István Szabó’s dance with the devil

On Klassiki, we’re currently celebrating the work of the great Hungarian director István Szabó with restorations of two of his new wave classics, Father and The Concert. To go a little deeper on Szabó’s fascinating filmography, which stretches over six decades and has garnered awards from Cannes to the Oscars, this week Sam catches up with our friend Carmen Gray, a critic and programmer specialising in the cinema of eastern Europe and the Caucasus.

Sam and Carmen explore Szabó’s lifelong artistic project – chronicling the tragic twentieth-century history of Hungary and its Central European neighbours – with reference to his celebrated trilogy of historical dramas, Mephisto (1981), Colonel Redl (1985), and Hanussen (1988). They discuss their theatricality, deconstruction of identity and sexuality, and how they reflect Szabó’s own life experiences.

Watch restorations of István Szabó’s sixties classics Father and The Concert on Klassiki now.

You can also read our companion piece on his career over on the Journal and check out our pod episode on his 1980 melodrama Confidence with critic Alisa Goruleva here.

Get in touch: podcast@klassiki.online.

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Intro music by Juliet Merchant.