Miklos-Jancso-Obituary

Miklos Jancso

1921 - 2014

Obituary

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) - Hungarian filmmaker Miklos Jancso, winner of the best director award at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival, died Friday. He was 92.

Jancso's death after a long illness was announced by the Association of Hungarian Film Artists.

Known for his long takes and for depicting the passage of time in his historical epics merely by changes of costume, Jancso won his Cannes award for "Red Psalm," about a 19th-century peasant revolt.

In the 1960s, critics ranked Jancso alongside such great directors as Michelangelo Antonioni and Ingmar Bergman. However, it was his use of scantily clad women, symbolizing defenselessness, which drew big audiences in prudish communist Hungary.

Jancso was born September 27, 1921, in Vac, a small town north of Budapest. His parents were refugees from Transylvania, once a part of Hungary.

"My mother was Romanian. In civilian life, the family members were friends, but politically on opposite si des ... For me this was a great lesson, that conflict, much less violence, will never solve the nationality problems," Jancso said.

Between April and November 1945, he was a Soviet prisoner of war. He joined the communist party in 1946.

"I was always concerned with the problem of the individual can navigate through history," Jancso said, summing up the central focus of his films.

After directing a series of short films in the 1950s, his 1963 "Cantata" drew the attention of the wider public to his exceptional talent and innovative style.

In the early 1970s, Jancso lived in Italy during which he made "Vices and Pleasures," about the double suicide of Rudolf, Archduke of Austria, and his mistress in 1889.

Because of scenes depicting orgies, the movie was banned in Italy and Jancso was sentenced to four months in prison. He was later acquitted on appeal.

Among his most successful films were "The Round-up" (1965), "The Red and the White" (1967) and "Silence and Cry" (1968).

He also directed the French-Israeli coproduction, "Dawn," made in 1986 from Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel's book about Jews seeking their identity in Israel.

"The most noble aesthetic pleasure is the discovery of truth," Jancso told Filmvilag magazine.

Between 1999 and 2006, he made a series of six films dealing with the often absurd adventures of Kapa and Pepe, two comical anti-heroes played by actors Zoltan Mucsi and Peter Scherer. The use in the films of songs from Hungarian pop band Kispal es a Borz helped the films gain cult status.

Jancso was a professor of the Budapest Film Academy, and between 1990 and 1992 he was a visiting professor at Harvard's Institute of Communications.

He received lifetime achievement awards in Cannes in 1979, Venice in 1990 and Budapest in 1994.

Jancso is survived by this third wife, Zsuzsa Csákány, and four children. His second wife was Marta Meszaros, also a film dire ctor. Funeral arrangements were not immediately announced.

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PABLO GORONDI, Associated Press


Copyright © 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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When we pray for "God's Kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven" we are requesting for our Creator to do away with all pain sickness and death. As the family grieves we wait for that scripture to be fulfilled. Until that time the family and friends have my deepest sympathy.

LET THE LOVE OF GOD BE WITH YOU AT THIS TIME.HE HAS SAID"I-I MYSELF AM THE ONE THAT IS COMFORTING YOU PEOPLE."isah.51:12..my condolence

I am sorry for your loss . The God of all comfort will help you at this time isaiah41:10

My condolences to Zsuzsa and family,
How fulfilling to share the gift of portraying the realities of life around us and history rift with mankind's conflicts. This art draws our attention to the desire for love and peace to lift and comfort our hearts. In hopes that you will too enjoy this relief, I will share the promise that God will bring to us the exquisite peace we desire and without partiality make it abound for all to enjoy – Psalm 27:11 & Acts 10:34-35. May this comfort you...

We are never prepared for death so please find comfort in knowing sickness, pain and death will one day be no more for this has been promised us. So please accept my condolences for your loss.

i am sorry for your lost.


Sorry for your lost.
"He will wipe out every tear from their eyes
and death will be no more neither mourning nor
out cry nor pain be anymore the former things
has passed away."  What a wonderful promise
God has made(Revation21:3,4)

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