Born in
Budapest, Szabó is the son of Mária (née Vita) and István Szabó, the latter of
whom was a doctor from a long line of doctors. Szabó came from a family of Jews
who had converted to Catholicism, but were considered Jews by the Arrow Cross
Party (Hungarian Nazis). They were forced to separate and hide in Budapest
sometime between October 1944, when Nazi Germany occupied Hungary and installed
the Arrow Cross in power, and February 1945, when the Soviets defeated the
German Army in Budapest.
Szabó
survived by hiding at an orphanage, but his father died of diphtheria shortly
after the German defeat. Memories of these events would later appear in several
of his films.
In 2006, the
Hungarian newspaper Life and Literature revealed that Szabó had been an
informant of the Communist regime's secret police. Between 1957 and 1961, he
submitted forty-eight reports on seventy-two people, mostly classmates and
teachers at the Academy of Theatrical and Cinematic Arts. According to
historian István Deák, only in one case did Szabó's informing cause significant
damage, when an individual was denied a passport.
Szabó is the
most internationally famous Hungarian filmmaker since the late 1960s. Working
in the tradition of European auteurism, he has made films that represent many
of the political and psychological conflicts of Central Europe's recent
history, as well as of his own personal history. He made his first short film
in 1959 as a student at the Hungarian Academy of Theatrical and Cinematic Arts,
and his first feature film in 1964.
He achieved
his greatest international success with Mephisto (1981), which won the Academy
Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Since then, most of Szabó's films have
been international co-productions filmed in a variety of languages and European
locations. He has continued to make some films in Hungarian, however, and even
in his international co-productions, he often films in Hungary and uses
Hungarian talent. Szabó became involved in a national controversy in 2006 when
the Hungarian newspaper Life and Literature revealed that he had been an
informant of the Communist regime's secret police.
Films :
Mephisto
Produced by : Manfred Durniok
Screenplay by : Peter Daibo, Istvan
Szabo
Cinematography : Lajos Koltai
Edited by : Zsuzsa Csokany
Release date : 29 April 1981
Running time : 144 minutes
Country : Hungary
Language : English, Hungarian
German, Esperanto
25 Fireman’s Street
Produced by : Tibor Dimény
Screenplay by : Luca Karall, István
Szabó
Cinematography : Sándor Sára
Edited by : János Rózsa
Release date : 1973
Running time : 97 minutes
Country : Hungary
Language : Hungarian
To be continued...
