László Nemes recalls Béla Tarr’s ferocious spirit at their last meeting

László Nemes wrote that the last time he saw Béla Tarr was at the Nexus conference in Amsterdam, where the director was already physically weakened but retained a ferocious, rebellious, furious spirit. Nemes described their conversation as likely their ultimate and most heartfelt exchange.

Nemes first met Béla in 2004 while Tarr was preparing The Man from London and gave his first real job as an assistant, searching for a boy to fill a part that was later cut. He said Tarr demanded difficult processes and high craft: 10-minute uninterrupted takes in black and white, close-knit collaborators, a deep connection to forgotten people and a preference for physical film over computer-based methods, all aiming to reach a metaphysical level.

He called The Man from London an "enterprise of madness" — a Hungarian film based on a French-language book by Georges Simenon, shot with international actors and Hungarian half-amateurs, set in the 1930s, involving a Corsican shoot in Bastia dressed as Normandy and the construction of a large metal watchtower.

Nemes recalled chronic funding shortfalls, Tarr switching between cinematographers while seeking finances, and said that French producer Humbert Balsan killed himself during the months of uncertainty that had engulfed the movie. Nemes also recalled working with Tarr on a 2004 short, Prologue, shot with Robby Müller about Hungary entering the EU, when he was asked to find overnight 300 homeless people to be filmed.

Key Topics

Culture, Béla Tarr, László Nemes, Nexus Conference, Bastia