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I have seen two of the films he directed, the great One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and The People Vs Larry Flynt.
RIP Milos Forman.
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Posted: |
Apr 14, 2018 - 1:22 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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THE FIREMAN'S BALL is a 1967 comedy in which a volunteer fire department throws a party for their former boss, with the whole town invited, but nothing goes as planned. The movie takes place during about 24 hours, as the firemen prepare for their event, attend it, and survive it. Their tribute to their former chief may be coming too late: "We should have given it to him last year, when he was 85," one observes, "instead of now when he's about to die."
THE FIREMAN'S BALL was Milos Forman's first color film. The picture debuted in Czechoslovakia on 15 December 1967, but following the "Prague Spring" in 1968, during which Soviet troops invaded and occupied the country, the film was banned. The film uses few professional actors – the firemen portrayed are primarily played by the firemen of the small town where it was filmed. In its portrayal of the prevailing corruption of the local community, and the collapse even of well-intentioned plans, the film has widely been interpreted as a satire on the East European Communist system.
Forman has commented on the issue of whether his film should be seen as an allegory of the larger society of the time:
"I didn't want to give any special message or allegory. I wanted just to make a comedy knowing that if I'll be real, if I'll be true, the film will automatically reveal an allegorical sense. That's a problem of all governments, of all committees, including firemen's committees. That they try and they pretend and they announce that they are preparing a happy, gay, amusing evening or life for the people. And everybody has the best intentions... But suddenly things turn out in such a catastrophic way that, for me, this is a vision of what's going on today in the world."
Forman faced a possible 10 years imprisonment for "economic damage to the state." In Paris, François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard picked up the ownership of the film and spared him the charges. The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia occurred while Forman was still in Paris courting these producers, and he decided to remain in exile outside of Czechoslovakia.
In addition to directing, Forman co-wrote the film with Jaroslav Papousek and Ivan Passer, who would go on to become a director himself. THE FIREMAN'S BALL received an Academy Award nomination as Best Foreign Language Film, ironically losing to Russia's WAR AND PEACE. The film had an unreleased score by Karel Mares.
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Posted: |
Apr 14, 2018 - 2:02 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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Forman's first American-financed film was 1971's TAKING OFF. In this comedy-drama, "Jeannie Tyne" (Linnea Heacock), unable to deal with her parents, runs away from home. "Larry and Lynn Tyne" (Buck Henry and Lynn Carlin) search for her, and in the process meet other people whose children have run away.
In October 1968, Forman was completing the script to the film, which was to be produced by Paramount. He wrote in his autobiography that he was inspired to write the first draft of the screenplay, with collaborator Jean-Claude Carrière, by a newspaper interview with a father of a runaway daughter. Paramount turned down the finished script but charged Forman $130,000 to repay pre-production costs.
In March 1970, Universal picked up the film. After the success of EASY RIDER (1969), Universal hit upon the idea to let young filmmakers make "semi-independent" films for low budgets in hopes of generating similar profits. The idea was to make movies for one million dollars or less, not interfere in the film-making process, and give the directors final cut.
Universal paid Paramount $40,000, with the remaining owed monies deferred as a percentage of profits. American unions made two allowances for Forman: they allowed crews of minimum size and permitted Forman to hire his longtime Czech cinematographer, Miroslav Ondricek.
Forman's first feature film, 1964’s AUDITION, is widely credited as having launched the Czech New Wave movement. That picture’s device of the live audition scene is repeated in TAKING OFF, which begins with a lengthy scene of women singers auditioning. The footage, which Forman described in his autobiography as included partially “to disguise my thin knowledge of American life by incorporating a straightforward documentary into my fictional film,” is intercut with scenes of Larry and Lynn Tyne discovering that Jeannie has run away, and reappears interspersed throughout the film. The auditioning singers include Carly Simon, who was dating Forman at the time, and actress Kathy Bates, credited onscreen as Bobo Bates. Both were unknown at the time and responded to the casting call along with all the other amateurs, and made their feature film debuts in TAKING OFF.
Forman discovered Linnea Heacock, for whom TAKING OFF marked her only film role, on the street. He also followed his usual custom of showing the actors only one scene at a time, then allowing them to ad-lib many of the lines.
TAKING OFF was named to the 1971 Ten Best lists of The Washington Post, Newsweek, and the Chicago Sun-Times. In addition, Forman won the Cannes Film Festival Grand Prize of the Jury and was nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Comedy. TAKING OFF was also nominated for six BAFTA awards. Despite the accolades and positive reviews, some American critics took offense at a foreign filmmaker critiquing American culture. The film did not have an original music score.
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CUCKOO is one of the 20 greatest films of all-time.
A great director.
RIP Milos Forman
Bruce Marshall
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NETFLIX IS SHOWING A STRANGE documentary ABOUT JIM CARREY AND THE MAKING of Man In the Moon
check it out!
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Posted: |
Apr 14, 2018 - 2:48 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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Forman was one of eight international directors who filmed their impressions of the 1972 Munich Summer Olympic Games for the 1973 feature documentary VISIONS OF EIGHT. Prior to the opening credits, the following written statement appears: "Sunflowers are familiar to millions, yet no one ever saw them the way Vincent Van Gogh did. So with the Olympics: a recurring spectacle familiar to people around the world. This is no chronological record, no summary of winners and losers. Rather, it is a separate vision of eight singular film artists."
After the opening title, the words "A Film by (in alphabetical order)" appear, followed by eight title cards, one for each of the film's directors: "Milos Forman (Czechoslovakia); Kon Ichikawa (Japan); Claude Lelouch (France); Juri Ozerov (U.S.S.R.); Arthur Penn (United States); Michael Pfeghar (West Germany); John Schlesinger (Great Britain); Mai Zetterling (Sweden)." Individual title cards for each of the film's eight segments, with attributions for the respective director, then appear, listed in the order in which the segments appear.
The segment on “The Decathlon” opens with director Milos Forman’s narration recalling his boyhood dream to see the Olympics and revealing that the Decathlon is the toughest discipline in track and field, requiring athletes to perform in ten different events in two days. As Bavarian folk music and yodeling are heard on the soundtrack, footage of the musicians is interspersed with action on the track, and an orchestra performs Beethoven’s 9th Symphony as the fifteen-hundred meter race is run.
VISIONS OF EIGHT won the 1974 Golden Globe for Best Documentary Film. The film had an original music score by Henry Mancini, which was released on an RCA LP. The score was reissued on CD by RCA Spain in 1999 and Vocalion in 2013.
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Posted: |
Apr 14, 2018 - 3:55 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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Ken Kesey wrote the novel ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST between midnight and dawn while working as a night aide at the Palo Alto Veterans Hospital. At that time, he was a graduate fellow at Stanford University’s Creative Writing Center. Published in 1962, the novel’s anti-establishment narrative was embraced by the burgeoning counterculture and it became a cult classic.
The novel was turned into a stage play, and Kirk Douglas starred in the 1963 Broadway production, after buying the film rights prior to the novel's publication. While touring Eastern Europe in the mid-1960s, Douglas met director Milos Forman, who was then living in Prague, and later mailed him a copy of the novel. Forman never received the book, perhaps due to strict censorship laws and monitoring by Czech customs officials. Unaware of the parcel's fate, Forman resented Douglas' broken promise, and Douglas thought Forman rude for never bothering to confirm receipt of the novel. It took a decade to sort the mess out; Forman and Douglas did not meet again for many years.
By 1971, Kirk Douglas reportedly believed that he was no longer young enough to play the role of "McMurphy" and gave the property to his son Michael Douglas. At that time, Michael made a deal with Saul Zaentz of Fantasy Records, which was forming a subsidiary, Fantasy Films. Fantasy planned to finance the film, marking Michael Douglas’s debut as a producer. Although it was reported that Hal Ashby would direct the film, Zaentz and Douglas later replaced him with Milos Forman, who was by then living in New York City. The filmmakers were reportedly unaware that Kirk Douglas had originally wanted Forman to direct.
Kirk Douglas stated that Ken Kesey was paid for a script he submitted in 1972, but it was rejected, as it was written in the first person point of view of "Chief Bromden," in the style of the novel. The producers hired Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman, who changed the point of view to third person. As written, the film tells the story of a criminal (Jack Nicholson), who pleads insanity after getting into trouble again, and once in the mental institution rebels against the oppressive nurse (Louise Fletcher) and rallies up the scared patients.
Milos Forman wanted a star in the lead role, surrounded by a cast of unknown actors. That would make it seem more likely they would adopt him as their leader. Forman had his heart set on Burt Reynolds to play the part of McMurphy. Reynolds wanted to do it after meeting with Forman, but the studio wanted a more critically acclaimed actor for the role, and chose Jack Nicholson. So, the producers waited nine months for Nicholson to complete his role in THE FORTUNE (1975).
Milos Forman cast most of the other actors by putting them in group therapy auditions. Reprising their roles from the stage play were Delos V. Smith, Jr. (“Scanlon”), who performed in a Huntington Hartford production of the story, and Danny DeVito, who had appeared as “Martini” in a 1971 off-Broadway revival. Mimi Sarkisian (“Nurse Pilbow”) had appeared in a long-running San Francisco production of the play. Making his film debut as “Chief Bromden” was Will Sampson, a Creek Indian who had never before acted. Also making their film debuts in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST were Brad Dourif ("Billy Bibbit”) and Christopher Lloyd (“Taber”).
Jeanne Moreau stated that she turned down the role of “Nurse Ratched,” which was played in the film by Louise Fletcher. Forman had considered Shelley Duvall for the role of "Candy" (eventually played by Marya Small). While screening THIEVES LIKE US (1974) to see if Duvall was right for the role, he became interested in Louise Fletcher, who had a supporting role, and decided to cast her as Nurse Ratched. Duvall later inquired about playing the role of "Rose" (Louisa Moritz), but was turned down. Fletcher was signed a week before filming began, after auditioning repeatedly for over six months. Milos Forman had told her each time that she just wasn't approaching the part correctly, but kept calling her back.
Milos Forman lived at the Oregon State Hospital for four weeks before shooting. He spent most of the time just observing. Before shooting began, Forman screened the Frederick Wiseman documentary TITICUT FOLLIES (1967) for the cast, to help them get a feel for life in a mental institution. Forman said he directed the movie in a naturalistic style, significantly contrasting with the "totally stupid socialist rallies and movies" which were common in his native Czechoslovakia. "I was fascinated just to see real faces on the screen", he said. "That's what cinema verite taught me." To this end, Forman would roll the cameras when the cast members didn't know it, so he could capture the "real moment."
In one scene, the script called for McMurphy to leap on a guard and kiss him when first arriving at the hospital. During filming, Milos Forman decided that the guard's reaction wasn't strong enough, and told Jack Nicholson to jump on the other guard instead. This surprised the actor playing the second guard greatly, and in some versions, he can be seen punching Nicholson.
Forman relied heavily on reaction shots to pull more characters into scenes. In some group therapy scenes, there were ten minutes of Jack Nicholson's reactions filmed, even if he had very little dialogue. The shot of Louise Fletcher looking icily at Nicholson after he returns from shock therapy, was actually her irritated reaction to a piece of direction from Forman. Fletcher was so disturbed by her own performance, that she couldn't watch the film for years.
Rumors that production shut down because Jack Nicholson had hair plugs implanted are false (this can be verified by actually looking at his scalp). The story, as related by Production Designer Paul Sylbert, was that Nicholson and Milos Forman had very different ideas about how the narrative should play out. For example, Forman thought that the ward should be in bedlam when McMurphy showed up, and Nicholson posited that his character would have absolutely no effect on the mental patients if they were already riled up, which would have negated the purpose of his character, and therefore much of the plot. Nicholson and Forman refused to give an inch, each believing he was right, and the other was wrong. The "two months" that Nicholson was supposed to have disappeared, was actually closer to two weeks, and he didn't "disappear." In actuality, Nicholson spearheaded a coup among the other cast members, and refused to let Forman run rehearsals, running them himself instead. During production, Nicholson and Forman spoke to each other through the cinematographer, but faked a friendly relationship when the media and studio personnel would show up to the set.
Haskell Wexler was fired as cinematographer, and replaced by Bill Butler. Wexler believed his dismissal was due to his concurrent work on the documentary, UNDERGROUND(1976), in which the radical terrorist group "The Weather Underground" were being interviewed while hiding from the law. However, Milos Forman said he had terminated Wexler over mere artistic differences. Although Bill Butler and William Fraker received official credit only for "Additional Photography," it was Wexler and Butler who both received Academy Award nominations for Best Cinematography, though Wexler said there was "only about a minute or two minutes in that film I didn't shoot."
ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actor (Nicholson), Actress (Fletcher), Directing, and Writing ((Screenplay Adapted from Other Material), and was nominated for Best Supporting Actor (Dourif), Cinematography, Film Editing, and Music (Original Score, Jack Nitzsche). The film won Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture-Drama, Best Screenplay-Motion Picture, Best Motion Picture Actor (Nicholson), Best Motion Picture Actress (Fletcher), Best Director and Best Debut in a Motion Picture (Dourif). Among many other awards, the picture won Best Drama Adapted from Another Medium from WGA. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST was ranked 33rd on AFI's 2007 100 Years…100 Movies--10th Anniversary Edition list of the greatest American films, moving down from the 20th position it held on AFI's 1997 list. Jack Nitzsche's score for the 1975 film was released on a Fantasy LP and re-issued by Fantasy on CD in 1991.
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Posted: |
Apr 14, 2018 - 4:54 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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A film adaptation of the Tony Award-nominated musical HAIR was in development since the show’s initial success on Broadway, where it opened 29 April 1968 at New York City’s Biltmore Theatre. In October 1968. Michael Butler, producer of the original Broadway musical, was negotiating a financing arrangement with Commonwealth United Entertainment. Initially, the filmmakers planned to use the same Broadway cast and crew, and film at a New York City studio. However, after Commonwealth United's bankruptcy in 1969, the project continued to evolve into the next decade. In 1973, Butler finally acquired film rights from book and lyric authors, Gerome Ragni and James Rado, and composer, Galt MacDermot, for $1 million, but a distribution deal was still pending.
In 1976, producer Lester Persky purchased the screen rights from Butler, outbidding Warner Bros. at a price of $1,050,000 million. Butler and Persky agreed to share producing credit. Once Milos Forman signed on as director, Persky was able to interest United Artists in distribution. As the production budget escalated to $12 million, plus $5 for marketing expenditures, Persky raised additional financing through CIP, a German investment group.
Forman explained in a 19 April 1979 Rolling Stone interview that he became fascinated by HAIR upon seeing the original 1967 Off-Broadway show, produced by Joseph Papp. After an unsuccessful attempt to stage the musical in his home country of Czechoslovakia, he aspired to make a film version, but did not receive a firm offer until Persky contacted him in 1976. Forman auditioned approximately twenty writers before selecting Michael Weller. Together, they changed the musical’s story “from a political commentary into a personal odyssey,” primarily through the character of “Claude,” who was rewritten as a Midwestern farm boy. In the musical, he is member of the hippie community. The picture marked Weller’s debut feature film screenplay.
In the film, "Claude Hooper Bukowski" (John Savage) is a young man from Oklahoma who comes to New York City. There he strikes up a friendship with a group of hippies, led by "Berger" (Treat Williams), and falls in love with "Sheila" (Beverly D'Angelo), a girl from a rich family. However, their happiness is short lived because Claude must go to the Vietnam war.
Forman originally wanted Brad Dourif for the role of Claude, given his familiarity with the actor from filming ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST. As it turned out, John Savage had previously won a Drama Circle Award for his performance in a stage production of ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST.
Playing the fiancée of "LaFayette 'Hud' Johnson" (Dorsey Wright) was actress Cheryl Barnes, who had previously appeared in the Broadway stage musical productions of Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar, and in HAIR performs the "Easy to be Hard" musical number. Milos Forman said of Barnes' audition: "As she started to sing the tune she had prepared, a hush came over the room. She had a voice like a bell, flawless musicality, and great presence."
Actress Annie Golden was cast as "Jeannie" after Forman saw Golden performing with the punk rock bank The Shirts at a famous Bowery rock 'n' roll nightclub. The only casting regret Forman had was director Nicholas Ray, who played the role of "The General." Though he performed well, Ray had to endure clouds of heavy smoke for his big scene, and it was only weeks later that Forman learned that Ray was dying of lung cancer.
During the production of HAIR, Milos Forman was nationalized as an American citizen, and was appointed Head of the Film Department at Columbia University in New York City. Much of HAIR's location shooting was done in the New York City-area.
A March 1979 Life magazine article on the movie said of Forman: "He comes from the land of Kafka and he could understand youth in rebellion, since his own country has a tradition of subtle resistance to authority. They've been dominated so often, so long."
HAIR was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards: Best Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical, and New Star Of The Year (Actor) for Treat Williams. The film also received two David di Donatello prizes, Italy’s annual film award, for best director (Forman) and best soundtrack composer (Galt MacDermot) in the foreign film categories. The film's soundtrack was released on a 2-LP set by RCA and re-issued on CD by RCA in 1999.
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Posted: |
Apr 14, 2018 - 5:29 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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Robert Altman was originally associated as director of the $32-million budgeted RAGTIME, which was adapted from E. L. Doctorow’s popular novel of the same name that won the National Book Critics Award and appeared on many “year-end 10-best lists.”
When Milos Forman replaced Altman on the 1981 film, he originally wanted E.L. Doctorow to collaborate on the screenplay, but the novelist thought that a feature film could not do justice to his epic novel, and believed that it should be done as a ten-part television miniseries. Forman had to start from scratch when an almost 1,000-page screenplay written by Doctorow was deemed unacceptable. Forman streamlined the story by deleting many famous figures such as Henry Ford and Sigmund Freud.
Of those historical characters remaining in the film, stage and television actress Mariclare Costello’s portrayal of radical feminist Emma Goldman was cut from the final version of the film. Forman wanted the scenes left intact, but he was overruled. In the novel, her character was the prism through which class structure could be understood and her presence was “absolutely necessary. In the film, we see the class structure with our own eyes,” said Forman.
Forman was so intent on getting “the right look of the people,” especially for characters with brief screen time, he auditioned 1,500 actors. His preference for casting lesser known actors reflected his desire to convey characters with vitality that were in the prime of their lives.
Jack Nicholson had to drop out of the film less than a month before filming began, leaving the producers without a name star. Forman recruited James Cagney, whom he had met the year before at a private dinner in Connecticut. Cagney was lured back to the screen after a twenty-year retirement that began in 1960 after the completion of ONE, TWO, THREE (1961), and even bouts of sciatica and diabetes didn’t stop the actor from showing interest in RAGTIME. Even though Forman gave the eighty-two-year-old Cagney his choice of roles, Cagney let the director have the last word when he cast the actor as real-life New York Police Commissioner Rheinlander Waldo.
Cagney agreed to play the police chief on two conditions: he would not sign a contract of any kind, and he reserved the right to change his mind and quit the film until three days before shooting began on his scenes.
Forman hired Donald O'Connor to play a dance instructor in the film at the request of Cagney. O'Connor had been having personal and professional problems, and Cagney wanted to help him.
In the film, a young black pianist, "Coalhouse Walker, Jr." (Howard E. Rollins Jr.), becomes embroiled in the lives of an upper-class white family set among the racial tensions, infidelity, violence, and other events in early 1900s New York City. O.J. Simpson lobbied hard for the role of Coalhouse Walker. As presented in the documentary O.J.: MADE IN AMERICA (2016), Simpson saw himself in that role, but Milos Forman decided to go with Howard E. Rollins Jr., a former teacher who got his first break in films with this part.
Forman received a Golden Globe nomination as Best Director, losing to Warren Beatty for REDS. Although Forman did not receive a nomination, RAGTIME received eight Oscar nominations, including two for Randy Newman for Best Score and Best Song ("One More Hour"). Newman lost the scoring award to Vangelis for CHARIOTS OF FIRE and the song award to Burt Bacharach for "Arthur's Theme."
Newman's score was released on an Elektra LP and re-issued on CD by Rhino in 2002. A 17 January 1982 Los Angeles Times Calendar article noted that Newman’s original score evoked the mood of the film’s time period without using music original to the era. Most original recordings were deemed “too tinny or scratchy” to be useful, and extensive research would have been necessary to track down recordings in mint condition, so Newman rose to the challenge of recreating popular music from the early 1900s.
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Posted: |
Apr 15, 2018 - 12:54 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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Playwright-screenwriter Peter Shaffer was approached by director Milos Forman after the first stage preview of AMADEUS in November 1979, at London's National Theatre. According to Milos Forman's autobiography, one studio offered to fund a feature film adaptation of the play on the condition that Forman cast Walter Matthau (a reported Mozart enthusiast) for the role of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Forman refused the offer, considering Matthau to be too old for the role, since he was more than 60, and Mozart only lived to be 35.
By 17 July 1981, the Saul Zaentz Company had agreed to finance the film, and Forman was set to direct. Filming was scheduled to take place in Europe in 1982, and Peter Shaffer had been hired to write the screenplay. The following month, producer Saul Zaentz was securing locations abroad with the intention of having the film finished for an Easter 1983 release date.
Despite Zaentz’s momentum to begin production, Shaffer did not start work on the adaptation until 1 February 1982, when he took up residence at Forman’s Connecticut farmhouse to write in seclusion for four months. Although Shaffer and Forman reportedly collaborated on the script, Shaffer receives sole writing credit onscreen. The film told the story of the life, success, and troubles of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as told by Antonio Salieri, the contemporary composer who was insanely jealous of Mozart's talent and claimed to have murdered him.
Conductor Neville Marriner consented to work on the film as early as spring 1981. He had less than an hour to commit to the project as he was in between connecting flights at New York when he met with Milos Forman and Saul Zaentz. Marriner agreed to do it on condition that he be granted complete musical authority, and that not one note of Mozart's music be changed. Principal photography began on 31 January 1983 in Prague, Czechoslovakia, but the soundtrack was recorded before production began so Forman could play the music through loudspeakers while filming. Forman used this technique throughout production, even when scenes did not require opera singers or musicians to match overdubs.
Actor John Savage was the filmmakers’ top choice for the role of “Antonio Salieri.” Musician Mick Jagger also auditioned for Salieri. F. Murray Abraham originally sought the small role of "Rosenberg." During one audition session, Milos Forman asked him to read for the part of the old Salieri. His reading was so good that Forman eventually offered Abraham the role.
Patti LuPone was considered to play “Constanze Mozart, but Meg Tilly was cast instead. Tilly, however, tore a leg ligament in a street soccer game the day before she was to film her first scene. Elizabeth Berridge, Rebecca De Mornay and Diane Franklin were all screen-tested as replacements, with Berridge getting the role. Originally, a very young Kenneth Branagh was cast as Mozart, but Forman changed his mind and decided to go with American actors for the principal roles. Actor Tom Hulce was a relative unknown when he was cast as Mozart, and had been selected over a host of celebrities such as David Bowie and Mikhail Baryshnikov. Forman insisted that his lead actors retain their American accents so that they could concentrate on their characters and performance instead.
Tom Hulce only knew how to play the guitar before shooting. Forman said they could cheat it, but it would be good if he learned how to play the piano. Hulce spent considerable time learning how to play the piano. (One source says that Hulce studied with the help of an instructor, for four hours a day for one month before production began. Another source says that Hulce worked six hours a day for six months learning how to play the piano, and every Mozart symphony that was in the film.)
Filming took place over twenty-four weeks in Czechoslovakia, followed by one week in Italy. The production marked the first time Milos Forman, a Czech national, had returned home since leaving the country in 1967. Prague (Forman's native city) was ideal as a stand-in for Vienna, as modern television antennas, plastic and asphalt had rarely been introduced under Communist rule.
Forman was considered a traitor by the authorities for becoming an American citizen and not returning to Soviet-controlled Czechoslovakia. According to choreographer Twyla Tharp, in order to shoot in the country, Forman had to make certain concessions. "Milos had to sign an agreement that he would go to his hotel every night for the year that he was there and that his driver would be his best friend from the old days," Tharp told the Hollywood Reporter. "And everybody knew what would happen to his best friend if something untoward politically happened around Milos, because Milos was a sort of local hero and he was dangerous to the authorities."
AMADEUS premiered in Los Angeles and New York on 19 September 1984. The film won eight Academy Awards for: Actor in a Leading Role (F. Murray Abraham), Art Direction, Costume Design, Directing (Forman), Makeup, Sound, Writing (Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium), and Best Picture. It ranked #53 on AFI’s list of the 100 Greatest Movies.
Fantasy Records released a 2-LP set of the film's music. After one month of release, the AMADEUS soundtrack album ranked #1 on Billboard’s pop album charts, marking the first time a classical music record had ever been listed among contemporary popular artists. The soundtrack also placed #3 on Billboard’s classical music charts, and Tower Records claimed that the album was the second highest seller across all genres at that time. Fantasy re-issued the set on CD in 1991.
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Posted: |
Apr 15, 2018 - 1:37 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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Director Milos Forman first read Pierre Ambroise François Choderlos de Laclos’ 1782 novel, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, as an assignment for literature professor Milan Kundera in film school thirty-five years before he became interested in making it into a film. (Kundera would later write the novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being.)
As Forman moved forward with his production, Lorimar Film Entertainment developed a competing project based on the Royal Shakespeare Company play of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, called "Dangerous Liaisons," that ran on Broadway. A cast and director Stephen Frears had been hired, with principal photography set to begin in May 1988. Lawyers for Lorimar attempted to reach Forman about merging the two projects. It was not clear if discussions took place, but Forman went back to the source material for his inspiration.
Forman spent three years developing his version, and six months with Jean-Claude Carrière to write the screenplay. The men added scenes in markets and taverns to expand the action. The tragic ending of the book was also changed to reflect irony. The moral code of the time in which the novel was published dictated that the sinners must be punished for their wrongdoings. Meanwhile, Frears’s picture, DANGEROUS LIAISONS (1988), was filmed at a cost of $10--$15 million on a seventy-day shooting schedule.
Although DANGEROUS LIAISONS was released on 21 December 1988 and won three Academy Awards, Forman’s project continued as planned. Forman avoided watching Frears’s picture until long after completing his own work, and believed his adaptation stayed truer to the motivations and ages of the characters in the book, which he based more on “youthful ignorance” than malicious intrigue. “Valmont’s” character was equal parts “brat” and arrogant charmer. During the casting process, Forman also used suggestions by the actors to shape his characters,
In VALMONT, the widowed "Marquise de Merteuil" (Annette Bening) sees "Valmont," a former lover, as a valued friend but a fatal attraction. As a woman in a pre-feminist society, she wages a devious war against male domination. When her current lover (Jeffrey Jones) scorns her in favor of the virginal "Cécile" (Fairuza Balk), Merteuil entices Valmont to deflower the bride-to-be. When Merteuil feels shamed by the virtue of "Madame de Tourvel" (Meg Tilly), she enlists Valmont to turn this pious judge's wife into an adulteress.
The film was set in Baroque France, and Forman chose never-before-seen locations as opposed to reverting to chateaux commonly used in period filming. After several delays through the month of July, principal photography was finally underway in Paris, beginning in August 1988. Life magazine reported that the film had a $35 million budget and a 121-day shooting schedule.
VALMONT opened in the U.S. on 17 November 1989, but in some territories, notably the UK, its opening was delayed by 2 years in order to allow a suitable time to pass after the showing of DANGEROUS LIAISONS. The film received a few nominations for costume design awards, and Forman was nominated for a French César Award as Best Director, but otherwise the film was not awarded. The film had mainly a classical music score, conducted by Neville Marriner, with some incidental music provided by Christopher Palmer. It has not had a release.
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Posted: |
Apr 15, 2018 - 2:36 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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THE PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLYNT (1996) was a partially idealized and fictionalized film of the controversial pornography publisher and how he became a defender of free speech for all people. Woody Harrelson played Larry Flynt and punk rocker Courtney Love played his wife, Althea Leasure Flynt. The producers were set on casting Bill Murray as Larry Flynt but according to Milos Forman, Murray never returned his phone calls. Edward Norton took on the role of Flynt's attorney, Alan Isaacman, because he desperately wanted to work with Milos Forman.
Forman claims that Courtney Love showed up to their first meeting while under the influence of drugs. Just when he was going to dismiss her, he realized that Love was perfect for the role of Althea. Forman offered her the role on one condition: that Love would stay clean and undergo regular drug testing during filming. She complied. The insurance fees for Love were so high, the studio would not pay them. Woody Harrelson, Oliver Stone, Michael Hausman, Milos Forman, and Love paid the fees out-of-pocket. To this day, Love credits Forman with getting her off drugs which led to a career renaissance.
In an interview with Charlie Rose, Forman stated that he felt that this was his best film. Forman received an Academy Award nomination as Best Director, losing to Anthony Minghella for THE ENGLISH PATIENT. However, in the Golden Globes, Forman won out over Minghella and took home the award. The $35 million film made only $20 million at the box office. Thomas Newman's score was released by Angel Records.
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Posted: |
Apr 15, 2018 - 12:54 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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MAN ON THE MOON was a 1999 biopic of legendary comic Andy Kaufman. Jim Carrey starred as Kaufman, who had died from lung cancer in 1984 at the age of 35. After his passing, Kaufman's conga drums were sold at auction and bought by Carrey, who is a major fan of Kaufman. Carrey used the congas as part of his audition tape for director Milos Forman, and they appear in the film.
The casting for the lead role took a bizarre turn when a man impersonating Gary Oldman discussed the project for months with an unsuspecting Danny DeVito and even submitted an audition tape to Milos Forman. (Devito played Kaufman's manager, George Shapiro, in the film). The real Gary Oldman had declined the role of Andy Kaufman months earlier, and became aware of the scam after he found his name listed as one of the actors auditioning for the part.
Danny DeVito had appeared with the real Andy Kaufman in the television series "Taxi." DeVito was station boss "Louie De Palma" and Kaufman was the foreign immigrant mechanic "Latka Gravas." Also appearing briefly in the film, in a recreated "Taxi" scene, was Christopher Lloyd, who appeared on the show as "Reverend Jim Ignatowski."
Ultimately, Milos Forman could not decide between Edward Norton and Jim Carrey for the role of Andy Kaufman, and left it up to the studio, which went with the more bankable Carrey.
Artie Lange auditioned for the role of Bob Zmuda. According to Lange, Milos Forman performed Andy Kaufman's stand-up act and told Lange to heckle him. Zmuda was Andy Kaufman's comedy writer. He often posed as Kaufman's alter ego, "Tony Clifton," with Kaufman's approval. Many personal appearances where Kaufman was supposed to turn up as "Clifton" were actually Zmuda instead.
The shoot apparently did not go smoothly. At one point, the studio wanted to fire Milos Forman. However, Jim Carrey said that if Forman was fired, he would depart the film as well.
The $82 million film was nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical, and Jim Carrey won a Golden Globe as Best Actor, Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical. Milos Forman won the Silver Bear Award as Best Director at the Berlin Film Festival. The rock band R.E.M. scored the film, with the soundtrack released on a Warner Bros. CD.
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Posted: |
Apr 15, 2018 - 1:19 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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In 2006, Milos Forman directed and co-wrote yet another biopic, GOYA'S GHOSTS, in which Spanish painter Francisco Goya (Stellan Skarsgård) faces a scandal involving his muse (Natalie Portman), who is labeled a heretic by a monk (Javier Bardem).
Forman cast Natalie Portman after noticing her likeness to the girl in Goya's painting "Milkmaid of Bordeaux." Forman cast Randy Quaid as the King of Spain after seeing his work as Tom Parker in the television miniseries ELVIS (2005). Forman phoned Quaid, saying, "You are a great actor. You must be my King or I must repaint Goya". Quaid accepted.
When asked why a film about such a quintessentially Spanish artist was made in English, the director replied "I don't speak Spanish." José Nieto provided the unreleased score for the film.
GOYA'S GHOSTS did not open in the U.S. until 2007. The $50 million production grossed only $1 million in America and a total of $9.45 million worldwide. GOYA'S GHOSTS was Milos Forman's last significant film. He would make one more feature, a 2009 Czech musical called A WALK WORTHWHILE, before retiring from directing at age 77.
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Walter Matthau IS Mozart!
say what??????????????!!!!!!!!!!
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