István Szabó

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This article is about the Hungarian film director. For the Hungarian canoer see István Szabó (canoer)

István Szabó, 2004

István Szabó (born February 18, 1938 in Budapest) is both the best-known and one of the most critically acclaimed Hungarian film director of the past few decades. In the 1960s and '70s he directed auteur films in Hungarian, which explore his own generation's experiences and recent Hungarian history (Father, in Hungarian: Apa (1966); Lovefilm, in Hungarian: Szerelmesfilm (1970); 25 Fireman's street, in Hungarian: Tűzoltó utca 25. (1973)). For the public beyond arthouse cinema, his signature film trilogy consists of Mephisto (1981, winner of an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film), Colonel Redl (1984, winner of a Jury Prize at the Cannes Festival) and Hanussen (1988). He made a switch to English-language films with Meeting Venus (1991), Sunshine (1999), Taking Sides (2001) and most recently Being Julia (2004), which garnered an Oscar nomination for actress Annette Bening.

His most acclaimed films came from his work with famed Austrian actor Klaus Maria Brandauer, and his ongoing collaboration and friendship with cinematographer Lajos Koltai. In 1996 he was awarded with a Pulitzer Prize for his TV documentary series, "The hundred years of cinema".

[edit] Controversial college years

On January 26, 2006 a Hungarian weekly newspaper, Élet és Irodalom ("Life and Literature"), revealed that István Szabó was an "agent" of the Internal Reactionary Prevention Unit of the Communist regime of Hungary during the Kádár-era. (Though the word "agent" was used by the Hungarian media to describe his involvement, his activities resembled more of those of a "civilian asset" or "informant".) His task was to make reports about his classmates in the University of Arts of Theatre and Cinema (he made about 48 of them).

He was blackmailed by the authorities with compromising evidence against him and as such he was forced to work for them as an "agent" only one year after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Szabó agreed "to save himself and revolutionist classmate Pál Gábor from being gibbeted" (in Szabó's own words). On February 1, Szabó's latest movie Rokonok ("Relatives") was a huge success, receiving a round of applause when Szabó István was presented to come to stage after its premiere at the 37th Annual Hungarian Movie Review. In this event Lajos Koltai, the cinematographer of this movie (and acclaimed Director of Fateless) declared that "Some people are still trying to crush even this community" and "Let the love keep us together." On February 3 he and his four former classmates (whereof Szabó had written reports) held a press conference to speak about their memories of one's life in the post-revolutionist Hungary of the 1950s and that they don't feel anger towards Szabó.