Robert Vas

The native form of this personal name is Vas Robert. This article uses the Western name order.

Robert Vas (Vas Róbert, 3 March 1931, Budapest — 10 April 1978) was a Hungarian film director who settled in England.

He came to England after the Hungarian uprising in 1956. He was committed to documentary, like Refuge England (1959) and, after a short period working for the National Coal Board, he went on to make a seminal series of films for the BBC. These include The Golden Years of Alexander Korda (1968) and Heart of Britain (1970), The Issue Should be Avoided (1971), My Homeland (1976), a three-hour examination of the life of Joseph Stalin (1973), and Nine Days in '26 (1974). He had planned to make films about the "Gulag Archipelago" and the wartime bombing of Dresden before his untimely death on 10 April 1978.[1]

In the BBC documentary tribute to Vas directed by Barrie Gavin, Karel Reisz said of him that his aim was to "inspire thought, to remind and warn". Though his career was tragically cut short, Robert Vas left an enduring legacy of exemplarily honest and poetically acute films.

References

  1. ↑ Gömöri György - Tisztelt Szerkesztőség! www.es.hu 2003. máj. 2. "... ahol Hochhuth ürügyén írtam erről, illetve Vas Róbert tragikus körülmények között, fiatalon meghalt, londoni magyar filmrendező (úgy emlékszem, 1975-ben készített) dokumentumfilmjét, amit annak idején a BBC sugárzott."

Bibliography