FACETS CINÉMATHÈQUE

Sept 2007

The Facets Cinémathèque is located at 1517 W. Fullerton Ave. in Chicago. For more information on films playing in the Cinémathèque, please call 773-281-4114. To order advance tickets online, visit the TicketWeb website by clicking here.

A Facets
with a Master of Cinema

Béla Tarr

Béla Tarr is one of the world's great visionary filmmakers -- the director of Damnation, Werckmeister Harmonies and the legendary epic Sátántangó. Much honored at film festivals across the world, recipient of numerous awards, named "European Director of the Year," he is an innovator of film language and called "one of the most celebrated auteurs in world cinema." In a now-famous quote, the late Susan Sontag said Tarr's Sátántangó is "Devastating, enthralling for every minute of its seven hours. I'd be glad to see it every year for the rest of my life."

WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES

Sunday, Sept. 16 at 12 pm

WINNER
CFCA Award
Best Foreign Language Film
Chicago Film Critics
Association Awards

WINNER
Film Critics Award &
László B. Nagy Award
Hungarian Film
Critics Awards

"Tarr's true achievement is to attain the condition of silence, and of bottomless, awesomely inscrutable nightmare."
-BFI/Sight and Sound

"This is as challenging as movies come, alluding to everything from philosopher Thomas Hobbes to the history of Western music."
-Christian Science Monitor

"A stunning feature"
-Variety

"A work of bravura filmmaking"
-Village Voice

"If genius is close to madness, then Tarr's genius - because genius has to be what it is - is closer to autism, a kind of untrained savant touch for compelling imagery."
-Guardian Unlimited

"If you have not walked out after 20 or 30 minutes, you will thereafter not be able to move from your seat."
-Roger Ebert

"A melancholy meditation on social disorder and senseless violence...Tarr creates a powerful tension between the camera's quest for unity and scenes of disorder, the camera seeking balance where there is none."
-Chicago Reader

"Tarr belongs to the cinematic tradition of Luis Buñuel and Werner Herzog, in that he twists reality into impressionism...Werckmeister's standout moments are searing like few others in film history."
-The Onion

In a remote Hungarian town all order, meaning and reason are about to break down; for reasons left unexplained, people no longer ask why, or where, but merely wonder when. At the village center a mob has gathered, awaiting the appearance of a rabble-rouser called "the Prince". Tarr's camera (with minutely observed detail) presents a society poised between civility and barbarism, only steps away from either inertia or apocalypse, in a film that only has 39 shots.

Directed by Béla Tarr, 2001, 35mm, 145 min. In Hungarian and German with English subtitles.

Director interview Senses of Cinema Senses of Cinema (2) BFI/Sight and Sound

Variety Village Voice Guardian Unlimited Roger Ebert Chicago Reader

The Onion

Admission:
Non-members $9
Members $5
Patron Circle Members FREE

SYMPOSIUM: BÉLA TARR

Béla Tarr in person!

Sunday, Sept. 16 at 3 pm

"Conceivably the most important Eastern European filmmaker currently at work"
-Chicago Reader

Three of cinema's sharpest minds come together for an exclusive encounter with one of the world's greatest visionary filmmakers, Béla Tarr. Participating in the symposium are: David Bordwell, film theorist, historian professor and author of Ozu, Poetics of Cinema and The Way Hollywood Tells It; Scott Foundas, film editor of L.A. Weekly, contributor for Variety and member of the selection committee of the New York Film Festival; and Chicago Reader film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, who authored Essential Cinema, Placing Movies and Discovering Orson Wells. Moderated by Susan Doll, Ph.D., the discussion will cover the central themes and concerns of Béla Tarr's unique body of work from such films as Family Nest, the epic Sátántangó and his most recent work The Man From London.

Kinoeye Jonathan Rosenbaum on Tarr

Admission:
Non-members $15
Members and Patron Circle Members $10

For all Cinémathèque inquiries, contact Charles Coleman at 773.281.9075 or charles@facets.org

Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences