SILENCE AND CRY

IN MEMORIAM MIKLÓS JANCSÓ
There is much that one might write about the importance of Miklós Jancsó for Hungarian cinema and for international filmmaking altogether. About the breathtaking beauty of his films in which human beings, animals and their natural environment are elaborately choreographed in long crowd scenes captured by highly agile camerawork. About the sensual quality of his films and the musicality of the rhythm imposed upon them. About the vast Hungarian plains on which he presented the grand drama of history. About, not least, his wise reflections on the ebb and flow of ruling orders as well as the experience of power being abused, of violence, oppression and resistance. Words can go some way towards describing the above, but true account is delivered on the cinema screen alone. Miklós Jancsó was the subject of last year’s goEast Homage. In 2014 we mourn the filmmaker’s death at the age of 92. In an eulogy composed for Jancsó on the occasion of his 90th birthday, his fellow-director Béla Tarr wrote that the “true trial by fire for a film is whether it can be shown after an interval of several decades”. CSEND ÉS KIÁLTÁS / SILENCE AND CRY dates from 1968. It shows the great Miklós Jancsó at the very height of his powers.