Slow Places in Béla Tarr's Films: The Intersection of Geography, Ecology and Slow Cinema

223 Pages·2021·20.426 MB·English

by  Clara Orban

Slow Places in Béla
Tarr’s Films

Slow Places in Béla
Tarr’s Films
The Intersection of Geography,
Ecology, and Slow Cinema
Clara Orban
LEXINGTON BOOKS
Lanham • Boulder • New York • London
Published by Lexington Books
An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
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6 Tinworth Street, London SE11 5AL, United Kingdom
Copyright © 2021 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems,
without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote
passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Orban, Clara Elizabeth, 1960– author.
Title: Slow places in Béla Tarr’s films : the intersection of geography, ecology and slow
cinema / Clara Orban.
Description: Lanham : Lexington Books, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and
index. | Summary: “This book explores Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr’s approach to
creating geographies of indifference through slow cinema techniques. Author Clara
Orban utilizes close readings of the films, relevant poems, a thorough filmography,
and an interview with Tarr in her analysis”—Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021022455 (print) | LCCN 2021022456 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781793645647 (cloth) | ISBN 9781793645654 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Tarr, Béla, 1955—Criticism and interpretation. | Tarr, Béla,
1955—Interviews. | Motion picture producers and Directors—Hungary.
Classification: LCC PN1998.3.T363 O73 2021 (print) | LCC PN1998.3.T363 (ebook)
| DDC 791.43023/3092—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn .loc .gov /2021022455
LC ebook record available at https://lccn .loc .gov /2021022456
∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Acknowledgments ix
1 Introduction: Tarr in the Anthropocene 1
2 Slow Cinema, Tarr’s Places, and Hungarian Cinema 15
3 The Claustrophobic Indoors 41
4 The Empty Outdoors 81
5 Animals 107
6 Short Films and Segments: Further Experimentation 125
7 Conclusion: Visions of Loneliness 145
Appendix A: Petőfi Poems 151
Appendix B: Transcript of Interview with Béla Tarr 171
Filmography 179
Bibliography 193
Index 201
About the Author 209
v

List of Illustrations
Figure 1.1 Maloin with the Signal Box in the Background 10
Figure 2.1 Claudia and Sandro with Etna in the Background 22
Figure 2.2 A Crosswalk That Becomes an Abstract Figure 24
Figure 3.1 The Television in Family Nest 49
Figure 3.2 The Cluttered Apartment in the Background 51
Figure 3.3 The Pullout Couch, Tennis Racket, and Objects 52
Figure 3.4 The Washing Machine Ride 54
Figure 3.5 The Stone Walls behind the Unhappy Couple 56
Figure 3.6 Objects in the Bourgeois Apartment 57
Figure 3.7 Washing in the Hut 64
Figure 3.8 Eclipse in the Kocsma 70
Figure 3.9 The Asylum 74
Figure 4.1 An Elegant Square and a Whale Trailer 89
Figure 4.2 Irimiás and Petrina in the Forest 96
Figure 4.3 Coal Buckets Out the Window 98
Figure 4.4 Wind and a Well 101
Figure 5.1 The Coal Pit Pack 111
Figure 5.2 Cows 115
Figure 5.3 Chickens in Budapest 120
Figure 5.4 A Birdcage by a Window 123
Figure 6.1 Tension in the Hotel 127
Figure 6.2 The Open Road 130
Figure 6.3 A Ruined Church and Field 130
Figure 6.4 Waiting for a Handout 141
vii

Acknowledgments
This project comes from a very personal space: my love of the arts and litera-
ture, my love of cinema, and my Hungarian roots. As a professor of Italian
and French, I began working on cinema as part of my scholarly interest. I was
able to teach courses on Italian films at DePaul University, which led me to
delve more deeply into Michelangelo Antonioni’s works, among others. My
Italian heritage has always been entwined with my professional aspirations
and thanks to my mother’s enthusiasm and passion for the arts it became a
calling for me. My Hungarian roots were less prominently influential in my
professional life, given the simple fact that Italian was the language we spoke
at home, while my contact with Hungarian was limited to moments when
my father talked to his siblings, or when we attended events in the Chicago
Hungarian community. My interest in Hungarian started there, but it was not
until adulthood that I accelerated my Hungarian exploration.
I was first introduced to Béla Tarr’s films at Facet Multimedia in Chicago,
one of the premiere art house theaters that showed Werckmeister Harmonies
when it first came out. This film was a revelation. Already interested in
Antonioni’s cinema, I realized an affinity between the two directors. It was
not until later, upon reading the increasing materials about slow cinema, that
I made the connection. I loved both these filmmakers because they made films
that were like books. While Hollywood exploited film’s potential for move-
ment and fast pacing to the extreme, these filmmakers and others like them
demanded that we take our time to really see what was in front of us. They
brought pacing back to a level where contemplation can replace adrenaline
rush in helping the mind synthesize images. I continue to discover new films,
new filmmakers, and new approaches that are witness to this tradition of
emphasizing the “art” in art house cinema.
ix