> I honestly say the films from Tarr are arguably the best book-to-film adaptations ever, especially Sátántangó, he is the master of literary filmmaking where the spirit of text comes across the screen perfectly.
I know the films, I've watched them all, but doing e.g. Satantango in book form sounds not so enticing?
I could watch this scene from Werckmeister Harmonies every day for the rest of my life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d5X2t_s9g8
And The Turin Horse as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wPCkjN3n6s
Think of some magical Tarr adaptation of Seiobo There Below...
When Turin Horse came out I saw it at the NYFF (with an hour long talk in a small room with the director) and then another 3 times in theaters afterward. I've been lucky to catch Satantango and Werckmeister on film.
Tarr also mentored a young Chinese director, Hu Bo. His two works are very good: An Elephant Sitting Still and Man in the Well. Tarr came out to TIFF to introduce and eulogize the latter with an impassioned speech.
edit: Forgot that Criterion finally released a new edition of Werckmeister recently.
They're intricate, reference-heavy, postmodern novels with a lot of the emotional intensity purposely occulted behind the prose style. If you like Gass or Sebald you'll have fun.
You can also appreciate him through his screenplay work on Bela Tarr's movies.
In 1974, The Swedish Academy was heavily criticized for awarding the Nobel Prize in Literature to two of its own members. One laureate, Harry Martinson, was so shaken by the backlash he committed suicide 4 years later.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Martinson#Later_life_and...
But what's the point, he was gone .-.
"All of my remaining realisable assets are to be disbursed as follows: the capital, converted to safe securities by my executors, is to constitute a fund, the interest on which is to be distributed annually as prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind … one part to the person who, in the field of literature, produced the most outstanding work in an ideal direction;"
Has anyone any insight on this?
https://www.nobelprize.org/alfred-nobel/full-text-of-alfred-...
I think that's fine. Often it's not really possible to assess the impact of a contribution until long after, it takes a lot of context to be able to do that.
When Napoleon seized power in 1799, he crafted a French constitution that he wanted to be “short and obscure”, the better to enable his authoritarian power. The United States has ended in the same place.
What is “obscure” in the US constitution?
The first amendment is the one thing that makes it impossible for authoritarian US to be reality.
2025 - László Krasznahorkai - Literature - for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.
2023 - Katalin Karikó - Physiology or Medicine - for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19.
2023 - Ferenc Krausz - Physics - for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter.
To be fair, there are only 2 others since 2000.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Hungarian_Nobel_laurea...
https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/26/the-atomic-bomb-consid...
I am glad that these people could achive so much coming from a place like Hungary, that is providing inadequate possibilities for these kinds of achivements so they reach it in other countries too many times. Or sometimes even put obstacles in their ways - which is actually good/ok in the end as they seek out the places allowing their success.
But I am glad for any Nobel price winners, regardless of their origins. They give us so much.
Katalin Karikó went to the same University as my sister (Szeged).
But yes, we have to leave the country if we want good opportunities.. unless we go into politics! Fidesz is easily the most successful startup in Hungary after 1989, possibly in Europe; Fidesz' CEO is one of the richest men in Europe.. unfortunately at our expense.
I recommend not only his early works like Satantango but also his recent ones like Seiobo There Below (lucky to have a signed copy of this one).
Every time I read a translation of highly regarded literature I can't help but wonder if I'm getting some inadequate rendition that is missing something critical to why the originals are so highly regarded. This isn't meant to be a criticism of translators, just that I think their job is very difficult.
Of course, I still happily read and enjoy translations; there's just this shadow cast for me all the time by the originals.
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