An image of recurrent time: Notes on cinematic image and the gaze in Béla Tarr’s Sátántangó

• Authors: Jana Dudková
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The article deals with Béla Tarr’s longest film Sátántangó and examines relations between image, time and ways of looking, comparing it to Lászlo Krasznahorkai’s 1985 eponymous novel on which the film was based. It reveals connections between episodes and shots in Sátántangó that lead to a conception of time that passes extremely slowly. It is recurrent-leading toward similar, repetitive situations-but at the same represents an inability to change. The image in this film is often conceived as it is mediated and Tarr frequently uses compositions involving ways of looking through some kind of optical device or a window. The only way of accessing reality is to look at it when there is no real opportunity, will or ability to intervene and change it. In this sense the article shows the relationship between the image of the fictional world of Sátántangó, inhabited by passive and demoralized characters, and the world of the film spectator and his or her relation to film image as such.

Keywords

EN

image in cinema; image of time; the gaze; the look; the work of Béla Tarr; Hungarian cinema

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Human Affairs
• Year: 2013
• Volume: 23
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 21-31

Dates

published

2013-01-01

online

2012-12-29

Contributors

author

Jana Dudková

• Slovak Academy of Sciences

References

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/s13374-013-0103-y