Name: Variations upon a theme
Director: István Szabó
Released: 1961

Variations Upon a Theme is nothing less than an attempt to summon up HISTORY &ndash; in block capitals &ndash; using constructivist imagery. Sequences cut from archive footage shot in museums and caf&eacute;s, compiled &ldquo;objectively&rdquo;, &ldquo;in astonishment&rdquo;, &ldquo;as a scream&rdquo;, are a warning that, just like the films of the great Central Europe trilogy, by the time a person realizes where they live, historical processes are already irreversible.

National Film Institute Hungary – Film Archive

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Variations upon a theme

Variációk egy témára

french

english

VOST - HD

Freebox - VOST - SD

Ildikó Bánsági

Péter Andorai

Oszkárné Gombik

Károly Csáki

Ildikó Kishonti

Lajos Balázsovits

During WW2 Hungarian resistance hides a married couple from the officials. The woman is sent to act as the wife of one of the resistance members who is also in hiding and pretending to be somebody else. They slowly begin to fall in love.

Bizalom

Hungarian

VOST - SD

Klaus Maria Brandauer

Hans Christian Blech

Gudrun Landgrebe

Jan Niklas

Armin Mueller-Stahl

Set during the fading glory of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the film tells of the rise and fall of Alfred Redl, an ambitious young officer who proceeds up the ladder to become head of the Secret Police only to become ensnared in political deception.

Colonel Redl

Oberst Redl

2293_FR_colonel_redl.vtt

Français

VF - SD

Edit Kelemen

András Szamosfalvi

Rita Békés

Judit Halász

András Bálint

Jancsi reminiscences about Kata his childhood friend in WWII Budapest, They are separated as a result of 1956 revolution. Reunited as adults, they struggle with whether they will stay in each others lives.

Lovefilm

Szerelmesfilm

This region for an airman is just a map&#x27;, however, whosoever looks closer will discover a thousand secrets of a thousand lives on each Budapest corner or balcony. Memories of peacetime afternoons, family photos, love letters, then bombed houses, tanks driving down deserted streets and decrepit buildings awaiting demolition all flash up for a moment in this lyrical etude by Istv&aacute;n Szab&oacute;, not the first work in his series of filmmaking confessions for Budapest. The story of a city that preserves its past in its buildings and its inhabitants won the grand prix at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen in 1977.

Várostérkép – Budapest

Krystyna Janda

Rolf Hoppe

György Cserhalmi

In early-1930s Germany, a passionate stage actor faces a dilemma: renounce his apolitical stance and comply with the Reich&#x27;s doctrine, or face oblivion. But, Faustian bargains never end well. What is the price of success?

New German Cinema 1970-1980

Mephisto

Ilona Béres

Katalin Sólyom

Cecília Esztergályos

Béla Asztalos

Jancsi and his engineering graduate friends set off into postuniversity life with high hopes. The first blow comes when the 
company they find jobs with places them in different departments 
on different salaries. Initially, they all meet up, some come up with 
big schemes that they start working on together but gradually 
the group begins to crumble. Istv&aacute;n Szab&oacute;&rsquo;s debut film is a 
story inspired by personal experience that captures his own 
generation&rsquo;s dreams, desires and search for a way forward.

István Szabó

The Age of Daydreaming

Álmodozások kora

Zsuzsa Rátonyi

Klári Tolnay

Miklós Gábor

Daniel Erdélyi

In this, the second of the three films often called the &lsquo;generational 
trilogy&rsquo; (The Age of Daydreaming, Father, Love Film), we trace the 
coming of age tribulations of a boy left without a father. The young 
hero evokes and embellishes memories of his father who died in 
1945. The first three films by Istv&aacute;n Szab&oacute; are based on his own 
experiences as a child and youth, yet they have resonance for an 
entire generation, showing what it was like to grow up without a 
father in the 1940s and 50s.

Father

4602_FR_pere.vtt

Istv&aacute;n Szab&oacute; reveals a lesser-known side to the public in this work, which strings together eight shorts &ndash; including A t&eacute;r&nbsp;(A Square) &ndash; of Budapest into a single movie. In the piece interpretable as a declaration of love addressed to the capital there are numerous motifs that are also to be found woven through the director&rsquo;s major features, first and foremost&nbsp;Szerelmesfilm (Love Film), Tűzolt&oacute; utca 25.&nbsp;(25 Fireman&rsquo;s Street) and Budapesti mes&eacute;k&nbsp;(Budapest Tales). Besides allowing the viewer to marvel at the cityscape from 50 years ago in a series of fast-moving images, the film is still primarily about Szab&oacute;&rsquo;s Budapest : his observations, his impressions, his imagination.

Budapest, Why I Love It

Budapest, amiért szeretem

Edit Lenkey

Erzsi Pásztor

Margit Makay

Lucyna Winnicka

Károly Kovács

Memories and desires of the residents of a Pest apartment block condemned to be demolished swirl through this film by Istv&aacute;n Szab&oacute;. For the director in his thirties, the 1970s was the age of discovery; this work is an experiment at adapting the Modernist stream of conscious film genre for a Hungarian audience. The struggle of the individual against history is a recurring Szab&oacute; theme, which in this movie he takes closest to the limits of the narrative form.

25 Fireman's Street

Tűzoltó utca 25. – álmok a házról

Franciszek Pieczka

Ági Mészáros

 Ildikó Bánsági

Maja Komorowska

From the very beginning of his career, Istv&aacute;n Szab&oacute;, Oscarwinning director of Mephisto, was fascinated with the birth of communities and the dynamic of human relations. His first short film, Koncert (Concert), provides clear evidence of this, and in fact the dramaturgical concept found in this was extended into a feature film, Budapest Tales. But whereas there a piano opens a channel between man and man, and creates a community, this time it is an abandoned tram carriage that assists the actors to the same end.

Budapest Tales

Budapesti mesék

Walter Schmidinger

Erland Josephson

Grażyna Szapołowska

Károly Eperjes

Based on a true story, Istvan Szabo&#x27;s Hanussen centers on an Austrian soldier (Klaus Maria Brandauer) who becomes clairvoyant after he is shot in the head during World War I. He is able to read minds and predict the future. Before long, he has foreseen Hitler and the Nazis&#x27; rise to power, and he soon finds himself in danger.

Hanussen

Johanna Ter Steege

Irma Patkós

Éva Kerekes

Enikő Börcsök

1989, Budapest: Emma and B&ouml;be are Russian teachers living in a hostel and seeking their place in a rapidly evolving world. They don&rsquo;t have, nor could they have, great expectations, yet even so it is not sure they will make it home.&nbsp;Through this film Istv&aacute;n Szab&oacute; created his own report card on the change of regime. It paints a bitter yet pinpoint accurate picture of the transformation of values and the increasingly prevalent uncertainties concerning the future.&nbsp;

Sweet Emma, Dear Böbe

Édes Emma, drága Böbe - vázlatok, aktok

The subtitle of You is &lsquo;love film&rsquo;, which later became the title of the feature film debuting in 1970. The short film is in many ways the forerunner of the feature. The young and radiant Cec&iacute;lia Eszterg&aacute;lyos stars in the work evoking the French New Wave style. Every detail in this etude of fragmented structure bears great significance. The evanescence of any given minute is important here, the impressions that moments stacked one on top of another leave in the viewer

Katalin Gyöngyössy

Tamás Eröss

Klára Falvay

Lajos Cs. Németh

Géza Berczy

Many consider that Istv&aacute;n Szab&oacute;&rsquo;s oeuvre is in fact virtually a single, connected oeuvre-film. His first exam film etude, made in BBS and attracting considerable attention, was Concert set &ldquo;on the lower embankment of the wharf&rdquo;. It is about people gathering around an abandoned piano, who try to play and then protect the instrument. They grow in number because they become entranced by the music of Tiham&eacute;r Vujicsics. The film shows, symbolically, the power of art to create a community, as a single person becomes many. These motifs regularly appear in the closing sequences and metaphors of his films.

Concert

Koncert

Freebox - VF - SD

Freebox - VF - HD

Caroline Rittener

Guy Debord

This experimental anti-documentary questions the conflictual relationship between reality and cinema.

Critique of separation

german

french - SME

VF - HD

Corinne Marchand

Antoine Bourseiller

Dorothée Blank

Dominique Davray

Loye Payen

José Luis de Vilallonga

Sami Frey

Anna Karina

Eddie Constantine

Michel Legrand

Jean-Luc Godard

Agnieszka Holland

Alain Bergala à propos de Cléo de 5 à 7

Les Yeux dits

Worum geht's bei Anna Karina ?

Blow up - ARTE

Agnès Varda en 7 minutes

Blow Up - ARTE

C'est quoi Anna Karina ?

Blow up - ARTE : Agnès Varda en 4 minutes

Blow Up - ARTE : C'est quoi Anna Karina ?

Pop singer Cl&eacute;o is worried while awaiting results of her biopsy. During an hour and a half, walking the streets of Paris and talking in caf&eacute;s, Cl&eacute;o comes to terms with her selfishness, finding peace before the results come back.

Nouvelle Vague

Cleo from 5 to 7

Deutsch

FR + FRAD - HD

Ganjiro Nakamura

Yôko Tsukasa

Michiyo Aratama

Keiju Kobayashi

Setsuko Hara

The family of an older man who runs a small sake brewery become concerned with his finances and his health after they discover him visiting an old mistress from his youth.

L’âge d’or des studios japonais

The End of Summer

Kohayagawa - ke no aki

André Treton

Martin Lartigue

Michel Isella

Jacques Dufilho

Jean Richard

Pierre Trabaud

Alain Bergala à propos de La Guerre des boutons

The children of Ballydowse &amp; Carrickdowse engage in battles in which they cut off the buttons, shoe-laces, belts and braces of their captured opponents. This gets their opponents in trouble with parents. They go to battle in mass groups of dozens, wielding sticks &amp; slingshots.

War of the Buttons

VO+DE - SD - PIDAX

FR+FRAD - HD

Freebox - VOST - HD

James Aubrey

Tom Chapin

Hugh Edwards

Roger Elwin

Tom Gaman

Roger Allan

David Brunjes

Peter Davy

Kent Fletcher

Peter Brook à propos de son rapport à l'enfance

Pour le plaisir

Pour le plaisir 09/06/1965 : Peter Brook à propos de son rapport à l'enfance

Lost on an island, young survivors of a plane crash eventually revert to savagery despite the few rational boys&#x27; attempts to prevent that.

Lord of the Flies

English

Alberto Sordi

Franco Fabrizi

Claudio Gora

Lina Volonghi

Loredana Cappelletti

Antonio Centa

Lea Massari

Silvio refuses to fight for the fascists and joins the resistance with Elena. After the war, his vitriolic newspaper articles cause him to be sentenced to imprisonment.

Les grandes heures du cinéma italien

A Difficult Life

Una vita difficile

Italian

Larry Tucker

Allen Baron

Molly McCarthy

Peter Clume

Danny Mechan

Lionel Stander

A hired killer from Cleveland has a job to do on a second-string mob boss in New York. But a special girl from his past, and a fat gun dealer with pet rats, each gets in his way.

Blast of Silence

Franco Citti

Silvana Corsini

Luciano Gonini

Adriana Asti

Franca Pasut

Paola Guidi

Adèle Cambria

Luciano Conti

A pimp with no other means to provide for himself finds his life spiraling out of control when his prostitute is sent to prison.

Accattone

Variations upon a theme

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