Join us in July as we celebrate the directorial career of Milos Forman, one of our most famous and versatile contemporary filmmakers, and a two-time Academy Award® winner. A certifiable humanist, Forman’s work is marked by a defiantly anti-authoritarian attitude and a fascination with individual behavior demonstrated by a naturalistic handling of performers, both professional and non-professional. The lineup includes a complete selection of Forman’s Czech features, including his earliest film, the semi-documentary Audition, and three of his most celebrated American releases.

Forman studied screenwriting at the Prague Academy of Dramatic Arts, and emerged in 1963 with Audition and his first full feature, Black Peter (both screening July 1). His two subsequent features, Loves of a Blonde (July 8) and The Fireman’s Ball (July 15), were enormous international successes, but in Forman’s homeland of Czechoslovakia, the films were heavily criticized, and The Fireman’ Ball was even banned. Facing an increasingly oppressive situation, Forman left for the United States at the time of the Soviet Invasion in 1968. In these early days, Forman established strong collaborative relationships with fellow screenwriter and director Ivan Passer and cinematographer Miroslav Ondrv ícv ek, both of whom also emigrated to the US.

Forman soon brought his techniques to big-budget Hollywood features, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (July 22) was an astounding international success largely due to the director’s impeccable handling of an extraordinary cast that included Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, and in some of their earliest film appearances, Brad Dourif, Danny DeVito, and Christopher Lloyd. For what was only his second American movie, Forman earned a Best Director Academy Award®, and the film also won Oscars® for Nicholson, Fletcher, and Best Picture.

Forman next set his attentions to bringing the ’60s Broadway milestone Hair (July 29) to the big screen. Gerome Ragni and James Rado’s “Tribal Love Rock Musical” was given a more formally structured story, and the director seamlessly moved between loose, sometimes improvisatory scenes of dialogue and enthusiastically performed musical numbers (brilliantly choreographed by Twyla Tharp) that in many cases completely re-imagined the original stage production. Adapting another Broadway smash, Peter Shaffer’s play Amadeus (showing in the director’s cut on July 12), Forman won his second Oscar® for the story of the bitter rivalry between composers Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang A. Mozart. Amadeus also won Oscars® for Best Picture and F. Murray Abraham’s performance as the haunted Salieri.

While in his career Forman has moved from stories about his average fellow countrymen to iconic historical figures, he always finds a way to tell the story of an individual struggling to express himself in an oppressive situation.

The touring retrospective was organized originally by Jytte Jensen, Curator, Department of Film, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, with the kind collaboration of the Czech Center New York; the NationalFilm Archive, Prague; and Irena Kovarova, Independent Film Programmer and Tour Manager.