Wanted to let you all know that the screening of THE ROUND-UP at the Curzon Mayfair will be from a 35mm print and not the DVD.
Just the same as we had done when screening Marketa Lazarova there.
29 The Round-Up
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MichaelB
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That is fabulous news - and thanks for the advance tip-off! I missed Marketa because I was convinced that it would be a DVD projection, and God knows when/if I'll get a chance to see that one on the big screen again.Bikey wrote:Wanted to let you all know that the screening of THE ROUND-UP at the Curzon Mayfair will be from a 35mm print and not the DVD.
Just the same as we had done when screening Marketa Lazarova there.
In all seriousness, anyone who's anywhere near London on Friday shouldn't miss this - I haven't been to the Curzon Mayfair since it became a twin-screener, but it certainly used to be one of the best venues in London, and the chance to see this film in 35mm in Curzon conditions comes along once in a blue moon. And when it comes to films which need the biggest and widest screen imaginable, The Round-Up makes Sergio Leone look like Ken Loach.
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foliagecop
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foliagecop
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Zazou dans le Metro
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thirtyframesasecond
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foliagecop
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MichaelB
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My review of the DVD, slightly edited from earlier to remove an insinuation that weird dark patches flickering on screen during the sequence where the girl is being whipped are a side-effect of the DVD encode - they're present on the print too.
Last edited by MichaelB on Fri Mar 14, 2008 9:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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MichaelB
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Well, that was a total triumph and no mistake.
The screening was indeed in 35mm (and I understand the same will be true of the upcoming Edinburgh and Cambridge events), albeit in a 40-year-old distribution print - though, to be honest, this was no different from the kind of stuff veterans of London rep cinemas of the 1980s and 90s had to put up with on a regular basis. It wasn't even that badly damaged, except around reel changes - obviously, if anyone telecined it and released it on DVD, people would rightly scream blue murder, but for a one-off theatrical event it was perfectly adequate. My biggest beef with the presentation had nothing to do with the print - the extreme right-hand side of the screen, nearest where I was sitting, was slightly out of focus, but as this remained the case throughout, it was definitely a projection issue rather than a print problem. Oh, and I also retract a comment I made in my review of the DVD about weird dirt speckles during the whipping sequence - they're on the print as well, and I have no idea what they're doing there, but clearly Second Run isn't to blame.
But the print's main peculiarity was that it ditched the introductory slideshow in favour of a scrolling piece of text setting the historical scene in rather more detail. This was only discovered during a test run, so they decided the best compromise would be to screen Jancsó's original prologue off the DVD, then run the entire 35mm print. (Jancsó later said that it was only in Britain that the change was made, and he had no idea why).
The screening was as enthralling as I'd hoped. It was always obvious that this film desperately needed a huge screen, but actually being able to see it as Jancsó intended made a phenomenal difference. True, the DVD is in the correct aspect ratio (and those under thirty may not recall that this used to be the rarest of luxuries with small-screen transfers until the mid-1990s), but it obviously can't begin to resolve the same level of detail, whether in the extreme close-ups of János Görbe's shifty, sweating features or the panoramic shots with their intricate geometric configurations of hundreds of extras.
And then Jancsó ascended the stage with Tony Rayns (he'd previously introduced the film by telling a rambling anecdote about the reason he didn't speak English), and my God that man's a live wire. It's impossible to believe that he turns 87 later this year, and I really felt sorry for the Curzon employee desperately trying to wind up the proceedings so that the 9pm screening could go ahead as scheduled - Jancsó was only just getting into his stride.
Subjects discussed included specific cinematic influences on The Round-Up (Antonioni, Hitchcock - specifically Rope - and John Ford), whether the film is really an allegory of 1956 (Jancsó was as non-committal as I imagine he was back in 1966!); just how he was able to make such wildly original films with state funding.
For me, this was the most interesting answer, as Jancsó really didn't know - he emphasised (and this is one of the themes of The Round-Up, albeit expressed obliquely) that the authorities weren't stupid, and they clearly knew that there was lots going on beneath the surface, yet not only did they fund the films (and Jancsó made it clear that his 1960s films, with their hundreds of extras, would probably have been impossible to make under any other system - certainly not in the West, where he'd have to persuade a producer to pay for them), they also permitted their export. But because these people are now dead, and never wrote their memoirs, we'll never know their motives.
What else? Someone commented that the film was a bit like a detective story that ultimately forced you to take the side of the oppressor, purely on the grounds that they were ultimately the cleverest ones, and Jancsó agreed. Sadly, he refused to answer a question about My Way Home about whether it was at all controversial depicting a close friendship between a Hungarian and a Russian only eight years after 1956, on the grounds that we hadn't seen the film (I had, and I bet I wasn't the only one!)
I'm sure I'm not alone in thanking the Second Run team, who I hope sold loads of copies - and I was especially impressed by Lászlo the interpreter, who did just about the smoothest and most professional job I think I've ever come across in these situations. To speed things up as much as possible, he quietly gave Jancsó a simultaneous translation of Tony Rayns' questions, so he could start answering almost immediately, and then translated the response in an immensely engaging fashion that clearly suggested that he knew a fair bit about the subject already (the name suggests he's Hungarian, but you'd never have guessed from his utterly idiomatic British accent). My only complaint about the whole evening, aside from the annoying focus problem mentioned above, was that I recognised so many people in the audience that I was able to chat to them for only about five seconds apiece - which is a shame, as I'd never met (for instance) Nick Wrigley face to face before.
Anyway, there's more Jancsó over the weekend, and the man himself is back on Sunday to discuss the very different 1999 feature The Lord's Lantern in Budapest. There are no more screenings of The Round-Up in London, but it's travelling to Cambridge and Edinburgh over the next week with Jancsó in tow. This really is an unmissable treat.
The screening was indeed in 35mm (and I understand the same will be true of the upcoming Edinburgh and Cambridge events), albeit in a 40-year-old distribution print - though, to be honest, this was no different from the kind of stuff veterans of London rep cinemas of the 1980s and 90s had to put up with on a regular basis. It wasn't even that badly damaged, except around reel changes - obviously, if anyone telecined it and released it on DVD, people would rightly scream blue murder, but for a one-off theatrical event it was perfectly adequate. My biggest beef with the presentation had nothing to do with the print - the extreme right-hand side of the screen, nearest where I was sitting, was slightly out of focus, but as this remained the case throughout, it was definitely a projection issue rather than a print problem. Oh, and I also retract a comment I made in my review of the DVD about weird dirt speckles during the whipping sequence - they're on the print as well, and I have no idea what they're doing there, but clearly Second Run isn't to blame.
But the print's main peculiarity was that it ditched the introductory slideshow in favour of a scrolling piece of text setting the historical scene in rather more detail. This was only discovered during a test run, so they decided the best compromise would be to screen Jancsó's original prologue off the DVD, then run the entire 35mm print. (Jancsó later said that it was only in Britain that the change was made, and he had no idea why).
The screening was as enthralling as I'd hoped. It was always obvious that this film desperately needed a huge screen, but actually being able to see it as Jancsó intended made a phenomenal difference. True, the DVD is in the correct aspect ratio (and those under thirty may not recall that this used to be the rarest of luxuries with small-screen transfers until the mid-1990s), but it obviously can't begin to resolve the same level of detail, whether in the extreme close-ups of János Görbe's shifty, sweating features or the panoramic shots with their intricate geometric configurations of hundreds of extras.
And then Jancsó ascended the stage with Tony Rayns (he'd previously introduced the film by telling a rambling anecdote about the reason he didn't speak English), and my God that man's a live wire. It's impossible to believe that he turns 87 later this year, and I really felt sorry for the Curzon employee desperately trying to wind up the proceedings so that the 9pm screening could go ahead as scheduled - Jancsó was only just getting into his stride.
Subjects discussed included specific cinematic influences on The Round-Up (Antonioni, Hitchcock - specifically Rope - and John Ford), whether the film is really an allegory of 1956 (Jancsó was as non-committal as I imagine he was back in 1966!); just how he was able to make such wildly original films with state funding.
For me, this was the most interesting answer, as Jancsó really didn't know - he emphasised (and this is one of the themes of The Round-Up, albeit expressed obliquely) that the authorities weren't stupid, and they clearly knew that there was lots going on beneath the surface, yet not only did they fund the films (and Jancsó made it clear that his 1960s films, with their hundreds of extras, would probably have been impossible to make under any other system - certainly not in the West, where he'd have to persuade a producer to pay for them), they also permitted their export. But because these people are now dead, and never wrote their memoirs, we'll never know their motives.
What else? Someone commented that the film was a bit like a detective story that ultimately forced you to take the side of the oppressor, purely on the grounds that they were ultimately the cleverest ones, and Jancsó agreed. Sadly, he refused to answer a question about My Way Home about whether it was at all controversial depicting a close friendship between a Hungarian and a Russian only eight years after 1956, on the grounds that we hadn't seen the film (I had, and I bet I wasn't the only one!)
I'm sure I'm not alone in thanking the Second Run team, who I hope sold loads of copies - and I was especially impressed by Lászlo the interpreter, who did just about the smoothest and most professional job I think I've ever come across in these situations. To speed things up as much as possible, he quietly gave Jancsó a simultaneous translation of Tony Rayns' questions, so he could start answering almost immediately, and then translated the response in an immensely engaging fashion that clearly suggested that he knew a fair bit about the subject already (the name suggests he's Hungarian, but you'd never have guessed from his utterly idiomatic British accent). My only complaint about the whole evening, aside from the annoying focus problem mentioned above, was that I recognised so many people in the audience that I was able to chat to them for only about five seconds apiece - which is a shame, as I'd never met (for instance) Nick Wrigley face to face before.
Anyway, there's more Jancsó over the weekend, and the man himself is back on Sunday to discuss the very different 1999 feature The Lord's Lantern in Budapest. There are no more screenings of The Round-Up in London, but it's travelling to Cambridge and Edinburgh over the next week with Jancsó in tow. This really is an unmissable treat.
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Via_Chicago
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peerpee
- not perpee
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MichaelB, great round-up 
(Are you going to the Sat and Sun events? I'll see you there?)
Such a genuine treat it all was. I wish it could have all gone on a bit longer.
I too was massively impressed with the interpreter, what a difference he made. I clocked him on an AE Bela Tarr NFT interview a few years ago and Tony clearly enjoyed such a high quality of translation, and the wonderful answers from Jancsó. It just couldn't have been done any better. I hope it was recorded.
From where we were sat (at the back on the mid-left) we only noticed the out-of-focus righthandside in the last 10 minutes or so. Must have been more noticeable where you were sat on the right.
What a great cinema with a highly respectful audience. Cap firmly doffed to Second Run for such a dreamy do.
btw. The sound design on this film is exquisitely subtle and well recorded. It was my third viewing, but the first on 35mm, and for the first time the great sound quality on this print alerted me to the beautiful work on the sound design.
(Are you going to the Sat and Sun events? I'll see you there?)Such a genuine treat it all was. I wish it could have all gone on a bit longer.
I too was massively impressed with the interpreter, what a difference he made. I clocked him on an AE Bela Tarr NFT interview a few years ago and Tony clearly enjoyed such a high quality of translation, and the wonderful answers from Jancsó. It just couldn't have been done any better. I hope it was recorded.
From where we were sat (at the back on the mid-left) we only noticed the out-of-focus righthandside in the last 10 minutes or so. Must have been more noticeable where you were sat on the right.
What a great cinema with a highly respectful audience. Cap firmly doffed to Second Run for such a dreamy do.
btw. The sound design on this film is exquisitely subtle and well recorded. It was my third viewing, but the first on 35mm, and for the first time the great sound quality on this print alerted me to the beautiful work on the sound design.
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MichaelB
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Tragically not, as I have small children and a wife who works at weekends. But I hope it goes well.peerpee wrote:MichaelB, great round-up
Same here, especially as Jancsó was so obviously just revving up!Such a genuine treat it all was. I wish it could have all gone on a bit longer.
Yes, I was right over on the right-hand side, so that was "my" side of the screen. Still, hopefully Cambridge and Edinburgh will escape this.From where we were sat (at the back on the mid-left) we only noticed the out-of-focus righthandside in the last 10 minutes or so. Must have been more noticeable where you were sat on the right.
Yes - I thought the same way when I was assessing the DVD sound and specifically listened to it for the first time. The pervasive birdsong when there are no visible birds is a particularly unsettling touch.btw. The sound design on this film is exquisitely subtle and well recorded. It was my third viewing, but the first on 35mm, and for the first time the great sound quality on this print alerted me to the beautiful work on the sound design.
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MichaelB
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Here's DVD Beaver - pretty much identical to my take.
I double-checked with Second Run and confirmed that the digital manipulation was indeed to wring the best possible picture out of less than wonderful source materials. Unfortunately, there's pretty much zero chance of anything better coming along in the foreseeable future, as this is the Hungarian Film Archive's "official" transfer.
Mind you, I suppose if some benefactor offered to stump up the cost of an original-neg-sourced graded HD telecine, that would change things - but I imagine the chances of recoupment would be virtually nil. To give a quick snapshot of what a niche market this is, last night's screening, though well attended, wasn't close to being sold out.
I double-checked with Second Run and confirmed that the digital manipulation was indeed to wring the best possible picture out of less than wonderful source materials. Unfortunately, there's pretty much zero chance of anything better coming along in the foreseeable future, as this is the Hungarian Film Archive's "official" transfer.
Mind you, I suppose if some benefactor offered to stump up the cost of an original-neg-sourced graded HD telecine, that would change things - but I imagine the chances of recoupment would be virtually nil. To give a quick snapshot of what a niche market this is, last night's screening, though well attended, wasn't close to being sold out.
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Zazou dans le Metro
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Yes thoroughly enjoyable evening and found the film mesmerising in its intensity.
One additional thing to mention about the Q&A was when he mentioned films 'you can fall asleep to' and followed up by invoking Bela Tarr's name to the amusement of some in the audience but then went on to warmly endorse the 'youngster's' work as providing room to think.
One additional thing to mention about the Q&A was when he mentioned films 'you can fall asleep to' and followed up by invoking Bela Tarr's name to the amusement of some in the audience but then went on to warmly endorse the 'youngster's' work as providing room to think.
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MichaelB
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And Tarr in turn eulogises Jancsó in the current Sight & Sound as his single greatest inspiration.Zazou dans le Metro wrote:One additional thing to mention about the Q&A was when he mentioned films 'you can fall asleep to' and followed up by invoking Bela Tarr's name to the amusement of some in the audience but then went on to warmly endorse the 'youngster's' work as providing room to think.
(Jancsó may even have been made aware of this, as I know at least one of the Second Run guys has read it).
Oh, and I also liked Tony Rayns' description of the film as "if Antonioni had made a Western" - not so much for that, but for his evident embarrassment when he uttered the phrase in front of Jancsó himself!
It's also well worth noting - given that Jancsó qualifies as an auteur by any sensible yardstick - the way he went out of his way to emphasise (at least twice) the fact that his films were made by a close-knit team of good friends, and that they wouldn't have been realisable without that camaraderie.
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thirtyframesasecond
- Joined: Mon Apr 02, 2007 1:48 pm
I attended last night's screening, and it was great to see so many people turn up, and thanks to Second Run and Curzon cinemas for putting on this event.
Unfortunately, this will probably be the only screening in the Jancso season I can get to.
I haven't yet reviewed the film, but just a few thoughts.
The recurring images of hooded prisoners takes on a more sinister and frightening context now. It's impossible not to be reminded of that iconic image of the abused and hooded prisoner at Abu Ghraib. As I think you've said before Michael, the scene where the prisoners jump from the raised platforms to the ground also recall scenes from the WTC on 9/11. Strange (and eerily prophetic) how just a couple of scenes here instantly bring to mind contemporary events.
Having seen The Red and The White, and reading up on Jancso, you find yourself concentrating on camera movement; which propels the film really, as you could quite easily describe the narrative as being secondary to the power games and psychological relationships between the oppressors and the oppressed. As an audience member suggested, Jancso doesn't film it strictly from the latter's pov; that you are forced to witness events from the pov of the oppressors. The cruellest aspect is the fact that the oppressors want to be "fair". Somehow watching them psychologically abuse their prisoners; encouraging them to betray one another, forcing them to watch the whipping on a naked girl etc, is worse for us to watch than if they just killed the prisoners en masse. That's part of the film's power.
Fortunately, My Way Home is on DVD by Second Run, so I'd hope to see that soon, as well as other Jancso titles.
Unfortunately, this will probably be the only screening in the Jancso season I can get to.
I haven't yet reviewed the film, but just a few thoughts.
The recurring images of hooded prisoners takes on a more sinister and frightening context now. It's impossible not to be reminded of that iconic image of the abused and hooded prisoner at Abu Ghraib. As I think you've said before Michael, the scene where the prisoners jump from the raised platforms to the ground also recall scenes from the WTC on 9/11. Strange (and eerily prophetic) how just a couple of scenes here instantly bring to mind contemporary events.
Having seen The Red and The White, and reading up on Jancso, you find yourself concentrating on camera movement; which propels the film really, as you could quite easily describe the narrative as being secondary to the power games and psychological relationships between the oppressors and the oppressed. As an audience member suggested, Jancso doesn't film it strictly from the latter's pov; that you are forced to witness events from the pov of the oppressors. The cruellest aspect is the fact that the oppressors want to be "fair". Somehow watching them psychologically abuse their prisoners; encouraging them to betray one another, forcing them to watch the whipping on a naked girl etc, is worse for us to watch than if they just killed the prisoners en masse. That's part of the film's power.
Fortunately, My Way Home is on DVD by Second Run, so I'd hope to see that soon, as well as other Jancso titles.
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foggy eyes
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Michael, thanks for the excellent write-up. I took brief notes during the Q&A, and you've pretty much saved me having to type them up! Perhaps the only thing to add is Jancsó's response to Rayns's suggestion (after a mention of Private Vices and Public Virtues) that the director appears perpetually compelled to challenge censors - his simple and honest reply was "I cannot do anything else - that is the problem". The interpreter was indeed magnificent, and as there were video cameras knocking about at the beginning I think it would be pretty safe to assume that the whole thing was recorded. Also, I agree that the out-of-focus projection was a little disconcerting - from where we were sitting (front row, slightly off-centre), it was glaringly obvious from the first frame onwards. A minor niggle all the same, as the opportunity to survey both the detail of Jancsó's extreme close-ups (like a Tarr film, this is populated almost exclusively by great faces) and breathtaking panaromic compositions in these conditions was a real treat. The forty-year-old distribution print really was in surprisingly good nick, and as this was my first viewing of the film I have a feeling that watching the DVD is going to be rather painful. All in all, superlative work from Second Run.
For those who can't make it, I'll post some notes on the Lord's Lantern in Budapest Q&A after the event too.
For those who can't make it, I'll post some notes on the Lord's Lantern in Budapest Q&A after the event too.
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foliagecop
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