Béla Tarr

Béla Tarr is a world-renowned filmmaker from Hungary.  While Tarr has been influenced by Miklós Jancsó in terms of cinematic style, Jancsó's films were more human-centered than Tarr's. In fact, many of Tarr's films can serve as examples in the field of 'Transcendental Cinema', and he has also been a key director in the area of 'Slow Cinema', where cinematic time has become a character in the de-dramatized narratives for these films.

Tarr started his filmmaking career with a strong commitment to realism. In order to achieve this, he favored the use of the non-professional actors (much like Italian Neo-realism and the French New Wave), long takes and the use of cinéma vérité techniques. The Outsider (1981), one of his earlier works, in here Tarr has expressed an ‘anti-cinematic’ approach, as he felt the mainstream cinema was telling the truth in terms of the portrayal of characters. In the film, the protagonist, who composed music and yet was anti-social, felt like a very realistic character.

Since the mid-1980s, Tarr’s style has not only become more stylized, and far more philosophical. In terms of techniques, his long takes become far more elaborated and lengthy, and mobile camera movement became a motif in many of his later films. Certain motifs became components of his signature style: from the frequent images of bodies obstructing the view, to the prevalence of walking scenes, which were similar to Tarkovsky's films, the personal cinema of Bela Tarr emerged.

Tarr’s later films touched a lot on the topic of existentialism. He is like a cinematic Schopenhauer – focusing a bleak depiction of reality, and engaging the cinephiles to the pessimistic side of human existence and to contemplate on topics such as nihilism, alienation, indifference, facticity and social order.  Tarr’s crowning achievement was likely to be ‘Sátántangó’ (1994), translated as ‘Satan’s Tango’. The film consisted of an unconventional structure, broken in 12 parts, and not necessarily chronologically arranged. What was more wonderful was the film run well over 7 hours, with only about 150 shots, meaning that each shot was about 10 minutes, before a cut took place. While Sátántangó had many occasions for the viewers to contemplate on existential issues, one particular interesting theme was the question of deity by Tarr. One of the key characters have a god-like presence to the other characters in the story, which, at the story unfolded, he was more of a swindler than some sort of visionary. The False Prophet theme seemed to appear a lot in films, that reminded me of Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘There Will Be Blood’, and some of Luis Bunuel’s films, too. Often, this reflected the atheistic views by the filmmaker or the challenges to organized religion or even authority, in which these Nietzschean themes seemed to fit nicely to a film about existentialism. Nietzschean ideas are also featured in another of his film, ‘The Turin Horse’ (2011).

Another Tarr film worth pursuing is ‘Werckmeister Harmonies’ (2000). It is a film of desolation, brutality and the unethical actions made possible by humanity. Shot in 39 long takes, and presented in an episodic and poetic structure, the story of a composer and the other hopeless residents in a town in the post-WWII era was intertwined with the arrival of a circus and a decaying circus whale. The political stalemate was complemented with the darker territories of the human psyche, and only the innocent ones, including the poor old whale, suffered as a result. Tarr seemed to be posing the question – even if a newer system appeared to save the day, will it change if the nature of humanity has not?

At 2011, after finishing ‘The Turin Horse’, Tarr announced that he would not make any more films, and concentrated on film education to the young ones. Though it is a shame that we will not have any more films from such an original master of modern art cinema, it is nice to see that he is still contributing to film art. All these films are art house films, yet they are worth it if you have the patience to appreciate and contemplate them.

by Ed Law

Film Analysis

Miklós Jancsó

Miklós Jancsó was one of the most famous and acclaimed filmmaker in the cinema of Hungary, and his films have been recognized by many film festival in Europe. Films like 'The Round Up' and 'Red Psalm' are great arthouse films and they are noted for a balance in both technical and

thematic aspects.

For Jancsó, a major theme of his work is power – especially that of political power – and its potential abuse at the cost of the others. Before the end of the 1960s, his work was more committed to a social realism, and the topics in his work, which was often based on historical events, contained many political allegories and provided critique on political issues. His work has often been the favorite contenders at the Cannes Film Festival, where he was nominated for the Best Director award for a number of occasions.

At the start of 1970s, Jancsó’s films became more stylized. He used more abstractions and symbolism (such as the circular shape), and carefully choreographed the elaborate scenes, and employed far more long takes. Especially worth mentioning is ‘Red Psalm’ (1972), often cited Jancsó’s masterpiece. The film, which was about a small peasants’ revolt at the late 19th century, consisted of numerous long takes (ASL ca. 3 minutes), and each lengthy shot was accompanied by music often performed by the characters, rendering the film a fluid and musical feel. His later films, while varying in themes and focus, were more or less adopting a similar style.

by Ed Law

Film Analysis

Dr. Strangelove, Part 2

If there is one element that has made ‘Dr. Strangelove’ so memorable, that’s it – character. The real fun behind ‘Dr. Strangelove’ was the repertoire of memorable characters, the funny way they behaved, and the tongue-in-cheek quotes they have delivered. It was all these funny antics that have led to a lasting impression on the audience. Of course, this also serves as a testament to Kubrick’s dark sense of humor, and the wonderful performance from the cast.

What is in a name?

Well, a lot, especially when you want to be funny about that. All the characters in the film not only has got funny names, these names indeed reflect very much what sort of personalities these people are. To start with, the stunning Peter Sellers have starred in 3 roles in the film, all with very different personalities, thus testifying his ability to portray diverse characters. The fact that he has improvised most of his quotes only added on to his brilliant performance.

Sellers’ 3 roles are Mandrake, General Jack Ripper’s executive officer; US President Muffley; and Dr. Strangelove, a German scientific consultant to the Pentagon. To me, ‘Mandrake’ suggests a matter-of-fact sort of person; Muffley suggests muffling speeches, and Strangelove is likely a surname modified from a very non-English one. What do these names suggest to you?

Sterling Hayden, who has already appeared in ‘The Killing’, is General Jack D. Ripper. It obviously suggests the serial killer ‘Jack the Ripper’, and indeed General Ripper was just as maniacal and mentally disturbed as the serial killer. A nice ‘Kubrickian’ shot of General Ripper was the low angle shot, when he was philosophizing the potential conspiracy of water poisoning from the Russians. This low-angle motif would appear again in many of  Kubrick’s later maniac characters, from Alex De Large in ‘A Clockwork Orange’ to Jack Torrance in ‘The Shining’.

George C. Scott starred as General Buck Turgidson, a general more serious on love affairs than the military ones. Certainly, the word ‘turgid’ does not require further explanations, right?

Slim Pickens played the role of Major T. J. King Kong. If you know his ultimate demise, you can’t stop feeling sorry about this cowboy-type character – he was just as tragic as the giant ape, in some way.

These were all tongue-in-cheek names, and Kubrick did not stop here. What he has done was to instill very funny aspects to all these characters, and when we laugh at what these characters have done, we cannot stop feeling disturbed by the fact that Kubrick’s film is satirizing the real world. 

Pokerface or Joker-face?

Kubrick, like many of the wise men throughout the centuries, was deeply skeptical of all political activities. In ‘Dr. Strangelove’, he has shown us the true faces of all these big brasses who are supposed, at least in their wording, to serve us; yet in the real sense, to rule us. Kubrick has shown us that, even for these powerful men who are supposed to embrace big ideas and lead the world to a better end, their behaviors are just as childish and farcical as some unruly blokes on the street. These characters seem to be more concerned with their power, and, in the case of Turgidson, his women, than anything else. Thus, the audience should be highly skeptical whether these men can contribute in some way to end the disaster and lead the world to a brighter future. And, should it be surprising that the big brasses being portrayed in ‘Dr. Strangelove’ have bore rather uncanny resemblances to the top political figures in the real world? It should not be too surprising because this is the ingenuity of Kubrick, after all.

Dr. Strangelove, most evidently, is about the Cold War paranoia. This is best illustrated by Jack D. Ripper, who has developed an unjustified paranoid delusion about the conspiracy theory of water poisoning from USSR. Standing from a distant era, if you want to have a taste about the Cold War paranoia, an easily accessible pick will be Steven Spielberg’s ‘Bridges of Spies’. The underlying reason why such a paranoia would become commonplace is due to (in some way, a deliberate) lack of communication around the world. The communication motif is also a Kubrickian motif, when I will elaborate more in later passages. Yet, another contributing factor to the towering paranoia is that of propaganda. It was well-established, and indeed critiqued in many 1950s films, that the 1950s / early 1960s was an age of conformity. The common people were encouraged not to ask or challenge too much about policies, and to conform to what they have received from the government. In a sense, the government ‘painted’ the impression of what they wanted to show to the common people about the ‘Red’, and with the combined action of the witch hunt-like accusations from various self-proclaimed patriotic sectors, the paranoia about the Red, and worse still, about each other grew throughout the decade.

Another paranoia, for which Kubrick has nicely illustrated in a darkly comedic way, is the possibility of an all-out nuclear war.  A theory related to this issue is known as the ‘mutual assured destruction’ (MAD). I am not a military expert or a game theorist, therefore I feel that I am not in the position to analyze this theory in detail. Yet, I can provide some observations.

The idea of MAD is that when 2 opposing sides are having a stand-off, both sides are deterred from the nuclear war because no matter who will win out at the end of the day, the nuclear disaster that results will kill off both side. However, if one side has already drawn the first blood, the other side can retaliate – and that will lead to the even more disturbing situation of the ‘Doomsday Machine’. The activation of the Doomsday Machine is equated with the end of world, which will surely wipe out all lives on Earth.

What has disturbed Kubrick even more was how the powerful politicians were going to approach these military strategies. First, there is the case of pressing the wrong button at the wrong time, as the situation of Jack D. Ripper has already shown. Furthermore, it is the often cold and rationalistic views of the politicians that make them unsettling. In ‘Dr. Strangelove’, the various characters in the War Room have accepted the fact of MAD and Doomsday activation, and they seemed to be more than willing to sacrifice a number – talking about millions – of people to rebuild the common people’s life in the mineshaft. Rather than minimizing the destruction and casualties which were caused by their sloppy attitudes, they have decided to accept that there would be body counts and instead shifted their focuses to the underground reconstructions that they felt were ‘constructive’. Certainly, these political figures were more concerned with how they would be portrayed in future history books, as ‘patriotic hero’ and ‘Nuclear machismo’ rather than ‘pacifying coward’. This issue has also been addressed in a previous Kubrick film, ‘Paths of Glory’, and to a lesser extent, in Kubrick’s ‘Barry Lyndon’ and ‘Full Metal Jacket’.

A sense of fatalism is also apparent in ‘Dr. Strangelove’. Though all the men in the film were trying hard to set things right – or at least pretending to, as in the case of Turgidson – most things were beyond their control. President Muffley, for example, was an underdog who did not have enough charisma to lead his men to solve the problem. Major Kong, who has tried really hard to complete the mission, accidently fell off with the missile and led to the activation of the Doomsday Machine.

Speaking of the most Kubrickian character, it must the title character Dr. Strangelove. What is more ironic is that this peculiar character is not even in the novel the film is based on. Dr. Strangelove certainly could not control himself – because in medical terms – he was likely to be suffering from agonistic apraxia, and he could not co-ordinate the two hemispheres of his brains. As a result, he could not control his limbs properly and has to be retired to a wheelchair. However, he was seen as a cold and calculating scientist, and he proposed, in an unsentimental way, the plans to rebuild humanity from a nuclear holocaust. To me, his uncontrollable behaviors represent a conflict in ideology. He was literally torn apart by the various contradicting political forces he was involved in. Though he was working in USA, there was still a bit of Nazism in his psyche. Should that be surprising to us? There are often contradictory characteristics in our minds, and too often we simply cannot reconcile it. It depends really on which layer of our characters we want to show, after all...

One further motif in the film is the lack, or failure, of communication. In the film, the messages could not be passed effectively, or at the appropriate time. Some people, like Ripper, deliberately shut out the dialogues to prevent others from interfering. President Muffley, while on the phone with the Russian prime minister, did not have the gumption to pass the request out right. The Russian ambassador announced about the Doomsday Machine, and explained why he didn’t tell the US earlier - because the Russian Prime Minister loved surprises. Mandrake was on the verge of not getting the phone call to the President, and he had to break a vending machine to have coins for the payphone. Major Kong lost contact with the US government, and in a sense led to his demise and the Doomsday because of that. People failed to connect with each other, or they did not want to connect – the spirit of the Cold War – and the effects would harm just everyone. The failure of communication is also a theme prevalent in Kubrick’s late film, ‘The Shining’. After all, humanity is all about communication.

Meeting at the World's End

The ending was disturbing, yet Kubrick has been able to illustrate it in a darkly comedic way. The end of world was coming, and it was the time when the wheelchair-bound Dr. Strangelove miraculously stood up and proclaimed his respect for the Führer. With the footage of numerous nuclear bomb tests, the misanthropic images were accompanied by the light-hearted song ‘We’ll meet again’. This contrasting feel of music and image will find its presence again in films like ‘A Clockwork Orange’, ‘Barry Lyndon’ and ‘Full Metal Jacket’.

By transforming a supposedly thrilling and disturbing war film into a satirical one, Kubrick’s cautionary tale about power and excess is the one that will imprint in the audience’s mind. And of course, if the end of world is not coming soon, I am sure we’ll meet again!

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by Ed Law

9/7/2016

Film Analysis - 67

Dr. Strangelove, Part 1

Peter Sellers as Dr. Strangelove.

After ‘The Killing’ (1956), Stanley Kubrick went on to do a number of films, which were supported by large movie studios. While ‘Paths of Glory’, ‘Spartacus’, and ‘Lolita’ have also attracted critical appreciation throughout the years, these films represented works that Kubrick has not yet been able to exert maximum artistic control on his projects – in particular, ‘Spartacus’. It was only in 1964, when ‘Dr. Strangelove’ was released, it marked the first film with a Kubrickian style we can now easily identify. Dr. Strangelove, one of the most wonderful black comedies in the history of cinema, is the focus of this article.

‘Dr. Strangelove’ was loosely based on the novel ‘Red Alert’. Originally, Kubrick aimed to make a thriller about the paranoia of a nuclear war during the Cold War period. On further development, the tone of the script has significantly changed and the feel of the film became a satirical dark comedy. It was not bad news at all – as it is ripen for Kubrick to show us his unique brand of dark humor, which would appear again in his later work. Working with actors from his previous work, such as Peter Sellers (who started as 3 roles in the film) and Sterling Hayden, with other actors such as George C. Scott and Slim Pickens, Dr. Strangelove was noted for a number of memorable characters, and the wonderful ensemble performance of this group of great actors contributed significantly to the monumental fun you can give from a film with an apparently serious theme. Dr. Strangelove marked the first time Kubrick was recognized by the Oscar, where he got nominations as producer, director and writer of the film.

Two fun facts before we get serious. First, ‘Dr. Strangelove’ was one of the most significant films to show Kubrick’s obsession with the number ‘114’. This Kubrickian number has since been appeared in many of his later work.

The second fun fact is related to the use – or misuse – of a payphone. In ‘Dr. Strangelove’, it showed us what we should do if we do not have changes for a payphone – blast the hell out of the nearby vending machine! This ‘no pain, no gain’ approach has also been varied and repeated in some later films, too.

Turgidson (Geoege C. Scott) and President Muffley (also Peter Sellers).

Are you on-line?

The story was a satire on the possible fear of a nuclear war between USA and USSR during the Cold War Period. The saga was initiated by a General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden in a memorable performance), which has developed an intense paranoia about the ‘red’ political power. Believing a conspiracy of the USSR to pollute USA people’s ‘precious bodily fluids’ (the way he put it), Ripper decided to take action – without the consent of the President, of course. First, Ripper ordered his executive officer, Mandrake (Peter Sellers), to put the Air Force Base on alert. When Mandrake insisted that no order from the Pentagon has requested such an action, Ripper locked them both in the office. Ripper further ordered an all-round attack on Russia through the air force. In order to keep it secret, communication could only be possible though a CRM 114 discriminator, and the code was only known by Ripper himself.

On the other hand at the ‘War Room’ in the Pentagon, President Muffley (also by Peter Sellers) was angered to know that an attack has been initiated even without his authorization. General Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott’s smashing performance) tried to reassure him that things would be okay, and his deputies were literally trying every single possible 3-letter combination to crack the code. That made totally logically sense – except, this epic commitment would take 2 days and now they had only 2 hours. The president decided to order the army to arrest the maniac Ripper.

At the same time, President Muffley also called the Soviet Premier on the hot line, and after much muffled exchanges, the Russian ambassador on the spot announced that, fearing a potential first strike from the USA, the Russians have created a ‘doomsday device’, and if any nuclear attack is initiated towards USSR, this device would be immediately activated, and after numerous intense explosions, a radioactive material would persist on Earth for a minimum of 2 months, and that would literally wipe out all lives on the Earth and our planet would not be habitable for the next century! Worse still, there was not an ‘off’ switch for this stunning last resort. Panicked, Muffley asked for the opinion of Dr. Strangelove (yet another Peter Sellers)...

Now, the army troops have stormed Ripper’s hideout and overtaken the base, forcing him to commit suicide. Mandrake seemed to figure out the 3-letter code and relayed it to the Pentagon after destroying a vending machine. So we will have a happy ending, right? Not so fast – how about Major T. J. Kong (Slim Pickens)’s aircraft, for which the communication device has been damaged and was still en route to Russia? Could they stop the doomsday machine?

Lost in translation?

‘Dr. Strangelove’ could be considered as the first film that Kubrick demonstrated his technical mastery at cinema. His previous work were either small-budget pictures or, in the case of ‘Spartacus’, a big budget studio picture intended at the scale of an epic. When Kubrick had complete artistic control on his project, he started to put his original vision on cinematic technology.

The special effects in ‘Dr. Strangelove’ were stunning and absolutely awe-inspiring. Kubrick and his team had no access to any of the aircrafts or bases eventually depicted in the film, as the US government has refused them for obvious reasons. Thus, the set designers had to re-construct the interior cockpit of the B-52 fighter, through the photograph they have been able to obtain. With a total commitment to realism, Kubrick’s team has been able to portray an extremely realistic look of the fighter jet, and even military personalities were impressed with such an unprecedentedly accurate portrayal of warfare (and have led to conspiracy by others, too).

The roundtable meeting in the War Room. This is a legendary and cool set design concept.

The sequence that has risen to almost legendary status is the battle scene at the air force base, before General Ripper killed himself. This sequence demonstrated Kubrick’s craftsmanship as it was almost filmed by Kubrick himself. With the use of a hand-held camera, Kubrick has been able to film the combat scene with a sort of ‘at the spot’ feel The chaotic nature of the shootout can be promptly experienced by the audience alike, while the motto ‘Peace Is Our Profession’ was also ironically displayed at the place of the melee. The approach to this scene can be compared to the ‘cinéma vérité’ technique, which was highly popular in the 1960s and early 1970s. The impact of this sequence can still be noted nowadays – as Steven Spielberg has mentioned this sequence’s influence on ‘Saving Private Ryan’, and the sequence may also have influenced the rhythmic and dynamic aspects of many of Christopher Nolan’s films.

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by Ed Law

2/7/2016

Film Analysis - 67