Werckmeister Harmonies
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Djoko Rosic, Hanna Schygulla, János Derzsi, Lars Rudolph, Peter FitzBrand: Facets Multimedia
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); Hungarian (Original Language), Unknown; Slovak (Original Language)
Format: Black & White, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 145 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-02-28
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: FACETS
Movie Reviews of Werckmeister Harmonies
Movie Review: Discordant Harmony
Summary: 5 Stars
10/10 masterpiece film, long message, with some musical jargon...
Werckmeister's well-temperament (different from equal-temperament) was borne of a process Werckmeister used to alter meantone temperament.
To be brief, Werckmeister modified meantone temperament (and Tarr was using the temperament as a metaphor...) to preserve as much of its harmoniousness (metaphor...) in the commonly used natural keys as possible.
This enabled musicians to avoid using quasi-equal temperaments (metaphor...), because quasi-equal temperaments destroyed (metaphor...) the harmoniousness of the commonly used natural keys.
Werckmeister's well-temperament was a musical philosophy that, when implemented, enabled an appealing and refreshing tapestry of colour changes during modulations. The variety of changes, combined with the harmoniousness of tonalities, made well-temperament more advantageous and popular than equal temperament.
Many of these well-temperaments, which are also called circular temperaments, provide rich palettes of thirds that range from pure to full syntonic comma, meaning, from your basic pure appealing, symmetrical sound to an ebullitional, emotional equilibrium.
I said that the uncle's assertions were proven by life's own default, because life is dualistically harmonious and unharmonious, life detunes that piano, detunes that harmony, detunes that temperaments, etc, and life also tunes that piano, bursts forth with harmony, creates colourful, refreshing, indiviudal, and unique temperaments.
The theory which is technically disproven when it is applied to society and life as a whole, not just musical notes.
Soviet Communism in Hungary detuned the Werckmeister Harmony of the lives of the characters, and, ironically, the fall of Soviet Communism detuned the shadow of the Werckmeister Harmony of the lives of the characters.
Soviet Communism itself was presented as a Werckmeister well-tempered harmony, but the facade of its harmony was clearly false, Tarr through Gyorgy was metaphorically articulating that the government was propagating a false harmony, that people live their lives as a false harmony, that Werckmeister's harmonies acted as a false harmony to a mask unsavory tonal imperfections that always exist and threaten to destroy true harmony.
Werckmeister's harmonies were an allegory for the failure of East European Communism, for the evolution and propagation of corrupted "pure" ideas that are based on flawed premises (you can never hide and ignore bad sounds with advanced modulation techniques, you can never suppress and ignore all protestors who want to overthrow repressive governments, you can never suppress and ignore all the bad things in this world), and an allegory for blindly believing in the false ideals that ultimately destroy harmony and generate repression, cruelty, intolerance, cultural isolation, spiritual desolation, etc, etc.
The uncle's viewpoint was proven by his own discontent with the harmonies and by life itself, what happens in life proves his viewpoint because life is not one perfect, flawless, circular harmony. His discontent and emotional weariness and Janos' confusion and the traveling circus show (which disrupted the "harmony" of the village) and the effects of Soviet Communism in Hungary were all de facto proofs of the uncle's perspective. His viewpoint was, ironically, a direct result of the "Harmonies" themselves: perfect harmonious content breeds boredom and emotional emptiness and disconent.
Janos' emotional breakdown, the prince's tirade, the children banging out harsh sounds, the overall bleak desolation of the town, are all flaws in Werckmeister's theory.
The theory of Werckmeister's well-tempered harmonies was equivocated to following a false path to achieve harmony and enlightenment and existential purpose, and, again, the theory which is technically disproven when it is applied to society and life as a whole, not just musical notes.
The primary theme is the contrast between natural order and man-made order. This is discussed directly by the uncle who is distraught over the sacrifice of the natural scales to the Werckmeister Scales. In the man-made Werckmeister solution, the purer natural harmonies are sacrificed for a broader musical range. This is the downside of a man-made order. In the opening scene, Janos demonstrates a disturbing but temporary dark moment (an eclipse) that emerges from a natural order (de Revolutionibus). The opposing options are set up.
Relate this to recent Hungarian history where there were two significant political occurences. The first being the rise of Hitler. We can be pretty certain that the Prince is an easy stand in. This is also the eclipse, the temporary dark moment resulting from the natural tides of hate, opinion, and all the rest of our god-awfulness. The second major influence is the rise of Communism, which may be the darker of the two. This is the imposition of the Werckmeister Harmony, a disruption of the natural order to broaden the extension of music. Here, I assume the Aunty is the stand in for Stalin and his ilk. Hungary was ripped apart, first by Hitler, then by being subjugated to Communism, and this was a country with a long and proud history (and I don't mean that as a throwaway line, check it out, you'll be amazed by what the West ignores). During the past 50 years, it had been isolated, abandoned, and forgotten by the world. You see that mood aptly reflected through the movie.
In any case, the remaining figure is the Whale, which, while probably not G-d himself, reflects G-d's imagination, or, in an atheistic turn, the vastness of the natural order. If there is something to be known about Janos, it is his tendency to stand mouth agape and the wonder of natural order. This is established beautifully in the opening scene, further established in his first encounter with the whale, poigniantly counteracted when he is denied access to the whale by the mob, and puts him in the asylum when he sees the whale abandoned and desecrated at the end of the film.
The eclipse illustrates the tendency of humankind to lapse into brief, artificial periods of madness and hysteria. But these are always fleeting.
János appears to be permanently scarred by the trauma. He does not emerge from the eclipse like the rest of the town. He sinks into a profound and (seemingly) endless oblivion.
Even though the "even-tempered tuning" is seriously flawed as the professor dictates, there is no resolution. In fact, over the last 300 years, humankind has managed to force music to conform to the Werckmeister scale. We now have digital MIDI instruments which conform to Werckmeister's (flawed) frequencies. We seem to have forsaken the instruments which use the "natural scale" in favour of instruments which have frets, keys and even-tempered resonance. (Aside: the only instruments which still have the capability of playing the natural scale are the string family--violin, viola, cello, double bass--and a few brass horns. But even these instruments are forced to tune to the flawed piano.)
These two points seem to conflict with the idea that "the natural order will prevail." Perhaps, in an oblique way, Tarr is telling us that the eclipse does not always recede. Humankind's will is more powerful and destructive than nature's.
Summary of Werckmeister Harmonies
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