#Béla Tarr

[gacougnol]

A scene from Béla Tarr’s “Sátántangó.”

[toiich]

Damnation [Kárhozat] (1988), dir. Béla Tarr

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

[loneberry]

FIRST TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE

Images from my first total solar eclipse, depicting the outer corona, inner corona, prominent prominences, diamond ring, and the partial phase. Photos taken by Dan.

A black sun. Never had I seen a black sun, that insignia of melancholia that will forever remind me of Kristeva, which will forever remind me of M’s suicide—it was one of the few books M had with her at the very end, the book that her mother believed was the key to why she did it.

Black sun. On the day of—or day after—M’s death anniversary. I had been weeping for days when I found myself beneath that darkening sky.

*

What’s the difference between a partial and a total eclipse? I vaguely remember going onto the playground with some glasses as a child, but I don’t remember what I saw in the sky. What’s the big deal? The sky goes dark for a few minutes. It can’t be much different from the onset of night.

Wrong.

The rhapsodic scientists I listened to on various podcasts convinced me that there is really no comparison between a partial and total eclipse. I tried to hatch a last-minute plan to get myself in the path of totality. In the days leading up to the eclipse, I would be at the French King Bridge for M’s death anniversary. The only person I knew in Western MA, besides M’s mother, was my poet friend Ethan. So I asked him if he had a plan to see the eclipse.

I did not know, when I texted him out of the blue, that his parents lived in the path of totality in northern Vermont, that his father Dan was an astronomer (communist astronomer!) and eclipse chaser (this was his 14th eclipse), that Dan had even organized the local viewing event and wrote a book on the history of astronomy. At Ethan’s parents’ house there were literally photographs of eclipses mixed in with the family photos (see below). His father had even built a little observatory on his land. I had, in the most haphazard fashion, found the perfect guide to my first total solar eclipse.

Dan brought his equipment to the eclipse viewing: cameras, filters, binoculars, and a $4000 hydrogen alpha telescope that we used before the eclipse to look at the sun’s prominences and a sunspot on the surface. He enthusiastically answered all my questions. How had the Babylonians worked it out so long ago? Why does the wind pick up when the eclipse begins? Why is the sun’s corona so much hotter than the sun’s surface? (It’s still a mystery to the scientists…) Why why why. (People often tell me that I always ask a lot of questions—almost like an eternally curious child.)

The eclipse. It is not like the dimming of sunset, with its orange hues and plunge into the horizon, the low angle. It is a light unlike any light I have seen before, a strange dream-like atmosphere, a gray yet shimmering unreality, the air suddenly cold, the birds in a confused tumult. The uneven temperature of the atmosphere makes the wind pick up as the moon slowly covers the sun. Though the light was not the gold of sunset, you could see a band of orange on every horizon like a 360 degree sunset, an eerie gloaming that electrifies your skin.

A silence descended on the field as the moment of totality approached. Then, audible gasps—we couldn’t believe what we were seeing. I think the first thing I said was, “Holy. Shit.” Nothing prepared me for the numinous beauty of the sun’s corona, those elegant wisps of bright white light haloing the black sun. I think it’s probably the closest one can come to seeing God while alive on this earth. I cried during totality while observing the patterns in the corona through binoculars. A beautiful pink arch of plasma (a prominence) was visible toward the bottom of the sun. Dan pointed out Venus in the sky.

In the center of that black hole there is an abyssal silence

I don’t know how to describe it. Celestial indifference to human endeavor, human emotion. A kind of coldness in that heat, the heat of the corona, beyond even the fires of Hell. Then I can hear the angelic squall of the corona ringing over the landscape. It is a sound full of grace even as it cannot be called happy.

I can see why the ancients might interpret an eclipse as an augur of something deeply ominous, perhaps apocalyptic. The experience is, at once, sublime, ecstatic, and deeply unnerving—all your perceptual faculties are telling you that something is wrong. The ongoingness of the world and its rules cannot be taken for granted, for the sun went black, not in my dream, but in the afternoon sky.

And just as soon as it began, it was over. We had almost 3 and half minutes of totality. I was surprised by how quickly the sky brightened, how much light we get when the sun is almost completely covered.

One day the moon will float away. There won’t be any more total solar eclipses. Be grateful you were alive during this slice of cosmic time.

This is my favorite scene in all of cinema, from Béla Tarr's Werckmeister Harmonies. Watch drunkards reenact an eclipse in a drab Hungarian bar...

Ethan and communist astronomer dad!

I even got eclipse-branded maple syrup (peak Vermont)

[caviarsonoro]

Keeley Forsyth – Horse

The song "Horse" by Keeley Forsyth is a deeply emotional and introspective work that feels like a modern echo of the cinematic minimalism and powerful narrative of Béla Tarr's The Turin Horse. From the start, the composition reflects the sense of monotony and daily struggle, conveying the repetition and weight of daily obligations, as seen in the film.

The musical arrangement is somber and minimalist, using elements from Mihály Vig's original soundtrack to create an almost tangible atmosphere of tension and resistance. Forsyth manages to transform this influence into a piece that not only honors the inspiration but adds her own emotional touch. Her voice, laden with a nearly theatrical gravity and fragility, draws the listener into an intimate space, making them part of the cycle of exhaustion and survival evoked by the lyrics: “The fire must be kept / My father must sleep / Around this house I slip.”

The structure of the song is a contained explosion that steadily builds with careful attention to the crescendo, symbolizing how life, though routine and burdensome, can be transformed into something transcendent. Forsyth wraps the ordinary in a mythical atmosphere, emphasizing how simple and repetitive acts can become emblems of love, compassion, and resilience.

[capture-s-ii]

Werckmeister harmóniák / Les Harmonies Werckmeister (dir. Béla Tarr, 2000)

[fashionlandscapeblog]

Sátántangó (1994) - dir. Béla Tarr

[mtonino]

The Turin Horse (2011) Béla Tarr

[addictivecontradiction]

A torinói ló, 2011

[davidhudson]

Happy 69th, Béla Tarr.

The Prefab People (1982).

[icollectimages]

Sátántangó (1994)

Country: Hungary / Germany / Switzerland

Directed by: Béla Tarr

Cinematography by: Gábor Medvigy

[gacougnol]

Damnation (1988) - dir. Béla Tarr

[toiich]

Kárhozat (1988), dir. Béla Tarr

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

[wetgeliscasualinterval]

Kárhozat (1988) dir. Béla Tarr