Hungarian Film Resources
Állami álomgyár: film, politika, társadalom by ISBN: 9786158094900Date: 2017Translation: András Gervai examines the period between 1947 and 2000: he examines various processes, creative careers, and films from the perspective of dramaturgy, social history, sociology, and social psychology. In his studies, he analyzes the conflicts between filmmakers and the government, the social and political determinations of filmmaking, and how ideology was reflected in the content and message of the films. We can read about the film and censorship history of the Rákosi and Kádár regimes, the film acceptance policy, the film careers of Ferenc Bessenyei, Ferenc Kállai, Imre Sinkovits, and what Hungarian feature films have shown about the life of Hungarian Jews. The author also deals with the situation of Hungarian film after the regime change: the problems of film financing and film support.
The Cinema of Central Europe by ISBN: 9781904764212Date: 2005-05-11This new volume in the Twenty-Four Frames series focuses on twenty-four key Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, and Polish films from the twenties to the present. Between the wars the cinemas of Hungary, Poland, and the former Czechoslovakia each claimed their pioneers of early cinema and attained significant levels of production.
Cinema of the Other Europe: The Industry and Artistry of East Central European Film by ISBN: 1903364647Date: 2004-03-17Comprehensive study of the cinematic traditions of Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia from 1945 to the present day, exploring the major schools of filmmaking and the main stages of development across the region during the period of state socialism up until the end of the Cold War, as well as more recent transformations post-1989.
Hungarian Cinema: From Coffeehouse to Multiplex by ISBN: 1903364809Date: 2004-03-24Hungarian cinema has often been forced to tread a precarious and difficult path. Through the failed 1919 revolution to the defeat of the 1956 Uprising and its aftermath, Hungarian film-makers and their audiences have had to contend with a multiplicity of problems. In the 1960s, however, Hungary entered into a period of relative stability and increasing cultural relaxation, resulting in an astonishing growth of film-making.
Hungarian Film, 1929-1947 by ISBN: 9462980764Date: 2017-08-01What does it mean for someone or something to be Hungarian? People in Hungary grappled with this far-reaching question in the wake of the losses and transformation brought by World War I. Because the period also saw the rise of cinema, audiences, filmmakers, critics, and officials often looked at films with an eye to that question, too. Did the Hungary seen on screen represent the Hungary they knew from everyday life?
World Cinema: Hungary by ISBN: 9780838637227Date: 1996-09-01World Cinema is a detailed, historical, critical, and appreciative account of the Hungarian cinema from its early days to the transforming 1990s. It provides an extended analysis of some fifty directors and their key films.
Formations of Masculinity in Post-Communist Hungarian Cinema by ISBN: 9783319636634Date: 2017-10-04This book investigates the formations of masculinity in Hungarian cinema after the fall of communism and explores some of the cultural phenomena of the years following the 1989 regime change. The films explored offer a unique perspective encompassing two entirely different worlds: state socialism and neoliberal capitalism. In looking closely at the films' male figures, one may not only get a glimpse of the dramatic changes Eastern European societies went through after the fall of communism but also see the brave new world of global neoliberal capitalism through the eyes of the Eastern European newcomers.
Magic Realist Cinema in East Central Europe by ISBN: 9780748639168Date: 2012-10-08Magic Realist Cinema in East Central Europe explores the interlocking complexities of two liminal concepts: magic realism and East Central Europe. Each is a fascinating hybrid that resonates with dominant currents in contemporary thought on transnationalism, globalisation and regionalism. In this critical and comprehensive survey, Aga Skrodzka moves the current debate over magic realism's political impact from literary studies to film studies. Her close textual analysis of films by directors such as Jan Svankmajer, Jan Jakub Kolski, Martin Sulík, Ivo Trajkov, Dorota Kędzierzawska, Ildikó Enyedi, Béla Tarr and Emir Kusturica is accompanied by an investigation of the socio-economic and political context in order to both study and popularise an important and unique tradition in world cinema.
Space in Romanian and Hungarian Cinema by ISBN: 3319759507Date: 2018-05-25This book examines the structuring of space in Romanian and Hungarian cinema, and particularly how space is used to express the deep imprint of a socialist past on a post-socialist present. It considers this legacy of the Eastern European socialist regimes by interrogating the suffocating, tyrannical and enclosing structures that are presented in film. While closely scrutinizing the interplay of location and image, Space in Romanian and Hungarian Cinema offers a new approach to the cinema of the region, which unites the filmic productions under a defined, post-socialist Eastern European spatial umbrella.
The Cinema of Béla Tarr by ISBN: 9780231165310Date: 2013-05-21The Cinema of Béla Tarr is a critical analysis of the work of Hungary's most prominent and internationally best known film director, written by a scholar who has followed Bela Tarr's career through a close personal and professional relationship for more than twenty-five years. András Bálint Kovács traces the development of Tarr's themes, characters, and style, showing that almost all of his major stylistic and narrative innovations were already present in his early films and that through a conscious and meticulous recombination of and experimentation with these elements, Tarr arrived at his unique style.
The Cinema of István Szabó by ISBN: 9780231171984Date: 2014-09-23István Szabó is one of Hungary's most celebrated and best-known film directors, and the first Hungarian to have won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, for Mephisto (1981). In a career spanning over five decades Szabó has relentlessly examined the place of the individual in European history, particularly those caught up in the turbulent events of Central Europe and his own native Hungary. His protagonists struggle to find a place for themselves, some meaning in their lives, security and a sense of being, against a background of two world wars (Colonel Redl, Confidence), the Holocaust (Sunshine), the Hungarian Uprising, and the Cold War (Father, 25 Fireman's Street, Taking Sides).
Organic Cinema: Film, Architecture, and the work of Béla Tarr by ISBN: 9781785335679Date: 2017-06-30The "organic" is by now a venerable concept within aesthetics, architecture, and art history, but what might such a term mean within the spatialities and temporalities of film? By way of an answer, this concise and innovative study locates organicity in the work of Béla Tarr, the renowned Hungarian filmmaker and pioneer of the "slow cinema" movement.
Screen Memories: The Hungarian Cinema of Márta Mészáros by ISBN: 9780253345585Date: 1993-05-01Explores the culture of post-Stalinist Eastern Europe through a detailed study of the achievements of its foremost woman director, Marta Meszaros. Informed by contemporary debates in film theory, psychoanalysis, and gender studies, this book foregrounds autobiographical and artistic elements of Marta Meszaros's cinema.
Slow Places in Béla Tarr's Films by ISBN: 9781793645647Date: 2021-09-08Slow Places in Béla Tarr's Films explores Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr's approach to creating geographies of indifference through slow cinema techniques. Through a close examination of Tarr's filmography, Clara Orban observes that his interiors provide claustrophobic environments in which human relationships have difficult flourishing, while his exteriors become landscapes through which characters wander endlessly.
- The Round-Up / Szegénylegények (dir. Miklós Jancsó, 1966)
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- The Red and the White (dir. Miklós Jancsó, 1967)
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- The Confrontation / Fényes szelek (dir. Miklós Jancsó, 1968)
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- Winter Wind (dir. Miklós Jancsó, 1969)
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- Red Psalm (dir. Miklós Jancsó, 1971)
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- Confidence (dir. Istvan Szabo, 1980)
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- Mephisto (dir. Istvan Szabo, 1981)
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- Damnation (dir. Béla Tarr, 1988)
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- My Twentieth Century (dir. Ildiko Enyedi, 1989)
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- Sátántangó (dir. Béla Tarr, 1994)
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- Sing / Mindenki (dir. Kristof Deák, 2016)
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- The Citizen (dir. Roland Vranik, 2017)
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- Jupiter’s Moon (dir. Kornél Mundruczó, 2017)
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Additional Resources on Selected Major Hungarian Films
- 53 magyar film : Hyppolittól a Sátántangóig byISBN: 9786155464140Date: 2015What are the most enduring Hungarian feature films of the twentieth century that have stood the test of time? This is what the Hungarian Academy of Arts sought to answer when it voted its members on the most memorable Hungarian films for them. The Uránia National Film Theater organized a highly successful series from the selection, which was also shown by Duna Television. The volume 53 Hungarian films in various genres of writing - studies, reviews, reports, literary works - helps to recall films and the era when people still went to the cinema, and the best films could shape public thinking.
- FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals This link opens in a new window Searches film and television articles in the International Index to Film Periodicals (1972-current) and Treasures from the Film Archives, which contains silent film-era listings from archives.
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- Filmkultúra - Online Online Film Periodical. In April 1996, the print version was closed, and Filmkultúra (Film Culture) became the first Hungarian online cultural periodical.
- FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals This link opens in a new window Searches film and television articles in the International Index to Film Periodicals (1972-current) and Treasures from the Film Archives, which contains silent film-era listings from archives.
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- JSTOR This link opens in a new window Full text back issues of core scholarly journals, browsable and searchable across multiple disciplines. Coverage starts with first issue, with moving wall for most recent 3-5 years. UCLA has access to selected JSTOR e-books only. JSTOR also includes primary source collections, including images from Artstor.
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- Oxford Bibliographies Online: Cinema and Media Studies This link opens in a new window Annotated bibliographies for topics in the field of Cinema and Media Studies. Combines encyclopedia-style introductions with expert recommendations of the most important reference works, books, journals, and primary sources on the topic.
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- Performing Arts Periodicals Database This link opens in a new window Articles and reviews from a broad spectrum of the arts and entertainment industry - including dance, drama, theater, stagecraft, circus, opera, pantomime, puppetry, magic, performance art, film, television, and more. Former database title: International Index to Performing Arts (IIPA) Full Text.
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- Project MUSE This link opens in a new window Full text of current issues (from about 1990) of scholarly journals published by university presses, chiefly in the arts, humanities and social sciences. Browsable by discipline and full-text searchable across all disciplines. UCLA has access to Muse e-books published from 2017-present, plus a selected number of other e-book titles.
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- Soviet Cinema Online: Periodicals and Newspapers, 1918-1942 This link opens in a new window The collection includes Soviet film magazines and newspapers from the 1920s and 1930s, reflecting an interesting period in the history of Russian Film. Part I: Journals online, number of titles: 27. Part II: Newspapers online, number of titles: 20.
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- National Film Institute — Hungary As the central organization of the sector, the National Film Institute focuses on the entire film, television, and moving image industry of Hungary. The main goal of its diverse activities is the comprehensive development of the sector and ensuring its long-term competitiveness in the region.
- Budapest Film Academy The BUDAPEST FILM ACADEMY and the EÖTVÖS LORÁND UNIVERSITY established a dynamic international film academy in Hungary, offering film courses and practical training in both English and Hungarian.
- The Calvert Journal: "Stranger than real — Budapest is the backdrop for Hungary's dark, dreamlike new wave of cinema" Over time, the local film industry has developed a cocktail of realism and echoes of daily life shaken up with the surreal and the absurd. Many cite the 1950s to 60s as Hungarian cinema’s golden age, which, coincidentally, was also the most brutal era of Hungary’s communist dictatorship. Cinema at this time used Hungarian history and human stories as a subtle medium to stand up against the regime.
- Filmkultúra — Online Online Film Periodical. In April 1996, the print version was closed, and Filmkultúra (Film Culture) became the first Hungarian online cultural periodical.
Selected Hungarian Films
Red Psalm (dir. Miklós Jancsó, 1971)
"When a group of farm workers go on a strike, demanding basic rights from a landowner, they are met with soldiers on horseback, facing harsh reprisals and the reality of revolt, oppression, morality and violence."
Winner of the best director prize at Cannes in 1972.
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Confidence (dir. Istvan Szabo, 1980)
"In World War II-era Hungary, the resistance pairs two unrelated members to act as husband and wife in an effort to stay hidden in plain sight."
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Mephisto (dir. Istvan Szabo, 1981)
"MEPHISTO concerns a passionate, but struggling actor who remains in Germany during the Nazi regime and reaps the rewards of this Faustian pact by finally achieving the stardom he has long craved."
Winner of The 1981 Academy Award (Best Foreign Language Film), Cannes Film Festival winner, and official selection at the Berlin International Film Festival.
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Damnation (dir. Béla Tarr, 1988)
"DAMNATION (Kárhozat) chronicles the doomed affair between bar Titanik regular Karrer and the cruel cabaret singer he pines for while scheming to displace her brutish husband."
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My Twentieth Century (dir. Ildikó Enyedi, 1989)
"On the eve of the 20th century, two twin girls, Lili the anarchist and Dóra a luxurious woman of loose morals, along with Mr. Z. who loves them as an entity, all reach the Hungarian border at the same time on board the Orient Express. Their story, rushing under the spell of Edison’s inventions, is a special ‘research of happiness’, reclaiming the ‘mass murdering century’ from the restlessly changing world and the miracle of existence."
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Sátántangó (dir. Béla Tarr, 1994)
"SÁTÁNTANGÓ (SATAN'S TANGO), based on the book by László Krasznahorkai, follows members of a small, defunct agricultural collective living in a post-apocalyptic landscape after the fall of Communism who, on the heels of a large financial windfall, set out to leave their village. As a few of the villagers secretly conspire to take off with all of the earnings for themselves, a mysterious character, long thought dead, returns to the village, altering the course of everyone’s lives forever."
Official Selection at the Berlin International Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival.
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The Citizen (dir. Roland Vranik, 2017)
"Wilson, a political refugee from Guinea Bissau now working as a security guard in Budapest, stumbles into love with Mary, a married teacher helping him cram for Hungarian citizenship, a situation further complicated by his paternal feelings for a fellow immigrant."
Official Selection at the Berlin International Film Festival.
UCLA students, staff, and faculty access through Kanopy. Log into the campus VPN or proxy server to view video.