the audience identifies with historical film those costume adventure films, in which, if not the successes of Hungarian history come to life instead of the disastrous failures, but at least they recognize the fate of the main character as their own without feeling that they are expected to be ashamed.
One of the most beautiful examples of this Sára Sándor 80 Hussars (1978) is about the Hungarian hussars belonging to the Austrian detachment who tried to return home despite the ban in the spring of 1848.
On the other hand, during the period of socialism, Zoltán Várkonyi created a real, great historical movie audience success, primarily from the novels of Mór Jókai and Géza Gárdonyi: Sons of a man of stone (1965), A Hungarian nabob and Zoltán Kárpathy (1966), Stars of Eger (1968) and Black diamonds (1976). In their time, these films were spectacular and uplifting, and the development of film technology did not leave a mark on the latter quality.
Also during socialism, with no small amount of nostalgia for a freer life, György Szomjas experimented with the introduction of westerns to Central and Eastern Europe, which gave birth to two memorable outlaw films: The sea whistles under their feetl (1976) and Bad people (1978). And the most popular Hungarian rock opera, Levente Szörényi – composed by János Bródy, was a specific genre experiment. Stephen the King also his “concert-theater-film” (1984, director: Gábor Koltay).
But Viktor Gertler’s 1962 adaptation of Jókai is also memorable. The golden manMárton Keleti The corporal and the others (1965), a World War II comedy that turns the Soviet partisan romance against itself, about the triumph of survival at all costs, which pokes fun at ideologies, or Éva Zsurzs’s youth adventure film, which was originally shot for television but also received a theatrical release, based on István Fekete’s novel of the same name The testament of the Koppány aga(1967).
Hungarian historical series and TV movies during the party-state television
It is important to note that historical works were also produced for Hungarian Television during communism and socialism, from the beginning of Hungarian television in 1957 until the decade of the regime change.
Of course, state television quickly realized the propaganda potential of historical series: in 1963, it was shown based on the novel of the same name by Béla Illés, who invented the Russian officer Captain Guszev, who was hanged in 1849 for his pro-Hungarianism in 1849, and depicted Hungarian participation in World War II from a communist perspective Conquest a two-part TV movie, but it was a similarly “pro-Soviet” series covering the adventures of the title character, a Bolshevik soldier, spanning from the Soviet Republic to the end of the Second World War Pepper (1969-1972), set during the Second World War I’ll be here in an hour… (1971-1974) and so on.
More authentic and valuable series and TV movies were also made for these.
Perhaps the most popular of these is A Tenkes kapitánya (director: Tamás Fejér), broadcast in 1964 and presented in a two-part movie version a year later, which takes place during the Rákóczi War of Independence, starring the cunning Kuruc folk hero Máté Eke, played by Ferenc Zenthe , who always outwits the labans.
A similarly memorable historical series starring Sándor Ozter, a 12-part series based on the novel by Zsigmond Móricz Sándor Rozsa (1971, director: Miklós Szinetár), a two-part TV movie by Márton Keleti, about the biggest swindler of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy I, Ignatius Strasznov, the swindler (1966), and several costume literary adaptations by Éva Zsurzs, the most popular television director of the era: The Black City (1970-71), Abigail (1977), Siege of Beszterce (1976), The nameless castle (1981), A strange marriage (1984), The village clerk (1986).
Éva Zsurzs also directed a large-scale TV series about the life of Miklós Zrínyi (Zrínyi1973), while Miklós Hajdufy directed a 3-part miniseries about Farkas Kempelen and the Hungarian Jacobin movement (Chess, Mr. Kempelen!1976), and about the early years of István Széchenyi a NeighboursÁdám Horváth, writer at is, produced a 6-part series (The days of Széchenyi1985).
And the 5-part crime series set in the decades of the 1920s and 1940s, the Camera (1985, dir.: Sándor Mihályfy), which owes its popularity not so much to its plot, but rather to its ironic tone, exciting portrayals of characters, and its comprehensive, seemingly authentic, era.
It can be seen that when it comes to the past of Hungarian historical film, the titles of films and series made for television cannot be omitted from the list of the most important works. If only because, as far as costume works are concerned, from the 1960s, the majority of costume films and classic literary adaptations were “exiled” to television. Which was a problem after the change of regime, because the channels that were multiplying at an ever-increasing rate only thought about making historical plays in isolation, just as the financially collapsed cinema production, which was searching for itself for a long time after the change of regime, could not come up with worthwhile historical films for decades.
This process and the stages of breaking out from the bottom are presented in the second part of our series of articles.
