Kinoblog

March 17 sees Second Run’s long-awaited DVD release of Miklós Jancsó’s masterpiece The Round-Up (Szegénylegények, 1965), and to mark the occasion, the 86-year-old Hungarian master is coming to London, Cambridge and Edinburgh to give a series of interviews and presentations.

The schedule is as follows:

Friday 14th March – 6.30pm
Curzon Mayfair, London
The Round-Up (1965) plus Q&A with Miklós Jancsó, hosted by Tony Rayns

Saturday 15th March – 2pm
Curzon Soho, London
My Way Home (Igy jöttem, 1964)

Saturday 15th March – 6pm
Curzon Soho, London
Miklós Jancsó: An Illustrated Talk by John Cunningham

Sunday 16th March – 12pm
Curzon Soho, London
The Red and the White (Csillagosok, katonák, 1967)

Sunday 16th March – 2pm
Curzon Soho, London
The Lord’s Lantern in Budapest (Nekem lámpást adott kezembe as Úr Pesten, 1999) plus Miklós Jancsó in discussion

There are also two screening events outside London:

Monday 17th March – Time tbc (evening)
Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge
The Round-Up plus Q&A with Miklós Jancsó

Wednesday 19th March – Time tbc (evening)
Filmhouse, Edinburgh
The Round-Up plus Q&A with Miklós Jancsó, hosted by Mark Cousins.

Second Run granted me a sneak preview of the work-in-progress DVD of The Round-Up recently, and I was absolutely floored by the film. I can’t discuss technical issues in much detail as I haven’t seen a final copy (I also haven’t seen the interview with Jancsó that was shot especially for the DVD), but I’m delighted to confirm that the source print is very clean and that Jancsó’s mesmerising compositions, using the full width of the 2.35:1 Scope frame, seem to be intact. Even more commendably, I’m told that the final DVD will be authored in such a way that the (optional) subtitles won’t overlap the picture. Instead, they’ll be restricted to the black bar below the frame, allowing full appreciation of Jancsó’s unique visual style, owing as much to intricate dance choreography as it does to conventional mise-en-scène.

Jancsó is an extremely prolific filmmaker, and much of his output remains unavailable on DVD – he hasn’t even had a UK cinema release since Private Vices, Public Virtues (Vizi privati, pubbliche virtù, 1976) over thirty years ago. So I was pleasantly surprised to discover that some fourteen titles, including many of the major masterpieces, are already available with English subtitles on assorted British, American, French and Hungarian labels. (Others are available too, but you need Italian for La Pacifista and Hungarian for the rest). Workload permitting, I’ll try to cover as many of these as I can throughout March, in a similar vein to my František Vláčil and (ongoing) Andrzej Munk surveys.

In the meantime, far and away the best English-language commentary on Jancsó available online is hosted by Kinoeye in two parts – covering the earlier and later halves of his career.