Zoltán Fábri (15 October 1917 – 23 August 1994) was a
Hungarian film director
A film director or filmmaker is a person who controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfillment of that Goal, vision. The director has a key role ...
and
screenwriter
A screenwriter (also called scriptwriter, scribe, or scenarist) is a person who practices the craft of writing for visual mass media, known as screenwriting. These can include short films, feature-length films, television programs, television ...
.
His films ''
The Boys of Paul Street
''The Boys of Paul Street'' () is a 1969 Hungarian-American Drama (film and television), drama film directed by Zoltán Fábri and based on the 1906 young adult novel ''The Paul Street Boys'' by Ferenc Molnár. It was nominated for the Academy Aw ...
'' (1969)
and ''
Hungarians
Hungarians, also known as Magyars, are an Ethnicity, ethnic group native to Hungary (), who share a common Culture of Hungary, culture, Hungarian language, language and History of Hungary, history. They also have a notable presence in former pa ...
'' (1978)
were nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Academy Award for Best International Feature Film (known as Best Foreign Language Film prior to 2020) is one of the Academy Awards handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to a ...
. His 1965 film ''
Twenty Hours'' shared the Grand Prix with ''
War and Peace
''War and Peace'' (; pre-reform Russian: ; ) is a literary work by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy. Set during the Napoleonic Wars, the work comprises both a fictional narrative and chapters in which Tolstoy discusses history and philosophy. An ...
'' at the
4th Moscow International Film Festival
The 4th Moscow International Film Festival was held from 5 to 20 July 1965. The Grand Prix was shared between the Soviet film ''War and Peace (film series), War and Peace'' directed by Sergei Bondarchuk and the Hungarian film ''Twenty Hours'' di ...
.
His 1969 film ''
The Toth Family'' was entered into the
7th Moscow International Film Festival
The 7th Moscow International Film Festival was held from 20 July to 3 August 1971. The Golden Prizes were awarded to the Italian film '' Confessions of a Police Captain'' directed by Damiano Damiani, the Japanese film '' Live Today, Die Tomorrow ...
.
His 1975 film ''
141 Minutes from the Unfinished Sentence'' was entered into the
9th Moscow International Film Festival
The 9th Moscow International Film Festival was held from 10 to 23 July 1975. The Golden Prizes were awarded to the Polish film '' The Promised Land'' directed by Andrzej Wajda, the Soviet-Japanese film '' Dersu Uzala'' directed by Akira Kurosawa ...
, where he won a Special Prize for Directing.
Life and career
Fábri wanted to become an artist from an early age on. He studied painting and graduated at the
Hungarian College of Fine Arts. He began working in the Hungarian film industry in 1950 as a production designer. He directed his first film ''
Vihar'' (''Storm'') in 1951. He became an internationally acclaimed director with his third feature ''Körhinta'' (''
Merry Go-Round'') in 1956. He continued directing and writing until the early 1980s. After his retirement from the film industry Fábri taught on the
University of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest. In his last years he wrote screenplays; they were never made. Fábri was also the president of the Hungarian Film Artist Union from 1959 to 1981.
Fábri's style of filmmaking can be described mainly as "classical", using academic techniques of art filmmaking. His greatest influences were the
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance languag ...
Neorealism and
French Poetic Realism
Poetic realism was a film movement in France of the 1930s. More a tendency than a movement, poetic realism is not strongly unified like Soviet montage or French Impressionism but were individuals who created this lyrical style. Its leading fi ...
. He experimented with narrative and
flashback techniques for a while in the 1960s (in his films ''Nappali sötétség'' and ''Húsz óra'') and his 1976 film ''
Az ötödik pecsét'' contains some highly
surrealist
Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...
scenes, but overall he never used the mannerisms of
modernist film in his works. For this reason the
Kádár regime favored Fábri over more controversial and experimental directors like
Miklós Jancsó
Miklós Jancsó (; 27 September 192131 January 2014) was a Hungarian people, Hungarian film director and screenwriter.
Jancsó achieved international prominence starting in the mid-1960s with works including ''Szegénylegények, The Round-Up'' ...
. The film won the Golden Prize at the
10th Moscow International Film Festival and was entered into the
27th Berlin International Film Festival
The 27th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from 24 June to 5 July 1977. The festival opened with ''Nickelodeon'' by Peter Bogdanovich.
The Golden Bear was awarded to '' The Ascent'' directed by Larisa Shepitko. Since this edit ...
.
At the
11th Moscow International Film Festival
The 11th Moscow International Film Festival was held from 14 to 28 August 1979. The Golden Prizes were awarded to the Italian-French film ''Christ Stopped at Eboli (film), Christ Stopped at Eboli'' directed by Francesco Rosi, the Spanish film ''S ...
in 1979, he was awarded with the Honorable Prize for the contribution to cinema.
He was known as a perfectionist who wrote, drawn and choreographed every scene to the most precise detail months before production began and never improvised anything. His reputation as a rigid, tyrannical director was somewhat contradicted by his friendly and kind behaviour towards the British and American child actors on the set of ''The Boys of Paul Street''.
Fábri made nearly all of his films based on literary material (novels or short stories) and wrote the screenplays himself. His constant theme was the question of humanity. Many of his films are set in or around
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. Two of his frequent collaborators were actress
Mari Törőcsik and cinematographer
György Illés. In 1969 he played the role of prosecuted statesman Zoltán Dániel in his friend
Péter Bacsó
Péter Bacsó (6 January 1928 – 11 March 2009) was a Hungarian film director and screenwriter.
After high school graduation Bacsó wanted to become an actor and later a theatre director, but ultimately decided to try filmmaking. His first ...
's cult satire, ''
A tanú'' (''The Witness'') as his sole acting job.
Fábri died in a
heart attack
A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when Ischemia, blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom ...
at the age of 76 in 1994. His legal successor is Peter Fabri (b. 1985).
Filmography
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fabri, Zoltan
1917 births
1994 deaths
Hungarian film directors
Hungarian male screenwriters
Burials at Farkasréti Cemetery
Film people from Budapest
20th-century Hungarian screenwriters