Word: passer
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Milos Forman (Loves of a Blonde, 1965) and Ivan Passer (Intimate Lighting, 1965) rejected any theoretical approach to reality. Theirs is one of close, almost microscopic observation; they find "in that microcosm of human action a portrait of the social reality as a whole" This accounts for the political dimension of a film with an apparently nonpolitical subject, such as Firemen's Ball, 1968. Others, like Jaromil Jires (The Joke, 1968) preferred social analysis and political generalizations, while Chytilova's Dazies or Nemec's Report on the Party and the Guests are philosophical tales in the Voltairian sense...
Although having different philosophical and esthetic approaches to filmmaking, they all shared a common attitude toward actors (Forman and Passer introduced the use of non-professional actors) that is best defined by the director Jiri Weiss: "To me an actor is what five divisions of the Soviet army are for Sergel Bondartchuk (Soviet director, author of the gigantic film version of War and Peace). And a conversation between a man and his wife is more interesting to me than the battle of Borodino. The miracle of cinematography is the reconstruction (or, if you will, the construction) of human life. Film...
...alternative for those who refuse to be these kinds of "engineers of human souls" as comrade Stalin used to put it, was to leave the country and continue their film careers in the West, especially in America where the chances to make films were best (Forman, Passer, Kadar and Weiss now live in New York). All found themselves caught in the following dilemma: to continue the kind of work they used to do in Czechoslovakia that won them international fame or to adopt the style of filmmaking of their adopted country...
...people, a subtle sense of humor combined sometimes with social satire. This required a deep and almost subconscious knowledge of a place and people and feelings. These qualities are impossible to transport to a new reality. In other words, it is impossible to make "Czech" movies in America. Ivan Passer's recent Law and Disorder just doesn't work when it tries to be a "Czech film" about ordinary Brooklyn shopkeepers and cab drivers, because Passer is not "equipped" by his experience to do this kind of film. This problem is not confined to Czech directors. Antonioni's Zabriskie Point...
...arrived in Paris last summer, after six years of not being allowed to shoot). Those who stayed are on the blacklist, and to be blacklisted in Prague--as well as in Hollywood in the fifties--means to lose the possibility to do creative work for many years. Ivan Passer once related how eager he was to start shooting his first American movie, Born to Win (1971). He said that filmmaking had one thing in common with athletics: you have to practice, keep in shape, keep in touch with the craft. Thus to lose the possibility to shoot for many years...