(Extracts from an interview realized on FICM 2018)
[…]
FICM:
You have made several films based on novels. How is your adaptation process?
BÉLA TARR:
My first encounter with literature was Shakespeare's Macbeth. I did it in film school. It was my first movie, and then after that, I became a film student, and somehow I ignored the school and they allowed me to do what I wanted… My teacher told me: “You have to do some kind of adaptation, from another way, we will have to say goodbye to you, because this is a school ”. And I said, "Ok, let's do Macbeth, from Shakespeare." And you know, when you read the text and understand the meaning, and of course, you have your own relationship with the work, and afterwards it was very easy because I only chose what I wanted to keep and what I wanted to leave out. And I focused only on one part of the drama, and then I used the text as in normal life, and somehow the actors spoke in a normal language.
Later, when I read László Krasznahorkai, the novel by Satantango, I decided that I really wanted to work with him, because I loved the book and I loved him. He wrote his novel about the lowlands of Hungary, about his own experiences. And then I had to understand that he couldn't use his book as some kind of fake script. I should forget about the book. He was to go to the lowlands of Hungary. I had to live my own experiences. She had to have the same knowledge that he had. And I spent two years there, and then it was so easy that I was just living the book again, and I just used the structure of the book and nothing else. Either way, literature and cinema are two different languages. It is impossible to make a direct adaptation. You have to dive in, you have to have the same knowledge. You have to understand that he was transforming his experiences for himself, and I had to do the same. I had to see the transformation in myself. I need a glass of wine, water and an ashtray. That's it. I don't think you can do a direct adaptation. It's stupid.
FICM:
At what point in the shoot did you start to think about music?
BÉLA TARR:
Music is one of the main characters in the film. It means I want to know before I shoot. The main character. And that's the reason we make the music before we shoot. And when we go to the set I already know the music, and I know which scene needs music and which doesn't.
[…]
FICM:
Do you think a script can be read and studied like literature?
BÉLA TARR:
I don't know what a script is. It's a useless piece of shit. I am really against the script. It blocks your fantasy, and it gives you false security, and what you have to do is listen to the real situation, the real people, the real relationships between people. And if you have a script, you want to do the script. You want to complete the script. It's fake crap. Forget this. You have to see life. You have to learn of life and then comes, let's say, filmmaking. But life first. I don't know what the script means, really.
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