Original subtitles

Prvn� ve�ejnopr�vn� �estm�r Kopeck�

in co-production with Slovak Film Institute, Cinemart and UPP

presents

25 from the Sixties, or the Czechoslovak New Wave

A documentary film Part II

Script

Sound

Editing

Directors of Photography

Production Manager

Produced by

Directed by

In the mid-sixties the New Wave briskly pours over to Slovakia.

Despite the previous generation of older FAMU graduates

like Uher, Barabas, Solan, Holy,

there come their followers Havetta, Hanak, Jakubisko.

We could also mention Ivan Balada and Juraj Herz

but they were Slovaks who stayed in Czech

and in Slovakia they made several TV films,

like Balada's Lady, or Herz's Sweet Games of the Last Summer.

Perhaps the most vigorous entry among Slovakian filmmakers

came with Juraj Jakubisko and his film Crucial Years.

Turn to me. Boom!

A game. Life is a battlefield.

The idea is not mine, it was written by Jarda Ucen

and Koliba production gave it a thumb up.

The original title was Runway.

It was a story of two brothers, a painter and a pilot,

the pilot died during the Cuban missile crisis and the silly painter

who had painted nothing but abstract pictures, realized

that his art must serve socialism and peace.

Dohnal read it and said: Man, what is the film about?

I said: How can you not know? See, this here is the beginning

As a boy I came to a beehive and we played with toy guns,

and then I lived with this girl who worked in an asylum

and we'd fool around with a stuffed arm

So I kept telling him stuff about every single scene

and as I finished, he said:

Alright, let's write down all these things you've told me.

And that's how Crucial Years came to existence.

It was an autobiography because Jana was my girlfriend back then

and we'd gone through many things together.

She was an artist and had a gorgeous long neck.

Once I was in a production room

and there came Vlado M�ller who had just acted in The Hangman.

He says: I've just finished post dubbing, got a job for me?

The production manager said:

This young director is about to make a new film, read it.

And M�ller called the next day saying: I'm in.

Then we had to cast the other character and wanted Abrham.

We rehearsed with him, he even brought some girls to act there

but right before shooting he came and said:

Juraj, I can't do this. I was asked to act in Spring Waters

and it's a unique opportunity. It may be the role of my life.

So there came Jirka Sykora,

totally different from what I'd had in mind; no hunk, see?

Unlike the handsome Abrham but then I thought why not?

If you manage to make people like this chubby guy, good on you,

you're a director, right? It might be a good film then.

I thought it lacked an explosion of light

and back then I didn't consider tones and shades.

So, as we were shooting from a tower next to a church

sharply lit by the sun from behind it created a huge light contrast

and later during some screening Juraj says: Where is the tower?

All we could see was some ghost

but it looked much better than some realistic image.

Hey, Jana

You like me. You're crazy about me, aren't you?

These visual jokes come out of a natural, full-bodied image.

The 16mm film copied from another 16mm film resulted

in an image of a convincing verity sunk in a grainy picture.

Crucial Years were labeled the worst camera work in Koliba

however I knew this would not only help me move forward

but I also knew this was me.

I'm also hard to see through.

Helge belongs to the generation

affected by a conference in Banska Bystrica.

His School for Fathers gained some official acclaim

but in Great Solitude he was forced to change its ending.

This concession affected all his following film works

and it was as late as in 1967 with his film Shame

when he returned to the original moral ground of School for Fathers.

Shame is a story of a corrupted communist

and this topic preceded what the whole 1968 year was about,

about searching for a moral responsibility for the 50's and on.

What's going on?

Comrade chairman, sorry but this is an order.

- What order? - An order to bring Mr Kvasica to the hearing

Did you hear it? What Mr? He's just as much a comrade as you are.

- Sorry, comrade chairman. - So what's going on?

Here's an order from the prosecutor.

We started to prepare Shame when I was a member of FITES

and things went pretty smoothly.

I can't remember any major obstacles concerning the screenplay.

It was quickly approved, quickly shot but the story came too late.

If it had been presented in 1967

I wouldn't have wished to be in shoes of the responsible director.

A rape. I've got a daughter myself. That man deserves to...

But if you just knew how hard he can work.

The worst agricultural cooperative around and all of a sudden...

Go take a look at what he's managed to conjure up.

The only obstacle came from the county council in Mikulov.

They asked for a screenplay which had never happened before.

Although I had made two films there they recommended me

to shoot this film somewhere else

because the story puts Mikulov to shame and we should be careful

because the symbolism of the Mikulov castle resembles the Prague Castle.

So I went to see them and eventually we came to an agreement.

This here is my old friend, we worked at the same workbench.

- He's got troubles getting a flat. - But we don't allot flats.

I know but how about a public interest?

There are strict rules concerning a recognition of a public interest.

- You think this comrade... Hromek. - Comrade Hromek might fit in?

What is this jack-in-office thing? There are rules and there is a man.

A director is responsible for everything,

he cannot make any excuses because he can change circumstances.

And I support a concept of a political film.

This is why I was attacked by Vaclav Havel once...

There was this magazine Kveten

and once I discussed film there with Vojtech Jasny,

arguing about a form and a content.

Jasny supported a form, I supported a content

When Vaclav Havel justly stepped in with a disputative article claiming

that my dull opinions don't deserve discussions but I can't help myself.

I think that film as an art must be a part of the society I live in.

- How old are you? - 14. Didn't they tell you?

I'm here to help you if you wish. Are you feeling any pain?

Speak, you dummy, when this gentleman is talking to you.

No, I don't feel any pain.

Have you taken her to a doctor?

Come on, doctors and police, we never get anywhere else.

If you'd kept quiet, you stupid cow there'd be no fuss.

I think Helge himself considered Shame a part of a loose trilogy

School for Fathers, Great Solitude and Shame where even cast repeats.

The interesting thing is that Helge liked to cast Slovak actors,

probably due to their expressive acting

but at the same time he never casted non-actors for roles of countrymen.

He always relied on traditional directing methods and acting.

So, did you see it?

What the hell was that? A baby. Who messed this up?

Ask this engineer who reported.

- Just tell him. - I know it was lame.

But if it weren't for this girl justice would sleep on.

You didn't want to hear about any of the filth here.

Eventually the film was critically acclaimed, mainly abroad.

I simply like that film because it brought me back to my roots.

Its intention is honest and the film itself is pretty good.

I gained a lot more self-esteem

and as a director I felt much better.

That's why it felt so bad when it cut me off my next filmmaking.

Hey you!

Show up!

Why are you so quiet?

I know you all.

You wanna get rid of me? You wish.

To get rid of me?

This is me. Me!

May I offer you a lift, Madam?

- Why don't you take us. - I don't have a licence.

No way, it's illicit.

Jiri Krejcik as well as other older directors did not go the easy way.

In the 40's he made his first excellent films

like A Week in the Quiet House, or Conscience.

During the 50's his works sometimes lost its quality,

like Frona, but in the late 50's he is back on a track

with Higher Principle, a film which belongs to our treasures.

From the mid-sixties he joined the New Wave and made films like

Boarding House for Single Gentlemen a A Hard and Fast Marriage.

I want you to answer this important question:

Is the railway here for people, or is the railway here for people?

Stop it, will you? Give me the ticket.

- Hang on, he hasn't replied yet. - Give it to me.

Let's go, this is demeaning.

I based this short film story very loosely on a real event

which took place in Ceska Trebova. That was A Hard and Fast Marriage.

I was raped.

Raped? You're saying it as if you've just bought candies.

Any woman could say that. I mean, every other woman could.

When I mentioned the metamorphosis of a social conscience,

a conscience of people who were in charge of cultural sphere,

I meant dramaturgists like Sebor, Bor, Novotny etc.

Those were fantastic men, very open to discussions.

And when they intervened, they were doing so very gently.

What is it you have there? Let me see.

Name Krejcik means there comes a film which is not average.

Of course I was to find out later on our cooperation wouldn't be easy.

See, Mr Krejcik is a choleric person, just like me.

And the final version of the script must be adjusted so he feels secure

because he never improvises during the shooting itself,

everything must be precisely prepared in advance.

So things would often get pretty heated during the preproduction.

- Well, that's a proper hole. - He must have had bigger tongs.

Drop the joking, we all have the same tongs.

A drink and drive case again.

Sir, I am taking this driver's license away from you.

Me and Mr Krejcik went to a police office and its head-chief told us:

Gentlemen, we cannot ban it but of course neither support it.

I mean if you cast young Pucholt for the role of the young cop

we will have problems recruiting new young policemen,

we can offer them only a small wage

plus if they see the Pucholt guy, no one will ever join us.

Calm down. We've got our means that make even scholars calm down.

Perlustration!

I knew Krejcik would also cast Kmoch's bandmaster

who was an amazing natural talent, as well as Iva Janzurova.

Actually as luck would have it the whole cast was a great crowd

willing to help each other.

See, officer, we can never win over the crime with people like you.

You'll save us, I bet. Breath deep, come on.

Officer, why don't people like us?

I think Krejcik got to like Forman's early films

so he casted Hana Brejchova, Jana's sister as the main character

and I was to play the bride.

He gathered us in the Film Club and we started rehearsing.

But Hana wasn't a professional, she was overacting and shy

so he had to recast her role.

He took me to hairdresser, had them dye my hair blond,

we shot some camera tests over night and I got the role of the raped Hana.

- She seduced him! - Why would she do it? Come on.

She seduced him and you back her up.

What a nerve, coming into our kitchen.

- I can't leave her outside, come. - What a slut.

- What did you just say? - She didn't mean it.

Jesus, this is too much.

I recommend you to tell your daughter to be very careful

when talking about seduction.

Very careful!

I love Krejcik because he can get totally obsessed.

He says: You've got to munch on the cake piece by piece.

He loves the expression "munch" so I obey his instructions

and it takes him to next scenes.

I knew a garage foreman who gave a woman his watch and 300 crowns

and after he took it away from her that bitch reported a rape.

Sixties were basically about people recognizing real values,

accelerating truth and honesty.

Most of the films were critical but at the same time they had a vision.

No matter how harsh things they described, there was always hope

because there was a hope inside the filmmaker himself.

In this special moment I am sure you want to thank all those people

who love you the most, who have worked for you,

who have been looking after you,

trying to make your life better then their own has been.

Surely you want to make their lives joyous by being happy.

I do.

Hey, down to the village?

Can't you recognize me?

Films in the 60's would often take literature as a source of topics

which is logical because literature was also experiencing a boom,

writers like Hrabal, Paral, Lustig, Askenazy, or in Slovakia Tatarka,

Bednar, Mnacko, they all brought up new views of the world

and naturally they became an inspiration for filmmakers.

Among Slovakian filmmakers there was an exception,

Grecner's The Return of Dragon

was based on an older prose by Dobroslav Chrobak.

After writing his novel Chrobak was accused of plagiarism

by doctor Felix who was giving Chrobak a really hard time.

The main motif of Dragon is a loss of dignity

which is Chrobak's inner fight to gain back his reputation.

I thought this topic was worth it

because one becomes a hero only by starting something impossible.

He's come back to you.

Dragon is back.

If you remember Grecner's version

Dragon is not returning, he is actually leaving.

It is a totally skeptical view of an individual's attempts

to become a part of a society which once hurt him badly.

It is not one of typical folklore films as we know them from 50's.

Artistically and emotionally it heads toward paganism.

Dragon is a potter which is one of the oldest trades.

There are simplified, stylized costumes.

Even in the context of 60's the film is strange and unique.

I consider folklore a soul of a nation.

I wanted to portray this but at the same time

I wanted to get rid of its official concept as we knew it.

I think the symbiosis of folk and modern art

was best portrayed by Slovak surrealists who announced

Janko Kral was their guru.

The message of this nation's soul is hidden in Slovak ballads, songs

and in their primary folk costumes.

I wanted to respect these three columns when making Dragon.

A real folk art is not as showy as presented on stages back then.

There is a poor region which has the most beautiful ornament,

sober, simple and eloquent.

The richer the region, the more degenerated folk costume.

I refused to use all ornaments with an exception of a red thread.

The simplest Slovak folk costume is made of an ordinary white linen

seamed by a red thread.

After watching first dailies at Koliba I was totally desperate.

It had nothing to do with what I'd attempted to make

although Krajcovic created a perfect set,

to me it seemed artificial, as if made of plaster.

I was at my wit's end.

I showed some scenes to Barabas and asked him what to do now.

So we discussed this topic

and I remembered The Sun in a Net and Szomolany's zoom lens thinking

only zoom lens can help us focus on a human face and soul

and neglect everything around or create an ordinary surrounding.

We shot 90% of the film with the zoom lens

and it helped us create quite a mysterious atmosphere.

Casting a Czech actor into the leading role caused a scandal

among Slovak actors because for some reason they required a Slovak

as if a nationality could be visually captured.

The whole story of Dragon is based on Dragon being a foreign element

who does not belong to the local community.

I told Valach: Your face blends perfectly with Slovak surroundings,

I can't see any reason for him being pushed away by the others

and I need a face which apparently doesn't come from the village

so the locals have a reason to hate him.

And that's how I got to cast Lukavsky.

I asked Zelienka to compose something purely pagan

and he asked me to give him some more details so I said:

I'll lend you my recording of Stravinski's Oedipus Rex.

Dragon should enter the scene as something dangerous, mysterious

which tells you to be careful because here comes a magician.

I think Zelienka is a congenial composer,

he saw the rough cut once, went home and came with a score

which just mesmerized me, this was exactly how I felt it.

Without this score the film would be very dull

but the music brings a tension from the beginning till the end.

A story of powerful passions, strong characters

with deep imagery and poetics, that is Marketa Lazarova,

a literary work by Vladislav Vancura

who would celebrate his 75th birthday this year.

Our camera visited a camp of its feature colleague

who is filming this story.

The screenplay was written by Frantisek Pavlicek

and director Frantisek Vlacil.

Marketa Lazarova was perhaps the most distinct literary adaptation

not only due to its demandingness and long-run preparations

but because filmmakers managed to find a key to transform

a unique literary work enriched with a beautiful language

into a monumental visual piece of art.

For sure it worked thanks to Vlacil who never studied filmmaking,

he was an artist able to visualize the literary model.

Also we mustn't omit Frantisek Pavlicek's contribution.

Milan Kundera once said

that Marketa Lazarova is a ready screenplay itself

but it turned out to be wrong, the novel had to be rewritten.

Vlacil did not plan to make a historical film

he would speak about period films which is a more precise expression.

Period in terms of describing period cycles, desires,

or period twists of human mentality.

It is a brand new concept of a historical film,

very individualized, poetic, lyrical

and extremely expressive even when it describes pain, suffering, hurt.

Plus there is a concept of a clash between pagan and Christian view,

or German and Czech element.

We can spot some traces in Vancura's novel already

but Vlacil truly underlined it.

This film cannot be compared

to any other in the history of the Czech cinematography.

Stand up!

Let him stand.

Except making costumes which I personally value the most,

I was also in charge of setting up the whole production design.

I have to say I managed to create a very unique Czech film

because I invited awesome artists to take part in this project.

Zbynek Sekal made the crucifix,

Koblasa made milestones by the royal roads,

Vozinjak made the amulet tree.

Vlacil never talked to me too much,

for the first half a year he'd just check up on me if I was in bed,

he'd sit on a chair next to me and talk about 13th century,

about king Premysl Otakar II,

he'd retell me the whole royal story that had never been shot.

Sometimes he'd show me his script drawn picture by picture,

I was represented by a mane of hair with a nose sticking out.

Even today I am able to tell historians many interesting things

about 13th century.

We would wear costumes as often as possible.

Theodor Pistek was upset because the costumes were hand-made,

I wore a cap made of a snake skin.

We actually inhabited the costumes and the whole set

so when we got back to a civil reality, it felt weird

because we belonged to 13th century not to 20th century.

You shall be standing here

looking into your brother's face until the moment he dies

and then you shall be buried alongside him.

Vlacil essentially changed a historical film genre

by snipping it off 19th century.

The historical genre represented by Vavra or Krska had been developing

in accordance with a paradigm

defined by the revivalist movement in 19the century.

It picks up on graphic motives,

on interpretations of social groups or individual characters.

Suddenly here comes Vlacil and turns it all upside down.

We should also mention other people who worked on this film,

like cameraman Bedrich Batka, or composer Zdenek Liska.

They all contributed to the intense result, visual as well as sound.

Valley of the Bees was perhaps a bit unjustly overshadowed by Marketa.

It was written by Vladimir Korner

who made use of some props from Marketa Lazarova set.

A new creative tandem Vlacil Korner was born here,

together they made another excellent film Adelheid

which unfortunately also ended up in a vault.

I am not brave enough to watch you fall down, turn into tinder and pus.

I have come to make you my judge.

This current process which attempts to democratize our life

has not come from comrades from the Presidium of the Communist Party

but from the members of the Central Committee,

one of them was from Prague, other one from Brno, from some village,

other one was from some factory and they have done so independently.

A political liberalization in 1968

opened the door for Karel Vachek's feature documentary.

As a student he was a chronic complainer and later he paid for it.

His graduation film Moravian Hellas was made in a non-traditional way

and later he used this method

when making a documentary about a presidential election in 1968,

a merciless portrayal of adored leaders of the Prague Spring.

The transition must have been tough for comrade Novotny but I think

that as a real politician he should have come to this opinion earlier.

Why didn't he do it?

Because of his disaffection with life, with evaluation of reality,

it convinced him that he might have been done wrong.

I met Borovicka on the street, it was the spring and I asked him:

Could I make a film?

And he said: Come tomorrow, you'll get a camera.

The atmosphere was very similar to the one after 1989.

Those in charge were so new

you could just approach them with a smile and it scared them.

They would do anything for a friend who came to talk to them.

And once you approached them with a positive attitude which I did

they'd help you get to anybody you wished to meet.

I caught Dubcek on the street,

we were waiting for him in front of the Central Committee building

and he invited us in instead of some French TV.

I'm not sure. We're having lunch now and then we'll arrange it.

I have to check the list of invited comrades

because we're planning a plenary of the Communist Central Committee.

- We'll wait for you here then. - Please, do.

In that time they got 16mm cameras, recorders which did not hum

so Novotny and others felt good when being recorded at the Castle.

That's how 16mm cameras appeared in the Czech Republic.

Suddenly I see Ort-Snep running around the chambers with a camera

and it felt like a miracle. We wanted to make the most of it,

plus we got to use directional microphones.

- What distance can it record? - Depends on the surrounding.

Up to 10 meters. If he walks like 10 meters behind a guy on a street.

Where was it made? I see.

From car to car? No, it can't.

Before the shooting I met Passer

and he said: You've got to get there even if it was through a keyhole.

And I remembered the keyhole when they told us to leave

and said to the soundman: Get the mike to a keyhole!

Let's apologize for all the processes with subversive centres,

but we'll proudly acknowledge:

We mustn't forget to mention cameraman Josef Ort-Snep,

Vachek's close colleague

who was capable of being right in the middle of events

and thanks to him we see things in the film the way they are.

The declaration of workers in culture published yesterday,

especially as concerns the characteristics

and the range of features typical of the president of the state,

about how they oppose a soldier as the head of the state.

I discern shots that shine.

Then I take them out and go on chronologically like an idiot,

and when I cannot keep chronology any longer I make a kind of charade.

There's nothing else you can do.

Okay, we had a bad start, so the event at the end-

novelist often do this-

the key event that Svoboda had been elected we put in the beginning,

he was elected there and only then we set the election in motion.

Suddenly it got the rhythm and we got the ball rolling.

More or less chronologically.

They always listen to what MPs are talking about.

That's good. That's all I have.

Vachek was preparing some projects between Hellas and Affinities,

one of them was a feature film

but none of the projects got to be carried out eventually.

Surely it was because of his unconventional view of reality.

Barrandov management as well as the communist nomenclature

were reluctantly willing to accept Forman or Chytilova,

but Vachek's directive film expression

based on a grotesque and ironic distance was unacceptable.

I pledge allegiance to the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic

and matter of socialism.

I shall perform my office in the interest of all the people.

I shall attend to benefit of our republic, observe its Constitution

and other laws of our socialist state.

Another "lonely runner" of the New Wave was Juraj Herz.

Unlike his colleagues he studied at DAMU, not at FAMU.

One of his classmates was Jan Svankmajer

and they shared an affection for broadside ballads and its poetics,

horror stories, old freak shows

and it was all reflected in Herz's short film The Junk Shop

and later he used it in his most important film of the sixties,

The Cremator based on a book by Ladislav Fuks.

Gentle, 17 years ago we met here on this blessed place.

Things have not changed at all, perhaps except the leopard here.

The late one must have been torn out of his animal fetters

by the kind Mother Nature.

Me, Fuks and Mrs Kalabova used to meet once or twice a week

for two years in cafe Slavia,

discussing the script piece by piece.

I'd say what I wanted and he would rewrite it

and so the script slowly developed.

We were actually changing the whole novel this way

and our kind dramaturgist Kalabova almost never said a word

but when she did speak out, she'd say something important.

- What is this? - You aren't scared, are you?

And this is Plajeaux, the mass murderer.

He would go murdering every day and every night.

When preparing The Cremator I got to know Sartre's work.

Back then only the first two parts were available.

The first part is written in a very conventional way,

the second part looks like this:

Charles came to a window, took his cigarette, threw it out,

turned to Marie drinking her coffee and told her this and this.

But Charles was in Paris while Marie was actually in Madrid.

Something like this.

And I loved the blending within one sentence

and thought this could be used in a film as well.

When writing a technical screenplay I blended several scenes,

I mean one scene starts somewhere

but it actually belongs to the next scene,

the same goes for dialogues etc.

You'e never seen boxing, me neither because I find boxing too rough.

Well, I can't wait.

One, two, three.

So you know what a real masculine sport looks like.

But I've always considered boxing a rough sport.

Or, let's say hard but it's alright. We need strong brave men.

Boxing is a martial art. Fist to fist.

He has always said: There were two options.

Either a color version without him or a black and white one with him.

Eventually he picked me so it was black and white.

I personally hate color

because it feels as if you printed texts in books in color,

a blue sky, green pastures:

The same goes for a film,

I think a viewer should get a chance to color it himself,

or he shouldn't be distracted from the story by some colors.

This is a mechanism for a rapid cremation

of a bigger amount of people.

It helps many souls free themselves from fetters of this existence

and fly up into the space and dissolve in the ether.

I think this is a big opportunity because in my crematorium

it takes 75 minutes to transform a corpse into a pure ash

and each corpse has its own cremator.

Fuks was convincing me to cast Mr Somr for the lead role

and I said Mr Somr is a great actor but he is not Kopfrkingl.

Hrusinsky is Kopfrkingl.

Back then he'd sit every night in Evropa pub, drinking beer

and I'd go drink with them so once I gave him the script there

and after reading it he said: There's nothing for me to play.

I kept convincing him and as I got probably too annoying

and he wanted to drink his beer peacefully, eventually he said yes.

He came to the shooting set,

and the first three days he was really grumpy

because we were taking only short shots in those days.

Then he realized that there actually might be something to play there,

his grumpiness turned into a good mood, we became friends

and as really good friends we eventually finished the film.

I was used to discussing score with my composer second by second,

with Liska it was the same, he just kept nodding

and as he was leaving he said: Should it be spooky or nice?

And I said: I'm spooky enough, be kind, please.

So they were recording the score

and the music played where I didn't want it to

and other way around,

he added some waltz to a murder scene, it was awesome.

He was an excellent dramaturgist.

In the end the main character goes completely nuts

and leaves for Tibet where he plans to manufacture huge cremators.

We took some new shots with Standa, the cameraman.

We were shooting in cafe Repre by the huge art deco windows

and behind those windows there were Russian tanks.

In the scene this old lady asks the young girl:

What happened to Mr Kopfrkingl?

And I moved the camera a little

and the women were replaced by the tanks.

By means of a long focus

we took a long shot of angry, grayish, depressed people,

tanks are passing them by and suddenly among all the people

there pops out a smiling face.

Kopfrkingl is coming back with the Soviet Army.

When our manager saw this he almost fell down his chair

and said: This must be cut out.

He cut it out and said he would put it into a vault.

The film was quickly banned anyway but this piece got lost.

There is a lot of work ahead of you. For the nation and mankind.

I'm glad you have come.

Let me step right among you.

Vihanova belongs to belated debutants of the sixties.

Her film Squandered Sunday was made in 1969

although she had made interesting films already as a student,

for example Fugue on Black Keys

a story about covert racism in the Czech society.

Strangely enough she, a woman,

situated her debut film based on a novel by Jiri Krenek

into a military settings.

But the main theme of a moral decay of an army officer

was described as a decay of human mentality as such

and a feeling of estrangement

in the middle of a mentally emptied society.

Anything you don't understand?

- Me? - Yes, you.

I understand everything, lieutenant.

Even minister's order concerning upgrading your knowledge of math?

I want you to report in my office first thing on Monday morning.

I want you to report in my office first thing on Monday morning.

On Monday I have an army shooting competition, lieutenant.

Although the main character is a soldier I figured

the problem concerns all humans

even though in this case a military mindset is determining.

However, the soldier's problem could happen to anybody,

it would just perhaps lack the extreme conclusion.

Krenek was a professional soldier and his colleague did shoot himself.

What were you doing in a military area?

- We weren't in a military area. - Sure we weren't

Let's go, ladies.

Keep the bullshit to yourselves and kindly answer my questions.

Let me warn you that whatever you say can be used against you.

This film was stylized into a blunt black and white picture,

full of absurd situations and random writings.

I knew we would inhabit the Josefov quarter with old hags,

gypsies, stray dogs and military uniforms, nothing else.

Except a few erotic elements represented by those young girls

there was an isolated, strange and literally necrotizing world.

There is the leitmotif of a gypsy and the dog pawing in a sand

and it repeats again and again.

The situation in Josefov was worse than the previous year,

due to the Russians we had a limited access to certain places.

Half of the soldiers were Russian so the atmosphere was pretty tense.

But I have to say that our soldiers were very open and helpful.

Did you just cut your hand, Mr Arnost?

Wow, look how well you speak. Say Black bug's blood.

Black bug's blood, black bug's blood.

There is this scene

where the lieutenant walks down the stairs into a cellar,

he turns the light on and starts shooting at rats.

They brought the giant rats from the Prague sewerage,

they were crawling up walls

and one of them was sitting some three meters from me

on a pile of a coal dust, observing me with her red eyes.

I aimed at her, shot and missed!

And the moment the bullet just zoomed past its nose,

the rat jumped up and straight into my face.

Fortunately I put the gun here and she gnawed into its handle.

So I shook it down killed it with the gun.

We finished the copy of the film by the end of 1969,

Prochazka invited some people, Mr Hoger, Mr Tregr,

I also invited some people and they all praised the film.

I'm not sure now who exactly told me about the ban,

I think it was Prochazka who said it was banned from distribution.

Somebody claimed that the negative approach to life we present

cannot be shown to wide public.

Now say Black bug's blood but silently so no one can hear us.

Black bug's blood.

- And now even quieter. - Black bug's blood.

Hynek Bocan started as an assistant of older directors

and later in his own films

he always attempted to create an unsystematic characterization

of the Czech nation's nature.

His debut was Kundera's adaptation Nobody Will Laugh,

followed by Private Torment based on a novel by Paral

and then Honor and Glory based on Karel Michal's novel.

In 1968 he got to read The Decoy by Karel Misar

and turned it into a film which is even today considered brutal.

The story once again tells us about the situation in our society,

this time on the background of a reformatory.

Scepticism and brutality of relationships in the institute,

not only between inmates

but also between instructors and the young delinquents,

it metaphorically describes relationships within our society

in general.

We went shooting locations to Jezeri

when general manager Harnach called our production manager

and said: Mr Beranek, this film is a nonsense, it won't be approved,

let's call it off while we can.

And Beranek's reaction was really brave: We're just about to wrap up.

In fact, we had had only two days of work. But Harnach let it go.

Beranek arrived to Jezeri and told us about it

so we were sitting there and I said: This is a big chance.

We can actually make a film without any restrictions

And so we shot this paraphrase of the Soviet army in Prague.

We knew it wouldn't be approved anyway.

Still it caught me by surprise.

We had to modify 53 out of 90 scenes.

A strange thing was that it didn't really change the film.

Its message stayed the same, a prototypical look at society.

As for casting, it used to be director's business back then.

There were no casting studios.

We'd give auditions for non-actors

but we'd even travel to see mining apprentices

because ads probably wouldn't have been of much help.

Jirka Samal was the director of photography here.

Technique-wise it was a pretty interesting work

because we'd gradually use more and more coarse grain

and the final quarter shows the most coarse image.

A viewer might not realize this but as the image changes

it brings a documentary-like truthfulness into the film.

We used a handycam a lot, it was quite unique back then

but Samal knew how to work it,

the locations were real

so the whole thing turned out to be almost naturalistic.

There was this chairman of the Barrandov communists

who hated me for that and once he told me:

I used to be a commissioner of all prisons in the 50's

but none of them was as awful as that reformatory of yours.

But he also said: But these rebellions and stuff,

could you make some sequences out of it?

We'd screen it in reformatories

not for children but for the staff. It's so edifying.

Bocan's The Decoy was actually finished as late as in 1990

when they made a post dubbing. The same fate met other films,

Balada's Ark of Fools, or Vihanova's Squandered Sunday.

All these films were locked in a vault semi-finished

and final works were done some twenty years later.

Evald Schorm was considered the great thinker of the New Wave

and Pavel Juracek was its screenwriting star.

There may be a hidden line of his screenwriting co-operations

but already in 1962 he started working on a script called Gulliver

inspired by Gulliver's Travels

and it developed into a film called A Case for a Rookie Hangman.

When we look at this last Juraceks film

where excellent actor Kostelka

in the lead role passes through a tunnel into his subconscience

where he meets all the characters who haunted also writer Juracek

we can see this is about twinges of conscience.

Again there appears an Escherian motif, a floor which disappears,

worlds, spaces and times blending.

A real world, half a meter above another world which is not real.

Of course it is also a wonderful allegory of a government

which is totally separated from ordinary people,

presenting a view of what a normalization could mean.

In this sense the film is almost prophetic.

Each of us has his own Mrs Muller

whose light used to shine on us in the beginning.

I said: Good evening, Mr Muller, it is me, Lemuel. Lemuel Gulliver.

Lemuel Gulliver from Dlouha Street.

But it wasn't Mr Muller.

What I appreciate most is the very first chapter

where he actually paraphrased

and set Swift's work into the Czech context

and at the same time he made use of his knowledge

of Jung's depth psychology

because the hero's descent towards himself is very deep

in the sense of using details from a psychological field

like symbols, objects, or even a description of a landscape.

I'm sorry but if you're silent because of me

Gentlemen, you must understand

I know Pavel really suffered, he couldn't sleep,

bringing this film to the world was like a real labor pain for him.

But he was well prepared and so responsible

he would never come to a set and say I'm not ready to work.

As a writer and a director in one

he made it easy for a production manager to sort out problems

because Juracek would take a break

and in half an hour he would rewrite the whole scene,

not only with regards to weather

but often this new version was even better than the previous one.

Good day, professor. I've come to ask you about a dream.

I dreamt Marketa drowned because I stole a mug full of money.

I dreamt I was left all alone in this world

and met a full dressed hare.

And professor, I killed this hare.

Cameraman Kalis was very skilled

and I think he helped Juracek a great deal with his technique

because Juracek's strong point was writing, not a camera work.

- What is your name? - Lemuel Gulliver.

Your name is Oskar.

Read this!

For Oskar the hare's loyal service, Prince Munody.

Gentlemen, you don't think I am a hare, do you?

We got an approval to go and find Laputa island abroad,

so we went to France to see Mont Saint-Michel island,

unfortunately the situation here got a bit too complicated,

shooting abroad was out of question and we only took some pictures.

Later we made a collage

of a castle in Cesky Krumlov with photos from Mont Saint-Michel

and in the end it looked good.

As for constructing execution machines and thinking machines,

I introduced Juracek to my friends from a hockey team Paleta vlasti,

they were all artists like Hugo Demartini, Bedrich Dlouhy

and these sculptors created all these weird machines.

Who else could visualize a thinking machine, right?

A thinking mechanism. Hand drive.

This is where ideas come out.

They asked me about its capacity,

I told them a healthy man can create up to 10000 ideas a day

but it wasn't enough for them.

And so someone figured this machine could be powered by a horse gear.

They want to use a head of cattle but I won't allow this, sir.

This machine cannot be powered by an ox.

Pavel had big problems with finishing works

because the normalization was getting tougher and tougher

and more and more people were asking him to cut out this sentence

or the whole scene and he bravely fought for both.

I think the film is from 90% what he wanted it to be.

Local idiot called Jump-up rode me out of Balnibar country.

Once again I felt embarrassed and turned to this idiot:

Listen, Jump-up, is the watch going backwards or not?

And he replied: Come on, what is all this fuss about?

Can't you just enjoy its ticking?

Hanak started as a documentary filmmaker.

In the second half of the 60's

he made a series of great documentary essays

and his method of gathering material, fragments of reality

and shaping them into a new form,

it was also reflected in his feature debut 322,

which is extracted from a place

between a documentary and a feature film.

Citizens, for crossing the road use zebras only.

Lady in a black coat, yes, you, walk back. And try again.

Young lady, is this what they taught you at school?

This does not apply to you. Don't smoke on a street.

I was stroke by Jan Johanides and his book Privacy.

I guess I'd read the book once but very thoroughly

and I didn't want to read it ever again

because I was so fascinated by its story.

The main character gets into an extreme situation

and has to recapitulate and reevaluate his whole life

so it wasn't just me who felt this way back then.

The whole society needed it.

And I wanted to preserve a spirit of Johanides' story.

He trusted me and let me do things my way.

I filmed Johanides' work,

he was full of authentic experiences and I felt it too,

it was an image of Bratislava as I knew it in the early 60's.

The main shift in the story was

that the main character in the film was a communist

which was not very in, especially in The New Wave,

and as I talked to my two Czech colleagues they flinched a bit.

Where does Maria Valkova lie?

Valkova? If she lied in the East part, she's not here anymore.

She's my mother.

What's her name? Let me check in the book

I personally feel very attached to Hanak's feature debut 322.

Here the main character as well as topic are unique and uncommon

because it is about a man who seemingly lacks all qualities

necessary for a film character.

He actually impersonates mediocrity, commonness

but the more we get to know him the more we realize he is a proof

of a drama hidden inside everybody,

every one of us lives his big story, deals with big things.

As for characters in my films,

I myself wrote some of them, sometimes I had a co-writer,

many of them were written for concrete actors.

Mr Lohnisky used to play episodic roles in Czech films

but I casted him into the main role and he was great.

He didn't have to act because of his own inner authenticity.

Mrs Vinicka, the biggest star of then East-European cinema

was a beautiful woman and an amazing person.

She was surprised when I told her not to act but to believe

even though her partner was Mr Abrham whom I admired.

He was just fantastic.

Many of the non-actors who worked on my films,

they'd speak in their own words, live their own lives,

like Vlado Weiser who couldn't be listed as a co-writer

but the words and situations come from his own life

- Are you a boy or a girl? - A human being.

- Don't be cheeky, your ID. - What's this? Are you on duty?

- No. - Well, come with me, then.

It was by a documentary style of shooting

that The New Wave contributed to innovating feature films.

Feature films were in a crisis

and documentaries helped bring them back to life.

Celebration in the Botanic Garden is the only film which defies

the tendencies to portray gloomy and skeptical visions of 1969.

It is a powerful geyser of joy of life and playfulness

which assembles student mischief from Havetta's school years,

world of flower children, slapstick.

It is a paradox that this playful and nostalgically optimistic film

was made by the first one to pay for normalization.

Havetta died in 1975.

Celebration is a different film

and today when we speak about a postmodern type of film,

Celebration shows many features of something that came much later

and nobody understood it.

Although now we appreciate Havetta's faithfulness to his country,

his childhood, his home, he was not accepted in his times.

He was accused of using Czech instead of Slovak humor.

There were those who loved and those who hated this kind of film.

Among those who hated it

were rather those whom I considered friends or fans.

We loved what they called an intimate, or naive art,

a kind of mystical art, a direct relationship.

See, mystique creates a direct relationship between a man and God.

And this direct relationship to sources with a mystical aspect,

Havetta's perception of folklore,

it was closely connected with his strong experiences from childhood.

A man should love his country, or his nation, to hell with this.

We wanted to love our identity,

something we belong to with our soul, with our tradition

and it was much more important.

This is what folklore is about, a creative need to exist,

to return to something original like light, soil, trees, water.

Something pagan which at the same time contains instructions for use

but it does not lack the intensity of the original experience.

That's why there are bees, trees, a botanic garden, wine, euphoria,

an enthusiasm about life itself.

This enthusiasm is not biased, it is purely original.

You, take a look at yourself.

Now I've got the job, pension

Havetta was choosing from Slovak actors and went for those

who were capable of an instant expressive acting.

He tried Blazkovic and it was the right guess.

I'm fed up with this.

How do I look, huh?

Then there were non-actors, people he knew from his village,

or people he met somewhere, some of his friends, often artists.

Artists are capable of fooling around in a very honest way.

The circumstances of shooting Celebration in the Botanic Garden

were congenial, they wrote it, shot it and lived with it

just as if they were celebrating in the botanic garden.

The title not only expresses what they meant to say

but also their attitude towards their lives, work, methods,

it's all in the title and the crew lived up to it.

During the shooting it was often more important for filmmakers

to get Vladimir Popovic paint a wall in the background

than to control actors in the first plan.

I have always been fascinated

by the absolute freedom in this film which is so hard to achieve.

It is easy to be playful in your life but it's so hard in art

because of all the conventions and rules you learn at school,

from colleagues, other films.

Havetta's ability to set himself free when making Celebration

was the most important thing to me, it was a geyser of freedom

with no limitations whatsoever.

All those characters were my friends or people I knew,

my mum would collect material for me, I'd visit her very often

and went see those people as well.

The main character Frantisek Slimacek died in the age of 92.

He was the real hero of Countrymen

because he experienced it and I got to know him.

My dad was his teacher.

Dyer Otcenas chairman of KSC,

smallholder Zejvala, chairman of a minority co-op

and foreman Macala, the municipal secretary

have taken up authority with all implications

and the world has split into two.

I was driving with Jasny through Vysocina hills

where he wanted to find it.

For two weeks he'd talk about stars and pipes

but we never found anything.

But then Carda Kucera appeared

and I'll never forget our trip to the cartographic institute

where they showed him all their postcards

and he rummages in the pile of pictures for almost an hour,

then he picked three postcards, put them on a table

and the first location portrayed eventually became our location,

a village Bystra by Policka.

When we agreed on the title, that was it, the horseshoe,

even visually it was a perfect fit.

It was early evening and I started to dance with joy there

and as I was dancing, people started to leave the pub,

one of them was Mr Uncovsky,

who later became my advisor, a director of local amateur actors.

Mr Uncovsky, can we do it here?

And he said: You can do whatever you want to.

We didn't talk too much and Kucera said:

Vojta, speaking of Countrymen,

do you want to use a perspective camera like Toland in Citizen Kane?

I said: No, I want a flat picture, the way gothic paintings are done.

Jarda said he would have to order a zoom lens from Paris

and that's how we shot landscapes.

He was in charge of the visual aspect of this film,

I'd just say I wanted a close-up or a mid shot, or a wide shot

but I'd leave the composition up to him because he did it great.

Release our vicar, he's innocent.

You won't tell us who is or isn't innocent. It will go to show.

He is innocent and if you don't release him,

we'll arrange another gathering from all around this place.

I wanted my characters to speak in a Moravian dialect.

In the first version of the script I wrote dialogues in Kelc dialect

and my wife Kveta said she didn't understand it.

That slang was incomprehensible so I wrote it in Czech.

Babkal and Brodsky came from Moravia,

they were capable of making the language distinctive.

Mensik used his own, Brno slang.

And Matuska was the best for me.

Some people told me to cast a real actor

but Matuska did a great job.

As he is saying goodbye to his dead wife, it came out almost biblical,

as it is shot with the zoom lens as the dead girl is leaving him

who had danced with him one last time, told him he'd leave soon

and then he gets killed by the bull. That's how it actually happened.

I've always loved masks,

I went to Vienna and there they had all kinds of magazines.

Suddenly I found a magazine with pictures of masks

which are still being made in Austria, Germany and Switzerland.

So I took the magazine,

found two ladies who made the masks at Barrandov costume department.

I wanted to have Death there.

The first version was three and a half hours long.

After I immigrated they destroyed it and the copy has disappeared.

President of Cannes film festival saw the copy, he was my fan,

and after watching the film he cried and told me:

Jasny, you've got to cut the film down to two hours

because you have no publicity, no money, you have nothing.

So I went to see my friend, editor Jan Kucera at FAMU

and asked him how to edit it.

He had seen it a hundred times, gave me some instructions

and I used 90% of them.

A glass of rye.

Politics is a bitch.

I'm telling you there must be war. People will be fighting each other

until there is nothing but a cow and a fanner left

and these two will found better generations.

All My Good Countrymen is a summary as well as a reconciliation

which came in a time when everything started from a scratch.

The first public screening took place in July 1969

when normalization was beginning.

In the next few months

the whole Czechoslovak New Wave will be dispersed,

some will immigrate, some will never get to make films anymore,

others will make films after long years of silence,

some will bend down, others will stand straight

but one thing is sure, a myth came into existence here.

A myth which did not have enough time to fade away,

neither to be properly evaluated.

I just popped in by chance, I have a concert in Olomouc.

I wanted to talk to my dad, I didn't know.

What was he saying lately?

He said he shouldn't have accepted it.

He believed they would get together, he accepted it

and ended up alone again. When he felt lonely, he'd say:

Go and listen if there is anybody singing in the field

The main importance of the sixties is connected with national identity.

I think that the reaction to the Soviet invasion

was much stronger than it would have been

without the Czechoslovak film of the sixties.

Because many people saw the films and they felt as if they knew us.

I think that the profit which came with the films

was not only financial, we profited on countless levels.

But one thing is for sure,

this country is much better off when it supports its film

than when it does not.

This is your Rhodos, this is where you can frolick.

Let's eat what we've baked.

But what is it that we've baked?

What could we have done? What couldn't we?

Farewell, my good countrymen.

Farewell and if we were never to see each other again.

May our fate be fulfilled.