György Báron: Fercsi

In Memoriam Ferenc Kardos

Ferenc Kardos
Ferenc Kardos
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We called him Fercsi even after his death and that was all right. Youth was his real home. His younger years coincided with the golden era of Hungarian film. In the 1960es the crest of new waves drifted him and his team to giddy heights. Film and youth - these two notions mean the same, and meant no other for Ferenc Kardos either. He studied in the legendary class of Máriássy with Szabó, Rózsa, Elek, Kézdi-Kovács; he established Studio Balázs Béla with them, while later with János Rózsa, he made one of the probably most free-minded and young-spirited Hungarian films of all times Grimace, which resembles the lack of restraint in Malle's Zazie. The common root for Truffaut, Malle and Kardos was Jean Vigo, the adolescent genius of film. Then a more serious masterpiece was created, Red-Letter Days, followed by a grotesque comedy, unprecedented in Hungarian film art, A Mad Night. These films achieved remarkable success and received awards both in- and outside Hungary. Another anarchistic film, an uncontrollable quasi-happening was the next in line: Petőfi '73, in which students simulated the revolution, the freedom fight and death. Only in Truffeaut's films had we seen young people running with such energy and relief. (And by the way: in the year mentioned in the title of the film, on March 15 thousands of students had to rush along the streets of Budapest to escape from attacking policemen.) Then the impetus broke. Not his, but everybody else's in Budapest, Paris, Prague and New York. Icy winds were blowing, which were called the spirit of the era. Another wave piled up at the boundaries of the previous one, new generations arrived, cunning and experienced - and old at heart. They thought they knew everything, but if fact they failed to realise how good it was not to know everything. It was not wisdom that was missing from them, but faith. Kardos was unable to age to their level. He continued to make beautiful films, costume historic films, - Heyducks, Heavenly Host - and grotesque pieces, such as The Accent, Peter and Paul, Truants, The World's Smallest Foundation - but as time was passing, the intervals between films became longer. Meanwhile, he worked as head of the studio, paving the way for films other made and did not quarrel with anybody in the "bickering" film profession. He played truant all his life - we know that they have the strongest desire to return to their former school. But as the school fell apart, the desire lost its object: there was nowhere to return to. He was staring at the hopelessly aging world around him, flipped his hand, said farewell and disappeared in search of the lost time.

At the reunion of Máriássy's students in Örökmozgó.
At the reunion of
Máriássy's students
in Örökmozgó.
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