© Columbia University Press
Hungarian Cinema: A Concise History
Paper, 272 pages,
ISBN: 978-1-903364-79-6
$24.00
/ £16.50
March, 2004
Cloth, 272 pages,
ISBN: 978-1-903364-80-2
Wallflower Press
$80.00
/ £55.00
Hungarian 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. This is the first book to discuss all major aspects of Hungarian cinema, including avant-garde, animation, and representations of the Gypsy and Jewish minorities.