{"id":58846,"date":"2018-04-14T18:23:36","date_gmt":"2018-04-14T23:23:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=58846"},"modified":"2018-04-15T18:58:30","modified_gmt":"2018-04-15T23:58:30","slug":"filmmaker-milos-forman-of-amadeus-and-one-flew-over-the-cuckoos-nest-fame-passes-away-at-86","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=58846","title":{"rendered":"Filmmaker Milos Forman of “Amadeus” and “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” Fame Passes Away at 86"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By<\/p>\n

Michael Cieply<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Milos Forman<\/strong>, a filmmaker who challenged Hollywood with his subversive touch, and twice directed movies that won the Oscar for best picture, died on Friday. He was 86.<\/p>\n

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Milos Foreman<\/p><\/div>\n

His death in Connecticut was confirmed by Dennis Aspland, Mr. Forman\u2019s agent, and by Vlastislav Malek, a representative of his hometown, Caslav, in the Czech Republic.<\/p>\n

A native of what was then Czechoslovakia, Mr. Forman came to the United States in the late 1960s as a rebellious young filmmaker whose satirical bent was little welcomed at home in the wake of the 1968 Soviet invasion.<\/p>\n

Just a few years later, Mr. Forman\u2019s \u201cOne Flew Over the Cuckoo\u2019s Nest\u201d \u2014 a tragicomic story of revolt and repression in a mental institution \u2014 won five Oscars, including those for best director and best picture.<\/p>\n

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The film put Mr. Forman in the front rank of those who struggled to make big, commercial films with countercultural sensibilities. His sympathy for the odd man out was always apparent, even as his movies grew in scope.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cAmadeus,\u201d a 1984 adaptation of Peter Shaffer\u2019s stage play, presented Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as a genius who undermined authority with his art. Again, Oscars for best director and best picture were among its many honors.<\/p>\n

Still, Mr. Forman, by then a United States citizen, said one of his greatest pleasures from the film \u2014 which was shot in the Czech Republic \u2014 was the chance to return in triumph to his homeland.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always done everything in my life to win,\u201d Mr. Forman said of himself in a 1994 biography, which was entitled \u201cTurnaround: A Memoir,\u201d and was written with Jan Novak.<\/p>\n

Mr. Forman was caught up in the turmoil of German occupation not many years after his birth, in Caslav, on Feb. 18, 1932. Both his mother, born Anna Suabova, and the man he believed to be his father, a teacher named Rudolf Forman, had been separately seized by the Germans and killed in death camps.<\/p>\n

For years, Mr. Forman vaguely told interviewers that he believed himself to be half-Jewish, though both parents attended a Protestant church. It was Mr. Novak, in researching \u201cTurnaround,\u201d who ended the mystery.<\/p>\n

After the 1964 release of his first feature film, \u201cBlack Peter\u201d \u2014 about the misadventures of a teenager beginning his work life \u2014 Mr. Forman was contacted by a woman who had been with his mother in Auschwitz, Mr. Novak learned and eventually reported. The woman explained that Mr. Forman was actually the son of a Jewish architect with whom Mr. Forman\u2019s mother had an affair. In time, Mr. Forman found his biological father, who survived the war and was living in Peru.<\/p>\n

Raised by foster parents, Mr. Forman attended film school in Prague, and first made his mark with his work on a film and theater presentation at the 1958 Brussels World Exhibition. An early feature, \u201cThe Loves of a Blonde,\u201d won attention on the international festival circuit in 1965. Another, \u201cThe Firemen\u2019s Ball,\u201d two years later, rubbed Czech officials the wrong way with its spoof of the firefighting bureaucracy, though Mr. Forman was already turning his attention to opportunities abroad.<\/p>\n

When the Soviets invaded in August of 1968, Mr. Forman was in Paris negotiating to make a Hollywood film. His first American feature, a youth comedy called \u201cTaking Off,\u201d was released by Universal Pictures in 1971. It did so poorly, Mr. Forman later said, that he wound up owing the studio $500.<\/p>\n

Through the early 1970s, Mr. Forman \u2014 a hearty bon vivant without means for the good life \u2014 went through a period of self-described depression. For much of that time, he holed up in New York\u2019s Chelsea Hotel, sleeping through the days and communicating with \u00e9migr\u00e9 friends.<\/p>\n

By then, he had been married twice, first to an actress, Jana Brejchova, then to another performer, Vera Kresadlova, who had remained in Czechoslovakia with their two sons, Petr and Matej.<\/p>\n

In addition to Petr and Matej, he is survived by Martina Formanova, his third wife; and his twin sons, James and Andrew, with Ms. Formanova.<\/p>\n

In his memoir, Mr. Forman said the producers of \u201cCuckoo\u2019s Nest,\u201d Michael Douglas and Saul Zaentz, sought him out because \u201cI seemed to be in their price range.\u201d In fact, they had made a perfect match between filmmaker and material, in this case a cult novel by Ken Kesey.<\/p>\n

Jack Nicholson was the movie\u2019s star. But Mr. Forman \u2014 who liked to coax star performances out of lesser-known actors \u2014 did exactly that with Louise Fletcher, who won an Oscar for her portrayal of the dictatorial Nurse Ratched.<\/p>\n

\u201cHair\u201d and \u201cRagtime,\u201d which came next, left less impression, but kept Mr. Forman on the list of directors whom executives were willing to trust with their more sophisticated projects. In 1978, meanwhile, Mr. Forman joined Frantisek Daniel, another Czech, as co-director of the film program at Columbia University\u2019s school of the arts.<\/p>\n

It was for Mr. Zaentz that Mr. Forman next struck gold, with \u201cAmadeus.\u201d The film won eight Oscars, and Mr. Forman later wrote, left him with a bittersweet, and ultimately correct, sense that his career had peaked.<\/p>\n

\u201cValmont,\u201d based on an 18th-century novel by Pierre Ambroise Fran\u00e7ois Choderlos de Laclos, was overshadowed in 1989 by the previous year\u2019s release of \u201cDangerous Liaisons,\u201d a film by the director Stephen Frears, which used the same underlying material.<\/p>\n

Mr. Forman next made a series of films each of which pushed Hollywood out of its comfort zone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe People vs. Larry Flynt\u201d pressed the limits of tolerance for an antihero with its sympathetic portrait of the Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt. Released by Columbia Pictures in 1996, it was a box-office bust, with domestic ticket sales of only about $20 million.<\/p>\n

In 1999, \u201cMan on the Moon,\u201d Mr. Forman\u2019s complex portrait of the comic Andy Kaufman and his alter-ego Tony Clifton, did only a little better for Universal Pictures. Yet the film left a mark on Mr. Forman\u2019s personal life. Shortly before its release, he married Martina Zborilova, who had worked with him earlier as a production assistant. He became the father of twin sons, whom the couple named Andrew, for Mr. Kaufman, and James, for Jim Carrey, the movie\u2019s star.<\/p>\n

Mr. Forman\u2019s next film, \u201cGoya\u2019s Ghosts,\u201d for Samuel Goldwyn Films, was an intricate examination of persecution in Spain in the era of religious persecution and Napoleonic conquest. The film found a minuscule audience when it was released on American screens in 2007.<\/p>\n

But it appeared to play out themes from Mr. Forman\u2019s life, as its heroine, an artist\u2019s model, was imprisoned and tortured because of what were claimed to be her hidden Jewish habits and roots.<\/p>\n

In an interview with a writer for The Star Tribune of Minneapolis, Mr. Forman talked of Goya\u2019s vacillation between unfettered expression and a desire to please in terms that recalled a tension between his own artistic urges and the lure of success.<\/p>\n

\u201cTorn between protest and preservation,\u201d Mr. Forman said of Goya, \u201che is the most courageous coward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Courtesy:New York Times<\/em><\/p>\n

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By Michael Cieply Milos Forman, a filmmaker who challenged Hollywood with his subversive touch, and twice directed movies that won the Oscar for best picture, died on Friday. He was 86. His death in Connecticut was confirmed by Dennis Aspland, Mr. Forman\u2019s agent, and by Vlastislav Malek, a representative of his hometown, Caslav, in the …<\/p>\n

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