You know, you have to really decide where you want to live: if you want to live in the jungle or in the zoo. Because if you want the beauty, if you want freedom, the jungle is... that's your world. But you're in danger there, you have to live with snakes, sharks, tigers, skunks, you know, mosquitoes, leeches. You want to be safe, you have to live in the zoo. You are protected. You know, if you are a lamb, the tiger will not attack you. You know, you'll get a little bit something to eat every day; that's fine. You have to work hard, but you live behind the bars, and what's wonderful — you live there behind the bars and you dream about the beauty of the jungle. Now what happened was that the bars opened, and everybody runs after the dream. And suddenly, well, yeah, it's beautiful — yes, I am free to go wherever I want, do whatever I want, but where do I want to go? Oh, my God, and here is a tiger and here's a snake. Oh, oh, and people have a tendency to, you know, back. And you will be surprised how many people prefer to live in the zoo; they are not ready to pay for the freedom; they think that freedom should be, you know, for free, even for granted, which never is, never is.
~ Forman aka Jan Tomáš Forman (born on 18 February 1932)
Miloš Forman: Čech ve světě
V šestaosmdesáti letech zemřel Miloš Forman, měl za sebou dlouhý a dobrý život, jistě ne jednoduchý. Byl to ten jediný český a zároveň skutečně světoznámý filmař. ...
Peter Travers: How Milos Forman Injected Warmth and Mischief Into ... mischief
RollingStone.com
Hearing the news of the death of master filmmaker Milos Forman, images flooded in. Not of his movies; at least not right away. I remembered Milos, at his Connecticut farmhouse eight years ago poking at me with his cigar. Any threat in the motion dissipated instantly by the warm, mischievous glint in his eye.
Milos Forman Beyond the 'Cuckoo's Nest': His Early Czechoslovak Films Reveal a Master of Black Comedy
His next big hit was the sensational – but interestingly subtle and indirect – satire The Firemen’s Ball in 1967, a virtual real-time account of an evening fundraiser for the local fire service in which bureaucracy and pompous uniform-wearing officialdom are sent up. Importantly, a building actually burns to the ground in the course of a night dedicated to firefighting. It is a brilliant and persuasive comedy. But it was banned by the Czech authorities, a paradoxical act of important criticism which revealed the film’s and Forman’s importance, and their own hamfisted clumsiness. After the tanks were sent into Prague, Forman established himself in New York.
His 1971 comedy Taking Off touched again on the theme of the stuffy and now preposterous older generation failing to understand their children, but it was his 1975 movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest which propelled Forman into the big league. This was based on the Ken Kesey novel which had already been adapted for the stage with Kirk Douglas in the lead role. With the help of his producer son Michael Douglas, Kirk was persuaded to step down in favour of the hot newcomer Jack Nicholson and under Forman’s guidance, his boisterous performance amidst the gallery of holy fools and other unholy people was electric. It was a brilliant film, though still perhaps not entirely understood: Forman directed a great scene in which the hated Nurse Ratched reveals herself to be not driven by sadism but a kind of blinkered, misguided professionalism. Forman’s protégé James Mangold drew on the master’s work for his own film Girl, Interrupted, with Angelina Jolie in the comparable sacrificial-wild-child role.
Milos Forman, a filmmaker who challenged Hollywood with his subversive touch, and twice directed movies that won the Oscar for best picture, died on Friday. He was 86.
The Czech film-maker forged a brilliant career after overcoming the obstacles of both postwar communism in his homeland and Hollywood to where he escaped
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Amadeus director dies 86
Oscar-winning director Milos Forman dead at 86
British director/writer Edgar Wright (Baby Driver) said Forman had “a tremendous filmography that documented the rebel heart and human spirit.” Antonio Banderas also paid homage to Forman. “Milos Formanhas left us. Genius of cinematography and master in the portrayal of the human condition,” wrote ...
Miloš Forman - Now Will Never Produce Cold River
"You’re kind of having to live with yourself for a very long time if you’re immortal, or even just live for a couple thousand years, and a bad self, I think, is hard to live with. By bad, I don’t just mean sort of, let’s say, cruel to people or unjust. I also mean not attuned to things of eternal significance."
"You’re kind of having to live with yourself for a very long time if you’re immortal, or even just live for a couple thousand years, and a bad self, I think, is hard to live with. By bad, I don’t just mean sort of, let’s say, cruel to people or unjust. I also mean not attuned to things of eternal significance."