Péter Bacsó
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Péter Bacsó (6 January 1928 – 11 March 2009) was a Hungarian film director and screenwriter.
After high school graduation Bacsó wanted to become an actor and later a theatre director, but ultimately decided to try himself in filmmaking. His first job in a film was as an assistant in Géza Radványi's Valahol Európában (Somewhere in Europe) at the age of 19. He continued as a script editor and screenwriter. He graduated at the Hungarian School of Theatrical- and Film Arts in 1950. At the time he was already a familiar face in studios.
He was a successful screenwriter during the 1950s before beginning to direct films a decade later. He made his first feature film, Nyáron egyszerű in 1963. He made his most famous film, A tanú (The Witness) in 1969, but it was banned at the time and was only released in 1979. The film which became a cult classic in Hungary is a political satire about the early-1950s Communist regime.
Bacsó later continued to make mostly political and satirical films, mostly for the wider audience. He made various genre films, trying out his hands in musical, comedy, etc. He continued filmmaking up to this date, however his last two movies are generally dismissed by critics and the public alike and classified as badly written and low quality works. His last film was 2001's Hamvadó cigarettavég (Smouldering Cigarette), a biopic of Hungarian actress and singer Katalin Karády.
