Screenwriter and film director Milos Forman: biography, family, filmography

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Milos Forman is a popular American director of Czech origin. He also became famous as a screenwriter. Twice awarded the Oscar, received the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, the Golden Globe, the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.

Director's biography

Milos Forman was born in the Czech city of Cheslav. He was born in 1932. When the Second World War began, the filmmaker's father was arrested by the Nazis for distributing literature that they had banned, and after that he was killed in the Buchenwald concentration camp.

Milos Forman's mother died in Auschwitz. In his autobiographical book called U-turn, he wrote that after the war he found out: his adoptive father died in the camp, and the biological one was an architect of Jewish origin named Otto Kohn, who moved to America in the 1940s, stayed there to live and work.

In Czechoslovakia, Milos Forman received his initial education at a boarding school in the spa town of Podebrady. In the local Poděbrady castle, he studiedtogether with the future first Czech President Václav Havel, as well as the Mashin brothers, who rose to prominence as anti-communist activists in Czechoslovakia in the early 1950s.

Movie debut

Film director Milos Forman made his debut in 1960 with the film Laterna Magica. Then his paintings "Competition" and "If the music did not play here" came out.

The drama "Black Peter" in 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 Love Adventures", he shoots the caustic satirical comedy-drama "Fireman's Ball". Milos Forman covers the events of the Prague Spring in 1968 in this film. This work appeals to many viewers.

Immediately after the Soviet troops entered Czechoslovakia, Milos Forman emigrated to the US, staying there for quite a long period of time.

Emigration work

Milos Foreman's first films in exile were the drama Breakaway, starring Lynn Carlin, Georgia Engel, Tony Harvey, Buck Henri, Linnea Hickok.

The main character is a teenage girl named Jenny Tinn, who leaves home to wander aimlessly around New York. During this period, her parents are very worried, trying tofind her.

For this film, Milos Forman received the "Grand Prix" of the Cannes Film Festival together with D alton Trumbo's drama "Johnny Got a Gun".

Also one of his first musical works was the painting "Hair" with John Savage, Beverly D´Angelo, Treat Williams. This tape tells about the height of the hippie movement in America in the 60s.

A 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". It is an adaptation of Ken Kesey's novel of the same name, which premiered at the Chicago Film Festival.

In the biography of Milos Forman, there are quite a few bright events associated with his work. He became the second person in the history of world cinema, who managed to win five "Oscars" in the most prestigious categories. Previously, only the author of the romantic comedy It Happened One Night, Frank Capra, managed to do this. 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 Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay.

This picture tells about the tragedy that unfolds on the territory of a psychiatric hospital. It was filmed entirely in a mental hospital in Oregon. Spectators and critics highly appreciated the picture, which became one of the most important events of the "new wave" of American cinema in the 70s.

This is a parable about the conflict between a repressive society and a particular individual.

Ragtime

In 1981, Foreman shoots the drama "Ragtime", which becomes a vivid 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 the Oscars, 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. The characters don't have names. This is a father, mother and younger brother who lead a measured and very prosperous life of white Americans in the suburbs of New York.

One day a mother decides to take in a black woman at home with a newborn baby in her arms. This is where it all starts.

Amadeus

Foreman's next great film was the biopic 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 Alexander Pushkin's Little Tragedies.

Starring Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce, ElizabethBurridge, Geoffrey Jones. The picture won eight Oscars, she got another 32 awards and 13 nominations.

The plot begins with the events of the 1820s, when Salieri ends up in an insane asylum after a failed suicide attempt. A priest comes to him to confess. Salieri tells in detail the whole story of his life.

The story of Salieri begins in the 1760s, when everyone was struck by the musical prodigy Mozart. In 1774, Salieri became court composer in Vienna, teaching music to Emperor Joseph II.

Over time, Salieri turns into a close ally of Mozart, while trying with all his might to destroy his reputation, to deprive him of success. Mozart himself by that time was also at the imperial court. His marriage, he alth and reputation are seriously affected by his addiction to alcohol, but his music is still excellent.

Salieri himself orders the Requiem from Mozart, forcing him to believe that his recently deceased father has risen. Salieri hopes to get the score, and after killing Mozart, to perform the requiem himself at his funeral, passing it off as his own composition.

The work of Milos caused a wide public outcry. This was followed by the melodramatic comedy "Valmont" with Colin Firth and Meg Tilly. It was a film adaptation of the popular novel by Choderlos de Laclos "Dangerous Liaisons".

The People vs. Larry Flynt

This dramatic biography that brought Milos the Goldenbear at the Berlin Film Festival.

This is the story of the life of the scandalous American publisher and businessman Larry Flynt at the turn of the 70s and 80s.

Young Flint runs a strip club with his brother Jimmy. When things don't go well at the establishment, Larry decides to use a new way of advertising. He sends invitations to potential customers by mail to visit their establishment. Soon this little piece turns into one of the most popular pornographic magazines in the world "Hustler".

The real success of his magazine awaits after Flint publishes nude photos of Jacqueline Kennedy. Shortly before that, he meets his future wife Althea Leiser.

As a result, Flint becomes a millionaire, enjoying great popularity and success.

Man on the Moon

In 2000, Foreman received the "Silver Bear" for the dramatic biographical comedy "The Man in 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 engage in fictitious shows in front of toy animals. His life ends with death from cancer at the age of 35.

It's amazing that the comedian was not a classic comedian, he did not read monologues from the stage and did not make jokes. He turned his life into a show that never ended, eventually ceased to distinguish truth from fiction. The main thing he achieved is that he managed to remain himself until the very end.end.

In 2006, Foreman filmed the drama Goya's Ghosts, starring Javier Bardem and Natalie Portman. The events of the tape unfold in 1792 at the court of the Spanish king Charles IV, whose court painter was Goya.

Private life

Foreman was married to Czech actress Yana Breikhova, who was eight years his junior. The marriage fell at the beginning of his career, from 1958 to 1962. After that, Yana married the Czech actor Vlastimil Brodsky and the German director Ulrich Tine.

Uncle Milos is well known in professional circles - the architect Karl Cohn. 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.