Falling Down, Walking, Destroying, Thinking - A Conversation with Béla Tarr

8/13/2019 Falling Down, Walking, Destroying, Thinking - A Conversation with Bla Tarr

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The following exchange appeared in Cinema Scope no. 8, September 2001. J.R.

In the past, when Ive interviewed filmmakers its been at my own initiative or at least at the initiative of

an editor making an assignment. This time, at the Buenos Aires Festival of Independent Film in April 2001,

where I was serving on the jury and introducing Bla Tarr at some of his screenings, someone handed me a

tape recorder, and Mark Peranson agreed to transcribe the interview afterwards if I would speak to Bla,

whos been a friend ever since Stntang. I hope that the casual grammar on both sides of this conversation

doesnt obscure too much of the meaning. (J.R.)

BELA TARR: [] In Stntang, we had a set. The doctors flat, it was built.

JONATHAN ROSENBAUM: You know, thats my favorite scene in the film.

TARR: Yes, but it was built! It is artificial, but you dont feel it in the movie

ROSENBAUM: Maybe thats why I like it so much, because its in such a small space.

TARR: No, it wasnt small.

ROSENBAUM: But it feels small in the film.

TARR: Yeah, sure.


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ROSENBAUM: Was the actor playing the doctor a professional actor or a nonprofessional?

TARR: Hes a writer named Peter Berling. He wrote a lot of books on the Middle Ages that are on the

bestseller lists in Spain. He played some small characters in a lot of Fassbinder movies and he worked with

Werner Herzog. In Fitzcarraldohe was the director of the opera. But you know the other set we built was the

opening shot of Damnation, because we had a nice landscape, we had the nice cable cars. But we didnt have

the house so we built just a window and two walls and some black carpet.

ROSENBAUM: Its very interesting to learn this. One of the things thats very interesting to me is how much

youre a master illusionist.

TARR: I dont know. Because this is real practical work, and just listening always which is real, and how we

can do it, I never think about

ROSENBAUM: I know, but its still significant to me that many people who see Stntangget very upset

about the cat, because they think this was really done to the cat. And it wasnt. The point is that they are

seduced into the narrative in a way that it feels very real.

TARR: But you know, this is my job. I just do that. 1 just wanted to make some tension. You know, the cat is

still alive.

ROSENBAUM: And its your cat.

TARR: No, its not my cat. But I have a cat at home and I have two dogs, it is impossible for me to kill or

destroy any animal.

ROSENBAUM: I thought you said it was one that actually you adopted after the film

TARR: No, no. It was one cat of a friend of mine. She just slept a little. She just got an injection, and she

slept. There was an animal doctor and it was very safe. When the girl is jumping with the cat, they also just

played. And all of the sound that was used was artificial, it was from the sound archive.

ROSENBAUM: One thing that interested me, when I saw Stntangagain, it seemed to me that the doctor

was the hero, which I hadnt thought of before. And you said that the only other one thats a good character is


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the girl, because shes innocent.

TARR: Yeah, but you know, who is to say about good or bad?

ROSENBAUM: Relative to the other characters, thats what I mean.

TARR: I think they have a different position. The doctor, hes just observing. But you know he isnt the real

hero, because he missed what has happened, he has definitely missed everything. And when he came back,

the whole thing doesnt exist. But he believes. This is also very strange because hes also in the trap.Everybodys in the trap. Thats the problem. Everybody left, and he just started writing again, and he believes

everything is the same, but everything has changed. Thats why I think he is not the real hero.

ROSENBAUM: But he hasnt been fooled in the same way that the other characters have been.

TARR: Yeah, sure, because he has a different cultural background. You know, maybe this is our personal

opinion, maybe this is a kind of mentality how we can live, just to be.

ROSENBAUM: To me whats very interesting is that the two most powerful sequences in the film are the

sequence with the doctor and the sequence with the little girl. And theyre the two sequences that are about

people who are alone. The rest of the film is about people who are together. And it becomes a different

universe in a way, for the people who are all together. The kinds of deceptions are different, and the kinds of

ambition are different. To me the film is a dialectic between those two things. And the spectator spends more

time with the other people overall, so you have to become people who are in a group and people who are

alone in the course of watching the film. And thats what I think is so necessary about the long takes. Because

when you have long takes, you share so much with these people that you have to become morally identified

with them in some way. Its not simply observing them.

TARR: Sure, because I must tell you some practical things. What you mention to me, its the kind of the

tension. You know, you have actors, and I always apply their personalities. if I have a long take, six minutes, I

dont say too much to the actors. I just say what is the situation. And I say, okay, shoot. They just develop

something from their personalities, some deep things, because they have no instructions -they are just in

the situation. You can see in their eyes how they are. And thats the most important thing. You know, because

they are being, they are really reacting, they have no help, they must listen to each other, they must do, they

must react to each other! If they dont do it, I stop the take and go back to one, and we start again.


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ROSENBAUM: Arent they reacting to you too, because youre saying you have to move here and do this?

TARR: Yeah, yeah, sure, but the most important thing is their presence, how they are present in the situation.

Thats the difference. Ive seen how some other filmmakers work, they give a lot of instructions to the actors,

and I never understand why. Because they dont trust them. I trust my people! Because if I choose them, and I

say, Okay, you will be the main character, and then dont say anything, just come and do it. Then

afterwards, you have a special tension, because they must develop something from inside.

ROSENBAUM: I always like to think that you could divide all filmmakers into filmmakers for whom a shotis a declarative sentence, and filmmakers for whom a shot is a question. And in a way what youre saying is

that for you a shot is a question. And what the people do is the answer.

TARR: And they have six minutes. They cannot escape from the situation. You know, several times theyve

finished the scene and I just leave it, I didnt stop the camera, and they are in the situation. And several times,

I just said, okay, the camera is rolling, lets just start again, from the beginning.

ROSENBAUM: Is this the same way you worked on both Stntang and Werckmeister Harmonies?

TARR: It was the same from the first movie. How I work with the actors was similar. In Stntang, we

used only three times a perfect text, including Irimias funeral speech, because it was very well written, and

the second long Irimias speech about eternity. But the other text was very flexible, and I just left it to the

people. Okay, just say what you feel, because its much better than what we can write.

ROSENBAUM: But yet at the same time there are sequences, for example, the sequence with the doctor

sitting at his desk, where you feel that every gesture is part of a composition, you dont feel that its

improvising.

TARR: No, no, no. Because his personality, Peter Berling, you knowwhen we found a good chair for him.

We had five chairs. We just showed every one to him, and I asked him to please sit and try which is best for

him. He said, The third, thats the one I like. I said, Okay, thats really your place. You just sit there. He

couldnt move. It was really difficult for him. You know, his personality, he likes putting everything in order,

because hes German. The whole character was ready when he was sitting in the chair and just watching how

he makes order. I asked him, please arrange everything how you normally write. And afterwards, it was

ready, the whole character and everything, it was ready

ROSENBAUM: So it wasnt just your composition. Its also his


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TARR: Yes, of course, because if he is not comfortable, he cant be. Im not an aggressive director, who is

forcing something, which is not interesting. You cannot force people, under the pressure, in ten minutes

ROSENBAUM: What about the way that you directed the soundtrack? Because whats so important in that

sequence is his breathing. When you did the sound separately, was it his voice or did you use another voice?

TARR: No, it was dubbed. You know its very strange because the guy who dubbed the doctor plays the

circus director in Werckmeister.

ROSENBAUM: To me part of the comedy that I liked so much in the sequence was how so much work was

required just to sit there and get drunk the labor of every movement. And in a way the sound of the

breathing is what articulates that. Like hes climbing a mountain.

TARR: I cant say anything about that, you know, its a very practical thing.

ROSENBAUM: No, I understand.

TARR: Its something, it was very difficult to do, because several times my cameraman didnt want to do

something because he always says its impossible to turn the camera here (gesturing)

ROSENBAUM: When hes writing

TARR: Yes, the camera is here, and hes writing and afterwards it goes there, and hes watching how hes

putting something, and my cameraman says always that its impossible. And I have a very good dolly guy,

and he has a lot of ideas, how we can do what I want. Thats the reason when the cameraman changes, the

dolly guy remains the same!

ROSENBAUM: Was it very hard to do the part of the shot where Berling falls down?

TARR: We shot it only three times, and we used the second one. If you have a good take, afterwards I make

only one more, always, because you are never safe. The lab could make some mistakes.I was very

surprised, because hes 140 kilograms, but when he falls down, Jesus Christ! The first time I just sat behind

the camera and thought, Jesus Christ, hes never going to get up. When hes sitting, hes okay, but when hes

walking hes very fast. I had to force him, dont run, Peter, dont run!


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ROSENBAUM: Its also interesting how much of Stntang and Werckmeister Harmoniesis devoted to

people walking. In a way its meditative, but it also becomes almost like a metaphor for narrative itself

TARR: Dont tell me anything about metaphors!

ROSENBAUM: You hate metaphors, you hate allegories, you hate symbolsBut I think the problem that

people have, more with allegories than the other two, is because its impossible for most people outside of

Eastern Europe to look at anything inside of Eastern Europe and not see allegoriesYou have to understand

that when I say metaphor for narrative, Im not saying this is your idea, Im saying this is my idea. And thereason why, which I think is important, is it becomes the issue again of becoming implicated in what the

characters are doing. In Stntang, when you follow someone walking, its almost like a rest between the

more dramatic things.

TARR: Maybe. Okay, I try and explain it to you. You know, if you are in the Hungarian plain in the early

morning, before the shooting, and you are just sitting there, just watching. And you just watch the

perspective. And you dont know what you see. Is this one endless hopelessness? You really dont know. Is

this eternity or just relativity? That is what I really dont know. When they are walking, you know, I have the

same feeling, always, what is this, is this real distance or we are just? You know, like a treadmill they are

just walking, walking, just endless walking. Do you have perspective, or hope, or just nothing, or always

staying there, in one point? That was the case in Stntang.[In Werckmeister Harmonies], its completely

different.

ROSENBAUM: No it is, I see. But I think the only way for me that its similar, which is important, is that I

experience it in some way in musical terms. In Stntang do you know the term pedal point? Its when

you hold a chord for a very long time. And when you hold a chord for a long time it becomes meditative,

because it gives you time to think, and almost makes a demand on your imagination. And thats really

interesting, because it comes at certain points in the narrative in Stntang when its very important to have

time to think. To me, thats whats so beautiful about the portions from the novel read offscreen that come at

the very end of the sequences. And I think that is involved also with a kind of identification that may not even

be conscious, but still plays a part into how one gets involved with these people.

TARR: I understand. When we started to think about Stntang, in the beginning, we wrote a script for the

producers and the money, and it was very linear. Without chapters, it was just a story. It looks like a movie

story. It took nine years to get the money. When we started to think about it, I sat together with Agnes

[Hranitzky, Tarrs editor and partner] and Lszl [Krasznahorkai], and we thought, now, okay, we forget the

script, and went back to the original structure. Because it was a minimum six hour long movie, that was sure

at the beginning. And we thought we couldnt make a linear, six hour-long story without any break, and we

decided immediately, lets go back to this chapter structure. And we also thought, what if nobody wanted to

distribute it then we would have 12 short movies. Twelve chapters, this is very simple, and at the end of

every chapter, we will use some sentence from the novel.


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ROSENBAUM: What I find very beautiful about it is it kind of extends the story in another direction, in the

imagination. To me, one of my favorites is the one with the people in the office, when you hear what happens

when they go home at night. It makes the relation between cinema and literature so close, when theyreusually at opposite ends. You somehow bring them together.

TARR: Yeah, sure, because Krasznahorkais language is absolutely impossible to adapt for the movie

ROSENBAUM: Because its stream of consciousness, partly

TARR: Yes, but our point of view is similar, how he watches the world and how I watch the world. Thats the

reason why we are sitting together, we can talk about life. When we are writing the script, we are talking

about concrete things

ROSENBAUM: Is he around during the shooting at all?

TARR: No, no. He is a typical writer from the 19th century. He was on the set two or three times in the

shooting, and nobody listens to the writer, everyone has practical work. He just wanted to sit and say this is a

very primitive job, a shit job, because you never talk about the art, you never say nothing to the actors, you

never say any intelligent things, only practical things. And he always escaped from the shooting.

ROSENBAUM: By the way, apart from The Melancholy of Resistance[the novel Werckmesiter

Harmonies is based on] in English, have there been other translations, and in what languages?

TARR: Stntang was translated into German and French, published by Gallimard. And I hope that there

will be a translation in English finally.

ROSENBAUM: You know that theres part of one chapter in English, thats all.

TARR: Yes, but someone told me its a shit translation. But hes a really good writer, and I hope somebody

will translate itHis style is really middle European. It looks like Thomas Bernhard, Kafka and the others

ROSENBAUM: I believe you, but I cant still see [Stntang] without thinking of Faulkner. Theyre

cultural equivalents in a strange sort of way. Because Faulkner is rural, stream of consciousness, the same day

from different points of view more than one writer does these things.

TARR: You dont understand how shit the translations of Faulkner are in Hungarian. Thats always the


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problem- Im really, really sad that I cant read them

ROSENBAUM: I cant read Kafka properly, either

TARR: Or like Joyce, Finnegans Wake, what can you do with it in another language? You cant do nothing!

You cant understand. Thats the reason why I think that literature is always limited. If somebody lucky is

writing in English, theres a bigger audience. But you know a Hungarian writer, theres only 10 million or 15

million people reading it. [Cue to end]I really enjoyed this, Im lucky, you were an excellent interviewer.

ROSENBAUM: This is very interesting, I learned a lot.

TARR: We were just talking.

Cinema Scope no. 8, September 2001.

Published on 02 Sep 2001 in Featured Texts, by jrosenbaum

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Falling Down, Walking, Destroying, Thinking - A Conversation with Béla Tarr