Born in 1955, Hungarian filmmaker Bela Tarr began making amateur films at the age of 16, later working as caretaker at a national House for Culture and Recreation. His amateur work brought him to the attention of the Bela Balazs Studios (named in honor of the Hungarian cinema theorist), which helped fund Tarr's 1979 feature debut Family Nest, a work of socialist realism clearly influenced by the work of John Cassavettes. The 1981 piece The Outsider and the following year's The Prefab People continued in much the same vein, but with a 1982 television adaptation of Macbeth, his work began to change dramatically; comprised of only two shots, the first shot (before the main title) was five minutes long, with the second 67 minutes in length. Not only did Tarr's visual sensibility move from raw close-ups to more abstract mediums and long shots, but also his philosophical sensibility shifted from grim realism to a more metaphysical outlook similar to that of Andrei Tarkovsky. After 1984's Almanac of Fall, Tarr (who had written his first four features alone) began collaborating with Hungarian novelist Laszlo Krasznahorkai for 1987's Damnation. A planned adaptation of Krasznahorkai's epic novel Satantango took over seven years to realize. The film, a 415-minute masterpiece, finally appeared to international acclaim in 1994.
Almanac of fall
Written by : Béla Tarr
Cinematography : Buda Gulyás,
Sándor Kardos and Ferenc Pap
Edited by : Ágnes Hranitzky
Release date : 17 January 1985
Running time : 119 minutes
Country : Hungary
Language : Hungarian
Damnation
Written by : Béla Tarr, László
Krasznahorkai
Music by : Mihály Vig
Release date : 1988
Running time : 116 minutes
Country : Hungary
Language : Hungarian
Family nest
Written by : Béla Tarr
Cinematography : Ferenc Pap
Edited by : Anna Kornis
Production company : Balázs
Béla Stúdió
Release date : 29 January 1979
Running time : 108 minutes
Country : Hungary
Language : Hungarian
Satantango
Produced by : György Fehér, Joachim von Vietinghoff, Ruth Waldburger
Screenplay by : Béla Tarr, László
Krasznahorkai
Based on : Satantango by
László Krasznahorkai
Cinematography : Gábor Medvigy
Edited by : Ágnes Hranitzky
Release date : 8 February 1994
Running time : 439 minutes
Country : Hungary, Germany, Switzerland
Language : Hungarian
The prefab people
Screenplay by : Béla Tarr
Cinematography : Barna Mihók, Ferenc
Pap
Edited by : Ágnes Hranitzky
Release date : December 9,
1982
Running time : 102 minutes
Country : Hungary
Language : Hungarian
Werckmeister Harmonies
Produced by : Béla Tarr
Screenplay by : László
Krasznahorkai, Béla Tarr
Based on : The Melancholy of
Resistance by László Krasznahorkai
Edited by : Ágnes Hranitzky
Release date : 1 February 2001
Running time : 145 minutes
Country : Hungary
Language : Hungarian
Produced by : Gábor Téni
Written by : László
Krasznahorkai, Béla Tarr
Cinematography : Fred Kelemen
Edited by : Ágnes Hranitzky
Production company : T. T.
Filmműhely
Release date : 15 February
2011
Running time : 146 minutes
Country : Hungary
Language : Hungarian
To be conitued...
