April 13, 2018 in America, died Milos Forman - Czech director, the last 50 years working in the United States. The author of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" in the novel of the same name by Ken Kesey, "The People vs. Larry Flynt", "Amadeus" and many other films, Forman was successful with both viewers and colleagues and critics; He twice received an Oscar for the best film of the year and was the winner of almost all key European film festivals. It is impossible to pass by and not tell about the life of one of the main directors of the twentieth century - and about how his cinema was.
Milos Forman lived a long life in which there were more victories than defeats. What other director from Eastern Europe could boast of two Oscars for the best film of the year ("One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" in 1976 and "Amadeus" in 1985), not to mention such trifles as the grand prix Locarno ("Černy Petr", 1964), the Cannes Grand Prix ("Taking Off", 1971) and the Golden Bear of the Berlinale ("The People vs. Larry Flynt", 1996). The love of the public, he also was not deprived; in his native Czech Republic, phrases from Forman's paintings have become winged, and images from his American films are instantly recognizable to this day.
However, there is also an undervalued feeling. Forman shot a total of 12 full-length paintings in 86 years of life - relatively few. Many of his works were not evaluated on time, they were ruthlessly criticized and they came across censorship both in Czechoslovakia and in the USA. The number of his unfinished projects is also large.
What is most offensive is that 90% of viewers associate Forman with a single film, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", which has been harshly (and unfairly) criticized as a simplified and populist film version of the great novel. This is really an incredible movie, charging every time you watch it with some kind of special electricity. The strongest acting of Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher - probably the best for both - and the first brilliant movie appearances for a whole body of artists: Brad Dourif, Christopher Lloyd, Danny DeVito. The atmosphere of the worst dystopia (without deviating from realism), supported by the claustrophobic music of Jack Nitzsche. Impeccable model of confrontation arrogant loner repressive system, voluntarily adopted by the majority of the repressed. In addition, of course, the spirit of the very Sixties illusions that once produced the phenomenal cinema of the early Forman - and the destruction of which forced him to leave his homeland and go to the States.
Of course, there would be no "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", "Amadeus" or "Ragtime", if it were not for the terrific "Czechoslovak" period - four pictures taken by the director in the 1960s. For the movie, he did no less than Milan Kundera for Czech literature; Forman was embodied in the Prague Spring, although by 1968 it was already in Western Europe and had not returned to Prague. As if the naive and crafty "Konkurs" (documentary, medium length) and "Cerný Petr" were already a powerful bid for the main voice of the generation. "Lasky jedne plavovlasky" and "Horí, má panenko" are full-fledged masterpieces in which some lightheadedness of a form camouflages the revolutionary nature of content. The first of these pictures is a universal metaphor of human existence in a totalitarian society, as well as attempts to free oneself from love through it. The second is a model of existence in the world, in its global tasks and the concreteness of plastic expression, comparable to the best Bruegel paintings or prose Hašek.
Then there was emigration, and immediately - a stunning "Taking Off", which seemed to American society too freethinking: who is this Czech to judge us like that? Surprisingly, in these circumstances, novice producer Michael Douglas entrusted the adaptation of the acclaimed countercultural bestseller Ken Kesey to Forman. The choice turned out to be exact sniping: it was this director who was able to find the cinematic equivalent of a unique text and replace Kesey's visionary fantasy with the ironic clarity of screen images. Thus was born "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." The material was alien, but for those who knew movies Forman seemed almost autobiographical. Played by Nicholson McMurphy is not an ideologue and not a rebel, he is just a petty recidivist, who happened to be in an asylum and refused to accept his rules. In addition, at the same time - titanium, capable of the impossible: to find a foothold and turn the earth, knocking out the bars on the window. "Well, I tried, didn't I" - this is about Forman too.
His paintings and his characters are very different. They have one thing in common, it’s the leitmotif of all Forman’s creativity. They all crave and seek, sometimes at the cost of their own lives, one thing: freedom. For Forman, this is not an abstract dogma, not a symbol, not a slogan, but a concrete set of actions of a person who sees a clear goal and is ready for any sacrifice for the sake of it. It can be about the right to disobey parents or disobey authorities, wear long hair and flared trousers, include “too many notes” in your music or joke on risky topics, replicate pornography, and not believe in God. About anything that fits into the concept of "freedom."
About this is the freethinking rock opera "Hair", the anti-racist "Ragtime", the human rights "The People vs. Larry Flynt"- three films in which Forman tells his own version of American history. About this heartbreaking "Amadeus", exquisite "Valmont" and the harsh "Goya's Ghosts" - another involuntary trilogy dedicated to the illusions and victories of the European Enlightenment. In each of these paintings, humanity looks like a fire brigade that decided to arrange a lottery and a beauty contest, occasionally not noticing that a fire had started. In addition, the lone hero is at Randle McMurphy, who despite everything hopes to deceive reality and win a hopeless basketball game.