@mendelB said:

Item: The Turin Horse

Language: en-US

Type of Problem: Incorrect_content

Extra Details: As far as I can tell, this film was co-directed by Ágnes Hranitzky who is not credited on this listing as director.

Sources: Google: https://www.google.com/search?q=the+turin+horse IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1316540/ Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_turin_horse MUBI: https://mubi.com/films/the-turin-horse Wikipedia: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/The_Turin_Horse

Thanks!

I realize now that she is credited under the 'full cast and crew', but not under the primary listing which I think is still an issue. I only realized this error because the Letterboxd listing (which uses the TMDB API) doesn't have her listed as director which I assume is due to this error.

@mendelB wrote:

Item: The Turin Horse
Language: en-US
Type of Problem: Incorrect_content

Thanks for your report!

Extra Details: As far as I can tell, this film was co-directed by Ágnes Hranitzky who is not credited on this listing as director.

The most important question is: How was Ágnes Hranitzky credited officially? Foremost: How was she credited in the official on-screen credits of this movie? And if we can't find an answer there: How was she credited on official material, such as posters, trailers etc. All the sources you mention are unofficial sources!

I realize now that she is credited under the 'full cast and crew', but not under the primary listing which I think is still an issue.

That depends on how she was officially credited -> as a "Director" or as a "Co-Director".

I only realized this error because the Letterboxd listing (which uses the TMDB API) doesn't have her listed as director which I assume is due to this error.

Yes, that's why Letterboxd does not show the name. However, this might not be an error. I looked at all the posters in different languages here on TMDb:

https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/81401-a-torin-i-l/images/posters

There's not a single poster that mentions Ágnes Hranitzky as a director next to Béla Tarr. Instead, it often states "A film by Béla Tarr" without mentioning her. And when you look at the French poster here:

https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/vunkMh0p6gKP3nPbiwhjIwUht1r.jpg

you can see in big letters on top: "Un film de Béla Tarr". And in the tiny billing block at the bottom, you can find the text: "Montage et co-réalisation: Ágnes Hranitzky".

This goes also for the English trailer -> only Béla Tarr is mentioned with the line "A film by":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNkN_xCXozw

And the same goes for the official website of the US American distributor:

http://store.cinemaguild.com/nontheatrical/product/2420.html

To conclude -> All official documents that I can find after a quick search do not mention Ágnes Hranitzky as a director of this film in the same way/status/meaning as Béla Tarr. That's why she should be credited as a "Co-Director" - which also means she won't appear on Letterboxd in the primary listing.

By the way: If you take a look into the change activity of this entry, there's 1 user who always changes this back to "Co-Director":

https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/81401-a-torin-i-l/changes?filter_key=key&filter=crew

I also think that's the correct decision. I'll keep this report open for other moderators to share their opinion.

Hey Janar, thanks so much for the thorough reply!!

I guess I'm somewhat confused as in my mind -- with the 'co' prefix meaning 'jointly' -- a 'co-director' title would work bi-directionally (excusing the pun), meaning to say that two people 'co-direct' a film as opposed to one person directing and the other 'co-directing'. But I can definitely understand how that might not be the case in industry practice, and I'm sure these credits can be very subjective...

I guess the reason I'm somewhat concerned is because, as we know, unfortunately, in the cinematic industry (like so many others) there's a (un)healthy male bias, and my fear is that she lost credit for more nefarious reasons, rather than due to a technical truth, but I very much hope I'm wrong!

I wish there were some canonical, clear, official source for this

Either way, I very, very much appreciate you looking into this!!

@mendelB wrote:

Hey Janar, thanks so much for the thorough reply!!

You're welcome!

I guess I'm somewhat confused as in my mind -- with the 'co' prefix meaning 'jointly' -- a 'co-director' title would work bi-directionally (excusing the pun), meaning to say that two people 'co-direct' a film as opposed to one person directing and the other 'co-directing'. But I can definitely understand how that might not be the case in industry practice, and I'm sure these credits can be very subjective...

Yes, it is odd that the job label "co-director" can mean different things when it comes to movies. I don't really know about the history in general, though. I guess it would be interesting to find out why the industry decided to use this job label in some cases? Perhaps it was a marketing tool -> big prominent director minus unknown co-director to put on posters for publicity reasons, for example? I don't know the real reason - but I'd like to know, for sure.

I guess the reason I'm somewhat concerned is because, as we know, unfortunately, in the cinematic industry (like so many others) there's a (un)healthy male bias, and my fear is that she lost credit for more nefarious reasons, rather than due to a technical truth, but I very much hope I'm wrong!

As far as I researched, she was credited as a co-director for Béla Tarrs later films because the shooting of those films became too complex for one person (= him) to overlook everything. She was the editor for many of his films before and they are married for a long time -> but on those last films, she had to be on the set pretty much all the time. From an interview (https://brightlightsfilm.com/interview-bela-tarr-werckmeister-harmonies-cannes-2000-directors-fortnight):

"We decide everything about the cutting during the shooting. She is always there and watches everything on the video monitor. She checks the rhythm of the scene, how two scenes will interact and things like that."

From the point of production, I guess here's the line where it's hard to tell for us viewers how much she's involved in the direction? Is she equally responsible for the way the movie turns out - or is he the genius to give the direction of how it should be filmed? I don't think we as viewers can determine this without knowing more details about their work process on set. On the other hand -> from the point of how this movie is publicly advertised, it's very clear that they put Béla Tarr in the center and Ágnes Hranitzky in the background - for whatever reason. This might be wrong - but we can't really say if it is, in my opinion.

This kind of reminds me of this recent American movie about the wife of a Nobel Prize Winning writer and how he receives all the praise for books that she wrote in the first place. That's a fictional story - but it deals with the complexity of motives in such a relationship of writer - co-writer - public opinion. It's hard to tell as an audience when you don't really know what's going on between the people behind the scenes.

I wish there were some canonical, clear, official source for this

I'm afraid there isn't one. For example, the contemporary review in the New York Times did credit them both equally as directors of the movie - they do not use the word "co-director" to signal a different "status" between them. However, since TMDb follows the official sources, we have to acknowledge that these official documents did put her into the background.

Either way, I very, very much appreciate you looking into this!!

No problem!

I'm seeing this late, but thanks again for another thorough reply! What you're saying makes a ton of sense and I really appreciate you taking the time to address my confusion!! (I'm quite glad I went and opened this issue because I feel like I've learned a lot from this conversation 😀)