The Really Good Old Days
The film as an invention first appeared in Budapest in 1895, at the
same time as in other European cities. Cinemas proper only emerged some
years later: a café owner first showed films free of charge to test
them, than later converted some cafés to cinemas. In Budapest, films
were also produced and shown to accompany popular science lectures. In
the first decade of the century there were more than 90 cinemas in inner
Budapest, seating a total of over 25,000. In contrast with other countries,
cinema-going was not a lower-class pastime—it attracted the affluent classes
as well.
By the early ’20s, a great many Hungarian filmmakers had moved to Hollywood.
Adolf Zukor, William Fox, Alexander Korda, Michael Curtiz and others were
all of Hungarian origin. In the interwar period Hungary continued as a
major filmmaker; at its peak it produced as many as forty feature films
a year, rivalling France and Italy. Many comedies were shot simultanously
in Hungarian and German. The first purpose-built cinema, Corvin, was opened
in 1922. In the ’30s Budapest had 136 cinemas, and most films played to
packed houses. Movie buffs loved Hungarian stars in the comedies. They
were almost always interlaced with sentimental and humorous songs, which
often became hits overnight. There were a number of cheaper cinemas “with
a bell at the end” warning lovers—just in time before the lights went on.
The Hungarians’ traditional love of movies managed to survive all the
various changes of regime. It even carried on in the darkest of the dark
Fifties, when communist dictatorship—in a pre-television period—considered
cinema a cultural sector of prime importance. At that time Budapest cinemas
were given new, comme-il-faut names (Atrium=May 1, Royal Apollo=Red Star,
Forum=Pushkin, etc.) Still, Budapest people continued to love their cinemas.
Cinema in the Good Old Days
One of the most original and successful films of the postwar period,
entitled Cinema in the Good Old Days (Pál Sándor, 1973),
was based on a story-cycle by Iván Mándy (1918–1995). The
plot of the semi-silent film takes us back to 1924, when the Hungarian
national soccer team dropped out of the World Cup disgracefully early on.
The film is the hilariously funny story of a laundry-owner and former
footballer, called Ede Minarik (played by comic genius Dezsô Garas),
who––despite his debts—tries to help a local amateur team to reach First
Division. The film makes use of all the silent-film tricks (title-boards
between scenes, slowed-down and speeded-up shots, etc.) in self-parodying,
original ways. The key motto of the film, uttered by Minarik several times:
“We need a team” (Kell egy csapat!), has become a catch phrase. In the
’70s and ’80s the film was the symbol of the “innocent” prewar world. Now
it is increasingly seen as an allegory of the pre-industrial, pre-modern,
less efficient and less money-oriented world. A self-respecting egghead
re-watches this evocative film at least once per decade, preferably in
a cinema, if not, then undisturbed on a non-commercial channel.
The “Good Old Days”
From the mid ’60s to the mid ’80s Budapest enjoyed a cinema boom. The
city revelled in the almost complete and immediate influx of the world’s
best crop, combined with the heyday of Hungarian films (directors Miklós
Jancsó, István Szabó, Károly Makk, Pál
Sándor and others.) Since television and theater were both censored,
the cinema scene was the most important scene of cultural life in Budapest.
(From the point of view of the cultural watchdogs, good foreign films could
be ignored, but could not be recut for inland use. Theater, on the other
hand, could be censored.)
As everywhere in Hungary, shortage and surplus were evident at the
same time. Good films were shown in only a few cinemas, while Russian,
Bulgarian, and Romanian films played to rows of predictably empty seats.
Once in the mid-70s, as a university student, I decided to break a
record: in one day I watched seven films, the first at 8.30 in the morning,
the last at 10 at night. I used the “sandwich method”: one quality film,
one light entertainment. I managed this curious marathon all alone.
Another time, out of inverted snobbery (as a camp enjoyment), a friend
and I went to see a North Korean spy movie. We were told that the screening
was to be cancelled, since we were the only audience members to turn up,
and the minimum was five. So we bought five tickets. (The film was as bad
as we expected.)
Those were the days when Hungarian eggheads discovered the incredible
charm and variety of Czech and (some) Russian films, when the cult of Tarkovsky
and Menzel and Woody Allen emerged in Budapest intellectual salons.
Transition and Video Craze
Video recorders first appeared on the Hungarian market in sufficiently
large numbers in the mid ’80s. Piracy instantly developed, and pubs and
late night family reunions were soon flooded with bad-quality German-language
thrillers, with or without a commentator’s voice, summarizing the awful
things currently happening on the screen. Development was slow but steady.
Around 1988 the first Hungarian video publishers were established, then
video outlets began mushrooming all over the country. In the early ’90s,
Odeon, a subsidized quality video publisher joined the market.
From then on, not much happened on the Budapest cinema scene. Things
only started changing again in 1996. This was partly because of the high
rate of inflation, and the serious economic slump in Hungary, and partly
because the video craze obviously damaged the cinema box office. The largest
Budapest cinema fell into the hands of multinational companies.
Art Kino Policies
After the Changes
Kino is “cinema” in Russian, and out of respect for the years of their
youth spent with compulsory Russian, Budapest eggheads tend to call the
fine network of specially subsidized Budapest art cinemas “art kinos”.
The City of Budapest has stuck obstinately to its policy of maintaining
the quality film supply—making it comparable only to Paris or New York
(no kidding). It singled out a dozen smaller cinemas to be operated on
a nonprofit basis. Budapest Film, which formerly operated on a municipal
budget, was converted into a 100 percent Budapest-owned corporation, and
began catching up with the multinationals in the city.
The art kino network at the moment consists of the following cinemas:
Bem (I. Margit körút 5/B), Blue Box (IX. Kinizsi utca 28),
Cirkogejzír (V. Balassi Bálint utca 15–17), Európa
(VII. Rákóczi út 82), Graffiti (VIII. József
körút 63), Hunnia (VII. Erzsébet körút 26),
Mûvész (VI. Teréz körút 30), Örökmozgó
Filmmúzeum (VII. Erzsébet körút 39), Puskin (V.
Kossuth Lajos utca 18, see later in detail), Szindbád (XIII. Szt.
István körút 16), Tabán (I. Krisztina körút
87–89), Toldi Stúdió Mozi (V. Bajcsy-Zsilinszky út
36–38)
In an effort to tackle the inevitable competition from rival multiplexes
still on the drawing boards at the time, Ferenc Port, head of Budapest
Film decided to close Corvin cinema, the flagship of the fleet, and rebuild
it as a multiplex by late 1996.
Corvin Cinema
Then and Now
The first cinemas in Budapest were usually installed on the ground
floors of residential blocks; this is a rare exception (designed by Emil
Bauer, 1922). It used to have a lobby just about as large as its auditorium—which
had 1,300 seats before the cinema’s reconstruction.
Together with the surrounding buildings, it is a good example of architectural
design that uses a modern structure but is conservative in style—the
facade has neo-Baroque elements. This was one of the centers of armed resistance
in 1956 and close to the fiercest fighting.
Since its redesign (by Balázs Töreky, Dezsô Töreky,
and László Rajk) it has now six halls. Each is named after
some legendary figure in Hungarian film history: The producer Alexander
Korda (500 seats), the comedian Gyula Kabos (295), the actress Katalin
Karády (252), the comedian Kálmán Latabár (140),
the actor Pál Jávor (200), and the director Géza Radványi
(100).
The walls close to the different auditoria are decorated with old posters
relevant to these personalities. On one side there is a pleasant café,
called Casablanca, on the other an art video rental shop called Odeon,
and an Internet cabinet. In the middle there is a bookshop, and, of course,
the popcorn and Coke stands.
This is by no means an art cinema, but a sort of temple of middlebrow
and Hollywood cinema.
The whole place has a good feeling—only the entrance is too narrow.
But that was one of the few constraints of the original design that was
impossible to change.
If you want to have a look at it, it is at your fingertips at www.corvin.hu.
(Go to:main site/corvin anno/tartalom, and you can browse through photos
by year, though only in Hungarian.)
The Other Multiplexes
In the last two years the economic upturn has led to the opening of
half a dozen shopping malls in and around Budapest, all with multiplex
cinemas, with 6 to 11 screening areas. The available seats have more than
doubled in two years.
This has killed the inner-city cinemas, I mean the non-art-kino ones.
Attendance at some of them went down on average to 20–30 percent, plunging
them way into the red.
And this is by no means the end. New cinemas are soon to be built to
the left and right of the Western Railway Station.
The right-hand one was commissioned by Budapest Film, and one version
of the plans includes 21 (!) screening rooms, only three short of the present
Guinness record-holder, a multiplex in Belgium.
These days people in Budapest seem to have an endless thirst for escapism,
commercial or otherwise.
Partly due to the multiplexes the numbers of customers at professional
video rental shops have dropped by about one third on average.
This decline is also due to the launch of three new commercial channels,
plus the coded subscription film channel HBO, now in operation round the
clock.
Puskin Reopened
Puskin cinema (née: Forum, 1928), one of the gilded, elegant
downtown commercial cinemas owned by Budapest Film (with absolutely no
parking facilities within walking distance) suffered most from the recent
multiplex competition.
So it was converted to a three-unit “art multiplex”, to serve the nearby
universities. Its programme is partly commercial, partly art. And a nice
and large student café called Odeon was added.
Lectures related to screenings are held there practically every day.
A place not to miss if you have a free evening in Budapest.
Hungarian Film
How Did It Fall So Low?
Three factors are traditionally mentioned in discussions about the
secret of the two great decades of Hungarian film (1965–85): the half-a
-century-old tradition of well-made films that preceded it, the snobbery
of the mild dictatorship, and the successful education system at all levels
in the motion picture sector.
The latter of course produced too many directors and cameramen and
promised them comfortable, guaranteed career prospects.
The generation that entered the scene in the early ’60s rapidly developed
a curious love-hate relationship with the régime. It became more
and more chic and trendy to produce serious films that took little account
of the viewers.
When the last great masters of comedy left, there was noone younger
to replace them and to follow the tradition. All this was mixed up with
the spread of television as a primary source of entertainment in these
two decades.
But the shift in Hungarian film tastes was gradual, and the secret
of the years between 1965 and 1985 was that a characteristically “middlebrow”
art was produced on the screens, with secret, symbolic messages in the
dialogue—but it was digestible for the less initiated as well. Looking
back, these two decades were very rich indeed, not only in feature films,
but also in animated and documentary ones.
After the second oil crisis the economic slump made it impossible to
maintain the level of art sponsorship.
This occurred roughly at the same time as the general “Hollywoodization”
of the world film scene began. That meant a gradually quickening pace (intensified
later by the new taste for video-clips, which spread like wildfire).
The constant rise in costs played its part. Moreover, Hollywood attracted
some of the most creative Central European directors, who offered new styles
and a new skills to absorb fresh ideas and visual eccentricities. From
the mid-’80s Hollywood became innovative and set a new standard for making
films.
Competition costs accelerated, and that pushed Hungarian and (mainly
Central) European film to the edge.
Hungarian Film
Has it Got Any Future?
The only possible answer for filmmakers was to accept the challenge
and to indulge in being the most highbrow of the highbrow artists. At the
same time inflation literally halved the average budget of a Hungarian
film in real terms, (in times when budgets should have been doubled), so
most of the directors found themselves in the low-budget sector, not early—but
late— in their careers. Within ten years Hungarian film (apart from the
documentary sector) found itself in the experimental part of the arena.
The international one.
To boot, the quasi-shock-therapy times of the mid-’90s proved disastrous
financially. While the Hungarian theater sector was successful and could
force the government to keep up the level of funding in real terms, (even
to raise it in 1995), the real value of subsidies to film production went
on diminishing. The film sector resisted reforms of any kind. And the audiences
interested in Hungarian films were as painfully low as 2 percent in some
years, but in any case permanently under 5 percent.
Now there are visible signs of regeneration. Younger directors are
learning to look only for start-up finance, and to go out and find international
subsidies.
Another promising sign is the emergence of a new species of producers,
willing to invest money earned elsewhere. They might join forces with the
newly launched private televisions and produce some entertaining films,
later perhaps middlebrow films. The congenial Witman Boys by the outstanding
János Szász is one example of this new trend.
Six Recent Films Not to Miss When in Budapest
Having read the apocalyptic vision above, you might have some doubts
as to whether there can be six recent films to recommend. Well, there are.
I have already mentioned Witman Boys. The others: Passion by György
Fehér, (based on the novel The Postman Comes Twice), Videoton Story
by Pál Schiffer (What people did after they had been made redundant
by an industrial giant in the country.), Presszó by Tamás
Sas (An original low-low budget movie shot from one camera angle.),
Esti Kornél by Zsolt Pacskovszky (based on a series of stories
by a classic early 20th- century author, Dezsô Kosztolányi),
The Gambler by Károly Makk (based on a story by Dostoyevsky),
Vaska Easeoff by Péter Gothár (a highly original and
funny tale of Petrograd in the ’20s).
Should I admit that I originally wanted to recommend twelve recent
films?
http://www.c3.hu/scripta