Milos Forman is a popular American filmmaker of Czech origin. He also became famous as a screenwriter. Twice he was awarded the Oscar, received the Grand Prix of the Cannes Film Festival, Golden Globe, Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.
Director Biography
Milos Forman was born in the Czech city of Ceslava. He was born in 1932. When the Second World War began, the father of the filmmaker was arrested by the Nazis for distributing banned literature, and after that he was killed in the Buchenwald concentration camp.
Milos Forman's mother died in Auschwitz. In his autobiographical book entitled “U-Turn,” he wrote that after the war he found out: his adoptive father died in the camp, and a Jewish-born architect named Otto Cohn, who moved to America in the 1940s, remained to live and work there. .
In Czechoslovakia, Milos Forman received his initial education in a boarding school in the spa town of Podebrady. In the Podebrad castle there, he studied together with the future first Czech president, Vaclav Havel, as well as the Mashin brothers, who became famous as activists of the anti-communist movement in Czechoslovakia in the early 1950s.
Movie debut
Filmmaker Milos Forman made his debut in 1960, making the film “Latina Magica”. Then came his paintings "Competition" and "If music had not played here."
The drama "Black Peter" of 1963 brought him popularity. This is a story about two Czech teenagers who dream of great love, looking for their place in the company of their peers and colleagues. With him, Foreman won the main prize at the Locarno Film Festival.
Then, after the romantic comedy " Blonde's Amorous Adventures", he removes the caustic satirical comedy drama "Firefighters Ball". Milos Forman covers the events of the Prague Spring in 1968 in this film. This work appeals to many viewers.
Immediately after Soviet troops brought troops into Czechoslovakia, Milos Forman emigrated to the United States, staying there for a rather long period of time.
Work in exile
The first films of Milos Forman in exile was the drama "Breakaway", in which the main roles were played by Lynn Carlin, Georgia Engel, Tony Harvey, Buck Henry, Linnaea Hickock.
The main character is a teenage girl named Jenny Tinn, who leaves home to aimlessly start wandering around New York. During this period, her parents are very worried, trying to find her.
For this film, Milos Forman received the Grand Prix of the Cannes Film Festival in conjunction with the Dalton Trumbo drama Johnny Took a Gun.
Also, one of his first musical works was the painting "Hair" with John Savage, Beverly D'Angelo, Trit Williams. This tape tells about the midst of the hippie movement in America of the 60s.
Screen adaptation of Ken Kesey's novel
The film director became a real celebrity after the release of the drama "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". This is a film adaptation of the Ken Kesey novel of the same name , which premiered at the Chicago festival.
In the biography of Milos Forman, there are quite a few striking events related to his work. He became the second person in the history of world cinema, who managed to win five Oscars in the most prestigious nominations. Previously, only the author of the romantic comedy "It Happened One Night" by Frank Capra succeeded. The tape was released in 1934. He managed to achieve the same result in the Golden Globe.
“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” won the nominations for “Best Film”, “Best Director”, “Best Actor”, “Best Actor”, and “Best Adapted Screenplay”.
This picture tells about the tragedy that takes place on the territory of a psychiatric hospital. He was completely filmed in one of the mental hospitals in Oregon. Viewers and critics praised the picture, which became one of the most important events of the "new wave" of American cinema of the 70s.
This is a parable about the conflict of a repressive society and a specific person.
"Ragtime"
In 1981, Foreman directed the drama Ragtime, which became a prime example of anti-racist cinema. It calls for mutual understanding, tolerance between people of different skin colors. The game in this picture was the last role in the career of James Cagney. She was nominated in eight categories for an Oscar, but did not receive a single statuette.
In the film, several storylines develop in parallel. The main one is devoted to the history of the average American family at the beginning of the 20th century. Heroes have no names. This is a father, mother and younger brother who lead a measured and highly prosperous life of white Americans in the suburbs of New York.
One day, a mother decides to shelter a black woman at home with a newborn baby in her arms. That's where it all begins.
Amadeus
Foreman's next great film was the biographical drama Amadeus. It is based on the play of the same name by Peter Schaeffer, which tells about the fate of the great Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Schaeffer himself wrote his play, freely interpreting the biographies of Mozart and Salieri under the influence of "Little Tragedies" by Alexander Pushkin.
The main roles were played by Murray Abraham, Tom Hulse, Elizabeth Berridge, Jeffrey Jones. The picture received eight Oscars, she got 32 more awards and 13 nominations.
The plot begins with the events of the 1820s, when Salieri, after a failed suicide attempt, ends up in a madhouse. A priest comes to him to confess him. Salieri tells in full detail the whole story of his life.
Salieri's story begins in the 1760s, when Mozart's musical prodigy struck everyone. In 1774, Salieri became a court composer in Vienna, teaching music to Emperor Joseph II.
Over time, Salieri turns into a close ally of Mozart, while striving with all his might to destroy his reputation, to deprive of success. Mozart himself at that time was also at the imperial court. His marriage, health, and reputation are seriously affected by addiction to alcohol, but his music is still excellent.
Salieri himself orders Requiem from Mozart, forcing him to believe that his recently deceased father was resurrected. Salieri hopes to get a score, and after killing Mozart, to perform the requiem at his funeral himself, posing as his own composition.
Milos's work caused a wide public outcry. This was followed by the melodramatic comedy "Valmon" with Colin Firth and Meg Tilly. It was a film adaptation of the popular novel by Schauderlo de Laclos, "Dangerous Liaisons."
"The people against Larry Flynt"
This dramatic biography that brought Milos to the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.
This is the life story of the scandalous American publisher and businessman Larry Flynt at the turn of the 70s and 80s.
Young Flint, along with his brother Jimmy, maintain a strip club. When things are not going well at the establishment, Larry decides to apply a new way of advertising. He mails prospective clients invitations to visit their establishment. Soon, this small leaflet turns into one of the most popular pornographic magazines in the world, Hustler.
Real success awaits his magazine after Flint publishes nude photos of Jacqueline Kennedy. Shortly before this, he met his future wife, Altea Leiser.
As a result, Flint becomes a millionaire, enjoying great popularity and success.
"Man on the moon"
In 2000, Foreman won the Silver Bear for the dramatic biographical comedy Man on the Moon, starring Jim Carrey.
The picture tells about the fate of the American stand-up comedian Andy Kaufman, who, as a child, began to enter with fictional shows in front of toy animals. His life ends with a death from cancer at the age of 35.
Surprisingly, the comedian was not a classic comedian; he did not read monologues from the stage and did not perform jokes. He turned his life into a show that never ended, eventually ceased to distinguish between truth and fiction. The main thing that he achieved is that he managed to remain himself until the very end.
In 2006, Foreman directed the drama Ghosts of Goya, starring Javier Bardem and Natalie Portman. The events of the film unfold in 1792 at the court of the Spanish king Charles IV, whose court painter was Goya.
Personal life
Foreman was married to Czech actress Jan Breikhova, who was eight years younger than him. The marriage occurred at the beginning of his career, from 1958 to 1962. After this, Jan married the Czech actor Vlastimil Brodsky and the German director Ulrich Tyne.
In professional circles, Uncle Milos, the architect Carl Cohn, is well known. He was the brother of the director’s biological father.
Foreman passed away in April 2018. He was 86 years old. He died in America, never returning to his homeland in the Czech Republic.