Suleiman about Szabó: Existential questions in the heart of Hungary!

Suleiman about Szabó: Existential questions in the heart of Hungary!

Celle, Deutschland - In May 2023, Susan Rubin Suleiman, a prominent literary scholar, gave two exciting conferences about her latest works. These events took place at the European Central University (CEU) in Budapest and provided fascinating insights into the life and work of the Hungarian director István Szabó. Her book "István Szabó, Filmmaker of Existential Choices", which will be published by Bloomsbury in 2024, is the first comprehensive contribution to the investigation of Szabó's influence on contemporary thinking and highlights the complex questions that raise its films JFB reported.

ISTVán Szabó is one of the most outstanding Hungarian filmmakers, whose works received international attention, especially in the 1960s. His best -known films such as "Mephisto" (1981), who won the Academy Award for the best foreign language film, and "Sunshine" (1999) often address profound political and psychological conflicts in Central Europe Wikipedia reveals interesting background to Szabó's life and film.

artistic roots and personal history

what makes Szabó special is not only his artistic work, but also his personal story. He was born in Budapest in 1938 and experienced the hiding game of his Jewish family in front of the Nazis during the Second World War. These formative experiences flow into his films strongly and reflect on topics such as identity and moral dilemma Susan Suleiman emphasizes Szabó's root connection to Budapest and Suleiman, from Jewish families, with Suleiman's Hungarian family left in 1949, while Szabó remained.

A central concern in Suleiman's book is the existential decisions that people are facing in authoritarian regimes. The first chapter is devoted to the question of whether you should stay in Hungary or leave the country, while the second chapter addresses the problem of working with a repressive system. These questions are anchored deeply in Szabó's film "Mephisto", which is considered a key work of his filmography.

A look at identity and community

The question of identity is dealt with in the third chapter, and Suleiman makes it clear that Szabó does not want to be labeled in his art as a “Jewish director” in order to give space to his creativity. Another significant aspect of his work is the idea of ​​community after communism. In the last chapter of the book it is analyzed how people deal with their identity and community according to the fall of communism.

Suleiman argues that Szabó's works offer perspectives and identification options for different generations and raising a wide range of identity questions. Szabó himself has always taken care of creating films that find response to the audience and stimulate thought.

These conferences and the book by Suleiman are a profit for everyone who wants to deal with the European cinema and its deep entanglements in history. Szabós filmmaking, which interweaves formal elements with ethical and existential questions, remains an essential topic in dealing with the European history of the 20th and 21st centuries JFB .