Golden Sixties

Nomad in his directorial and human destiny. His father, farmer, was expropriated by the communist regime, he himself was repeatedly thrown from studies, finally, after years of studies also thrown from FAMU. He walked along the path of learning from practical experiences of other producers, he participated in all Czech films of Miloš Forman. Home alone he produced only one full-length film, but it was a cinematographic gem: nostalgic episode of lost illusions Intimate Lighting (Intimní osvětlení, 1965). Since leaving into exile in 1969 he made the next fifteen films in the U.S. for cinema and television. And as the creator in the commercial film production he continued to base his work on his human and artistic principles. He transferred to film-screen stories of social outsiders, outstanding personalities and criminals (Stalin, 1992) always in the background watching the problem of human freedom.

Already during his studies at Prague’s FAMU he had captivated by his short films. The befitting title of his first film, Melancholy (Zádumčivost, 1963) captures their tone. A sensitive and individualistic approach to reality led him to its critical depiction, and hence to conflicts with political power. His played debut 322 (1969) was struck with a ban, his full feature documentary essay Picture of the Old World (Obrazy starého světa, 1972) was laid by the normalizators into a safe deposit, eight years after an accusation of existentionalism and the screenings of his I Love, You Love (Já milujem, ty miluješ, 1980) were not allowed. Nevertheless, as one of only a few Czechoslovak filmmakers he had managed to defend his freedom of expression and underscored its meaning in the documentary epic about the totalitarian regime in The Paper Heads (Papierové hlavy, 1995). Photography then became a new area of creative expression.

His untamable talent brought him from the East-Slovakian Kojšov to the sunlight of European cinematography. A fierce experimenter with the magic of optics, a cruel and loving illusionist, through his films he got a nickname of the “Slovak Fellini.” Together with Dušan Hanák and Elo Havetta he has literally created the Slovak modern cinematography. But the revenge of the normalizers did not miss him, either. In the seventies he was displaced from creating documentaries and only later in 1983 was he back in the game of poetics with his A Thousand Year Old Bee (Tisícoročná včela, 1983). In the nineties he relocated with his wife Deana Horváth-Jakubisko to Prague and together they founded the present company Jakubisko Film. Its last production is a whirlwind historic fresco Bathory (2008).

Already as a student at FAMU, he was sent for »re-education« to a factory. This, however, did not change his demasking and for many irritating attitude to reality. Evidence of this is found in more than one sarcastic view on cheesy and hollow abuse of folklore in The Moravian Hellas (Moravské Hellas, 1963), and in particularly irreverent portrait of protagonists of the Prague Spring in the feature document Elective Affinities (Spřízněni volbou, 1968). In the period of normalization he left short film, he lived from manual work, from 1979 to 1984 he lived in exile in France and the USA. Again he began to film frantically in the nineties, and he incarnated his testimony about the absurdities of restored democracy in the vast tetralogy Little Capitalist (Malý kapitalista, 1992–2002). He leads documentary filmmaking at FAMU, where he has brought up the entire school of his followers.

He belongs to the first Slovak student at the Prague FAMU. He begun with film directing and his long-term illness redirected him towards screen writing. After return to Slovakia he was a dramatist and assistant film director to Štefan Uher, among others to his Sun in a Net (Slunko v sieti, 1962), which de facto opened the way to the Czechoslovak new wave. As man of letters and a critic, he had maintained a sharply defined concept of an intellectual film, and achieved a real directorial success with his third film, an adaptation of a classic novel by Dobroslav Chrobák The Return of Dragon (Drak se vracia, 1967). During normalization he was relegated to dubbing, to feature film he returned twice in the nineties, again with his own adaptations modeled after D.H. Lawrence and Dobroslav Chrobák.

His name evokes music and he is most known as a moderator of television programs about music personages and other celebrities. An author of the literature of the fact, essayist and dramatic, he also dedicates himself from the sixties on to screen writing. He authored comedies and social dramas , an apocalyptic picture by Evald Schorm as an adaptation of his The Seventh Day The Eighth Night (Den sedmý – osmá noc, 1969) was labeled by the normalizators as the “apex of the socialistic pomography“, locked it away and expelled the authors from cinematography. Despite this he had returned to film again, collaborating for example on Forman’s Amadeus (1984) a developed his cultural and historical publicity on a broad scale, not only in publishing but and radio but mainly in television. The latest adaptation of his material gave birth to the film Lidice (2011).

She had always been interested in those who behave differently than others. And she was no different. She studied musicology and aesthetics, and in parallel piano at the conservatory, she wanted to become a pianist, reason, however, led her to FAMU. She graduated in contemporary directing and filmed custom documents. In feature film she debuted with an existential vision of the individual bankruptcy Squandered Sunday (Zabitá neděle, 1969). This movie went immediately into the safe and she was blacklisted for years as a filmmaker, under the given circumstances she proved herself an excellent documentary maker. In a feature film, she continued with her probes into human diversity in The Fortress (Pevností, 1994) and The Pilgrimage of Students Peter and Jacob (Zpráva o putování studentů Petra a Jakuba, 2000). She dedicated everything, even her privacy, to film. She was rather misunderstood, but remained herself, most challenging for herself.

Ironic cinematic magician and analyst of our conscious and unconscious lapses and passion. The original puppeteer training Semafor started in their own theater masks and direction participated in the Laterna Magica. Since the midsixties failed film as a medium in his best free play of imagination opened. His animated and combined film crosses species boundaries and genres and fascinate audiences around the world, penetrating trauma antiobsessional and modern humanity. Position as an independent artist the filmmakers have been drawn up under the totalitarian regime and continued by even now, when from Lesson Faust (Lekce Faust, 1994) focuses exclusively for feature films, every time a surprising nonconformance intellectual ingenuity and craftsmanship.

Žižkovský flashy and self-taught, who was brought in the cameraman limelight by his immeasurable, exceptional imagination and technical ingenuity. And also courage: in time of Soviet invasion in August 1968 he shot hundreds of feet of documentary material from Prague streets, the same in January 1969 at the funeral of Jan Palach. Meanwhile, he helped with his obsessive visual concept the legendary Czech horror Cremator (Spalovač mrtvol, 1968). Revenge for all this in the form of his removal from the film studio Barrandov and subsequent health problems mercilessly ended his career. After signing Charter 77, his farewell was house performance of his wife, actress Vlasta Chramostová Report on Burials in the Czech Republic (Zpráva o pohřbívání v Čechách, 1979).

Social issues presented to him, as a film director, always more than an artistic concept, politics meant more to him than poetics. Right after his feature debut School of Fathers (Škola otců, 1957) he established himself at the forefront of the reform efforts of cinematography after the “thaw” of 1956, soon, however, he was hit by the payoff of the regime in the form of censorship restrictions Great Solitude (Velká samota, 1959). He fell into a creative uncertainty and found his filmmaker’s image again only 10 years later, in a merciless analysis of a mentality of functionaries Shame (Stud, 1967). His active civilian participation in the renewal rejuvenation process in 1968 definitely took him out of cinematography. After the Soviet occupation he was fired from Barrandov, making his living as an office clerk and returned to his profession only within the framework of the programs of Laterna Magika theatre in the eighties.

One of those whose creativity was for long sacrificed for the work of others. After studying in Paris he began operating in Czechoslovak national film in Bratislava already in 1948. Since the early sixties, he has won recognition as a stage director of Na Kolibě do života, in films made by Štefan Uher, Stanislav Barabáš, Martin Hollý, Peter Solan and Eduard Grečner, and later in films by Juraj Jakubisko, Dušan Hanák, Elo Havetta, Leopold Lahola and Alain Robbe-Grillet. This way he helped creating the modern Slovak cinema – which earned him “a throw away” from the film industry in 1972. Later, anchored in the Slovak National Gallery, he has published on his own, also abroad. After November 1989 he utilizes his experience in a number of commemorative and reflexive texts and publications.

He has twice been nominated for an Oscar for the camera in movies Ragtime (1981) and Amadeus (1984), in both cases it was a near thing. Yet no one doubts that he is one of the world’s prominent directors of photography. Since the mid- sixties, however, he stood behind the camera not only in famous films of Miloš Forman, but also of Ivan Passer, Jan Němec, Lindsay Anderson and George Roy Hill. He still believes in the power of cinematic storytelling with light and shadow, and he is attempting to inspire with his beliefs his students at the Film Academy named after Miroslav Ondříček in Písek.

In 2008, he ended his fifty-year lasting teaching career, even then he didn’t resign from the idea of another film. First film, The Light Penetrates the Darkness (Světlo proniká tmou), he made as a twenty-year young man in 1931 and since then there have been countless films made by him, feature films and documentaries. He worked in his adult life in all regimes, often as the first and always perfectly prepared director and as a screenwriter. There is no more controversial figure among Czech directors – the creator rising so many exciting emotions, who in the same time made so many key shots in the Czech cinematography. And who as a demanding teacher brought up so many students, his future competitors. He himself in contact with them also recovered, as evidenced by his movies Golden Queen (Zlatá reneta, 1965), Romance for Bugle (Romance pro křídlovku, 1966), The Thirteenth Chamber (Třináctá komnata, 1968) and Witches’ Hammer (Kladivo na čarodějnice, 1969).