István Szechenyi has already about 200 years ago knew, how important is the connection of the people living around the same river. Because the river provide an opportunity to make business, and also to change the cultural experiences.
The RIVER is a ’collective line’ – with the help of we can create collective networks with each other all the time, and we can became friends, we can help each other, and learn more and more about the culture of each other.
It was the first reason why Istvan Szechenyi decided to go by boat from Budapest to Paris at the Danube-Rheine-Maine-Seine. He maneged to do his expedition sucessfully in the XIX-th century.

During the XX.century there were a lot of boat-expeditions. And a lot of documentumfilms were created there. An hungarian filmdirector - Alajos Paulus - also made such a film in 1975. I have been editor assistant in his film. His film represented how austrian,german,french engineers built the big canal. The director edited into his film a lot of original documentations (drawings, photographes) from István Szechenyi’s first hungarian expedition.

I always had a simmilar idea: I would do this expedition as a cultural mission.I thought, I would screen all the films created about the canal. I gave a name of this culutral mission: Floating Cinema.

I have already had some experience, because between 1987 - 1989 I made a round trip in the USA. I shewn all my films in art cinemas and universities.A good friend of mine, John Rubin, had an enterprise called Floating Cinema, and he had two boats on the Missisippi-river. The boats were equiped by projectors, screens and a lot of films. We just stoped with the boats in every villages and we organized every night a filmscreening for the audience. It was a heroic period in my life. We didn’t have mobilphones, internet, but we had a loudspeaker and when we arrived to the villages we walked around the village and we invited the people for the screening. Normally about 70 people watched the filmshows ocassionally.

The cultural mission:

First of all we have to collect every fotos, films, video documentations of the history of the Danube-Rheine-Maine-Seine canal. We have to digitalize all of the materials and edit a good screening program. We have to make subtitles as well: english, german, french. The program would contain different kinds of films, that observe the conception of the canal from economícal, ecological, architectural, cultural …etc point of view.

Second step would be to find a perfect boat for this Floating Cinema. We can rent or buy that.
It would be better to buy one because after the expedition it could be a museum and a fix screening place somewhere on the rivers. We have to make the design of the boat for the performances.

The third step would be to depart from Budapest to Paris by this boat.
We would stop in every villages and we would have one or two evening filmshow according to the above mentioned different point of views.

We would make a documentary film about all this expedition, including the screenings too. We would document the trip, the filmperformances, the nature at the rivers, the small villages and some reports with the people living around the rivers. In these reports the most important question would be, how living around the rivers influence their everyday life.

Fourth step: we arrive to Paris and we edit all the filmmaterials, that we shooted.
We would make different kinds of series for television companies.

Fifth step: We organize the first premiere of those films on the boat.

Scedule:

The preproduction: to collect every fotos, film- and video documentations of the canal from the hungarian, austrian, german, french filmarchives. It would take one mounth.
During this period we should buy or rent the boat and make the design for the expedition.
It would be the period to collect every technical equipments, materials for the expedition.

The production: to make the expedition from Budapest to Paris,
on the Danube-Rheine-Maine-Seine canal.
It would take 3-4 mounths. June, July, August, September.

The postproduction: Editing the films. September, October.
Have a filmpremier. October, November.

A young man is standing by a small stream. Nature is all around. Untouched. He pulls a little screen from his bag and turns it on. Then he carefully takes a tiny red globe made of glass out of a small velvet box and lifts it up to the air. The screen hung in his neck displays the colored image. As he is turning the globe around, the screen displays the image the globe-cam is recording. ‘So far, so good’ he says. ‘Start your journey my sweet little drop and show us the world!’ he mumbles and tosses the tiny globe-cam into the clear currents of the brooklet streaming at his feet.

And then the drop starts its journey. It is going round and round stumbling across rocks in the flow of the stream. As it is bobbing up and down it sends wonderful images: fishes swimming briskly against the transparent currents of the flow; blue-shaded, soft dragonflies making love on moss-grown rocks; tiny snails and clams resting on the pebbles of the shore. The camera moves on passing wavering bunches of sedge and reed. Untouched virginity of nature. Harmony and unity. Blue skies, green grass, glittering sun above. Singing of birds, wind blowing, sound of water splashing against the rocks. As the creek turns and twists the drop gets stuck up on a piece of wood reaching down from the root of a tree. An army of ants is caught in the busy rushing of food up the trunk. The drop is watching the numerous tiny creatures carrying out their duty steadily and ardently just as they are supposed to. Its rest is washed up by a wave. Again, it is running down the waters reaching the size of a creek by now. Fishes and crawfishes come on in the currents, light shines all around in all possible shades of a rainbow. All of a sudden a green-bellied snake crosses the flow. The drop softly hops across its back and rushes on.

The creek gradually transforms into a river. Small houses appear in the distance. It is a lumber-yard. The scream of chain-saws breaks into the silence of nature. Men are working ashore in the same diligent manner as the ants before. Trees are falling and cracking as if they were sighing with relief as they are tumbling down. The surrounding mountains echo the sound of axes and saws. Muscular lumber-jacks fasten the trunks together with chains and thus form giant rafts of timber. The drop is washed aboard one of these rafts. And then the raft starts floating down the river.

Towns and villages appear on the shore. Boats are crossing the river exhausting blue and grey clouds of smoke. Oil stains the water, the color changes to something in the shade of brown. Enormous sewers empty their goods into the river. The scum is washed aboard the raft. Plastic bottles and bags, used tires and rubbish in all possible forms are floating down with the current. The river becomes a sewer itself washing away the waste people produce in their daily routine. A tow-boat passes the raft with a loud blow of its horn tipping it to the side and making the drop slip into the scummy water.

The drop is grabbed by a whirlpool and dragged below the surface. It is being twisted and turned in the filthy, brownish smut on the bottom. Then it starts to ascend. Feces and the mixture of yellowish chemicals form a non-transparent layer on the top. The drop surfaces amidst these conditions.

Noise, discord, horns blowing, brakes screeching, engines throbbing, a total urban cacophony. The river now proceeds in a concrete bed. Fast. The drop is passing below bridges of steel and wire. At the wharfs ships are lying at anchor. At the waterfront the roar of engines adds up to the noise of the city. Black smoke broods upon the water. The sky turns grey. Smothering smog and vapor. Acid rain starts to pour. The scummy waste on surface of the water is speckled with bubbles. A freight train is crossing the bridge above. On the riverbank factories and other industrial facilities appear. Their chimneys are puking thick clouds of smoke towards the sky blocking out the sun. Huge pipes of sewerage drain into the water carrying their unidentifiable waste. At the joint of the lines birds are preying for juicy pieces of organic matter.

The drop is then caught in the middle of an island of rotting animal carcass. Black carrion-eating birds are devouring the dead bodies. The water is filled with blood and internals. Dead fish are washed up against the island. Their bodies are green with waste. Their glassy eyes are staring at the sky. Island of carcass.

The noise of the city is blocked out by the scream of a dredging-boat anchored at the middle of the river. Machine without man. It is reaching down to the bottom of the riverbed scraping up rock and plunging it with a loud blast upon its deck. The island of carcass floats against its stern and gets sliced up making the drop free again.

The river broadens up. The concrete is gone. Green meadows and cultivated soil frame the landscape. The mechanical throbs of the city are replaced with the silence of nature. Only a few horn blows echo from the distance. The waste is spreading out on the surface. It is clearing up. Some fishes appear splashing and playing around. The drop is floating mid-current tipped occasionally by the waves of ship.

In the distance an enormous construct appears. It turns out to be a nuclear power plant. Giant pumps are sucking in water from the river. The drop also gets sucked in.

The drop is traveling across the cooling system of the reactor. It is washed around by an invisible force. The whole process is very quiet the only thing one can hear is the soft throb of pumps. The water is vaporized within. The drop leaves the system in a cloud of steam high up in the air.

The aerial view presents a total picture of the power plant and its vicinity. A wind is raising the drop higher and higher. The picture becomes multiple: mountains, a distant city, highways and the thin, silver line of the river.

The drop is caught in a cold that is swept above the city. The wind gains power, it slowly becomes a storm. Lightning crashes. Storm. A heavy shower falls down on the city.

The drop lands on the window of a huge apartment building. It peeks in. There are two people in the room. A man and a woman. It is dawning. Grey light is cast upon the couple embracing on the bed. There is a laptop on the table that controls the whole apartment. An alarm-clock is playing a tune. Light is slowly turning on. Household appliances start up in the kitchen. Coffee automat, toaster. A screen begins to display figures of the stock market. The couple is waking up. The woman embraces the man and tries to draw him into sex, but the man jumps out of the bed and steps right up to the coffee automat. He drinks his coffee and then starts to chew on a piece of toast. His movements are mechanical as if he was controlled by the computer as well. The woman gets up too. She goes to the window and stops in front of the drop. She pushes her face up to the glass. One is getting thus a close-up on her sleepy, wrinkled and pale features. She yawns. Her snow-white prosthetics shine in her mouth. She is checking herself down in the reflection of the window. She runs her fingers through her hair and strokes her tired face. She grimaces with dissatisfaction then hurries into the bathroom. The man steps out of the shower. With one hand he is trying to put on his clothes, with the other he is holding a cell-phone. All the while his glance is stuck on the figures on the screen. He gestures intensively and barks instructions into the cell-phone. The drop is then blown away from the window and lands on the hood of a car.

The car starts up and drags the drop through the morning rush-hour. The streets are crowded with people on their way to work. Traffic jams, clogged passes, signs, horns. At a sharp turn the drop slips up on the windscreen. The woman from the apartment building is driving the car. Three little children are chatting on the back-seat. She is handing them plastic glasses from which they are sipping cream with straws. They are crunching on corn-flakes too. At each red-light the mother puts on a little make-up using the rear-view mirror. Lipstick, powder and stuff like that. After the tenth stop her face is fresh and clean. No wrinkles, no spots. The “forever young” mother then drives up to the kindergarten and delivers her children.

The smashing of the door makes the drop fall down on the pavement. It is washed down into the sewer. An army of rats is running up and down on the pipelines. Sometimes they plunge into the sewer splashing up yellowish water. The view is getting blurred by this virtual sieve of feces. At the turns homeless people take shelter. Their skin is black with dirt. They are ragged and filthy. Some of them roast rats at camp-fire. The sewer is beset on both sides with piles of rubbish. Skeleton-like people crawl out from their bungalows staring into the void. They team up at the light and drink unidentifiable liquids from huge cans while smoking on butts. Then suddenly light shines all around. The drop is washed into the ocean at the end of the sewer system.

The current sucks in the drop and sweeps it out. Whales and dolphins appear. Freighters cross the sight. The drop gets stuck on the back of giant turtle. They cross the ocean together covering thousands of miles. Then they arrive on a small desert island. Nature is untouched. Birds, lizards, mammals and insects make up the spectrum of life. The drop is taken up on a rock and presents the time in the wilderness throughout some days. At one night a storm gathers. Ten yard waves are crushing the shore. Then suddenly the scream of a horn can be heard in the night. A huge tanker is stranded and tipped to the side. From its severed belly oil is pouring into the sea. Slowly oil covers up the shore. Birds and fishes are struggling for survival. They are all getting bound by the black mass and slowly suffocate. The shore gets crowded with dead animals. The drop is watching the agony from the rock. A sea-gull lands on the rock and takes the drop in its beak. It takes off and carries the drop high up in the air. Oil stains the landscape. Small rescue ships spread white foam on the water to put a halt to pollution, but everything is useless by now.

The sea-gull takes rest on a bleak hillside. An eagle comes along and swoops down on the tired gull. It takes its prey in its claws and lifts it up to its nest to feed it to the young. From the beak of the eagle the drop falls down to the abyss and splashes on a rock in a glen. Rain begins to fall and washes the drop away.

The drop returns to the small stream where it began its journey.

The man is watching the image on the screen. He lifts the drop up to his face and looks into the camera. “You have finished your journey and showed us what has become of the world. Your task is complete.” he says and turns the camera off.

"Once a Chinese painter painted a wonderful landscape ... . As he made a good go of it, the painting was so drown to life, that he couldn’t keep going on, walking into the picture. And so he disappeared in it ...."

This story has been bothering me for about twenty years.

Surely I do not want to disappear in a self-done picture, as the whole story stands here as a symbol, but I really want to paint such lifelike landscapes and portraits, which practice such a deep impression to the audience, that they inevitably feel the desire to be dissolved in it. Candidly speaking, I want them totally identify themselves with the picture.
I want to catch 2 time layers in my planned experimental film. Therefore I think the silent film execution is more appropriate for realising my imagination.
The first time layer is the time of exposure.

I apply long, more seconds, even more minutes of exposure with my 100 years old, wooden frame camera when recording a landscape or a face/portrait.
I use only one sheet film for one recording.

After that it will be transformed to the enlarged and painted landscape or portrait.

Only a series of slipping moments can be recorded to a sheet film and for me it is not enough. I would like to record the progress of events of the picture with a motion-picture camera too, parallel with the exposure.

This is the second layer, the real-time layer of time.

It is in fact exactly this comparison of photo and film that can make the visual meaning complex.

Which value will be added to the just-being recorded photo-painting by the motion-picture?

In case of landscapes the added value is the motions caused by the wind, for example the vibrations of the leaves, the clouds which slip away, or the changes of the light during the exposure, which repaint - the otherwise unmoving picture again and again.

In case of portraits it is the shades of changes, the so-called micro-physiognomical changes on the faces. In this case the psychical impact of the filmdirector is not of minor importance. During the co-operation with the subjects my intention is bringing their inside world from the deep bundle of their personality out to the surface, manifesting all the content on their faces : glances, behaviour, gestures. This situation is primaly preceded by a relaxation process. My goal is getting my subject to a relaxed status and to put down their everyday problems, the troubles of existence, the noise of the running life ... . They get to a status of being able to sit relatively motionless during the long, more minutes of the duration of exposure. I can apply of course - as support - the well tried and tested arm-, head and legrests, but based on my experience, my clients are fitted for eyeing purified into the lens of the camera by their deep peace of mind.
The same composition will be chosen for recording the landscape or the face with a filmcamera of 35 mm (with the help of a semi-transmitting mirror). The film camera will start recording at the beginning of the exposure and stop at its end. The long exposure will be recorded on film, simultaneously. In the other case (the flat photo-painting) the result is only one timeless picture.

When the paintings are ready and the film is developed, I will put the picture and the film belonging to the picture together.

I reproduce the painting with the first shot on a tricktable, after that the film will be realed off, and the picture will reproduced on the last shot again.

A theme, concluded units, will be established in a mosaic-like structure ... .

Landscapes, which are getting revived with help of the film, and stiffed again into the timeless painting.

Motionless faces, glances are looking at us from the pictures, later they transform to paintings again, their eternal glance overstaying through the camera.

While they are tiny microcosms, all the units are independent completeness and totality, they are unique and cannot be grasped as the same. These short units of 40-60 seconds became visible with the help of the projection again and again.

I have prepared myself to make this experiment since 1989 and I made some photo-paintings in the last years. Actually, a lot of negatives which have been taken in the last 30 years were digged out from the drawer and a papercopy has been made. A selection of the mentioned pictures can be found on my webpage: www.szirtesfilm.hu

At the late 60’s the first computer was constructed, which was able to calculate all the possible options of a motion before and after the moment of taking a photo, and it was virtually shown to us. It has visualised the past and the future of the moment of taking photographs.

My intention is to do the same, but by using a 100 years old technology.

Additionally, my film- and photo infrastructure has been developed and all the necessary requisits will be secured by my company: the wooden frame photo machine, the 35 mm camera and the trictable produced by Crass.

Budapest, September 2006