Béla Tarr: First Steps of a Journey
February 20–22, 2003

The early work of visionary Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr is distinguished by its commitment to process: of filming, of acting out realistic situations, and of discovering the layers of a uniquely personal filmic language that would grace the director’s later, more celebrated works. After screening Tarr’s entire oeuvre in the fall of 2000, the Department of Film and Media acquired the filmmaker’s early works in stunning new prints with new, uncensored English subtitling (the lab work was supervised by Tarr himself). The Department proudly presents these four early films, which exhibit a barely veiled critique of socialist life and art, and which are the seeds for Tarr’s later, internationally influential masterworks.

Organized by Jytte Jensen, Associate Curator, Department of Film and Media.

Öszi almanach (Almanac of Fall). 1985. Hungary. Written and directed by Béla Tarr. With Hédi Temessy, Erika Bodnár, Miklós B. Székely, János Dezsi. 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 Hungarian with English subtitles. 119 min.
Thursday, February 20, 2:00; Saturday, February 22, 1:00

Családu tüzfészek (Family Nest). 1978. Hungary. Written and directed by Béla Tarr. With Mr. and Mrs. László Horváth, Mr. and Mrs. Gábor Kún. Tarr’s debut feature, made when he was just twenty-two, examines the apartment shortage in socialist Hungary. With blunt realism, the film describes the circumstances of a young couple with a small child forced to live with the husband’s parents in a one-room apartment. In Hungarian with English subtitles. 106 min.
Thursday, February 20, 6:00

Szabadgyalog (The Outsider). 1981. Hungary. Written and directed by Béla Tarr. With István Balla, Imre Donko, András Szabó. Tarr’s second feature film 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. In Hungarian with English subtitles. 146 min.
Friday, February 21, 6:00

Panelkapcsolat (The Prefab People). 1982. Hungary. Written and directed by Béla Tarr. With Judit Pogány, Róbert Koltai. A soul-baring portrait of proletarian life in socialist Hungary, The Prefab People offers a detailed examination of an unhappy family’s struggle for existence. Tarr’s third feature, his first to use professional actors, is exemplary of his early cinema: loose in structure, improvisational in acting style, and with generous use of a handheld camera. In Hungarian with English subtitles. 102 min.
Friday, February 21, 8:45

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