Gyula Gazdag : Bastion Promenade Seventy-Four(1974) 21 KByte	She is working in a film this summer as well, playing a supporting role in Andor Lukáts's Portugál (Portuguese). Since production had just started, we could not talk much about that role yet. There were enough topics to mention, since during her career Eszter Csákányi had played smaller or bigger roles in almost 20 Hungarian films. On the quiet balcony of her apartment in Buda, conversation slowly reached these films... You started your film career with Péter Bacsó... Yes. I went to Kaposvár as a "team member" and almost right away I was chosen for that role in Dashing Girls. That is, as soon as I joined the theatre, I was allowed to leave to make a film. I was playing as an extra in Gypsy Baron and while I was away for the film, one of my colleagues took over my part. When I returned, she was taken out of the production and I got my "role" back. It's not really fortunate that you join a company and you are immediately treated specially. How was the shooting? Disappointing. I didn't really feel that they concentrated on me. Of course I wasn't the leading actress, but still, something was missing. Meanwhile we had lots of fun, I became good friends with Erika Bodnár - it was a great crew. Still, I felt that this kind of work is very far from me. In those days it was typical of shootings to find out everything on the spot. They had no idea how many takes there would be, it was a complete chaos. Only the main storyline was clear, no details at all. This is what I didn't like in making movies. Don't you like improvising? That's not what I mean. Improvising is totally different if you have a clear idea about your part. No problem with that. But if you don't know what you should do, then it's a catastrophy. Strange, but in a way it really determined my whole film career. If I may put it that way, I was very seldom really happy on shootings. To be more exact, I have been happy twice, and unhappy, say, fifteen times. After a while I felt that I simply could not do this. The camera is rolling, and I am standing there improvising, whereas I have no idea what, or how to do - I can't do that. But, summarising the Bacsó movie, I was in a completely hyper state, I did everything I could and still, the whole thing turned out to be a disappointment. You worked with Gyula Gazdag next, in Bastion Promenade Seventy-Four. Yes. I developed a very deep professional relationship and friendship with Gyula Gazdag. Of course I could not predict that then, there were four couples in the film and everybody had a great time together. By the way, you can see it in the film - as we didn't shoot the scenes in sequence - that the weight of the characters is constantly changing. This was due to the fact that after each day's shooting we stayed together, went to the salad bar of Hotel Royal, talked, ate a lot and kept putting on weight. Was this shooting different from a professional point of view as well? Definitely. It was a much more serious, better planned and more mature work. but there I felt that I am still a sort of an amateur in the business. I wasn't myself, I couldn't control my knowledge. I did whatever the director asked of me, I even enjoyed it - obviously he asked things that I could do... But I felt that I am still very far from knowing the art of film acting. Does this have anything to do with the fact that you didn't go to acting school? Nothing. I was simply inexperienced. I roughly knew what my role was, but I couldn't add ideas, thoughts to it the way I could in my theatre parts. It's interesting, and not necessarily a negative thing, but I was always "the smallest one". My role was somehow more fragmentary. For example, I was sorry that I was the only one who did not sing in the film. Even though I was already quite good at singing then. I felt that I'm only a small "tail" in the whole thing. And I wasn't pushy enough to fight for myself. You were playing singing parts in Kaposvár then, weren't you? Yes, already in the first year I had a part in Twelfth-night or What You Want and I played in a musical directed by Tamás Ascher. So your theatre and film career developed together... In a way, yes, but not really. Bastion Promenade was banned, so even though we made it, nobody saw it. So the two lines started parallel, but my theatre career was far more successful. Could you suspect during shooting, that Bastion Promenade may get banned? We knew that the film was a bit brave, that they may not like it. It's a pity that it could only reach cinemas years later. But I learned a lot during this shooting. Evald Schorm is a fantastic actor, it was good to work with him - so it was a useful and exciting month. Gyula Gazdag, who later also worked in the Kaposvár theatre, later somehow "invented" me. I also played in his next films and he kept creating the characters to suit me. But I only played one big part for him, in our last film together. This was A Hungarian Fairy Tale, which I loved. Your second film together, Swap, was recently on television. I mainly remember moods from that one. But it reminds me, that I played one of my best film roles with a Slovakian director, in Dusan Hanák's I Love You, You Love Me. My character, my face, my vulnerability and my sense of humour is closer to their films. Hanák called me because of Swap, and said that for him, I was the Hungarian Gelsomina. He belonged to the few who really found me. The majority was not really interested. Give me an example! I don't want to mention names, but with other directors it has happened that I was given the instruction to be shrewish. I stood there and didn't understand that. I said, what does that mean? Situations are not about that for me. Sometimes you have to cope with very general, bad instructions and situations. In those circumstances I'm horrible. If a situation is not clear and I don't know my job in it, I can be completely untalented - because I know that this is bluffing. Of course if you know the business, then you know the special tricks as well. Do you think that in the final product you can see the difference? Does it show what method was used during production? Yes. It may be a professional disadvantage, but I still cannot watch theatre or movies like the audience. I see the tricks. For instance, if an actor can't break up before the camera, then I see the cut and I immediately know that he was either slapped in the face or done anything else to, in order that he could do it. These are little techniques. But of course great artists can cry for the camera, or do anything else. By the way, at one shooting I had an experience. In the scene the leading actress had to cry. Just imagine, you wake up in the morning at the hotel, you have a nice breakfast, then at the shooting everybody stands there talking and suddenly the director turns to you: "OK, can we start?". This is not the way to work. Whoever can do that is a genius. Is it because of such things that you said you were seldom happy at shootings? This is a bit more complicated. The way things turned, I suddenly realised that the whole thing is about my character. This has nothing to do with weight, there are several actors who are used no matter how they look. Still, you cannot forget that you have a character and somehow the directors were not receptive about mine. They needed something else. I have worked with Elemér Ragályi several times and once he told me, if I had been born in Czechoslovakia, I would have become an international star. Do you really feel, that the filmmakers did not use you well? After a while you start to think that maybe you are not good enough. But obviously I wasn't good enough because I couldn't perform in these situations. I need rehearsals, clear situations I give you an example. It's not filmmaking, but in a way it is. For years, Péter Gothár made teleplays of his theatre productions in Kaposvár. I was in all of them and I had good parts too. I worked happily and since about fifteen performances were behind me, I knew my job, they could ask anything of me. I could perform the ideas harmonising with my character offhand. You could never say about anything that it was too much, or what I absolutely hated and the film directors kept saying, that it's not theatre. It indeed is not, I knew that very well, but this is not an argument, not an instruction. It drives me mad that if you are too much, they don't tell you what to do, they just give you the magic words: this is not theatre. Does that mean that you are generally dissatisfied with your film career? I'm not saying that I have given up on it, it would be stupid. But somehow I found my real way and work in theatre much more definitely. Was filming different if you worked with someone that you knew from the theatre? You mentioned Gothár, or there's Andor Lukáts... The Three Sisters was an excellent work, for instance. Before that, I played a small part in Andor's The Tunnel. But that was different, everybody was "family", coming from Kaposvár. The Three Sisters is a different story. I think it was a much better work process, then what the film finally became. I think that there is something missing from that picture. First of all, we did the play very faithfully, and I don't think you can do theatre on film. The script has to be made much more concentrated. I speak against myself here, because I feel that Masha and the man should have been the centre and us, others should have been little sidetracks in the story. Everybody had their own little story, which slowed down the film a bit. But the way we made it, the way we found out how to do it was like eden. We also laughed a lot, we were very much into it. If you had to pick one film from the many, would this be it? Among the feature films, yes. But there is a TV-movie where I feel I could really show myself, it is Kamondi's Golden Sunbed. Andor Lukáts and I played the leading roles. It also won at the Hungarian Film Week in the short feature category. That was the first of my works that I still consider to be completely well done. You worked with Gothár in The Priceless Day. To be honest, that was a strange experience. For a long time Judit Pogány was planned to play the leading role. Then it turned out that she was busy in the theatre and Gothár decided to give me the role. Let me state first, that I think Gothár made the right decision to finally cast somebody else for the leading role. But for one month casting was done in a way that everybody was chosen to play with me. I kept going to the tests because I was the only one who was for sure. Then suddenly it turned out that it wasn't going to be me. They said that I was too young for the role. Of course a director can always decide whatever he wants and it is his right not to dare take me for the leading role. But after a month of everything circling around you, someone sending you a message that it's not going to be you...In the end Gothár could still make me play a small role in the film. How? I think emotionally. I wanted to work with him. But such unfortunate things happen to everybody. Another time my father came home and told me that he met someone during dubbing and the person claimed to play the role which I considered to be mine. These are strange experiences which you memorise and never forget. From this point of view theatre may be easier, there you can also bring up ideas, productions of your own. To an extent it has happened in films as well. We wrote Bitches together and we wanted to play it together, Juli Básti, Enikő Eszenyi and me. The idea came about during the shooting of Child Murders and we shaped the script together with Ildikó Szabó. Then five years went by and Juli Básti called me asking whether I had heard that I wasn't in it any more. I hadn't. In the end she wasn't in it either. I find these things difficult, because normally I'm on friendly terms with the people I work with. In America this is probably different, because there nothing else is there but work. But as for me, I could always give my best in productions where I became good friends with a director. But of course, this way you get greater disappointments as well. Now there is a latest one, but let's not talk about it now. How did you plan Bitches to be? We wanted the lives of three very similar girlfriends to be in the focus. That is, they were to be close to each other as far as age is concerned. Because I don't think these are problems for a girl in her twenties. The screwed up life of a forty year old woman - that's a problem. So I think the final script became weaker. This is how this story ended - unfortunately. Most of your films are art movies or for a particular segment of the viewers. But you also played in typical popular films - very seldom, though. What do you mean? The one with Szandi, or the Pirates. Wait a minute! Pirates became what it became. It wasn't our fault. Why I did the Szandi movie? I don't know. I can't answer to that. Probably I just wanted to work very much, or something. You see, I have completely forgotten that one. There was a time, when I was constantly called for such mother-roles, even to the TV. These young, good looking mothers, that are not the typical mother figures. I had a period of them. You had a lot of film roles... Once I was talking to Jutka Pogány and she said that still, somehow I always get awards in the theatre. I said, and you get yours for the films. This is the way it is healthily divided between us. Do you also prefer theatre? Absolutely. I like it much better. That's the place where I can really open up. There are those two or three films that I mentioned and find special. But if you do twenty pictures and only two or three are special, you must draw the conclusions. Whatever I play in the theatre, at that moment that is the single most important thing in my life. Normally that didn't happen in the films. My dear father, who I consider to have been a great actor, had the same fate. He made much less movies, mainly just in his youth. He said that he was too much for the screen. This is not true, he was probably told that. Then Robi Koltai invited him for We Never Die - that was his last role. He read the script and said: "You see, this is another one of those roles, where if someone drops their ticket in the theatre and reaches down for it, by the time they look up I'm gone." Well, most of my film roles have been such. But as I said, it's probably about my character. If I was considered the Hungarian Gelsomina, I can refer to the example of Giulietta Masina here. Do you think her story is similar to yours? I didn't say that. She was one of the most extraordinary actresses of out time. She had this wonderful husband, Fellini, for me one of the greatest filmmakers of the world - and she made only five or six movies with him. He ate out Masina, practically scratched, took out everything possible from her, and then never worked with her again for thirty years. Except for Ginger and Fred. Yes, at the end. They were very sweet in that, her and Mastroianni, but what I felt was that Fellini said, well, we should give her something after all. This is such a cruel thing! You live with a man who is unbelievably important for you and for film, and you only work with him six times. I also had a lot of promises. For instance at a shooting I talked to a Hungarian director. Inna Churikhova was working in Hungary at the time and people kept comparing our eyes to each other. This person said, how great it would be if I made a film with Churikhova. Right, let's go, I said. Write the script, I'd love to play with Inna Churikhova. Nothing happened. By the way, I could have played her daughter in Eszter Égető, but I wasn't available. You never even met her? Yes I did. We played in Moscow and she came with her husband to see Lily and Hamlet. One night we met and got to know each other. I think she was surprised by the similarities in our characters. She is a great actress, I have no idea, what she's doing now. Do you regret not having worked with someone you would have wanted to? I wanted to work with Márta Mészáros. It never happened. I love her movies, but she prefers more tender features in a woman. Lili Monori was an exception, who crossed over that border, but really she was the only one. I was never called to the films of the new wave which are closer to my character. I'm thinking about films by Grunwalsky, Szomjas, Jancsó... You worked with Kamondi... You're thinking of Paths of Death and Angels, right? I enjoyed that shooting very much. Our characters with Frici Hollósi were real flesh and blood ones, the opposites of the Eszenyi-line. We were very proud of that and when I got the final version on tape I invited a big crowd to my apartment to watch it together. It was very embarrassing, because we were almost entirely cut out of the movie. A few scenes were all that remained. Then I heard critics say that they liked me in the film, but they had no idea why I was in it anyway. Are you a grateful viewer? Very much so. If I see something that's full of secrets, surprises and talent, that is it can fascinate me, I watch it with my mouth open. I love being overpowered. I see many bad things both in the movies and in theatre, but I'm the type that never leaves before the end. I stay, even if I'm dying of boredom. That's my positivism: maybe something happens in the end? Which is of course never true, because why would something be good at the end that's bad through and through? However, I can't remember having ever left before the end. Do you have absolute favourites? Ones that you always remember? La Strada, for example. I love the films of Fellini and Bergman. Bergman puts spiritual problems on the screen with such depth and thoroughness, that he creates a world totally different from Fellini's one. This is a different culture, different thinking, it is hard to decode. He speaks about horrible things in a sophisticated manner. We can't do that like this in Eastern-Europe. And they can't do our genres there. A while ago we took Die Präsidentinnen (by Werner Schwab - the editor) to Stockholm and Erland Josephson came to see it. He is a wonderful man, really old but very fresh in spirit. He instantly realised that this only works like that on this side of Europe - and that you can only do this horror with humour. He clearly saw the essence of the cultural differences. He also had a Master - Bergman. We may draw the conclusion that this Master was missing from your career - let's say, so far. Strangely enough I always watch Fanny and Alexander at Christmas. Since my parents are not around any more, I have a desire to relive this world again and again. I also saw a "making of..." film about it and I admired the relationship between the director and his actors. This is what I'm longing for. But another problem for our filmmaking is that there are simply no good scripts. I sometimes buy a lottery ticket and wonder what I would do if I won 800 million forints? I think I would have the writer of Secrets And Lies write something for me. Something that's funny and dramatic at the same time, sees through things, creates great characters - that is, it has everything. Of course you can mess up everything, there is no such script that you can't spoil. But where is that script?
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