Subject Librarian
Dartmouth College
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Introduction
Lumière films were screened in Budapest within a few months of their initial showing in Paris, with the earliest Hungarian film, A tanc/The Dance (Bela Zsitovsky, 1901), consisting of twenty-seven one‐minute reels each documenting a different folk dance. The feature film, Ma es holnap/Today and Tomorrow, released in 1912, was made by Mihely Kertész, who would later become famous in Hollywood as Michael Curtiz, director of Casablanca (1942). By 1915, there were 270 cinemas in Hungary and by 1918 109 films had been produced, with Sandor Korda (later Alexander Korda) a key player. A significant Hungarian émigré tradition was established early on, with Korda, Bela Lugosi, Emeric Pressburger, Miklos Rozsa, István Kovacs, and George Cukor, all of Hungarian origin, making significant contributions to the film industries of other countries. Political upheavals caused a hiatus in film production until the 1930s, with the Hungarian film industry faring badly compared with those of Poland and Czechoslovakia (see Czech Republic, film in; Slovakia, film in); though genre films, especially musicals, romance and comedies (many starring comic actor Gyula Kabos) continued to attract audiences. One of Hungary’s most celebrated films, István Szot’s Emberek a havason/The Mountain People (1942), stems from this period. During World War II, an initial boost to film production, due to the restriction of imports from Western Europe and the US, led to an all‐time high of fifty-four films released in 1942, though this was quickly followed by the wholesale destruction of the technical base during World War II. ...
Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2020). Hungary, film in. In A Dictionary of Film Studies. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 6 Jan. 2021
In the library's collections/Searching the online catalog
You can use the following subject headings to begin your research into Hungarian cinema.
Selected book titles
World cinema: Hungary by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .H8 B87 1996ISBN: 9780838637227World Cinema is a detailed, historical, critical, and appreciative account of the Hungarian cinema from its early days to the transforming 1990s. It provides an extended analysis of some fifty directors and their key films.
Hungarian cinema: from coffee house to multiplex by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .H8 C8 2004ISBN: 9781903364802Hungarian cinema has often been forced to tread a precarious and difficult path. Through the failed 1919 revolution to the defeat of the 1956 Uprising and its aftermath, Hungarian film-makers and their audiences have had to contend with a multiplicity of problems. In the 1960s, however, Hungary entered into a period of relative stability and increasing cultural relaxation, resulting in an astonishing growth of film-making. Innovative and groundbreaking directors such as Miklós Jancsó (Hungarian Rhapsody, The Red and the White), István Szabó (Mephisto, Sunshine) and Márta Mészaros (Little Vilma: The Last Diary) emerged and established the reputation of Hungarian films on a global basis. ...
Other library resource(s)
Hungarian cinema from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Call Number: Electronic resourceHungarian cinema’s performance on the world scene has been well out of proportion with the country’s small scale of production and tiny domestic distribution market. Similar to other small cinemas, particularly in Eastern Europe, Hungarian cinema established its reputation by fostering innovation and nurturing individual talent in the absence of exportable commercial filmmaking. Even though filmmaking in Hungary has developed from the start within international exchanges of technology, ideas, and funding, it became defined early on as a national art form. ...
Finding scholarly articles and journal titles
You can find articles about Hungarian film in a variety of publications. To get started in your research, you can use one of the article indexes listed below or use the search box at the top of the page.
Film & television literature indexCall Number: Electronic resourceThis index covers over 300 journal and magazine titles for film and television reviews, scholarly and critical analysis of cinema and television, and articles of popular interest about film and television. About half the journals and magazines are film periodicals and the other half cover film and television with some regularity. Subject coverage includes film & television theory, preservation & restoration, writing, production, cinematography, technical aspects, and reviews.
Screen studies collection by Call Number: Electronic resourceA comprehensive survey of current publications related to film scholarship alongside detailed filmographies. This collection includes the FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals Database and the detailed and complementary filmographies created by the American Film Institute (AFI) and the British Film Institute.
The web of science citation databases by Call Number: Electronic resourceThe online version of 3 separate ISI indexes: Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Science Citation Index and, Social Sciences Citation Index.
Selected movie titles
Find more Hungarian film titles in the library's collection using the online catalog.
Catsplay = Macskajáték by Call Number: Jones DVD #13424ISBN: 9781565804791Two sisters from Hungary reflect upon their lives.
Chico by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #ISBN: 9781565804579A "Spanish-Hungarian, Catholic-Jewish communist," Chico is a child of revolution, raised on Che Guevara and the Virgin Mary. After escaping from Pinochet's Chile, Chico becomes a globe-trotting journalist turned freedom fighter, embarking on a complex political odyssey through Hungary, Russia, Albania, Israel, and Croatia, until he ends up in the Balkan War during the 1990s. Loosley-based on the life of Eduardo Rózsa Flores, this film is an ambitious exploration of revolution, idealism, globalization and the absurdity of war.
Gyerekgyilkosságok = Child murders by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #13534ISBN: 9781565806405Exquisite black-and-white cinematography softens this macabre story of despair and murder among Hungary's outcasts. A suspenseful tale that addresses issues of morality and humanity.
A Rózsa Énekei = Rose's songs by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #19570ISBN: 9781565806900A Jewish family hides with an opera singer whose voice is so beautiful it is said to protect everyone from being captured around him, during the Nazi occupancy of World War II.
Saul fia = Son of Saul by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #19760October 1944, Auschwitz-Birkenau. Saul Ausländer is a Hungarian member of the Sonderkommando, the group of Jewish prisoners isolated from the camp and forced to assist the Nazis in the machinery of large-scale extermination. While working in one of the crematoriums, Saul discovers the body of a boy he takes for his son. As the Sonderkommando plans a rebellion, Saul decides to carry out an impossible task: save the child's body from the flames, find a rabbi to recite the mourner's Kaddish.
Internet resource(s)
- Stranger than real: Budapest is the backdrop for Hungary's dark, dreamlike new wave of cinema from the Calvert JournalBudapest is a movie star in its own right, appearing in numerous films under the guise of Paris, Moscow, Buenos Aires or East Berlin. However, while Budapest sets the stage for the international film industry on its city streets or in the nearby Korda Studios, Hungarian homegrown cinema also merits recognition. ...
Keeping up with Film Studies journal literature
Want an easy way to keep up with the journal literature for all facets of Film Studies? And you use a mobile device? You can install the BrowZine app and create a custom Bookshelf of your favorite journal titles. Then you will get the Table of Contents (ToCs) of your favorite journals automatically delivered to you when they become available. Once you have the ToC's, you can download and read the articles you want from the journals for which we have subscriptions.
You can get the app from the App Store or Google Play.
Don't own or use a mobile device? You can still use BrowZine! It's also available in a web version. You can get to it here. The web version works the same way as the app version. Find the journals you like, create a custom Bookshelf, get ToCs and read the articles you want.