The Camera is a Machine
by Gus Van Sant
I have been influenced by Béla Tarr’s films and after reviewing the last three works Damnation, Satantango, and Werckmeister Harmonies, I find myself attempting to rethink film grammar and the effect industry has had on it. This is the way I see it. Cinema started as simple single-shot full-length proscenium compositions resembling theater, the only thing that it could find to reference to commercialize itself. By the next twenty years there was a new vocabulary. The close up, montage, and parallel storytelling fragmented the continuity of the previous proscenium-encased static-frame full-figure images. Separate fragments were now placed together to form meaning, the director could play with time and cinematic space. It was exciting. Was this an absolute inevitable direction or just one road cinema chose to take?
I believe these cinematic innovations complimented industry and created an Industrial Vocabulary. The director could tell you how to think about scenes by the way he played with separate pieces. He could control his characters, he could control time and story, and he could control you. Left behind were the proscenium and the static take, which were old-fashioned.
Things were modern, things were easier, like doing your laundry, there was a washing machine now that would do it for you. The modern cinema was an invention that could think for you, you didn’t have to do in anymore, like in the theater.
The Cinema of Industry has progressed into mega-industry and mega-cinema but remaining ideally the same? The cinematic vocabulary of a 2001 television show like Ally McBeal is virtually the same as Birth of a Nation’s. It is no surprise that Citizen Kane has been considered the greatest film of all time, a film about selling oneself down the river along with the copper, coal and timber while nostalgically longing for a lost Victorian era, and film vocabulary’s original beginnings, a Rosebud, that has been left behind in another century.
Béla’s stuff seems to be a successful and authentic departure, a wholly other cinema beginning over again. A cinema that needed to come from outside our Western Culture, a lost Rosebud, one of the many directions cinema might have before we sold ourselves down the river.
Béla’s creations use static full figure landscapes, as if referencing the 1800′s steam engine pulling into a station that would force audience members standing in the gallery to run for the exit so they wouldn’t get hit by the train. Somehow Béla has gotten himself back there psychically and learned things all over again as if modern cinema had never happened. An angry crowd marches down a street to burn down the hospital in Werckmeister Harmonies, a shot that lasts about five minutes. When asked after a screening why the shot of the crowd lasted for so long, Béla answered, “ because it was a long way.” The question was an honest one, why would the audience weaned on post modern industrial cinema sit and watch an angry mob for so long when they have been used to a shot that lasts only a couple of seconds, even a shot ten or fifteen seconds would be too long. But the answer, although funny, is also an honest one, it was a long enough way that to show it for five minutes it affects the way we think about the event, the mob, the march, the hospital. Not shorthanded, not as clipped as in Industrial Vocabulary, but played out lyrically and poetically, letting us in on the thoughts rather than just saying one thing like, the mob walked, rather; the mob walked, and grimaced and raised their torches, and walked in synchronized and unsynchronized steps, advanced, fell back, and when they arrived it had been a long way.
Hitchcock said in response to a question by Franois Truffaut that major stylistic film changes could happen through character, perhaps, but here is a very major change through ideas.
Béla’s works are organic and contemplative in their intentions rather than shortened and contemporary. They find themselves contemplating life in a way that is almost impossible watching an ordinary modern film. They get so much closer to the real rhythms of life that it is like seeing the birth of a new cinema. He is one of the few genuinely visionary filmmakers.
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Stills gallery
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Interview
When critics describe your work as metaphysical, does that appeal to you?
BT: No, no, no. I never think about theoretical things when we are working.
But there are cosmic themes in your films, and you've been quoted as saying that you're "trying to look at things from a cosmic dimension."
BT: You know how it happens, when we started we had a big social responsibility which I think still exists now. And back then I thought "Okay, we have some social problems in this political system - maybe we'll just deal with the social question." And afterwards when we made a second movie and a third we knew better that there are not only social problems. We have some ontological problems and now I think a whole pile of shit is coming from the cosmos. And there's the reason. You know how we open out step by step, film by film. It's very difficult to speak about the metaphysical and that. No. It's just always listening to life. And we are thinking about what is happening around us.
What do you think this shit is that's coming from the cosmos?
BT: I just think about the quality of human life and when I say 'shit' I think I'm very close to it.
Thematically, your films' depiction of a world on the brink of catastrophe seems to link up with a lot of other films made lately, Pola X for example.
BT: I'm sorry, in the past four years I haven't seen anything.
Yes, I know.
BT: I just wanted to tell you I know nothing.
I know, but I just think there is a trend in world cinema towards this sort of existential terror and chaos.
No, we never talk about theoretical things. We never talk about Chaos or existential things. We just talk about someone coming into the room and he wants something and the other guy who is sitting there doesn't want these things. That's all.
When people like Susan Sontag praise your films as being among the finest of the past ten or fifteen years, how does that make you feel?
BT: It's important. I must tell you it's important. You know, because when we are working we are absolutely alone. We are fighting about money, we are fighting about this and that, and the shooting is always full of problems. You must find some solutions in order to finish the day's shooting, and a lot of things are happening. When you are working, you can't think about the audience. You have no chance because you have no time, you have no chance to think about the people who will watch the movie. But, you know, it's sometimes the most important thing. That's why you need somebody.
(read the entirety)
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Video
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Further
Béla Tarr @ mubi
'Bela Tarr's Long Takes' @ cutting on the action
'The Bleak World of Béla Tarr'
Bela Tarr @ Filmus Monochromus
Bela Tarr interviewed @ Bomb Magazine
DVD: The Bela Tarr Collection
Jonathan Rosenbaum's 'A Bluffer's Guide to Bela Tarr'
David Bordwell's 'The Sarcastic Laments of Bela Tarr'
Bela Tarr @ IMDb
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6 films
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from A londoni férfi (The Man from London, 2007)
'Some art films, so the saying goes, are like watching paint dry. Bela Tarr's cinema is more like watching a cliff erode – with all the elemental mystery that suggests. The films of this Hungarian maestro are notoriously slow: fungus-like cinema that seems to have formed in slow accretions in pitch darkness. But when you watch them, you know you're in the company of one of cinema's dark visionaries. The Man from London, Tarr's latest film, is some way below his best, yet it stands among the week's conventional releases like a baleful dark meteorite among a collection of shiny marbles. Tilda Swinton, who stars, has described Tarr's work as "medieval" – "as if these films were dug up out of some tomb in Transylvania and they've always been there.' -- The Independent
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from Werckmeister harmóniák (Werckmeister Harmonies, 2000)
'Adapted from the novel The Melancholy of Resistance by author László Krashnahorkai in collaboration with Béla Tarr and Agnes Hranitzky, Werckmeister Harmonies is an elegantly composed, seductively lugubrious, and haunting cautionary tale of moral ambiguity, lawlessness, petty self-interest, and inertia. From the long take opening sequence depicting the orbital singularity of a hypothetical eclipse, Tarr establishes the parallel for the townspeople as self-contained microcosms behaving according to inherent, pre-programmed natures that, when particularly aligned according to a prescribed set of circumstances, will collectively result in chaos and uncertainty. Visually, Tarr employs images of fire, directed light (most notably in the night-time arrival of the circus caravan that transitions to a shot of János' sun-bathed morning walk and later, in the raid of an institutional housing), and obscured, expressionistic shadows that reveal an intrinsic polarity to human nature.' -- strictly film school
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from Sátántangó (Satan's Tango, 1994)
'Béla Tarr creates a visually sublime, darkly comic, and understatedly haunting film on complacency, ennui, betrayal, and greed in Sátántangó. A collaborative adaptation of László Krashnahorkai's first novel, Sátántangó is intricately structured in twelve narratively overlapping, discontinuous chapters, replicating the visual rhythm of the tango. The inherent nonlinearity of the film's forward and backward episodic movements, particularly evident in the circular, repeated narration of Futaki's perceived detection of the tolling of nonexistent bells at the beginning and end of the film, underscores the banality and empty, ritualistic existence of the communal farmers. Resigned to a life of aimlessness, despair, and passivity, the film serves as a metaphor for the nation's inertial resistance to change and inability to adapt to the unfamiliar landscape of liberation and autonomy in post-communist Hungary.' -- strictly film school
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from Kárhozat (Damnation, 1988)
'The first collaborative project between Hungarian novelist László Krashnahorkai and filmmaker Béla Tarr (along with Tarr's editor and wife, Agnes Hranitzky), Damnation is a bleak and nihilistic portrait of isolation, emotional betrayal, and ennui. Using a near static camera, slow tracking shots, languid character motion, pervasive inclement weather, bleak industrial landscape, and a melancholic soundtrack by composer Mihaly Vig, Tarr reflects the desolation and spiritual lethargy of the directionless and morally bankrupt protagonists: the cloakroom attendant's hollow recitation of religious scripture to Karrer; the dispassionate act of intimacy between Karrer and his lover; the somnambulistic group line dance that recalls the opening image of the sluggish, automated motion of cable cars.' -- strictly film school
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from Őszi almanach (Autumn Almanac, 1985)
'Almanac of Fall opens to a bleak and resigned passage from Aleksandr Pushkin: "Even if you kill me, I see no trace, this land is unknown, the devil is probably leading, going round and round in circles." Béla Tarr creates a visually sublime and provocative film on emotional cruelty, alienation, and moral bankruptcy in Almanac of Fall. Evoking the dramatic tension of August Strindberg's plays and the intensity of Ingmar Bergman's chamber works, Tarr uses highly stylized, artificially colored lighting, rigorous (and deliberate) formalism, minimalist setting, and protracted dialogue to create an atmospherically charged and disquieting environment.' -- strictly film school
_______________
from Panelkapcsolat (The Prefab People, 1982)
'The last and often referred to as the best of the early films by the great Béla Tarr, this is a poignant tale of a young couple struggling to hold together a failing marriage in the face of poverty. What Tarr’s current work manages to accomplish with long-takes, rain, and silence, this film manages to duplicate with close-ups, tears, and pleading hearts. There is a sharp social criticism at work here and an observation for the rhythms of daily life that for me, really makes this film a close relative to Ermanno Olmi’s amazing I Fidanzati. This is simple, stunning filmmaking, ripe with sadness and frustration. The ending, featuring a cynical and deeply saddening bit of Tarr magic that predicts the circular structure of his later work, was enough to bring tears to my eyes.' -- dvdbeaver
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6 films
____________
from A londoni férfi (The Man from London, 2007)
'Some art films, so the saying goes, are like watching paint dry. Bela Tarr's cinema is more like watching a cliff erode – with all the elemental mystery that suggests. The films of this Hungarian maestro are notoriously slow: fungus-like cinema that seems to have formed in slow accretions in pitch darkness. But when you watch them, you know you're in the company of one of cinema's dark visionaries. The Man from London, Tarr's latest film, is some way below his best, yet it stands among the week's conventional releases like a baleful dark meteorite among a collection of shiny marbles. Tilda Swinton, who stars, has described Tarr's work as "medieval" – "as if these films were dug up out of some tomb in Transylvania and they've always been there.' -- The Independent
____________
from Werckmeister harmóniák (Werckmeister Harmonies, 2000)
'Adapted from the novel The Melancholy of Resistance by author László Krashnahorkai in collaboration with Béla Tarr and Agnes Hranitzky, Werckmeister Harmonies is an elegantly composed, seductively lugubrious, and haunting cautionary tale of moral ambiguity, lawlessness, petty self-interest, and inertia. From the long take opening sequence depicting the orbital singularity of a hypothetical eclipse, Tarr establishes the parallel for the townspeople as self-contained microcosms behaving according to inherent, pre-programmed natures that, when particularly aligned according to a prescribed set of circumstances, will collectively result in chaos and uncertainty. Visually, Tarr employs images of fire, directed light (most notably in the night-time arrival of the circus caravan that transitions to a shot of János' sun-bathed morning walk and later, in the raid of an institutional housing), and obscured, expressionistic shadows that reveal an intrinsic polarity to human nature.' -- strictly film school
____________
from Sátántangó (Satan's Tango, 1994)
'Béla Tarr creates a visually sublime, darkly comic, and understatedly haunting film on complacency, ennui, betrayal, and greed in Sátántangó. A collaborative adaptation of László Krashnahorkai's first novel, Sátántangó is intricately structured in twelve narratively overlapping, discontinuous chapters, replicating the visual rhythm of the tango. The inherent nonlinearity of the film's forward and backward episodic movements, particularly evident in the circular, repeated narration of Futaki's perceived detection of the tolling of nonexistent bells at the beginning and end of the film, underscores the banality and empty, ritualistic existence of the communal farmers. Resigned to a life of aimlessness, despair, and passivity, the film serves as a metaphor for the nation's inertial resistance to change and inability to adapt to the unfamiliar landscape of liberation and autonomy in post-communist Hungary.' -- strictly film school
______________
from Kárhozat (Damnation, 1988)
'The first collaborative project between Hungarian novelist László Krashnahorkai and filmmaker Béla Tarr (along with Tarr's editor and wife, Agnes Hranitzky), Damnation is a bleak and nihilistic portrait of isolation, emotional betrayal, and ennui. Using a near static camera, slow tracking shots, languid character motion, pervasive inclement weather, bleak industrial landscape, and a melancholic soundtrack by composer Mihaly Vig, Tarr reflects the desolation and spiritual lethargy of the directionless and morally bankrupt protagonists: the cloakroom attendant's hollow recitation of religious scripture to Karrer; the dispassionate act of intimacy between Karrer and his lover; the somnambulistic group line dance that recalls the opening image of the sluggish, automated motion of cable cars.' -- strictly film school
______________
from Őszi almanach (Autumn Almanac, 1985)
'Almanac of Fall opens to a bleak and resigned passage from Aleksandr Pushkin: "Even if you kill me, I see no trace, this land is unknown, the devil is probably leading, going round and round in circles." Béla Tarr creates a visually sublime and provocative film on emotional cruelty, alienation, and moral bankruptcy in Almanac of Fall. Evoking the dramatic tension of August Strindberg's plays and the intensity of Ingmar Bergman's chamber works, Tarr uses highly stylized, artificially colored lighting, rigorous (and deliberate) formalism, minimalist setting, and protracted dialogue to create an atmospherically charged and disquieting environment.' -- strictly film school
_______________
from Panelkapcsolat (The Prefab People, 1982)
'The last and often referred to as the best of the early films by the great Béla Tarr, this is a poignant tale of a young couple struggling to hold together a failing marriage in the face of poverty. What Tarr’s current work manages to accomplish with long-takes, rain, and silence, this film manages to duplicate with close-ups, tears, and pleading hearts. There is a sharp social criticism at work here and an observation for the rhythms of daily life that for me, really makes this film a close relative to Ermanno Olmi’s amazing I Fidanzati. This is simple, stunning filmmaking, ripe with sadness and frustration. The ending, featuring a cynical and deeply saddening bit of Tarr magic that predicts the circular structure of his later work, was enough to bring tears to my eyes.' -- dvdbeaver
----
*
p.s. Hey. ** Pilgarlic, Ouch. No, wait, ouch! Thanks for typing anyway. 'Crazy Heart', I haven't seen that. Jeff Bridges, right? I'll see almost anything he's in, so I'll look for it. It seems like something that I could wind up having an option to view on a plane flight. Feel better asap, man. ** Empty Frame, The dislike or fear of crowds that the post revealed here yesterday is interesting. Is crowdophobia or whatever it's called, if it has a name, common? Seems like it is. Curious. I like crowds for some reason. I like being in them, or at least in somewhat organized situations like at concerts, protests, and so on. Wonder what that means. Thanks again about the offer. It's just about money, which I'm short on these days, but where there's a will, etc.? Yeah, the Dennis Nilsen route is probably best left to text or to down- and lone-time between the sheets. That chair sounds Ludwig-esque. Take a picture, lodge it somewhere that we can see? ** Jeff, Kind and wise thoughts on the visa thing. Thank you. There really isn't an angle on it to pursue, and decent types who might be given the job of saying yes or no must be so far and few between that the gamble is too great. Basically, either some very important person finds out about our situation, gives a shit, and intervenes, or it's all but hopeless other than the long term/citizenship angle. I don't know. It really seems like you should go for that job, no? With the inside scoop on how to try to nail it and so on. I mean, why not, right? Your 'Epic Mickey' help is, well, hugely helpful. Many, many thanks for that. I'm still fighting the first robot pirate in Ventureland or whatever it's called. I'll try your method today. It sounds right. And letting me know about the Peter Pan thing is really big. Man, I'll do anything to skip a boss fight. I hate them. So, I'll definitely go find PP and do whatever tasks he asks of me if it'll get him to take care of Hook on my behalf. Great! That is a really good pick on the underrated Hip Hop front. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi, D. Email to you finally this morning. Yesterday got away from me. 'Another Day in Paradise', yeah, it doesn't really become so hot overall, just like, in my opinion, most or all of Clark's films that Harmony Korine didn't write. But VK was at his most godly heights in it. I checked, and I don't seem to have an email address for James McCourt. I thought I did. Michael Silverblatt would probably know for sure. I think they're pretty good friends. ** Colin, Hi, man. Yeah, I do wish I could be at your reading. I read at GtW once ages ago. Tiny, sweet place. I somehow thought it had closed down. Nice to know. Exciting about you getting your books! The first look and handle of one's own book is so magical. ** Oscar B, Oscar-woscar! The Pompidou was nice. Yeah, you should check it out. I hope you're feeling better. Anyway, I'll see you a little later for sure, cool. ** David, Thanks a lot, David! Yeah, it takes me a ridiculous amount of time to choose, gather, and then carefully organize the image-stack posts given that most people just look at them and go 'cool' or 'whatever'. There's a whole through-line and structure to them. I try to make it pursuable if one wants but not too in-your-face. The same way I make my novels, basically. Anyway, blah blah, thanks, I really appreciate that. Yes, that was the Biebs down there. Gaga was in there too, among others, but I don't think she was spotted by anyone. ** MANCY, Hi, man. ** Sypha, Those kinds of differences can actually be a good cement. Heck, Yury and I couldn't hardly be less alike in some ways, but there you go. ** Andrew, This popular crowd fear/panic thing around here is really interesting. Hm. Oh, I guess I'll pass along your thing to the Araki fans here. Everyone, or fans of Gregg Araki rather, here's Andrew: 'there are people here who like Gregg Araki; last week Jeremy Scott showed a collection that was loosely inspired by The Doom Generation Trilogy. Which is I suppose is kind of ironic since the whole point of that trilogy was 'this is the last generation of teenagers' and now they're retro.' ** Bill, I didn't know about that Capuchin crypt. Every time I've been in Rome, it was for book promo, and I didn't have much of a chance to see much of anything. Thanks! I'd better look into a guide book or the online equivalent if the trip gets greenlit. Nice that Terence at least will be performing. Give him my very best, if you remember and if it's easy. ** Jon Reiss, Hi, Jon. Well, yes, you could, actually. Or let's say I had things in mind that could be there in force if one wanted to puzzle it together. Good eyes re: the ones you spotted. There were several varieties of hardcore and metal show audiences there, from the faux to the more serious. School lectures, in-store reading events, religious groups, variety of protests and riots, fashion, art gallery opening, variety of sports audiences, funerals, etc., etc. Thanks, man. How are you? What's going on? ** Allesfliesst, Thanks a lot! ** Steevee, Yeah, she seemed quite interesting. I hope I'll get the chance to talk to her more sometime. Very smart. You probably know this, but she's better known here to the 'average' French person as an actress than as a director. I just got the new Tim Hecker, and I'm really liking it so far. ** The Dreadful Flying Glove. Nice crowd, indeed. Everyone, one more crowd courtesy of TDFG. Like I said in an email, that 'Colossal Cave' stuff you sent is amazing! I'm going to try to put together a Day on it today, actually, if I have the time. Thank you again! You, bass player, very cool! Bob Seger, ha ha. Yikes. ** JoeM, Bingo, it was Wimbledon. Nice Alaska stuff. You good? How's the writing going? Etc.? Oh, and how is Shane, if you're in touch with him? He hasn't been around here in a while. ** Chris Cochrane, Hey. Yeah, it was just a weird thought. I was thinking the other day about a possible replacement for me if it comes to that, and that brought it to mind. I haven't come up with an alternate me either. ** Creative Massacre, I basically just go on FB to accept friend requests and scroll quickly through the friend updates/news. The place hasn't really ever seduced me. Oh, you should go to NYC, obviously, if you've never been. It's a singular place, one of a kind, as I'm sure you know. Nice possibilities you got there. ** Misanthrope, Good, finally a crowd liker like me. I'd guess the biggest crowd I've ever been in was one of the late 60s rock festivals I went to as a young teen. Although I saw Johnny Hallyday play a free concert here at the Eiffel Tower on Bastille Day a couple of years ago, and that was pretty insanely huge. I think they said there were close to a million people watching that. Dude, one more reason and wake up call to you to get your shit together physically. Come on. Exercise, good diet, you can do it, and the chicks and chick-like boys love a healthy man. Well, except for the Anna Nicole Smith-like boys, but you can live without them. ** Postitbreakup, Hey, J. You haven't been shitty or sanctimonious or whatever here, and, if you were drunk, you could fooled me. Just be yourself, and it's all good, man. And your kind thoughts are most appreciated. ** Armando, Hey! It's your birthday? Happy birthday, man! Time totally does fly. It flies a little faster every year. Weird shit. I'm having to fight super difficult robot enemies in my video game at the moment, so I'm momentarily anti-robot. Or anti-evil-robot. That would of course exclude you, were you a robot. ** Fin. Do you know Bela Tarr's films? If not, they're pretty exquisite. Please introduce yourself to him/them or re-familiarize yourself with them today, and hopefully enjoy the post, and thank you. See you tomorrow.
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