©Courtesy of Turin Horse
Béla Tarr, the acclaimed Hungarian filmmaker, has died at the age of 70 “after a long and serious illness,” according to the European Film Academy. His death was announced by fellow filmmaker Bence Fliegauf on behalf of Tarr’s family.
The art-film director was especially celebrated for his contributions to the contemporary “slow-film” movement. He was best known for his 1994 feature Sátántangó, a 450-minute adaptation of the novel by László Krasznahorkai.
Tarr was born in Pécs, Hungary in 1955 and studied at Balázs Béla Stúdió, where he directed his debut film, Family Nest, in 1977. After it won the Grand Prix at the Mannheim Film Festival, he enrolled in the Academy of Theatre and Film in Budapest. Upon graduation, he established the Társulás Filmstúdió.
Tarr first came to international prominence with the release of Damnation in 1988, which had its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival and won him a prize for Best Young Filmmaker at the European Film Awards.
Tarr’s cinematic approach influenced filmmakers like Jim Jarmusch and Gus Van Sant, who emulated his style of using long shots to convey a sense of existential angst as experienced by marginalized characters—a slow, immersive approach that downplayed a traditional focus on plot and narration.
After he completed his ninth and final feature, The Turin Horse, in 2011, he turned his energies to teaching, telling The Hollywood Reporter, “I don’t want to be a stupid filmmaker who is just repeating himself and doing the same shit just to bore the people.”
Tarr served as a visiting professor at Filmakademie BW in Ludwigsburg, Germany; at Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains in Lille, France; and at FreeSzfe Budapest.
As a self-anointed “leftist anarchist” Tarr was a vehement critic of right-wing figures like Donald Trump, Viktor Orbán, and Marine Le Pen. Recently, he advocated for a ceasefire in Gaza and supported the Palestinian cause.