On historical continuity

The gender question was developing rather sluggishly at the dawn of cinema. Ladies adorned the screen as actresses, while neither the “dreamland’s” founding fathers nor the ladies themselves could see them in the film director’s chair. Cinema had to wait for more than 50 years, acquire voice and color, before female directors burst into the filming location as “commanders-in-chief.” One of the first of them in Europe was the Hungarian director Marta Meszaros.

Her today’s “record” includes more than 20 films, awards of the Berlin, Cannes, Venice, and other well-known festivals. Her pictures starred Isabelle Huppert, Marina Vlady, Fanny Ardant, and… Vladimir Vysotsky. Today, at 85, she is finishing a new work, where Mari Torocsik, an 80-year-old Hungarian movie star, plays the main role. Full of plans and strength, she finds joy in work, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

At the recent Kyiv IFF Molodist, Marta Meszaros was awarded a Scythian Deer for her contribution to the world cinema and opened the festival’s program “Hungarian Rhapsody” with her film.

“COMMUNISTS GUARDED THEIR SECRETS VERY CLOSELY”

Marta, I will perhaps begin not with your oeuvre but with the fact that all events in your life have fallen on the peak moments of history since your family came to the USSR, where your father was executed. Then you studied at VGIK and saw a major turning point in 1956 – the “thaw” and Soviet tanks in Budapest. What does it mean to live “at a time of changes”?

“My father was not a communist. It was written that he was one and went to the Soviet Union for this reason, it is not true. He was a very talented young sculptor. He was interested in Asia and wanted to move to Asia or China. He did not think that he would come across Stalin who would kill him. Father was arrested as a spy. They lied to us for a long time that he was in a GULAG camp, refused to give us documents, and much later, in the 1990s, we learned that father had been shot.”

In what way did you come back to Hungary?

“We could not return to our fatherland. My mother was sick and taken to a hospital, where she died a day later. She must have been killed, too. She just disappeared. It was a time of war and starvation. We were in Kirghizia. There were a lot of people there, who suffered hardship. My life was not more tragic than that of the others because everybody’s life was a tragedy. Everybody was hungry, semi-homeless, in dire straits. Then Hungarian communists came. When the war was over, a Hungarian communist woman, my ‘stepmother,’ obtained – by a miracle – permission to take me back to the fatherland. I never knew how she managed to do this because communists guarded their secrets very closely, but, anyway, I came to Hungary and went to school. As for my story in Kirghizia and the story of my parents, either fate or God protected us – this part of my life was not much etched on my mind. This perhaps kept me from becoming a psychologically broken-up person.

“In Hungary I lived with my stepmother and once said that I wanted to become a film director. I don’t know why, for I did not live in an artistic milieu. But one film was always before my eyes – when I lived in Kirghizia, there was awful starvation and cold, but the Alatau movie theater was showing The Thief of Baghdad. It was a powerful shock for me, it was clear that I wanted to live like the film’s hero. I didn’t love my stepmother, although, later, I respected and valued her very much, for she saved my life. She was a true, straightforward, and convinced communist, but, psychologically, we were alien.”

What prompted you to go again to the country that robbed you of the family?

“I was not admitted to the Hungarian School of Cinema because, firstly, girls were not admitted to the film directors department, and, secondly, I spoke Hungarian very badly at the time. But there appeared an opportunity to receive a scholarship for studying in the Soviet Union. It was easy to get there because Hungarians were not exactly willing to go to the Country of Soviets. Add to this a very difficult Russian language. But I knew it, so I went to the commission, and recited a fragment from Eugene Onegin. They found joy in that there was somebody who knows Russian and gave me a referral.

“Professionals at VGIK [All-Union State Institute of Cinema. – Ed.] were frightened: she came, she knows nothing, and a greenhorn girl in general! In the first year I was taught by Professor Mikhail Chiaureli, then by Oleksandr Dovzhenko, Ivan Pyryev, Sergey Gerasimov, and Lev Kuleshov. In general, they and other professors who taught at the time were all wonderful people. That was all good, but they had no money for film and equipment because it was a postwar time. So we studied theoretically, without practice. In the summer I went to Hungary and applied to a documentary film studio. Of course, I scared the Hungarians: she studies in Moscow and speaks Russian! They were awfully afraid of this ‘onslaught of communism’ in Hungary at the time. Nevertheless they gave me a cameraman, and we began to tour the country and make small documentary films which proved to be viable. And when I brought this to Moscow, everybody ‘fainted out.’ This is how I became a film director.”

Any artistic person speaks in their works, above all, about themselves – about their emotions, love, and impressions. If you project things onto what is going on in our country today, then the year 1956 in Hungary, the diktat of another country, compares very well with our present day, as well as the tragedy of your father does with the plight of Ukrainian captives in Russia today. In your films, you speak about this frankly and toughly – it’s no wonder they’ve received awards at many festivals. Is this topic closed to you now or do you consider it exhausted?

“For me, it is closed in a sense. Hungary is absolutely different from Slavic countries. I know it firsthand, for I lived in Krakow, in Budapest, I’ve been going places, I love Poland and all things Slavic very much. I’ve never wished to come back to Russia, for it is the Russians who killed my parents. I know that many Russians have also been killed, but they tend to forget it. But I am grateful to VGIK. My first husband Miklos Jancso made films on the history of Hungary. He knew it very well. There were very few revolutions and uprisings there, but there was very much conformism in politics. I also remember very well that Hungary was a fascist country: 500,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz in six months. It is the Hungarians, not the Germans, as we were told, who did it! We still have rabid anti-Semitism. In Hungary, more than half a million Gypsies live in squalid conditions. They’ve always lived like this, and Hungarians hate them. I could not and sill cannot accept many things. It is difficult to speak of our history, and Hungarians themselves have not speaking of it for a very long time. Each new regime throws out the history of the previous one, which breaks up historical continuity.”

“I AM INTERESTED IN THE HUMAN BEING, LOVE, DEATH, BIRTH”

But it is you who made The Unburied Dead, a film on Imre Nagy, which was shown at the latest festival Molodist…

“The 1956 events are now a red-letter day in Hungary. I made the film on Nagy 10 years ago, and nobody wanted to give even a penny for it. Then it turned out that the 50th anniversary of the revolution was coming up, and we were given a little money. It is the Janos Kadar regime, not Nikita Khrushchev, who hanged Imre Nagy. This is Hungarian history. Kadar killed him because he was afraid of rivalry. We could not speak of this. When we turned to Viktor Orban for money, he said: ‘No, Marta, Imre Nagy is not our hero.’ And the premiere was watched by the government and Orban in different movie theaters. He then wrote to me that he had been wrong. Imre Nagy is our hero indeed! He admitted this, but still he did not give money. The film had already been ready. He does not like cinema and culture in general. He loves sport.”

Governments, with the rarest exceptions, do not love or support culture. Can you name any that do?

“Yes, that’s right, but it is a shame that a premier can say out loud: I don’t like reading.”

Your teachers were very brilliant individuals that are inscribed in the history of world cinema. To what extent did this influence you, and what do you think you borrowed from your teachers into your films?

“I think I was misunderstanding Dovzhenko at the time. Now he is closer to me, for he, was, first of all, showing the human being in all his films. Love, hatred, woman – I’ve been always interested it this. Oleksandr Dovzhenko was a very sensitive person. Sergey Gerasimov was a very good director, but also a big conformist. Dovzhenko said everything from the bottom of his heart, and his feelings always pulsated. My husband, a genius, was always interested in the charisma of politics, whereas I am interested in the human being, love, death, and birth. Men don’t like it, they are afraid of this secret.”

Perhaps they don’t want to give up the top ranking?

“Perhaps they don’t. These things are now shown in cinema. Bur when I made Nine Months, it conquered the world because it was the first film that showed a childbirth. Luckily, it is considered normal today. Even men come and see this.”

They faint but still watch. Do you think woman is the beginning and the foundation of the world?

“The history I make holds a place for man and woman alike, but I put emphasis on woman. There are so many films, where men make a career, war and politics, kill, and love – only men! As for women, they are supposed to be beautiful and sometimes have a character. There are many female directors now. For example, Kira Muratova makes so nice films. I like her oeuvres very much. When I was beginning, there were three of us – Agnes Varda, Kira Muratova, and I. We were Europe’s first female film directors.”

And Larisa Shepitko?

“No, she came later. She said I was her teacher. It’s so sad that Larisa died so young…”

“GOOD CINEMA WILL REMAIN AND BE IN DEMAND”

What is your attitude to Ukrainian cinema?

“There was a period in my life, when I watched very many movies. Then there was a different one, when I was to attend festivals, be a jury member, etc. Now I watch very little. I don’t like television and prefer movie theaters. I don’t like it that American cinema has conquered the entire world. I like films by Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese – he is a genius, I know him personally, and we are friends. Oleksandr Dovzhenko, Sergey Parajanov, Kira Muratova are great and talented people. Even if they had made only one film, they would have made history. Unfortunately, I don’t know your today’s cinema at all. Today, you don’t buy Hungarian films, and we don’t buy Ukrainian ones. Hungarians don’t watch even their own movies. Tragic statistics indeed…”

Cinema is more than 100 years old now. Is the cinema age, in the broad sense of the word, over or does it still have prospects?

“I think cinema will repeat the story of literature. Good cinema will remain and be in demand. And technology is also progressing. I am finishing my latest film now. Three or four cameras are standing before me, an actor is sitting, but what I can see is not his face but the film’s final. Once the film stock was very expensive, but now this doesn’t matter at all. Yet I get more tired now than before because I had to get used psychologically to this technology, for it allows shooting four versions simultaneously. It is very good and also difficult. Naturally, the new generation learns faster. I can see it on the example of the films my grandchildren choose. They deliberately go to watch American crime movies with good actors, but their attitude to other films is different. I think cinema will repeat the destiny of literature and theater. There will be separate theaters for blockbuster and auteur films – in this case you will have no surprises and be free to choose.”