Word: forman
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Born 53 years ago, in Caslav, Czechoslovakia, Forman was already a significant cinema voice before his arrival in the U.S. He had helped unleash the Czech new wave of the 1960s with a trio of wry social comedies: Black Peter, Loves of a Blonde and The Fireman's Ball. But in 1968 the Prague Spring ended abruptly to the rumble of Soviet tanks, and shortly thereafter Forman went to New York City to shoot his first American film, the gentle, generation-gap comedy Taking Off. "I've never been political," he insists, "not in Czechoslovakia, not in this country...
Fortunately, Forman had studied his new subject, America and its movies, like a scholar lover. "I knew America by way of the films I'd seen growing up," he recalls. "I had a kind of mythical vision of the country, a movie vision, larger than life. But then, so many things about America are larger than life that it was a more accurate vision about things than you might think." Forman's early years in New York City gave him glimpses of New World generosity ("The manager at the Chelsea Hotel was very relaxed about the rent") and mendacity...
...Forman, who became an American citizen in 1977, lives on a 39-acre farm in Connecticut. After 16 years of courting and being courted by Hollywood, the filmmaker is still a fan. "I admire the vitality and variety of American films," he says. "Where else do you get a Star Wars, a Places in the Heart and a Stranger Than Paradise?" Though still married to an actress who remained in Czechoslovakia with their two sons, Forman is now an American moviemaker with few regrets. "I certainly don't think my art has suffered from my being in Hollywood," he declares...
...spirit of assimilation, Hollywood has thrived by embracing those immigrants who would enrich it. Today one need look no further than the awards shows, or the bottom line, to spot the crucial contributions of foreign-born filmmakers to the Hollywood movie. On Oscar night this spring, Czech-born Milos Forman (see box) walked away with a best-director statuette for his work on the laurel-laden Amadeus. This year's first surprise hit, Witness, was directed by Australian Peter Weir; this summer's runaway "Gook" buster, Rambo: First Blood Part II, was helmed by the Greek immigrant George Pan Cosmatos...
With the triumph of the international style -- episodic and oblique, offering no easy meanings or solutions -- came the latest surge of immigrant directors and cinematographers. Some, like Forman, Soviet Filmmaker Slava Tsukerman (Liquid Sky) and the Cuban-bred camera magician Nestor Almendros, were sidestepping new tyrannies. Some, like Louis Malle (Pretty Baby, Atlantic City, Alamo Bay), sought a larger canvas on which to test their palettes. Many others were Australians and Englishmen attracted by the grand contradictions of a country with which they shared a language and part of a heritage. America was, of course, where the action was. Also...