Eliptic and Unbridled: The Early Films of Bela Tarr

Eliptic and Unbridled: The Early Films of Bela Tarr

January 8-30, 2008

Continuing our exhaustive exhibition of the work of great Hungarian director Bela Tarr, Northwest Film Forum presents rare screenings of this master’s earliest works. For those who’ve seen SATANTANGO and WRECKMEISTER HARMONIES, these early films may come as something of a shock. Under the influence of the "documentary fiction" (politicized socialist realism) of Istvan Darday (under whom he had worked an assistant director) as well as the cinema vérité of John Cassavetes, and possibly even British "kitchen sink" dramas, Tarr created his first three features, known as the "proletarian trilogy:” FAMILY NEST (1979), THE OUTSIDER (1981), and PREFAB PEOPLE (1982). Tarr uses handheld camera, nonprofessional actors, improvisation, multiple close-ups, and more conventional editing rhythms than in his later work. The films delve into the melancholy of Hungarian life during the late 1970s and early 1980s, exploring social and economic conditions (especially a major housing shortage) that wreak havoc on the personal lives of his characters. Do not miss this rare chance to see the first works of this celebrated master of cinema.

 

The Outsider

Jan 15 - Jan 16, 2008

Béla Tarr, Hungary, 1980, 35mm, 146 min

Tarr's second feature film (and one of only two shot in color) further explores ideas introduced in FAMILY NEST. Tightly framed shots convey the claustrophobia of close living quarters, in this look at a directionless young male nurse and factory worker who escapes life's frustrations by dancing, drinking, and playing the fiddle in local taverns. Seeing it as both a reaction against contemporary Hungarian cinema and a political commentary, Tarr says, "We weren't knocking at the door, we just beat it down. We were coming with some fresh, new, true, real things. We just wanted to show the reality—anti-movies."

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Family Nest

Jan 08 - Jan 09, 2008

Béla Tarr, Hungary, 1977, 35mm, 106 min

This impressive first film by Tarr heralded the arrival of one of late 20th century cinema's most compelling and original voices. Shot in a cinema vérité style, the film captures the lives of an ordinary family in a broken society. The housing shortage in Communist-ruled Hungary forces a young couple to live with the husband's parents in a cramped, one room apartment. The proximity of too many people in too small a space leads to tireless arguments and a feeling of unending hopelessness. Winner of the Hungarian Film Critics' prize for Best First Feature.

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Prefab People

Jan 22 - Jan 23, 2008

Béla Tarr, Hungary, 1982, 35mm, 102 min

A soul-baring portrait of proletarian life in socialist Hungary, THE PREFAB PEOPLE offers a detailed examination of an unhappy family's struggle for survival. Tarr's third feature, his first to use professional actors, is exemplary of his early cinema: loose in structure, improvisational in acting style, and generous in it's use of a handheld camera. Beginning with a terrible argument between husband and wife, Tarr subsequently examines the minute details of his character's lives to see what brought them to this moment.

"The best of Tarr's early forays into Cassavetes-style social realism" -Jonathan Rosenbaum, CHICAGO READER

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Almanac of Fall

Jan 29 - Jan 30, 2008

Béla Tarr, Hungary, 1984, 35mm, 119min

In a crumbling apartment, an old woman, her son, her nurse, the nurse's lover, and a lodger quarrel, maneuver, and betray each other over money. The visual design, with its blue-gray and orange-red lighting, stresses the artificiality of the closed environment. In this dense setting, the inhabitants of the apartment reveal their darkest secrets, fears, obsessions and hostilities in a style that combines the anguish and existentialism of Bergman with the emotional intensity of Cassavetes.

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