really glad you got to see it in this situation, tom. satantango seems important to me because it so radically changes your perceptions on what is possible in cinema. it is so different than anything else you've ever seen.

but i also felt at times like i was listening to morton feldman warming up (similarly, feldman wrote a string quartet that takes six hours to perform, and like satantango, a beautiful passage will repeat...and repeat...and repeat some more). that yes, if something looks interesting, just look at it.... and keep looking at it. make sure you've seen it. make sure the audience has time to reflect on what they are seeing. i have often wondered just how tarr imagined screenings. where would they take place? would it necessarily be in a theater? did he imagine the film to be like an installation piece, where the film is being projected while the audience comes and goes...or could the film just be projected in a outdoor publi. space; again, not to demand being the center of attention, but simply running throughout the course of the evening, accompanying a variety of other activities.

too bad tarr didn't show...the film raises a lot of questions. you probably had a few you would have liked to ask...

My wife and I laughed during the first five minutes of the dance sequence...then wanted to punch the guy who kept repeating the same word over and over and over...But the middle sequence with the girl and her cat is indelibly printed upon my psyche.
The Focus DVD (US version) is just awful. I could tell that Tarr's slow tracking shots were using deep focus, but the image was all fuzzy in details and contrast. The UK DVD is much better but this must be seen projected, or released in high definition someday:)
Tarr definitely pushes the boundaries of editing! His film THE MAN FROM LONDON doesn’t cut until approximately twenty minutes into the first act. And he sure does like to film people walking.

Well, Tarr didn't show. The movie went off as planned. There were some sound issues, alas: during the second half of the film the sound got rather oddly jittery, like the gargle they use in PINOCCHIO during the underwater scenes, but not nearly as pronounced as that, it was just barely noticeable during the dialogue and only became really problematic during the desperately important scenes involving some desperately important bell-noises that sounded like churchbells with hiccups. Very odd, especially at MOMA, which is usually so good with things like this.

Anyway, I'm glad I went. The familiar parts of the film were as good as I remember them, and seeing them properly (mostly) projected on a big screen was amazing. This is a fabulously beautiful film, despite taking place in some of the least beautiful landscapes and locations imaginable. This is the kind of black and white that makes you doubt the need for color.

As much as I admire the film, I found the sudden stark shift in tone in the third part to be very jarring. I'm going to need to think and read about the film a bit more before I make up my mind about it.

CINEPHILE HERESY ALERT -- BEWARE!!!!

I think Tarr goes too far in the long take area. There are a couple of sequences that just go on long after anything is being gotten out of them, one scene in particular just never fucking ends, a drunken dance party in a pub with most of the cast dancing around, and it goes on long after it really could have stopped. I can't imagine anyone noticing or even caring if it were cut in half. Other moments like that, of people walking and walking or sitting and sitting or breathing and breathing could be similarly trimmed. Just because something can be shown for ten minutes doesn't necessarily mean that it bloody well SHOULD be shown for ten bloody minutes.

Not looking to turn anyone off from seeing the film, but I can't blame anyone who finds it just more than they want to deal with. It would be a shame to miss the film's best parts, though.

btw: meeting tom was a delightful experience! i echo his idea to meet up with him if you're ever in nyc....where there are always lots of great movies to watch!

and,
really sam?
you're coming out for a visit?

lots of vintage cinema coming to pfa in the next month...and there are some great things coming to the castro...i could keep piling on the temptation, but since i have a penchant for taking things over the top, i'll resist.

Tom wrote: "I'll be heading to MOMA for a daylong screening of SATANTANGO tomorrow, apparently introduced by the director himself. I'll send a report afterwards..."


i hate you


;)

Facets was playing this when I first moved to Chicago in '06...really kicking myself for missing it!

Tom, I'm sooooo jealous :) I watched the film in 3 different sittings but I really think it needs to be experienced in one long viewing. The cinematography is hypnotizing...

This sounds fabulous ... I'm going to to take your recommendation on two fronts Tom - to check out satantango AND to fly out to meet phillip ... maybe I can combine both ... looking forward to hearing about the day long experience

I'll be heading to MOMA for a daylong screening of SATANTANGO tomorrow, apparently introduced by the director himself. I'll send a report afterwards, if I'm not in ICU.

One thing you can say about Bela Tarr's style...he knows when NOT to cut:)

SÁTÁNTANGÓ (Béla Tarr, 1994, Hungary) A ghostly bell tolls away idle lives amid a community isolated in a purgatory of mud and rain; lost lives condemned to dance with their own devils. Irimias seemingly rises from the dead as Lazarus, plodding through collective broken dreams and speaking with a forked tongue, his arrival transcending their Earthly bondage. But this small collection of dreary people must decide if Irimias is their redeemer…or destroyer. Director Béla Tarr’s 7-½ hour Magnum Opus peers patiently into the abyss of human nature, examining in minute detail avarice, gluttony, and selfishness. His use of long static takes bring us into the monotony of these characters as he paints a lonely portrait in black & white, a stark contrast to an interior monologue of hopelessness. His circular narrative structure is like a snake eating its own tail, and we enter this solitary world and live our own brief existence in this Autumnal world of bleak existential suffering. Tarr sees the beauty in filth, in the liter-strewn gutters of the human soul, and seeks the faint spark of life amid the everlasting darkness to come. He often films characters walking, his camera soldiering behind, which brings the viewer closer to the drama while distancing us from empathetic contact. His characters often diminish in the frame, walking into the distance swallowed by the fog, a subliminal metaphorical device that echoes with sadness. The center of the narrative concerns the suicide of a young girl after she tortures her cat: a scene of almost unbearable grief. And here we see the true face of the demon Irimias, using this death to burden the community with guilt, a religious axiom that makes pawns out of people, a damning indictment of free thinking as they give over their money…and themselves. Soon we discover Irimias as a puppet himself, subservient to some higher political power, a tool of flesh and blood that tills the soil of despair. (A)

i'm so pi$$ed i can't find this at the video stores around here.

Yowza. Over 7 hours of Hungarian cinema. I've made it through about 4.5 hours so far, and am liking it a good deal.

Yes, you read that right. 7 hours long. I'm seeing it on DVD, in the unfortunate US Region 1 release by a little company called Facets Video. The DVD isn't pretty: possibly the worst single non-homemade video transfer I've yet seen. The film isn't enhanced for widescreen TVs, which is a real drag and ultimately makes the film even harder to watch. A real shame, as the film features some of the most ravishingly gorgeous black and white cinematography I've ever seen, evident even in this DVD transfer.

Full disclosure: I tried to see this film on one of its infrequent screenings in NYC at the Museum of Modern Art. I fell asleep. It isn't that I wasn't interested, I was just tired. I had a long flight from NYC to San Francisco recently (where I had the pleasure of meeting Phillip by the way, an experience I highly recommend) and decided that I'd take SATANTANGO along to watch on my laptop.

I got about 2.5 hours in on the NY/SF leg of the trip, which is about how long I was able to stay awake on the first MOMA viewing a couple of years ago. This part of the film was probably the most taxing of what I've seen so far. And here's why:

Director Bela Tarr uses lots of long takes. We're not talking just long takes, but very very long takes indeed. And not Orson Wellesian long takes, which are crowded with activity, but long takes showing someone just sitting still, staring into space, or pouring something out of a bottle into a glass and then pouring something else out of another bottle into another glass and then pouring the contents of the two glasses into a third glass and then drinking the contents. It can get rather taxing after a while, expecially during one extended sequence involving a Professor, where Tarr seems to be pushing this kind of filmmaking, and my patience with this kind of thing, to the very very limit. About all that kept me going was the feeling that Tarr knew what he was doing, that there was a point to all this and that it was going to all pay off at some point. There are hints, of course, I wasn't just hoping for hope's sake.

The film, as much as I've seen, seems to be structured in an interesting way. There will be an extended sequence involving some characters, and then another sequence with another character will start, and at some point it will become clear that the actions of the second sequence are taking place at the same time as the first sequence, and the two sequences will suddenly intersect in an interesting and occasionally amusing way. Kind of like those glasses that get mixed together.

The story seems to center on the members of some sort of farming commune, who are expecting a large sum of money which is to be divided amongst them. The film sort of opens with a sort of plot on the part of two members to steal the money, but I don't think I'm giving too much away if I mention that, at least at the 4.5 hour mark, that little plot seems to have evaporated.

I'm glad that I stuck with the film, and watched the second of the three DVDs on the return leg from San Francisco. This part of the film comes to center on the activities of a young girl who seems to be rather mentally and emotionally damaged. This part of the film held me absolutely spellbound, it really is one of the most remarkable things I've ever seen in a film, anytime anywhere. I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but if anyone asks for details I'll share them.

I've got another DVD to go. I'm looking forward to it. I'll keep you posted.