BUDAPEST, Hungary — The celebrated Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr, director of such works as “Sátántangó” and “The Turin Horse” and the recipient of numerous awards for his long and often darkly comic films, has died at 70.
During a career spanning decades, Tarr wrote and directed nine feature films, starting with his debut, “Family Nest,” in 1979 and ending in 2011 with “The Turin Horse,” which won the Silver Bear Jury Grand Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival that year.
Tarr frequently collaborated with Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai, who last year won the Nobel Prize in literature. Tarr’s films, some of which were adaptations of Krasznahorkai’s novels (“Sátántangó” and “Werckmeister Harmonies”), have been awarded prizes at festivals around Europe and Asia, and he received honorary professorships at universities in China.
In a statement on Tuesday, the Hungarian Filmmakers’ Assn. confirmed Tarr’s death, writing that “with deep sorrow we announce that, after a long and serious illness, film director Béla Tarr passed away early this morning.”
Tarr was born in 1955 in the southern Hungarian city of Pécs, but lived most of his life in the capital, Budapest. He completed his first feature film, “Family Nest,” when he was only 23. That film won the Grand Prize at the Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival that year.
His films, the longest of which, “Sátántangó,” clocks in at 439 minutes or more than seven hours long, were widely praised as being beautifully shot while often using slow pacing and stark imagery to depict despair and social decay.
Often shot in black and white and defined by long, hypnotic single takes that could last upward of 10 minutes, Tarr’s films depict bleak, hopeless, even dystopian landscapes set during Hungary’s socialist era or in the years following the end of Soviet-dominated communism in Eastern Europe.
One of his most celebrated films, “Damnation” released in 1988, was co-written with Krasznahorkai and, after being positively received on the film festival circuit, helped to propel Tarr toward greater international recognition.
His unique style made his work a major influence on art house cinema including American filmmakers Gus van Sant and Jim Jarmusch, who have praised his vision.
Lars Rudolph in the 2000 film “Werckmeister Harmonies,” directed by Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky.
(LACMA)
Tarr worked closely with his editor and principal collaborator Ágnes Hranitzky for decades, and the couple were also romantic partners until 2012. Hranitszky edited all of Tarr’s films beginning with “The Outsider” in 1981. She also received co-directing credit alongside Tarr in his final three feature films, “Werckmeister Harmonies,” “The Man from London” and “The Turin Horse.”
The latter film “is as complete a closing statement as any artist has made, a benediction not only for a great career but also perhaps for humanity itself,” wrote former Times film critic Justin Chang. “It is also a pure distillation of the techniques that have made Tarr a pioneering figure in cinema: the magisterial long takes, the ritualistic rhythms, the spell that can take hold only within the confines of a movie theater.”
Tarr was at times politically outspoken, and criticized nationalism and populist politicians such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, as well as U.S. President Trump and France’s far-right leader Marine Le Pen.
He was also critical of Hungary’s cultural policies under Orbán, and helped sponsor a group of students at the University of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest who had occupied their campus in protest of government measures in 2020.
In 2023, Tarr came to Los Angeles for “Boundless Damnation: The Films of Béla Tarr,” a four-day American Cinematheque retrospective. “[L.A.. is] too big for me. I could never, ever live here,” the filmmaker told Times contributor Carlos Aguilar.
“There’s a deceivingly grave presence to Tarr, reinforced by the philosophical heft of his films,” wrote Aguilar in his profile of the director. “Still, it’s a vibe that dissipates when he playfully tells those in his circle to ‘f— off’ in response to teasing comments about the length or intensity of his work.”
“It’s easy to say they are depressing or bleak, but it’s not about that,” responded Tarr. “Human beings are very complex, and when you are doing a movie, or any kind of art, you have to try to have empathy for people.”
Following the release of “The Turin Horse” in 2011, Tarr stated he had said everything he needed to say and moved to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo where he founded a film academy known as film.factory. From there, he produced numerous films by the academy’s students, and split his time between Sarajevo and Budapest.
“[The audience is] the most important thing because when you do a movie, you are doing it for the people,” Tarr told The Times in 2023.
“That’s the reason why I do it — or why I did it,” correcting himself.
Spike writes for the Associated Press.
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