"CZECH TELEVISION THE SLOVAK FILM INSTITUTE PRESENT" "THE GOLDEN SIXTIES" "JURAJ HERZ, director" "Well, I am from Slovakia, from Kežmarok." "And I got hooked on film with the very first one I saw." "That was Jánošík." "After that came a period when I couldn't go to the movies at all..." "Jews were banned from cinemas." "When we were in the transport..." "Which was the worst partof the whole camp experience, that week in the cattle-car..." "My father told me:" "If they separate us, we'll meet in Kežmarok after the war." "At first we were together, then they took mother away, then they took me away." "Father was liberated by Americans, mother by the British, and I by the Russians." "I was the first to return home." "There was no doubt in my mind that all of us would meet again." "The next home was my mother, and then father." "He was very ill." "He returned months later, in the fall." "But our family was reunited again, which I had never doubted." "After the war, I had two more brothers." "I had already seen things the guys at school had no idea about." "Particularly about sex, what goes on between men and women..." "Because I had been caged in with sixty German boys, who had until then been in the Gypsy women's camp." "So you can imagine the stories they told, no mincing words either." "Our fellow countrymen interned in Nazi concentration camps are now returning home." "I was very self-assured." "I had no interest whatever in what they taught us at school." "I would just read and read." "I would go to the movies, and I was into literature." "I thought, "Time is short, I have to be methodical about it."" "I only read my first detective story when I was maybe twenty." "And I thought, "Why, what am I reading, this is suspense."" "I made my way to Prague via the puppet school in Chrudim." "I went to Prague and was assigned the dorm in Hradební Street." "There were five of us in the room, including Ivan Balad'a and Juraj Šajmoviè whom I knew from the Applied Arts School in Bratislava," "Jan Švankmajer was there and Jirka Procházka, who would later have a troupe in Switzerland." "But I was not interested in marionettes." "I only enrolled because they would have me, and never actually finished school." "I wanted to go to film school, so I approached the Rector, Brousil." "He said, "You already have two degrees, in design and puppets." "You should realize the working class cannot pay for a third one."" "Doing military service, I heard my friend Jan Švankmajer was in the same garrison, only in Klimentov, so we started to meet." "He told me, "There is this Theater in Prague called Semafor." "There is a guy called Jiøí Suchý." "Semafor means 'seven minor arts'." "They are into experimental theater..." "I was thinking of doing puppets - do you want to get involved?"" "So I said "Sure." "I don't know what I'm getting into, but will work with you."" "There was a production called Starched Heads." "Jirka Procházka and I played a pair of clowns." "I lost 3 kilos each performance as the sweat poured off me." "We also did some set designs." "That was a little unusual." "The Semafor audience wasn't excited but artists were really into it." "Brynych cast me in my first role in his film Every Penny Counts." "Greetings, gentlemen!" "Now get a move on!" "We're due in Kobylisy in 15 minutes!" "Has he not passed away yet?" "I would stalk Brynych and watch him direct." "Brynych told me, "This must be boring for you." "Go take a break."" "I said I wanted to be an assistant and make films myself." "And he went, "Yeah?" "Are you serious?" "Well, you can be my AD."" "And right from that film I was in." "On Every Penny Counts, I already worked as an AD." "The second film, Transport from Paradise," "I was already really involved in." "I was in it and I also cast it." "Brynych told me, "Look, there are all these characters, the boys..."" ""Write a biography of each one, so I know where they came from."" "So I wrote their biographies." "I was really involved by then." "This was my second movie, and the word at Barrandov Studios was, I was a good AD." "So Kadár approached me and said," ""I heard about you." "Why don't you work with me?"" "Your name is Josef Kudrna, born February 8, 1911, in Bøeclav." "Civil electrician by profession." "Last employed as manager of the Blahovice power station." "Is that correct?" "Kadár wanted me to cast a regular actor as the judge." "I actually had my eyes on one." "But then he asked me to go to court and pick a suitable judge as a consultant." "So I attended various court proceedings." "One day I sat at the back as usual." "And the judge started... well, making a speech..." "And I felt like he was onstage." "Kadár did a test with him, really liked him and got this idea..." "He told the judge he would have a dressing room all his own," "And must not meet the other actors, and conduct the trial as he would in life." "He'd be given general directions, but would make up his own lines." "So I remember Menzel would always speak in a soft voice, and he told him "Speak up!"" "What happened to the defense plea..." "I cannot hear you." "Please speak up!" "I think he really helped the film as the actors never knew what he would say. "Come closer." "Do this!"" "He really behaved as if he was conducting a trial." "That was not in the script." "What did you achieve by this rot?" "What is this place?" "Defendant, stop shouting!" "Quiet now!" "Or else I will have you taken out and carry on in your absence." "Now let me explain about the cooperation of Kadár and Klos." "Klos was in the background, though he did sometimes come on location." "We were in Hradec, one time, in the prison." "There was this shot of a long corridor, with a cleaning woman." "She puts her bucket down and wipes the floor." "And Kadár said, "Action!" Nothing happened." "Klos slipped around the back," ""Ján, the camera is rolling." "We're shooting this silent, we already started to take."" "Kadár goes, "How come?", and Klos goes "Why, there is no dialogue."" "Kadár said, "Can't you hear her putting the bucket down, how it echoes..."" "So Klos stepped back." "Kadár said "Camera, Action!" And they filmed sound and all." "Can you give us reasons for refusing to accept such a short sentence?" "I do not refuse punishment." "I refuse compromise." "It solves nothing." "It is merely closing your eyes." "The fool!" "Kadár needed Klos in a sense." "For he was never sure of himself." "He would walk around the studio, kind of motioning with his arms." "Do another take, counter-shot..." "But he was never sure." "Klos on the other hand was absolutely sure of himself." "Klos would always say, "Do it like this!"" "And Kadár would get mad and stick to himself." "And nothing will happen to anyone for being Jews." " I don't understand." " There is a law about this!" "A law!" "Nothing to be done." "There is a law." " I don't understand." " A law!" " I don't understand!" " I don't understand!" " Neither do I!" "From the start, Kadár wanted Jožo Króner to play the protagonist." "And he also cast Kaminska." "Now, she was no joke." "She was director of the Jewish theater in Warsaw." "She came to do the screen test and started playing the great tragedian the way she was used to." "And Kadár told her," ""You are not a tragic heroine, you are a senile Jewish woman in East Slovakia."" "And she had to speak that way." "Not Polish, but East Slovak dialect." "And since I was from there," "I would sit with Mrs. Kaminska and read her lines with her." "To make it sound Polish" " Yiddish" " East Slovak." "My brother-in-law!" "Get back, for God's sake!" "Please hide!" " I have to close the shop." " What good is the shop now?" "!" "I knew he would come." "I knew it." "Go away, go hide!" " Let me go!" "You are mad!" " Hide!" " I will not be shot for you!" " Let go!" "Police!" "Police!" "When I worked with Brynych, we stuck to the script." "Thinking this is how you make movies." "I did not go to FAMU, I knew no different." "I wasn't in anyone else's films." "With Kadár, I suddenly found things could be different." "One did not write a shooting script, just kind of think it over in the morning, and then go to the set and improvise." "And I learned from both, in that I do a detailed shooting script and on set I leave room to improvise." "Directors Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos brought from the USA one of the world's top awards - The Oscar for Shop on Main Street." "After Shop on Main Street, Kadár said," ""The foot of that Oscar belongs to Herz, and he should make films on his own."" ""He is no longer a good AD." "He stands behind me, thinking how to do it differently."" "I was then approached by Nývlt, who gave me someone named Hrabal to read, of whom I had not heard before Pearls of the Deep." "It was like primitive art." "It was absolutely unlike anything I had read before." "I thought, "I don't understand this." "Nývlt is testing me to see if I buy it - you can't film this!"" "So I gave it back and said "I'm not doing this for my first film."" "Pearls of the Deep came out six months later." "Six months later I knew Hrabal and understood him." "But I had missed the moment that time." "Pals, even in football I don't like scores like 6:0, or 5: 1." "That's no drama." "I like it 6:5, or 4:4." "When the better team loses a crucial match, in which they failed to score two penalties." "Where they hit the crossbar three times and the post twice." "Finally losing by an own goal." "Now that's what I call drama!" "I chose the story The Globe Buffet." "We had a meeting." "All the other directors were dismissive about me." "Since there was only one lady among us, Vìra Chytilová, she had the first pick." "And she picked The Globe Buffet." "Then the others had their pick." "I thought what else I liked." "I thought:" "Baron Munchhausen." "But I didn't like the title." "Working on the script with Hrabal, I said," ""Mr. Hrabal, Munchhausen, what kind of title is that?"" ""So just call it The Junk Shop!"" "Place the saw nicely on the neck." "If you're so anxious, why didn't you marry?" "Why, what joy to pour one's heart out!" "Waking the wifey in the dead of night, screaming, "Now I know who I live with!"" "And you pull the dresser right on top of you!" "I visited Hrabal." "He would always put on his wife's apron and cook steaks." "We would eat and talk." "And above all, we walked around Prague." "That was incredible, for I had not liked Prague before." "I thought it was gray and squalid." "But Hrabal told stories, and every house, every street, had a history." "All of a sudden you saw Prague differently." "It was a revelation, the stories he told." "And all the characters were alive." "When he talked about Uncle Pepin, he showed me a photograph." ""Here he is!"" "All his characters actually existed, they were actual people." "But he knew how to elaborate on them." "What scoundrel keeps pouring this filth here!" "Good morning, Miss Marcelka." "Good day to you, Josefínka Mánesová!" "I want to paint her in oils!" "And framed in gold!" "Damn, now that would be something!" "Then I asked him where we were going to shoot the junk shop." "Since he used to work there." "He said, "Come with me," and we went to Spálená Street." "There was the junk shop." "He worked there for 7 years." "That's where we shot the entire film." "There was a manager, a plump lady, he told me when he worked there," ""She was young and slender, she was not a manager and her kisses were so sweet."" "I asked him, "Mr Hrabal, why did you stay here for 7 years?" "It must have been awful, all this paper around."" ""Not at all!" "Those were books that were dumped here." "I have a whole library of philosophy and literature from here that I just took home."" "I brought some nourishment for your lofty thoughts." " So, what are we having, dear?" " I will leave it up to you." " A glass of vermouth?" " Why not." " And are these novels about love?" " They are pure passion." "Both Maggie's Fate and Broken Chains." "I actually knew that Haòa." "Though of course I looked for him all over the place, while he was right next to me." "I worked with directors and there was this man at Barrandov, a handyman." "When we worked on Transport from Paradise with Brynych, the guy had this little notebook," "which listed whom he was dining with each day." "All the people from Terezín on set would listen to his stories." "He kept telling stories." "They asked him to dinner, so he would talk about cinema, and about life." "He was a kind of folk storyteller." "I cast him his first time, and he is said to have appearedin bit parts in 31 films." "And I would always cast him, even if I had no role for him." "He was a kind of talisman." "Christ almighty, you ended up like these books." "10 crowns fifty each, they used to be, and now you get 20 cents for a kilogram." "I was once proprietor of a swing set and a target range." "I could push two swings at once!" "The junk shop manager was actually a graphic designer." "Famous for designing the Baa typescript, in use to this day." "An irascible man, sometimes unpleasant and nervous." "I have a beautiful drawing by him in my house." "And I found that I could use him as the boss." "Hedvièka, look here:" "From the right, you see 5 kilo less, from the left, 5 kilo more." "You have to look straight." "I wish I could carve you in lindenwood." "Egyptian canon!" "And here - the golden section!" " I think you will get a spanking!" " But why?" " You know why!" "And then I found the squaw, whom I wanted to throw a knife." "She could not do it, so I asked what was her profession." "She said she was a tennis instructor." "I had never gone in for sports, so I had to ask her what you call it when you hit the ball with the racket." "And she said, "Well, a smash"." ""Alright, take the knife and smash it."" "She took the knife and threw it perfectly." "Hey-la hop!" "The little boy who almost gets crushed was the prop man's son." "We went about it this way - I told him, he would have to cry." "But let's make a deal." "I slap your face, you cry, and you get a bar of chocolate." "So we did it and pushed him in." "He was slapped, he cried, he got his chocolate, all went well." "We had to do another take, he agreed." "He was slapped, he cried, he got his chocolate, and I was happy." "And he comes and asks "Why don't we do another take..."" " Did you say anything?" " You jailbird!" "Lady, they are putting your little boy through the press!" "We near made a rug of you!" "The films were supposed to be about 15 minutes to fit into the omnibus." "But mine ran over half an hour." "So all of us held a meeting, I don't remember who chaired it." "Either Schorm or Jire." "They said they could not show everything together." "No one would come to see a 3 hour long film." "Two films have to come out." "Ivan Passer was first to offer to withdraw his film." "And I came second, as my film was the longest, so I withdrew my film too." "Zbynìk Brynych and I had a very good relationship." "After The Junk Shop he approached me with a script by Bìlohradská." "It had been offered to him." ""I don't have the time, maybe you would like to do this."" "Please, would you go to your rooms quietly?" "Quick, call the surgeon!" "It was titled The Last Supper." "But I change the titles of almost all of my films, so I changed it to The Sign of Cancer." "I had been in Jasný's film The Pipes." "Now Jasný was living in his own world." "He had horoscopes done, and only cast actors if they had good horoscopes." "So I wrote a character that was not in the script, an astrologist, a strange and unlikely character." "He was played by Eduard Kohout." "He uses horoscopes to figure out who did it." "It was a murder mystery." "Moreover, Iva Janurová, the murderer, kills because she is afraid the doctor will tell her she has cancer." "They are summoning me for another interrogation." "Look up the canteen expenses for 1964-65." "Thank you." "They are going to think we are conspiring here." " What is the matter, Mrs. Louhová?" " I had to tell her." " The professor is going to be angry." " What is it you told her?" "That the professor lied." "He was at the clinic at the time of the murder." "It was political since the docent, the lamest guy, who was the head of the clinic and oppressed the professor, was also a party boss." "Now this was rather daring, but in 1967 one could get away with it." "Everyone was terribly upset, the docents more than anyone." "What was more, we shot at their clinic." "They requested a special screening." "They arrived at the screening, at the central director's office." "We went with the head of studio." "And Professor Charvát was there, having been told that Zdenìk tìpánek's senile professor in the film was supposed to be him." "There were about 30 physicians." "The screening started, it was dead silent." "I watched and thought, Jesus." "Here I am showing them boozing, having sex with patients, raping a nurse." "I lost my nerve and in the dead silence I slipped out." "The head of the studio came out right after me, and we both sat there dejected, awaiting the physicians' verdict." "They all filed out and the docents started trashing the film." "For being underhanded, and for being vulgar." "Said it must be banned, that scenes must be cut that it was untrue and should not be shown publicly, etc." "Now Professor Charvát, a formidable figure, raised his hand." "He said, "I am not happy this film was made, much less at my own clinic." "For the film shows things patients should not know." "But I believe it is a work of art, and am against interfering with it in any way." "Good day."" "And he left." "By saying this he saved our film." "I guess I must be too healthy, so I picked you." "For I believe you are immensely capable." "I need a few decent people to resurrect this old place." "Everyone here thinks they have sat the race out." "We will be a clinic of international renown again." " What do you say, can I count you in?" " Certainly." "Of course things were cut." "There was a scene of a lonely doctor masturbating." "Then there was the rape of a nurse." "That was Landovský." "I think it was his first role of note, he played the mortuary assistant." "In 1968, the head of Barrandov Studios Mr. Harnach, said to me:" ""Some Italians are here from Ponti, they want to buy the film." "They heard there were some erotic scenes, and they want those." "I have it in the safe." "Should I give it to them, or do you want to reshoot in Italy?" And sure enough I said," ""Those scenes do not exist, we will re-shoot them in Italy."" " Why did you do it?" " I hate you all!" "You hideous little beast!" "I did not want him to tell me I have to die." "I won't!" "You have no right to tell me that!" "You are murderers!" "Bedøich Baka was a genius cameraman, he made Markéta Lazarová with Vláèil." "I owe it to him that he taught me to write shooting scripts." "On The Sign of Cancer, I was not concerned with the camera at all." "We'd already planned every shot in detail, the framing and all." "My only concern was the actors." "I worked with actors while he kept shooting." " May I?" " Yes." "The films at the time were completely different from, say Evald Schorm," ""The 1960s kind of films"." "But I had my mind set on making a film starring myself!" "Why, I was an actor, I wanted to play the main role in a film." "I was offered The Lame Devil by the head of unit, who wrote it." "We then rewrote it together." "All they had to tell me was that Asmodeus, the protagonist, was a demon of vice." "So naturally I laid the vice on thick." "Then we went to shoot." "I was summoned and given my own script, with all the vice crossed out in red." "I protested that it was a film about the demon of vice, the tricks he plays on people." "They weren't having it." "So I said, "Fine, I am not doing this film!"" ""You are making this film, with all the money that's gone into it!" "Look, we already built the sets!"" "The set was in a studio, with the exteriors of a chateau, the costumes had been made..." "So I had to make the film." "Papa!" " You must not catch a cold!" " What will happen to Zuzana?" "There are several possibilities." "Each era had a different way of dealing with it." " But each is fascinating in its own way." " And instructive!" " Voilá!" "No!" "I also wanted to make The Lame Devil because I wanted to try things out." "For I had Bedøich Baka in the crew." "I knew Baka was great." "He would watch my back." "He would look out for me and shoot it." "But Bedøich Baka ran off to America." "I was left without a DP." "I found another, Mr. Novák, who did children's films." "I could not get him to do it in the stylized way I envisioned." "He just could not do it." "Haven't you had enough?" "Do you want to start all over again?" "Who once knew the ardor of love, could break rocks with a single stroke..." "Though his life may hang on a thread, he will venture to rescue his love!" "While shooting my very first film," "The Junk Shop, I heard a novel called The Cremator had come out." "I read it and was disappointed." "I thought you could not do this as a movie, it was all monologue." "Moreover, there were all these loose ends." "But the title was great." "So we met with Ladislav Fuks and Mrs Kalábová every week in Café Slavia for two years." "We would discuss a section, and what I wanted to do." "And so slowly we moved on, and in fact rewrote the whole novel." "Mrs. Kalábová, the dramaturg, was a sort of angel throughout." "She hardly said a word, but when she did, it was something absolutely essential." "Ah Christmas, what a blessed time!" "My Celestial one, you shine so bright, why don't I hang you up among the angels!" "Come hurry, let them not suffer." "They are gasping for air as it is." "Anna will come to kill them soon!" "But why must Anna kill them?" "Can't you do it?" "Come, child, of course I could, but I prefer not to." "I had no idea the film would be so topical." "It is about a conformist." "1969, the 1970s were marked by Czech conformism." "This made the film political." "For me, it was black comedy." "Stressing the comedic, a film where I came into my own" "and where I found my forte." "This is how I wanted to make films!" "And naturally I had agreed with Mr. Fuks that my next film would be The Mice of Natalia Mooshaber." "He had some other films lined up, and this was the direction I wanted to go." "The type of black comedy that I really loved." " What is this?" " Why, you are not afraid, are you?" "And this is the mass murderer." "He killed every day and every night." "I had one big hang-up." "I had the idea that all FAMU students learn the craft of cinema." "And that I didn't have the hang of it." "So I kept on wanting to learn the craft." "I watched millions of films, I still have a huge collection." "And while developing The Cremator, I came across Jean-Paul Sartre." "Only volumes I and II had come out." "The first is very conventional." "The second starts something like this:" ""Charles walked to the window and threw his cigarette away." "Turning towards Marie, who sat sipping her coffee, he told her..."" "But Charles was in Paris and Marie was in Madrid." "I am making it up, but it went in this vein." "I loved this literary inter-cutting." "All within one sentence." "I thought, you could do this in a film." "And I wrote the whole shooting script in this manner of intercut scenes." "A scene starts in one place, but in fact belongs to the next scene." "You have dialogue, which in fact belongs to the next scene." "You have never seen boxing, and neither have I, for that matter." "I find boxing vulgar." "Well, I am looking forward to it." "It is for you to learn about manly sport!" "But I always found boxing so coarse." "Rough would be the word, but that is as it should be." "We need strong men of valor!" "Boxing is a martial art." "Man against man!" "Milota also never went to FAMU." "He did all kinds of jobs, lighting, assistant DP." "He always hung around, asked if he could watch what was going on while I was an AD." "I kind of warmed to him then." "Later he already worked as DP." "I approached him to shoot with him," "I said I wanted to make a color film without using color." "The set would be black and white." "Only blood and such things would be in color." "Now Standa said," "I like the script." "I will do it, but not in color." "So either I shoot with someone else in color, or with Standa Milota in black and white." "By then color was already normal." "I thought, better with Standa in black and white." "We got on like a house on fire." "We agreed how we would do the film, and left for Marienbad." "And we wrote the shooting script together in a hotel." "By then we knew one another so well that one would sleep and the other would write." "I went to sleep and Standa just took up where I left." "For we already knew the technique, how we wanted to shoot." "The manner and number of shots, of which there were three times more than was then normal." "We already had all this figured out." "Carp?" "Why not." "But don't you feel our blood?" "We are fighting for noble ideals, and you fry carp the Czech way?" "I always thought you were against violence." "That you sought justice, salvation and happiness for all." "This republic is the bastion of our enemies!" "It is a humane country." "It has sound laws." "Such as the law on cremation." "The author kept persuading me, that he saw Mr. Somr there." "I told him, "Mr. Somr is a good actor, but he is not Kopfrkingl." "Kopfrkingl is Hruínský."" "Hruínský, however, was hard to get." "At that time, he was at the Evropa every night." "Drinking beer with his pals." "I would pursue him at Evropa, had him read the script." "He read it, and said, "There's nothing for me to get my teeth into."" "Said it was all chopped up into bits." ""No chance for me to put in any acting."" "I knew if I didn't win him over, there would be no film." "There was no one else I could make the film with." "So I kept interfering with his beer sessions at Evropa." "Until he finally relented." "He arrived on set, and was morose day one, grumpy day two and crabby on day three." "For these were indeed short shots." "Then he suddenly realized he had stuff to play." "And he became uncrabbed and started to be affable." "We became friends and shot the rest of the film in a really friendly atmosphere." "As I kid I once sneaked without paying into a circus tent" "where they had wax figures." "Children were banned." "It was adults only, exhibiting venereal diseases." "There were limbs with all sorts of deformations." "This was what I had in mind." "I told the set designer, I have to have this!" "All these syphilis stricken male and female bodily organs." "And they dug them up in attics or wherever and brought them in." "Another thing, I wanted those two-headed babies in formaldehyde." "Of course I avoided pushing it too far." "But still, we found all this and put it all up in the studio." "After that, if you left a golden watch lying around, it would not vanish." "No one dared to hang around on their own." "It was a horrendous scene." "Only I felt good in there, naturally." "And here are all kinds of diseases:" "Syphilis, lues, that are contagious." "It is a scourge." " One can die of this, too." " Yes, sir!" "We came up with the fish-eye like this:" "Even while writing the script, I knew Mr. Kopfrkingl had a screw loose." "He was abnormal, a psychopath." "Thus some of his angles had to be distorted." "So I got in touch with a factory, and I wanted them to make a silver half-sphere." "So we could shoot his head in this half-sphere." "This would provide the distortion." "And then someone came along and said:" ""Why are you fooling around, there is this new lens, nine and a half, in France."" "We approached the studio head and he bought it." "It cost a mint and we were all so excited." "And as we had never seen something so unusual, we misused it." "That is, we overused it." "If I made The Cremator now, I would not use these shots at all." "The fish-eye." "It is simplistic." "I no longer like it." "Back then we were excited, though." "But back then we would have shot it even by different means, through that sphere." "I met Lika when shooting with Kadár." "He did terrific music for Accused, scored for typewriters." "Pianists were seated at typewriters and played." "On The Cremator, I got used to sitting with the composer and measuring:" "This much music for so many seconds." "With Lika we went through it like this and he nodded." "As he left he asked, "And should it be scary or kind of sweet?"" "And I'd say, "Mr. Lika, I put enough scare there, you can just be sweet."" "Well, music was recorded and we did the mix." "Where I wanted music, there was none." "And where I wanted no music, he did waltzes for the murder scenes - and it was great." "He was a terrific dramaturg." "Rinpoche, it is time." "The throne is awaiting you." "Tibet, our blessed country, is awaiting its ruler." "The wall that had screened your view, has fallen." "The sky has opened." "The stars are above us." "You shall redeem the world." "It all ends with going to Tibet." "He goes completely off the deep end and leaves for Tibet to manufacture huge cremation ovens." "The DP Milota and I shot new scenes." "We went to the Municipal House, with its huge windows." "We had two ladies from the crematorium gossiping:" ""And pray, what happened with Mr. Kopfrkingl?" "Such a gentleman!"" "And tanks rolling outside those windows." "Rolling across Prague." "This was after August 21, 1968." ""Such a gentleman, lost in the war."" "And what you see is gunshots on the National Museum etc." "And on Narodní Avenue, we shot with a zoom lens." "A long shot of people walking towards the camera, angry, ashen, distraught." "Tanks all over the place." "All of a sudden, a smiling face appears." "Kopfrkingl returning with the Soviet Army." "We screened it for the unit chief, and he nearly fell off the chair." ""This... thing..." "it has to be cut out."" "He cut it out, saying he would shelve it." "But the film did not last long anyway, and was banned soon after that." "Still, that sequence got lost." "Now you shall save the world." "Rinpoche, humankind is awaiting you." "I am happy that you came." "I shall join you presently." "August 21 caught me in bed, when a friend, now a producer in Germany woke me up at 4 am." ""The Russians are here!" "I am off to Germany, you must come with me at once!"" "I was like, "Go to hell, Karel, let me sleep." "It's four in the morning, what's the matter with you?"" "And he said, "This is for real, get moving!"" "I told him I'd take a look in the morning - now let me sleep." "Afterwards, of course, the horror of it sank in." "The second or third day." "My eight year old son and I walked among the tanks." "I remember Emil Zátopek perched on a crate in front of the Sevastopol cinema, addressing the crowd." "At that moment I thought," ""The Czech nation will not be broken."" "And I left calmly for Slovakia, where I was shooting" "Sweet Games of Last Summer I was in village on the Danube." "I came back and the tides had somehow changed." "Listen, all this lovemaking can't something go wrong?" "We don't have to, if you're afraid." "That's not what I meant." "Why can't you tell me straight?" "What am I supposed to tell you?" "That you no longer enjoy it with me." "La Mouche, Maupassant, Impressionism, Renoir..." "Something radically different from The Cremator." "There are directors whom you know by each film, who stick to their own, which is fine." "You can always tell a Bergmann." "But I wanted to do each film differently." "That's what suited me." "You were supposed to wait on the riverbank!" " Good day, mademoiselle." " Good day, belle mademoiselle." " Good day, plus belle mademoiselle." " Good morning, gentlemen!" "Her eyes spell desire." " Her hair is like passion." " Her lips speak of pleasure." "I didn't have a cameraman." "So I was told, there is a young DP, but he is only 24." "The youngest DP in Europe." "So I met Dodo imoniè." "I told him I would like to make my next film with him." "We looked at paintings, mainly Impressionism." "But we agreed we would not use any of Renoir's compositions, or Lautrec's, in interiors." "We would just use their colors." "Just the sensation of it." "And we had no studio." "So we devised setting up a studio in Bezinek, the city of wine, in a gym." "And Dodo covered the whole set in the gym with a plastic sheet." "With all those lights, and summer and all, it was 50° in there." "Makeup just dripped off the actors' faces." "And since strangely enough I hardly drunk at the time," "I was the only sober one around." "Except for Dodo." "But everyone else was totally drunk." "But you can't see that in the film." "It seems very relaxed, but it was the very opposite." "The film was chosen to go to Monte Carlo." "A new TV head was appointed, he saw the film, and approached the Minister of Culture, likewise newly appointed." "He said the film had to be pulled out of Monte Carlo." "And the minister says, "Why, is it political?"" "And he says, "No, but they are screwing in there!"" "So what is up?" "Have you finished your dinner as well?" "This period was very important for me." "For that was when I made probably my crucial films, and I learned the most." "When I left, it was important that I wanted to travel, and I traveled far and wide." "I was able to make films in America, France," "Morocco, Italy, etc." "It was an experience." "But still I was drawn more to the Czech Lands, to work with a Czech crew, with Czechs." "For working with others, it was never the same, never like here." "After Oil Lamps (1971) And Morgiana (1972), the final echoes of 1960s cinema, Juraj Herz made detective stories, intimate dramas, horror films, or parodies." "After his emigration (1987), he also made documentary films, since his return home he has worked for television and theater."