Gábor Gelencsér:
The Right of the Canon: Canonization Considerations in Hungarian Film History, with a Special Focus on the 1970s

The essay analyzes the history of Hungarian film based on various questions having to do with canonization. First, it examines what values were made central by the critical discourse of the era. One valuable aspect was that of social participation, which had been canonized in the previous decade, and which remained, with certain changes, a central value throughout the 1970s as well. The next issue raised by canonization is the gesture of exclusion. This question is analyzed here from the perspective of censorship, through examining the ways in which two films that were banned in 1969 (Péter Bacsó: The Witness and Dezső Magyar: Agitators) would go on influence the film-historical processes of the 1970s. The essay continues by providing an analysis of the ways in which the system of institutions (young filmmakers’ experimental workshops, the Béla Balázs Studio, and the new workshop that was already demanded by documentary filmmakers during the 1970s and was eventually established 1981 as the Association Studio) influenced the canonization. The essay then goes on to assess the issue of various awards and top lists, and concludes by surveying the canon from the perspective of intertextuality, considering which films from the 1970s are recalled in the Hungarian films of the subsequent decades (whether it be through the imitation or repetition of a style, a scene or a setting).