoni férfi)
March 28 | 7:30 pm | Special guest: Béla Tarr
Based on the Georges Simenon novel, Tarr’s new film is his first shot outside his native Hungary. Tilda Swinton stars as the wife of a dock worker in a seaside town, whose entire life is changed when her husband witnesses a murder in the middle of the night and winds up with a suitcase of cash. "A tour de force of camerawork, not only in the textures of light (moving in a single take through glaring sun, inky obscurity and misty grey haze), but also in the painstakingly choreographed movements, which give the film the edge of a forensic investigation." — Jonathan Romney, Screen International
2007/b&w/132 min. | Scr: Béla Tarr, László Krasznahorkai; dir: Tarr; w/ Miroslav Krobot, Tilda Swinton | Not available on DVD
TICKETS/INFORMATION
Tickets are $9; $6 for LACMA members, seniors (62+), and students with valid ID. Price includes both films in a double bill except where noted. Tickets to the second film on a double bill are $5.00 and are only available at the museum box office prior to the screening. Tuesday Matinees: $2; $1 seniors (62+). Please note: Many programs sell out. Tickets are on sale now and may be purchased at the museum box office (323 857-6010). All films and guests are subject to change and many films are unrated and may not be appropriate for younger viewers. For more information or to check current programs, call the museum box office at (323) 857-6010, visit www.lacma.org or subscribe to the Film Department’s e-newsletter by emailing film@lacma.org.
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I caught Satantango at the LACMA with some fellow Cal-arts students. A beautiful screening that left us with a sense of accomplishment. People were “hi-fiving” each other outside the theater as if they had completed the LA Marathon.
What’s remarkable about the movie is the spectacle of each long take. Yes, the shots are often quiet and yes, the movements are sometimes slow, but in turn each little drop and dip and tick and tack becomes something grand and beautiful. These “little things” reflect volumes about authenticity to the performance. Kudos to the Peter Berling who played the doctor. His un-nimble fingers slapping everything they touched, and his thick heavy breath gagging on his own weight wonderfully counterbalanced the precise and gentle camera and more importantly, kept me smiling. I found myself no longer wondering what was going to happen next, but enjoying what was happening then (and that is the secret to holding an audience’s attention for seven hours).